But my next story is about the Egyptian Theater. In 1986 or '87, the Egyptian ran what I believe was the world's only officially-sanctioned triple-feature of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The vast auditorium sat in the neighborhood of 1,200 people.
Ah, but that wasn't good enough for the theater management: They printed up and sold hundreds of tickets in excess of capacity. During Star Wars, people were sitting in the aisles, along the sides of the theater, and in the huge space between the front row and the gigantic, curved screen.
My friends and I were sitting in the front row ... it was one of the few theaters where the screen is far enough away to be in focus, and the screen from that perspective wraps around you and envelops you completely in StarWarsian goodness. But the area between our row and the screen was so full of people sitting on the floor that folks were leaning directly on our legs. It was really very annoying and greatly diminished my first viewing of Star Wars on a huge screen in about 8 years. Bah.
Well, not being a big fan of The Empire Strikes Back (yes, it's true, I don't like that movie), I missed most of that screening by leaving the theater and driving to the local fire department ... where I filed a complaint with the fire marshal about the theater having people filling the aisles and all the available floor space. Then I blithely drove back to the theater and watched the last half hour of Empire.
Well, during the intermission before Return of the Jedi, the fire marshal and several deputies arrived at the Egyptian Theater and announced to the crowd that the last movie would not be shown until everyone in the auditorium found a seat ... and that anyone who did not have an actual seat would have to leave the theater.
It was not a pretty scene.
People tried to squeeze in two-to-a-seat, but the fire marshal would have none of that. It took nearly an hour for hundreds of people to quit the the theater and have the fire marshal confirm there was a seat for everyone remaining in the building. Jedi started quite a bit later than expected. My seat was vastly more comfortable without people leaning on my knees .... but, well, I was not exactly a popular fellow at that point (my earlier complaints to theater management did not go un-noticed by most of the audience). I received a few death threats, and more beat-the-shit-out-me threats than I could count ... and theater security had to grudgingly escort me to my car after the show. Yikes.
I guess what I did was pretty obnoxious. But really, don't mess up my long-awaited, big-screen viewing of Star Wars and everything will be just fine. Got it?
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