Spoiler alert! – Ella Finch

Spoiler alert! – Ella Finch

Day: the fifth of January, 2017
Place: the Chapel
Force: awakened

Rogue One first came to cinematic screens on the 14th on December, 2016. Not even a month has passed and yet – for those poor souls such as myself who didn’t have the time to go to the cinema (or, more importantly, the will to put up with noisy eaters) – the plot has already been revealed.

The horror was tangible in chapel when, during the first address of the term, the beans were well and truly spilt on the latest prequel to the Star Wars saga.

Students who had worked so hard over the holidays to avoid spoilers sat and listened with dismay as each sensational spoiler fell from the Headmaster’s lips.
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I had worked particularly hard to avoid all talk of Rogue One, after an unfortunate incident at the cinema when I went to watch ‘the Force Awakens’, in which somebody loudly announced who died just as I entered. Imagine the frustration felt when, yet again, a loud voice announced who DIES in the latest release!

I am a strong believer in the unspoken ‘One Month Rule’, where you do not tell anyone anything about a movie (without their express permission) until at least a month has passed since its release. I sincerely believe that this rule should also cover chapel talks; perhaps a 2017 addition to the school rules?

As I’m sure many of you can recall, this is not the first time a film has had its contents spoiled for the sake of conveying a motivational message to weary pupils first thing in the morning – last year many students had the plot of ‘The lady in the Van’ revealed before they had the chance to see it, as well.

Surely there were more than several pupils who felt cheated by this; there are, after all, many other ways to get pupils to listen to talks without spoiling a popular film’s plot; for example, dropping plates or eating dog food – a few of my personal favourites from Mr Kerr and Mr Warren, respectively.

I feel as though I should clarify this now, (as perhaps I should have done earlier in this article); we cannot blame either the Chaplin or the Headmaster. However, we must surely ensure that we put a system in place to prevent this from happening again?

If the school insists on setting us work (HO HO NO) to do over the holiday – a special thank you Mr Hockridge and the 11 pages of biology questions I had to do – when are we supposed to have the TIME to go to the cinema?

I’m sure I cannot be the only student in this school who sat and listened in dismay. I would suggest we make it a school rule that no teacher may spoil the contents of a film for the sake of a chapel talk until at least one month after its release.