so I usually wait until a movie has been out for a while before going. Sometimes I can avoid spoilers, sometimes not.

I also used to live near a six-screen theater, in its last few years of operation. Hardly anyone ever went there, and more than once I was the only movie-goer in the theater. I loved it.

Harry Potter movies. Spoilers? I read all the books long before the movies. I actually reread each one before the movie for that book. I don't remember feeling that anything was lost by knowing what would happen.

My wife and I are self-employed. We go to movies around noon during weekdays. We always have empty theaters, pretty much. If we had time, we'd do that this week with the Star Wars one, but it's a little busy this week.

We'll see it after New Years Day.

came out. It shows people standing in line outside a theater with the movie title on the marquee, and someone is saying something like, "The boat sinks? Now you've ruined it for me!"

Oh, and I currently don't work, but when I did I worked an afternoon shift, so I always go to the first showing of the day, and they are rarely crowded. I try to avoid weekends, except when I'm going out with friends who have day jobs.

I want to see the Star Wars movie, but I'm not jonesing for it. I'll go when the crowds thin out a little, so I don;t have to deal with talkers and cell phone users. I've been on the internet as usual and seen nothing that gives anything "away". I guess I'm generally aware that Han Solo is in it and so is Leia and so on. And there's a younger girl and a black guy who was a stormtrooper apparently. Other than that, what has been given away?

end of the movie, and have apparently completely spoiled it for some people. Heck, maybe they won't go at all, I guess. They'll get to save the ticket price, then, if that's all they cared about in the movie.

For me, the Star Wars series is about great CGI, fairly lame dialog, and some interesting alien characters. The main stories, however, are generally pretty trite and predictable. They're space westerns or fairy tales. The plots aren't why I go. The action and imagery are. They're exciting to watch. I don't really care about the main characters, really, nor what happens to them. It's the flow of the film and the visuals that interest me.

The narrative is what it is. Consider some really great films. Does the revelation that Boo Radley saves Atticus' children in anyway detract from "To Kill a Mockingbird"? Did knowledge before viewing of Spock's death in anyway detract from "The Wrath of Khan"? Both were known before these films were on the screen. Yet both films are lauded, albeit in different genres.

I do not spoil films that I have seen. It is just bad behavior. However, knowing the storyline ahead of time often enhances the experience. The operative question here is: Why do people view a great film over and over again? In that case, they've already been spoiled, over and over again.

I can think of many films that fit into that category. Some Hitchcock, some Ingmar Bergman, some John Huston, some Robert Wise, and above all, Kubrick. Just a few directors among many. (Blah, blah, blah! You choose your own faves.) So the list is very long. And all of them have been long ago spoiled, but that does not stop me and many others from revisiting them over and over again. I recently viewed -- thanks NetFlicks -- "To Have and Have Not" with Bogie and Bacall, their first. Did knowing the line, "Or maybe just whistle" in anyway detract from the film? Upon my umpteenth viewing I would say it enhanced it.

There are no spoilers. However some people think there are. That is why I keep my mouth zipped on such matters. Just get along.

Thank you for this OP, MM.

they had hired the original 3 actors again. I got curious and looked up the cast. So I was presently surprised to see these now older people were all in the movies again.