Spoilers, giving it all away, and skipping to the end

He's a ghost, it was all a dream, all this time it was actually the detective, he was on Earth all along, it's made of people. Spoilers to surprise endings. We've all had someone ruin the surprise. But, I have a question: does a story based entirely on a surprise ending have lasting power? If you already know the twist ending, do you want to see/read the story over and again?

It's an interesting question. I know the appeal of surprise endings, since they can shock/surprise/delight in ways that not many other storytelling methods are able to. However, that puts the entire point of the story onto one single event. It's a gamble. Done well, I think the stories do have long lasting power (The 6th Sense is a fairly current one, but you'll have to judge for yourself if the story is as powerful once you fully understand what's going on). But, I'll go out on a limb and suggest that mostly the surprise/twist ending is used for a quick shock without any betting that it will bring an audience back again and again.

Now, onto the biggest threat to a surprise ending... spoilers. People who have experienced the story telling others about it before they see it. There's no way to prevent it from happening, and when it does it changes the experience entirely. If you aren't surprised at the end, then what was the point? If you know from the very beginning that the good guy is actually the bad guy in disguise, then the story won't have its intended effect. Besides, I love to hear about stories, and it is nearly impossible to tell someone not to let me in on the ending--because I want to know, and I'm endlessly curious.

It makes me wonder: did people tell each other about Darth Vader being Luke's father? That movie still does well...

- M