The Movie Experience

Thursday of last week I attended Avengers: Endgame, it was the first time I've seen a movie in theaters in awhile and this post is about that adventure. No worries about any spoilers here - I'm not about that spoiler life.

The dawn of streaming services and watching movies from the comfort of your home have been growing. Not to mention the ease of piracy with things like Kodi and Plex able to organize and collect downloaded media. It makes watching a movie experience 10x easier than the early 2000s of burning illegal movies to a disc and playing them over a DVD player.

However, I didn't want that experience for a brand new movie due to the inevitable point of spoilers. I wanted to see this movie on the day it came out - so I did.

The movie experience in a theater as I've gotten older is just not worth it anymore, so here is my breakdown.

The atmosphere

Walking into this theater was full of younger kids everywhere. In the lines, talking loudly in corners, walking in front and behind me. They were loud, they were disruptive. I just wanted to see a movie in peace.

Once I finally got into my individual theater. I sat with my phone, texting and such waiting until the movie finally started. Which due to the 3hr runtime of Endgame happened right at the movie start time instead of previews prior to the film.

Once the lights went out as the movie started, my phone went away. However, I could see little white light glares around the audience, this continued throughout the film and bothered me to no end. Why pay money to go see a movie on opening night if you are just going to look at your phone?

Next up was the dilemma of food/drink. I'm not a savage so I can see the merit for enjoying a drink or food during a film. However, there is a time and place for ripping opening a bag of skittles and/or messing with a loud bag of popcorn. It seemed during every quiet dialog scene the audience was amplified by someone ripping open some bag creating noise, and this wasn't someone 20 rows behind me. This was usually someone a row or two near me.

Finally in this atmosphere section was the people who can't help but talk during the film. Whether during a crucial moment to yell - "Don't do that!" or whispering to their friend next to them. Just please, shut up. This is a shared environment with hundreds of people and the safest appropriate option is to simply not to talk.

The film

Now this section is entirely moot, as this was my mistake. When I first was purchasing a ticket - the movie theatre option has grown like crazy. Years ago it was two options - IMAX/Regular. Now on my list was Dolby, 70mm, IMAX, Regular and more.

It seems some options included a server staff to bring food/drink during the film and I'll probably never do that. I don't need further distractions.

As for the Dolby vs regular is where my mistake was made. I paid $11 for a ticket to the regular film and the Dolby film carried a massive $20 something dollar fee. My guess is if I pay the extra all my complaints about the atmosphere of the film will go away.

The $11 for a regular film was the inflated price of $6 I paid in high school. It is abused by younger kids, but I doubt anyone is in the Dolby theater messing around at a steep $20+ a ticket.

The end

Not many movies push me to the theaters, but the next one that does - I'll give Dolby a shot.