At that point, a guy on the front row raised his hand and said, "Could you hold on a second?"

I said, "Yes, what's up."

He said, "I don't want to hear any more. I don't want to ruin the movie. Can you stop talking till I leave?" Errr...then what was he doing there? And why didn't he just get up without disturbing the group?

I replied, "Well, the pod race is not a big secret. You're going to know about it before the film comes out."

He said, "I don't care, I don't want to know anything about the movie."

"But you're going to see toys and a video game of it before it comes out. It will probably be in the trailers, too."

"I don't want to know about it." And then he walked out while the rest of the entire group stayed.

Why do I bring this up? Well, it would seem that "spoilers" are in the eye of the beholder. We often come across people who say, "I won't go on the websites because there are too many spoilers." Or there are people who are determined to keep their heads in the sand to avoid any talk of the prequels at all. However, there are some things you aren't going to be able to avoid whether you like it or not. And surprisingly, many of the things that were "big spoilers" a couple of months ago are being shown to you by Lucasfilm today.

Here's a few examples. Look at the Galoob sneak preview toy website. It declares "The small planet of Naboo has been invaded! A force of battle droids has been sent to take over the queen's palace. Captain Panaka and the queen's foot soldiers race in their sleek Gian speeder to resist the onslaught."

Well great jumpin' horny toads! That's half the plot to the film right there! And remember over the last few months? Some of our biggest posts were drawings of the footsoldiers, the name of Captain Panaka, details about battledroids, and a description of the Gian Speeder. Sure, it was all early, but it was all going to be public knowledge anyway. I would say the same goes for 90% of the stuff we post.

Some people are probably saying, "Ah, but they wouldn't have released that if you hadn't leaked it." Au contraire! Look carefully at the timing of everything. Right when this toy has come out, we also have Battledroid toys on the shelves, Captain Panaka and the battledroids in the Star Wars Insider, and Captain Panaka and Battledroid and Naboo details in the Behind the Magic CD. Lucasfilm has been planning what they'll release and when for months. Websites have very little, if anything to do with that at all.

And if you think about it, only a fraction of Star Wars fans even know about the stuff posted on the internet. In the grand scheme of things, online fans are a minority. So what is posted online isn't exactly going to make a difference. In fact, half the stuff we post is buried and forgotten after a week's time.

So back to the topic at hand. What's a spoiler and what's not? Well, the Insider and the Official Website will likely have TONS more to reveal. The trailer will also show a LOT of the movie. Many people were upset by Harry posting shots of Jar Jar, but I'm sure you'll see him soon. And it won't be hard to piece together a lot of the film simply by looking at the photos released. I think you'll be surprised to look back in a couple of months and see that things we thought were big now, like a sketch of Watto, were really not that big of a deal.

And if Lucas is planning to reveal as much of the film in the trailer as we think he is, then there's a heck of a lot that will still surprise and amaze you on opening day.

- Scott Chitwood

11/05/98

RECENT EDITORIALS

04/08/03 - Christopher Knight - Oscars Give Short Shrift to Fantasy
03/17/03 - Joshua Griffin - Put the REAL Classics on DVD
01/29/03 - Joshua Griffin - Imagine a Star Wars HALO Videogame
01/14/03 - Michael Potts - Clone Wars: Expanded Universe Editorial

2002

09/03/02 - Joshua Griffin - Digital Pirates Sink Ships
05/17/02 - Chris Knight - Digital Projection: The Audience Is Watching... And Waiting
04/11/02 - TFN Staff - Thumbs Up, Tumbs Down for SW2 Marketing
03/08/02 - TFN Staff - Clone War Trailer Reaction
01/13/02 - TFN Staff - TFN Reaction to SNL N'Sync Skit
01/03/02 - TFN Staff - Boy Band Jedi Reactions

2001

12/12/01 - Chris Knight - Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
12/07/01 - Jeff Yankey - All I Want for Christmas
11/17/01 - Guest Editorial - Ritual and Romance of Episode II
10/04/01 - Guest Editorial - Why Episode I is Brilliant
10/02/01 - Guest Editorial - Episode I is Star Wars
09/30/01 - Guest Editorial - Why I Loved Episode I
09/25/01 - Joshua Griffin - Episode II: Make It or Break It Time
08/21/01 - Chris Knight - SW2: Attack On The Soul?
07/13/01 - Joshua Griffin - Special Time for SW Fans
05/14/01 - Joshua Griffin - AlphaCon is Finished
05/09/01 - Chris Knight - In The Beginning... Star Wars Comes To A Wired World
04/17/01 - Joshua Griffin - Global TFN - International Outlook on Star Wars
03/14/01 - Chris Knight - Palpatine vs. Hitler: Prequel Speculation Runs Amok!
02/13/01 - Chris Knight - "The Force" of Love: A Valentine's Day Editorial
01/17/01 - Chris Knight - Star Wars Could Continue... As Television Anthology
01/11/01 - Guest Editorial - A Review of A New Hope After the Prequels
01/07/01 - Guest Editorial - No - We Want the DVDs Now!
01/04/01 - Chris Knight - New Digital Disciple Says "Lets Wait On Star Wars DVDs"

