4 ms·

I thought this was the case, but then I went to a full movie theater and really enjoyed being a part of an audience that was all experiencing the same thing. Yo

by mizzao 5mo ago

I thought this was the case, but then I went to a full movie theater and really enjoyed being a part of an audience that was all experiencing the same thing. You could feel the emotion and that is a different sense than having the theater all to you to, but potentially just as rewarding.

lostapathy 5mo ago
I think this varies with the type of film. If it's a film with real fans and excitement is thick, a packed theater is amazing. OTOH, films where the audience isn't engaged, or dare I say invested, having a crowd can often just be annoying because of the chatter or people moving around.
- bullfightonmars 5mo ago
  yes! I want the opposite. Packed screenings. There are some movies, especially summer blockbusters, that I want to see in a full room.
  - tracker1 5mo ago
    I went to a pretty packed showing of Spiderman No Way Home... the reaction to Matt Murdock catching the brick was pretty awesome. It's definitely a better experience watching movies with fans of the movies themselves. That said, it's also nice sometimes catching a mostly empty 2pm showing of something and getting the perfect seat without distractions... Especially considering if I turn up the volume to get the appropriate experience at home I get yelled at.
- dtgriscom 5mo ago
  I saw the first Star Wars movie on the day it opened in Boston, in an enormous, packed theater. I will never forget the roar that went up when Han Solo came out of the sun to save Luke.
WorldMaker 5mo ago
Hah, yeah, my local AMC is a ghost town as people moved to newer and/or better maintained theaters. (Not entirely AMC's fault, they bought a decades old theater that was sort of on its last legs after four other companies controlled it in as many decades.) Most of the screenings I attend are empty or nearly so. I almost need an app to find the full AMC screenings. (I know it is at least as much a factor of which nights of the week I attend. I could attend busier nights. But even then this theater's busiest nights now are not what they were way back when I was in school.) I do sometimes miss seeing something with a large audience.
- tracker1 5mo ago
  There was a Harkin's location a few blocks from me kind of like that... it was old, but still really busy... the only difference is the land became so valuable they wound up selling anyways. The next nearest Harkins and AMC have much worse parking, even if newer/larger theaters, because they're sharing in strip-malls.
  - WorldMaker 5mo ago
    Yeah, the dynamics and shifts in trends of where the newer theaters get built and which theaters become the busiest theaters is fascinating to me, and especially how much nostalgia influences which theater I want to spend the most time at. I lost my favorite theater in the early 2020s and then its sibling, and last locally-owned and operated theater, to a landlord screwing with rents to try to attract an inner-city Publix. (A deal which still may not actually happen.) That leaves the AMC as the last regularly attended theater of my high school and college days still standing. A newer, more popular Cinemark is in the city's biggest mall. I still remember when mall theaters were the worst/cheapest/smallest places. This has flipped now that most of what's left of the malls are the new theater/Dave & Busters at the one mall or the Top Golf/Puttshack at the other mall with the rest of the malls seeming now just weird appendixes to the new attractions. Meanwhile, I don't want to deal with Mall Traffic, which is still a thing in these flipped malls, I don't entirely know why. Most of the rest of the most popular theaters all wound up in the Exurbs, two beltways away from the city's downtown, presumably due to cheaper land, and I don't want to commute that far to regularly watch movies.
ubermonkey 5mo ago
This is appealing for some films, but may not matter for others. I'm glad I was in a full house for Avengers: Endgame, for example. I don't know how much it mattered, OTOH, for Oppenheimer, or Hail Mary.
zem 5mo ago
sadly, covid has killed that :( now i would just be scared sitting in a closed space that crowded.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]

by mizzao 5mo ago

lostapathy 5mo ago

I think this varies with the type of film. If it's a film with real fans and excitement is thick, a packed theater is amazing. OTOH, films where the audience isn't engaged, or dare I say invested, having a crowd can often just be annoying because of the chatter or people moving around.

bullfightonmars 5mo ago
yes! I want the opposite. Packed screenings. There are some movies, especially summer blockbusters, that I want to see in a full room.
- tracker1 5mo ago
  I went to a pretty packed showing of Spiderman No Way Home... the reaction to Matt Murdock catching the brick was pretty awesome. It's definitely a better experience watching movies with fans of the movies themselves. That said, it's also nice sometimes catching a mostly empty 2pm showing of something and getting the perfect seat without distractions... Especially considering if I turn up the volume to get the appropriate experience at home I get yelled at.
dtgriscom 5mo ago
I saw the first Star Wars movie on the day it opened in Boston, in an enormous, packed theater. I will never forget the roar that went up when Han Solo came out of the sun to save Luke.

WorldMaker 5mo ago

Hah, yeah, my local AMC is a ghost town as people moved to newer and/or better maintained theaters. (Not entirely AMC's fault, they bought a decades old theater that was sort of on its last legs after four other companies controlled it in as many decades.) Most of the screenings I attend are empty or nearly so. I almost need an app to find the full AMC screenings. (I know it is at least as much a factor of which nights of the week I attend. I could attend busier nights. But even then this theater's busiest nights now are not what they were way back when I was in school.) I do sometimes miss seeing something with a large audience.

tracker1 5mo ago
There was a Harkin's location a few blocks from me kind of like that... it was old, but still really busy... the only difference is the land became so valuable they wound up selling anyways. The next nearest Harkins and AMC have much worse parking, even if newer/larger theaters, because they're sharing in strip-malls.
- WorldMaker 5mo ago
  Yeah, the dynamics and shifts in trends of where the newer theaters get built and which theaters become the busiest theaters is fascinating to me, and especially how much nostalgia influences which theater I want to spend the most time at. I lost my favorite theater in the early 2020s and then its sibling, and last locally-owned and operated theater, to a landlord screwing with rents to try to attract an inner-city Publix. (A deal which still may not actually happen.) That leaves the AMC as the last regularly attended theater of my high school and college days still standing. A newer, more popular Cinemark is in the city's biggest mall. I still remember when mall theaters were the worst/cheapest/smallest places. This has flipped now that most of what's left of the malls are the new theater/Dave & Busters at the one mall or the Top Golf/Puttshack at the other mall with the rest of the malls seeming now just weird appendixes to the new attractions. Meanwhile, I don't want to deal with Mall Traffic, which is still a thing in these flipped malls, I don't entirely know why. Most of the rest of the most popular theaters all wound up in the Exurbs, two beltways away from the city's downtown, presumably due to cheaper land, and I don't want to commute that far to regularly watch movies.

ubermonkey 5mo ago

This is appealing for some films, but may not matter for others. I'm glad I was in a full house for Avengers: Endgame, for example. I don't know how much it mattered, OTOH, for Oppenheimer, or Hail Mary.

zem 5mo ago

sadly, covid has killed that :( now i would just be scared sitting in a closed space that crowded.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]