The worst fallout from this is that good films, and even some truly great films, suffer a mind-boggling second-guessing game that turns audiences into critics – the worst kind of critics – the kind that know before they get there what they do and don’t like about the film. A theatre filled with the over-informed is not a house full of educated filmgoers; it’s just pooled ignorance. Even worse are this group’s seriously genetically altered cousins – the “sounds like junk to me�? gang who hate a movie without so much as having seen the opening credits.

What once were authentically closely held secrets still go by the same name, but now get leaked like water from a fork-punctured Sylvester the cat drinking from a surging garden hose. Take, for instance, a recent posting on the discussion boards of this site, in which the Pixar production of Ratatouille is already being debated. I could stomp my feet and plead my usual case of “judge not what thou hast not seen�?, tired, broken old record that it is. However, you can hardly blame them for having been fed a preview for a film that is due for release in 2007.

2007 is to today what next month, no…next week was to those of us who got our “cool news�? from the thirty seconds that were tacked onto the end of Uncle Walt’s weekly offerings back in the 1960’s. I’m starting to think that we’re all being forced into becoming teaser-tale tweakers and just-heard junkies who have no patience and no interest in passing judgment on a film only after we’ve actually seen it because the studios have so little faith in anyone bothering to show up on the power of advertising alone. We’re addicted to the gossip, the buzz, the rumors. We want it so bad that sometimes we’ll “kill�? for it – taking the life right out of a premier and robbing the surprise to pay for our habit.

One good sign: John Lasseter does his best to keep a lid on things like this. While I might argue that a trailer one year out from release is really a bad idea, in a market that begs for such action in order to really be competitive I may have to give him that much, begrudgingly, mind you, but the business is the business. That aside, I have to tip my hat to the otherwise tight reigns he has kept on news of Pixar’s projects during their development and early production. Now that he’s helming all things at Disney, I can’t say it’s going to be easy to report about this without some struggle, but I’ve never really been someone to write about what’s next so much as I focus on what’s now and how what came before influenced it. In fact, I’ve sat on more information over the years than I’ve ever written about by a factor of fifty. Not that it wasn’t tempting and exciting and invigorating, but in the end, it felt unfair on so many levels. Whether it is a cast member or an outside consultant or casual observer who has the inside scoop, being privy to process means agreeing to hold tight to the secret. Honoring any non-disclose agreement, real or implied, should be weighted less by fear of retaliation and repercussions, and more by a deeper understanding of how leaking anything – particularly anything out of context – risks sinking the entire ship. I remember a set of images that made their way onto the web some years before Atlantis: The Lost Empire hit theatres. These were nothing more than the rigs for some of the Atlantian vehicles, including the Leviathan. The criticism was harsh and vicious and it lingered all the way up to the opening. The poison was so strong that I’m convinced that it influenced the attitude people had going into the film for the first time, and in many, many instances it showed up in comments made afterwards.

Telling even the most well-intended outside observers or interested peers about something not yet complete (and by complete I mean final-edit, in the can, ready to be screened) can result in insufficient information - and more than sufficient judgment - littering the web and the print media in ways that can both influence box-office and spoil a viewer’s perspective. Like Atlantis, I’ve seen it happen to several very good, very capable animation directors and at least four features that I feel were robbed of any authentic shot at capturing an audience because too many people thought they knew better, when all they really knew was too much, about too little, too soon. (Two of those projects were shelved and two made it to theatres with so much advanced opinion inside the studio that it had detrimental effect on the development process and the marketing, and as much advanced opinion outside the studio that it registered on opening weekend.)

So, I’m glad John Lasseter thinks enough of the process to guard it a little more closely. We just might be cured of an addiction to inside information, and be afforded the wonder and excitement once again of a genuine surprise.

Until then, the advance word abounds – years before the arrival. While I may not be able to go cold turkey and shut it out entirely, I can do little things to keep the anticipation high. For instance, I did not unfold my Cars/Pirates insert in the Sunday paper. I just passed it over and picked up the travel section, instead. It was all about someplace I’d already been.