Movies Severely Spoiled Before They Were Released

You've seen the "Star Trek Into Darkness" trailers. So far all we know is the Enterprise is in deep trouble (again), Abrams has "upped the ante," and Captain Kirk jumps off a cliff. And no, we still don't know much about Benedict Cumberbatch's role, except that he's a villain and appears to have been captured by the Federation.

But when it comes to genuine spoilers, this "Trek" is on lockdown, thanks to director J.J. Abrams and his creative team.

Damon Lindelof, Abrams' former "Lost" co-creator and one of the writers on the "Star Trek" sequel, shares the "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" helmer's spoil-free philosophy.

"The audience needs to have the same experience that the ['Trek'] crew is having," Lindelof told the Los Angeles Times. "You're Kirk, you're Spock, you're McCoy, so if they don't know who the bad guy is going to be in the movie, then you shouldn't know," he added, arguing further that if you give away the villain before the film comes out, you give audiences "a five-second rush of exhilaration followed by four months of being completely and totally bummed out."

"That's why they're called 'spoilers,' they're not called 'awesomes'," Lindelof said.

The following is Yahoo! Movies' list of flicks that were not-so-awesomely spoiled before they even came out:

"Star Wars" -- Darth Vader Actor Spilled the Beans

Lucky for Abrams, this happened way before he took over the "Star Wars" franchise. David Prowse, who played Vader (the voice was dubbed by James Earl Jones), revealed in press interviews two whole years before "The Empire Strikes Back" came out that his character is, shockingly, Luke Skywalker's father. He told a fanzine, "In the next film, there is going to be a confrontation between Luke and Darth Vader and they then discover that Darth Vader never killed his father, that Darth Vader IS his father. So son can't kill father, and father can't kill son — so Darth Vader lives into the next sequel."

"Speed" -- Surprise! Everyone Lives!
A quick cut that appears at the end of the 1994 film's trailer shows the bus explode … as passengers look on from a safe distance. Before we got to watch the Sandra Bullock-Keanu Reeves flick in feature length, we were shown its "surprise" ending.

"Free Willy" -- Um, Yeah, He Got Free
The trailer for "Free Willy" does in fact show that Willy the killer whale makes it back into the ocean — safe, sound, and powerful enough to catch about 20 feet of air before swimming away. (Orcas can do that?)

"Prometheus" -- David's Disembodied Head
Yes. Remember over the summer when everyone was actually excited about Ridley Scott's long-awaited followup to "Alien"? Well, some fans were outraged that a TV spot revealed that David, the robot played by Michael Fassbender, gets decapitated.

"Forrest Gump" -- Spoilerific Trailer
Where do we begin? The trailer for "Forrest Gump" is essentially a condensed version of the entire film, revealing everything he goes through from becoming an unlikely football hero, meeting JFK and Nixon and LBJ, to surviving Vietnam combat, to finally landing his longtime love Jenny.

"Mission: Impossible" -- Ethan Hunt Defies Death
There is a lot of action in the 1996 Tom Cruise flick, but too much is revealed in the trailer of the final climactic sequence on a train. Big. Giant. Explosion. Tom Cruise (as Hunt) is hurled into the air. How could he possibly survive? Oh, he manages to hang on to that train. That's how he survives.

"Rope" -- Mystery. Solved.
Alfred Hitchcock, presumably concerned with keeping his rep as the master of suspense, was known to complain about trailers that were cut for his films. It's no wonder: The trailer for "Rope" shows Jimmy Stewart catching the killer!

"Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" -- Gandalf is back!
In the trailer, Gandalf is acknowledged as a being from the past. After all, he died in "Fellowship of the Ring." Then poof! He comes back! And yes, we were made aware of this massive spoiler before the film was released.

"Chinatown" -- The Last Line
"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown." The famed last line in the 1974 classic starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway actually appeared in its trailer before the film's release. To its credit, however, there is one major plot twist about the father of Evelyn Mulwray's (Dunaway's) child that isn't revealed.

"What Lies Beneath" -- Ghost's Identity Revealed
Movie audiences may have been enticed enough to learn that there's something spooky in the house of Norman (Harrison Ford) and Claire (Michelle Pfieffer). But after watching the trailer, we find much more: There's a ghost. Norman cheated on Claire once. The woman may have killed herself in their house. Oh wait -- she did kill herself in their house. She looked like Claire but with green eyes. And the big reveal -- which could have at least been kept for ticket buyers -- the ghost inhabits Claire's body for ultimate retribution against Norman.

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