Collegiettes, I know we all love going to the movies, but sometimes, it just sucks. This is the story of the worst, most ridiculous, and most exhausting movie-going experience I’ve ever had. And it’s a good one.
Picture this: it’s mid-December. I’m in the middle of nowhere on a mountain in North Carolina on a family ski trip in a sketchy movie theater with my brother, sister, cousin, and a friend. It’s 9:30 at night, and we commit to an EXPENSIVE 3D showing of Star Wars: The Last Jedi so we can go to bed early and rest up before a long day of skiing.
We get our tickets and concessions in the very gross and dirty lobby and cross our fingers that we find seats that aren’t sticky. The good news is we found seats that weren’t sticky. The bad news is that they were so uncomfortable, and the backs were so high I was practically leaning forward for the whole movie.
Fast-forward to after the (super annoying and VERY local) previews, and our movie finally starts. Only, it’s not 3D.
Yes, you heard me. Our movie, that we paid extra for so it would be 3D, was not 3D.
Needless to say we were confused. The movie was playing in that weird in-between stage, almost like we didn’t have any 3D glasses on. Except we did have 3D glasses on. People started loudly whispering about how the letters are impossible to read and that the screen was too dark. Some people got mad and straight up left, but not us. We were determined to stick this out. Someone else would go talk to the manager, right?
About ten minutes into the movie, after the iconic scrolling text and five minutes of fighting action, our movie stopped; someone else had gone and complained. This is a good thing right? They’ll fix it and we’ll only be leaving ten minutes later than we thought. Great!
Not great.
Not only did they restart the movie to before the previews, but it also wasn’t fixed. In fact, it was actually much worse. The movie was still dark and not in 3D, AND there was a huge black mark in the middle of the screen. I’m talking like, someone smudged the lens trying to restart the movie and it’s seriously obstructing the view type dark spot. It was massive.
Obviously, people were getting mad.
Pretty much everyone but us, the brave few, left the theater. One lady even came in screaming about her popcorn and a refund, that’s how mad she was. But someone did complain again, and the movie stopped. Again. Thirty minutes into the movie.
Only this time, it stopped for a long time. And when I say a long time, I mean a LONG time. We sat in the theater for the better part of an hour (an entire hour! One whole hour!), waiting for the movie to start back up. At this point, we could hear the people that worked there arguing in the projector room, fighting about how to fix it, and trying to figure out what was wrong with it for the second time that night. Honestly, it was kind of hilarious, even though we had now seen the same fifteen minutes of the movie and all of the trailers twice at this point.
Eventually they thought they fixed it, and our move started over AGAIN. And yes, it did start completely over to the previews. I think I can still recite, word for word, their local ads that played that night.That’s how bad it was.
So, after sitting through the previews for a THIRD time, we were hopeful. We were so hopeful that the movie would start flawlessly and we would be out of the theater at a reasonable hour.
We were so wrong.
There was an audible groan from everyone in the audience as the movie started over for the third time and the problem still wasn’t fixed. Although it was in 3D (FINALLY), and the screen wasn’t completely dark anymore, the smudge was still there. A smudge the size of Luke Skywalker’s face during a close-up was still on the screen.
Honestly? I could have screamed.
Everyone besides us left at that point. But we refused to surrender. My cousin went and complained again, the movie stopped again, we heard the crew arguing behind the projector again, we watched the previews AGAIN, and then our movie finally started. Again.
Only this time, it was right.
The 3D was working, the screen was bright, and the smudge was gone. I almost cried, I was so relieved.
We watched the movie and it was amazing. After the movie ended, and we realized what time it was.
Y’all. By the time we got all the way through the movie, it was 1:30 a.m. ONE. THIRTY. IN THE MORNING. It took us FOUR HOURS to watch a two-hour movie because everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. FOUR HOURS! I was shook.This was by far the worst and most ridiculous movie-going experience I’ve ever had. I mean, come on! Four restarts? It’s ridiculous!