4 Things I Learned Working At A Movie Theater During Star Wars Weekend

Star Wars Weekend
Source: Uproxx

I watched Star Wars: The Last Jedi at the AMC River East 21 in Chicago on the Thursday night that it was released. I would have been fine waiting a couple days, but I became worried that at some point during my three, eight-hour shifts that weekend at the unnamed movie theater that I work, I would overhear a spoiler for the film I’ve been looking forward to for about two years now.

Little did I know spoilers would be the least of my worries that weekend.
I’m nineteen, and had spent the previous two years of my life hoping from monotonous retail job to monotonous retail job. When the opportunity came up to work at a movie theater, I took it – figuring that it would be a pleasant change of pace for a few months before I move back down to Florida for school. And it doesn’t hurt having a deep love of cinema and an inclination toward enjoying free films.

The first two weeks were simple enough – I learned how to inspect and clean theaters, as well as work at the concession stand. There, I would sell tickets are prepare the ridiculously overpriced snacks for our guests. It was slow, and boring. But I kept hearing from my more experienced managers and co-workers that Star Wars weekend was going to be hell.

And hell it was.

 

Hygiene Goes Out the Window

Source: Health and relief

During the eight-hour shift I worked on Saturday (without a break, @DepartmentOfLabor), I must have prepared approximately four million hot dogs, pretzels, and tubs of popcorn.

And I don’t think I washed my hands once.

This isn’t because of my malicious intent to give a foodborne illness to everyone I meet. But when you have a line of twelve people who all need to make their showing in seven minutes, the time it takes to wash your hands every minute, or even put on gloves, becomes an enormous waste of time.

It was the same for all my co-workers in concessions. At some point, the guests no are no longer people, much less human beings. Soon into your shift, the worry becomes less about the people we’re serving and more about how many iterations of our robotic greet-and-serve movement we’ll do before we’re allowed to go home.

 

There Are Varying Types of People

Source: Starwars.com

Over a total of twenty-four hours worked over three days, I served about four couplings that were a white man in his thirties and a little black boy. I’m not sure if this is thing in Chicago, I’ve only been here for a few months. But each time, I felt like an extra in a low-budget Hallmark movie about the spirit of Christmas.

On the opening weekend of any addition to a major franchise, there are two big groups of people – the hardcore, diehard fans that have been waiting for years and are dressed for the occasion, and the families who didn’t know any better and just decided to take the kids to see “the space wars movie” that night.

I wish I could complain about the abundant rudeness of the guests, but in actuality the majority of the people served were very gracious, polite, and just excited for the night. There was the occasional nightmare customer who would demand that we make a batch of “fresh popcorn” just for them, or be increasingly impatient and not realize that they are but one in a sea of people that we don’t care about, or have the audacity to ask for a hot dog with just ketchup.

 

Popcorn Is Gross, and Probably Not of This World

Source: Reluctant Hippie

Popcorn is a food that tastes good for most of the time you’re eating it, and then when you’re done you feel nothing but shame and a slight stomach ache. It’s essentially the closest food equivalent to masturbation.

I’m an adult man, and I still have no earthly idea how it’s made. A part of me just believes that all popcorn machines are magic, immortal beings that occupied the Earth far before us. We honor them with oil, salt, and kernels – and in return they give us popcorn. Never would I dare insult one of them, for I have no idea what other powers they possess.

I wouldn’t exactly call myself health conscious, but I’ve made enough popcorn in the movie theater machines to know that I’ll never order myself any. If you have to add pounds of salt, butter, and oil to something just it edible, shouldn’t we just admit to ourselves that it probably wasn’t meant to be eaten?

 

Kids Make It Worthwhile…A Little

Source: Starwars.com

Occasionally, at some point in the existential crisis that was my shift, I would look down at a little girl in a full Rey costume, asking me shyly for a pack of sour patch kids. Or maybe a little boy in a The Force Awakens hoodie who is proudly telling me that this is first time in a movie theater, reminding me of my first film in a theatre: Revenge of the Sith, when I was six years old.

I have very little to do with their day, I was just a guy with bags under his eyes who handed them candy. But knowing they were going to have this amazing experience that, in a way, could shape the rest of their childhood.

We might often discount the way that cinema, and art in general, can shape us as people. Espcially when absorbed at an early age. Star Wars is a near-perfect blend of Collingwood’s amusement and magic art, which has made is so important and enduring to the American zeitgeist. And being apart of that experience, watching the next generation be amazed and inspired by something that amazed and inspired me when I was their age, ended up being pretty special.

Even if it caused me to fall asleep on the bus twice.

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