2000

12/21/00 - Joshua Griffin - Is George Lucas Really a Genius?
11/18/00 - Joshua Griffin - To Spoil or Not to Spoil
11/06/00 - Joshua Griffin - The Power of the Election
11/01/00 - Chris Knight - Why Isn't There A Star Wars Postage Stamp?
08/17/00 - Jason McCabe Calacanis - The SW2 Fan Trailer (guest editorial)
07/14/00 - Joshua Griffin/Scott Chitwood - TFN's Spoiler Policy
06/20/00 - Chris Knight - Star Wars and the Saga of Life
05/13/00 - TFN Staff - TheForce.net Wish List
04/08/00 - Special Guest Editorial by Skybaugh - Worth the Wait
03/30/00 - Joshua Griffin - What Star Wars Has Won
03/19/00 - Joshua Griffin - The Next Denver Celebration
03/14/00 - Joshua Griffin - Fair Weather Fans
03/07/00 - Joshua Griffin - Predicting the Academy Award Winners
02/22/00 - Joshua Griffin - Who should profit from Star Wars?
02/16/00 - Joshua Griffin - Episode I and the Academy
01/27/00 - TFN Staff - Flaming TFN over DVD
01/25/00 - Chris Knight - Motivations of the Sith
01/20/00 - TFN Staff - Leonardo DiCaprio as Anakin?
01/10/00 - Joshua Griffin - World-Wide Star Wars
01/03/00 - Joshua Griffin - Mass Merchandising Menace

1999

12/13/99 - Joshua Griffin - Questioning Star Wars
11/22/99 - Joshua Griffin - Trusting Internet Rumors
11/11/99 - Paul Davidson - Rise of the Empire: China and TPM
10/28/99 - Scott Chitwood - Signs There Probably Won't Be a Sequel Trilogy
10/18/99 - Joshua Griffin - Why not Episode I DVD?
10/15/99 - Joshua Griffin - What Makes SW Fans Special
10/01/99 - Joshua Griffin - The PG Rating of TPM
09/07/99 - Scott Chitwood and Paul Ens - Comic and Book Wishlist
08/18/99 - TF.N Team - Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down on Episode I Everything
07/11/99 - Joshua Griffin - Parody Site isn't that funny
07/10/99 - Brian Linder - The Jar Jar Factor
06/08/99 - Joshua Griffin & Chris Knight - Why is Jar Jar in Episode I?
05/06/99 - Darin Smith - Return of the Child
03/09/99 - Scott Chitwood and Paul Ens - A Chat with LFL
02/07/99 - Amy Pronovost - Convention Romances, Can they Work?
01/23/99 - Scott Chitwood - What's up with Prowse?
01/01/99 - Scott Chitwood - Uncle George and Episode 1

1998

11/23/98 - Scott Chitwood - What Lucasfilm is doing right
11/05/98 - Scott Chitwood - Prequel Spoilers
09/28/98 - David Coates - First thoughts on the the Episode 1 Title
06/19/98 - Scott Chitwood - How Godzilla affected Episode I
04/09/98 - Scott Chitwood - The Art of the Space Battle
04/09/98 - Scott Chitwood - DIVX SUX
02/26/98 - Scott Chitwood - X-WING TV Series Should Fly
02/09/98 - Scott Chitwood - Xerox Sites
02/03/98 - Scott Chitwood - Canon Issue, Part 2
01/07/98 - Terrence Daniels - Canon = Personal Preference

1997

12/17/97 - Darin Smith - Everything I need to know...
11/15/97 - Chris Kivlehan - Six Episodes or Nine Episodes?
11/07/97 - Scott Chitwood - How do you solve a problem like Ewan?
11/03/97 - Scott Chitwood - How we get our Prequel 'Spy' info
10/22/97 - Paul Davidson - Trek vs. Wars