My Star Wars: Episode I Experience
I had a ticket to the 5:25pm showing of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace on Wednesday, May 19, 1999 (opening day). I left school when it ended at 2:40, with Mark, a friend of mine who was going in my group. I drove to Concord and found parking in the Brenden theater garage at about 3:05. As we walked around to the enterance of the theater, we passed three lines, two on the sidewalk, and one on the street. Security guards were patroling all over, and there was a fence erected to channel traffic properly (so the cars don't hit the people in line on the street). We were told that our line was in the back portion of teh parking garage, so we went around the other side of the building, and found an area on the ground level of the parking complex for more lines. There were five or six lines roped off, each with signs displaying the show time. I headed to the 5:25 line, and found only five people in front of me. Mark and I were the sixth and seventh people in line for our showing. Once we had our place in line, I went back to my truck to get a blanket and some snacky things I had brought. Back at the line, I set the blanket down to sit on, and gave Mark some money so he could run over to McDonalds and pick up some real food for us. We sat there and ate, while watching people in the other lines. There were a couple of people with storebought lightsabers, and one guy with a homemade one (it was obviously homemade, because it looked so much better than the ones they sell in stores). He was messing with a small piece of leather, it looked like he was poking holes in it to sew it together or something like that... There was one group of girls that had a discman with speakers playing the Star Wars soundtrack. Anyway, after a while, some more of our group came, Chris and Ross. Chris's family had come too, but they stayed in the back of the line, while Chris came up to be with us. Soon after they came, one of the security guards announced that he was moving our line (because it wouldn't fit in the garage anymore). He led us out to the sidewalk beside the theater, where stood for quite a while. Then, at about 4:45, they let us into the theater. A few people in fromt of me had backpacks, and had to stop so security could search them, and I ended up being the third person into the theater (except for some supposed "handicapped" people, who didn't look hadicapped to me. Only one of them was in a wheelchair, she must have brought in her whole family as "support"). I chose the second row of the stadium seats, which was about a quarter of the way away from the screen. I would have chosen the first row of the staduim seats, but the entire row was occupied by the supposed handicappers (handicapped, my ass). At least I got the second best seat in the theater... Still, the last member of our group, Amr, had not arrived. Chris went out often to look for him, and finally, about fifteen minutes before the movie was about to start, Amr showed up. He's lucky we saved him a seat; by then, only the nosebleed seats up in the back were empty.