I’ve been pretty negative about the new Star Wars movie, reminding everyone within earshot that, while we all admit that the prequels were pretty awful, we should also recall that the original trilogy was no great shakes either, other than being remembered through the same haze of nostalgia that makes us think fondly of The Lord of the Rings trilogy until, being daft enough to attempt a re-read, we find ourselves in a scene in which, as the fellowship travels through a forest, we are presented with five pages consisting of descriptions of each individual leaf.
Thus, while if the film is exceptionally well-received, I might at some point go see it to find out what all the fuss is about (that is, for the sole reason that anyone with a scintilla of intelligence or taste would read The DaVinci Code), the very last thing I ever considered was attending its opening. But I must admit that I am beginning to rethink this. Why? Because against the expense, the lines, and the near-certainly of having to sit through endless light-saber duels has to be weighed the absolute guarantee of not encountering Erick Erickson.
Would Erickson prefer mandated metal detectors? What about small government? Private property rights? Good guys with guns???Report
Is it worth pointing out that in the Aurora theater shooting, Holmes left the theater through an emergency exit and re-entered with his guns through the same door? And how difficult it would be to stop something similar, assuming it were well organized?Report
Obviously emergency exits are regulations gone mad.Report
Not hard at all, if only Obama would say that the enemy is Islamic Extremism.Report
You could pretty trivially have the emergency exits lock from the outside (and theater owners might even want to do that, if they have a significant problem with people sneaking in), but that would probably be detrimental if you were dealing with more than one person and might cause other issues in other kinds of emergencies. Anything remotely effective is probably going to require a good bit of money from the theater, plus oversight on the part of the government (meaning money).Report
I’m pretty sure they already do that, to prevent people from sneaking in. Presumably he propped it open as he left. I’m surprised there wasn’t an alarm. I accidentally walked out of a store’s emergency exit when I was a kid, and there was a very loud alarm.
Edit: More on theater emergency exits. As I suspected, the police believe he propped it open.Report
What would a theater exit be alarmed? They can’t be used for shoplifting.Report
People can open the door to let their friends in.Report
There was a Leave it to Beaver episode where he did that!
But people also use them as exits, e.g. “My kid ate so much crap I had to get him outside, but immediately”, and there’s no way for an alarm to distinguish the two,Report
We used to put pizzas by the emergency exit doors and then bring them in once we were in the theater, when I was in high school. That was long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, though.Report
Now you’d be arrested for bringing in an Improvised Explosive Pepperoni.Report
Seems like an alarm that only sounds after being left open for some length of time would catch the difference between a hurried exit and the door being propped open.Report
But not between a hurried exit and retrieving a pile of stuff left there beforehand.Report
Or the windows, for that matter…
(sneaking into the theater and sitting behind all your middle school and high school teachers takes a good deal of chutzpah)Report
Reasons I can think of for not having emergency doors at a theater alarmed in the sense of loud horns going off and the lights coming on:
It seems like an invitation for pranks. Sit near the emergency exit, than half-way through the movie open the door and run like hell away into the dark outside. A particularly nasty prank, since if people panic someone’s likely to get trampled.
If triggered by accident, it will probably take several minutes to shut down. If I were at the performance, I’d demand a refund — expensive if lots of people do it. This alone would seem to dictate that theater operators use “silent” alarms that simply turn on a light on a console somewhere, and an employee comes around to investigate quietly later — maybe even after the movie ends.
Many theaters use the “emergency” exits as normal exits at the end of the movie. Adding complexity to the alarm system so that it is automatically disabled several times per day adds to the ways it can fail when you need it. Getting the timing right on that will be tricky given contemporary exit patterns: some patrons bolt as soon as the credits start to roll, some wait until the credits are done. (Marvel Films may be breaking people of the habit of leaving early with their little “Easter egg” vignettes embedded in the middle of the credits.)
While possibly (probably?) effective against a deranged individual like the Aurora, CO theater shooting, much less so against even two organized better-armed terrorists. On a cell-phone signal, the person in the theater opens the door and the alarm goes off; within seconds, while the patrons are still figuring out what they should do, the outside person has stepped in and thrown the IED into the crowd.Report
Well said. Like I said above, I would not expect easy modifications to emergency exits to be effective against organized adversaries.Report
Erickson’s so scared. SO SCARED! And he doesn’t wanna be scared any more kazzy.Report
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In other news, Louisiana’s next governor will be a Democrat because, as it turns out, even if you have a significant electoral advantage it can still actually matter who your candidate is.Report
The Democrat wins! And inherits another conservative engineered economic trainwreck ending!
According to Rod Dreher (How Bobby Jindal Wrecked Louisiana) Jindal took office in aught-8 with a $1 billion surplus, which quickly turned, via the magic of tax cuts and the laffer curve, into a $1.6 billion deficit. He’s attempting to make up some of that gap by cutting funding for health and hospital care, medicaid, and for higher ed. Good times ahead in Loozianne!Report
So this is only Jindal’s fault? Was Jindal the governor of LA or the dictator with unilateral power?Report
(Even the conservative) Rod Dreher thinks it’s Jindal’s fault.Report
Partially Jindal’s fault.
“Again, it would be wrong to blame this entirely on Jindal. Our legislature has a lot to do with it.”Report
Harwood: “Are you going to do for the federal budget what you did for the Louisiana budget?”
Jindal: “Absolutely, John.” !!!!Report
The likewise conservative Republican legislature was complicit. Whether the recipients of the state’s high level of corporate welfare are at fault, or whether taking the money is part of their fiduciary duty to their stockholders, is a matter of opinion.Report
Why not both?Report
Thing about fear is, you can’t reason with it. The amygdala acts on its own and listens to no one else. Frequently causes improvident decisions, when it becomes active at inappropriate times. So it’s best not to overstimulate it all the time, but Erickson is long past that point, methinks.
Now, I’m unlikely to see the movie that first weekend too. But my amygdala has got nothing to do with that: this is simply a preference to avoid dense crowds.Report
That’s unfair. The worst I’d say of the crowds is that they lack a highly developed critical sense.Report
Leia Organa has destiny, Lea Thompson has density.Report
But Jimmy Smits as Basil Organa is just silly.
“And whatever you do, don’t mention the Force!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfl6Lu3xQW0Report
And the reason islamic terrorists have attacked and will continue to attack large crowds is to cause mass casualties. Avoid the crowds and maybe the terrorists as well. So far, i dont see a problem with his logic.Report
To be honest, until they give any indication that they realize there’s more to the US than the northeast urban corridor, I’m pretty much unconcerned about my personal safety.Report
Live a lonely sheltered life, never go anywhere other people may exist. Hide in the shadows by yourself.Report
You ought to look out.Report
And he isn’t avoiding driving his car, which puts him at multiple orders of magnitude more risk? I don’t see a problem with his logic because he has no logic.
The number of homegrown Islamic terrorists in the USA approaches zero. Native Christians commit approximately 50x more acts of terrorism – yet he’s strangely unafraid of them.
Fear of Islamic terrorism, in the USA, is a symptom that you are just reacting from your hindbrain and your opinion should be given all the consideration it deserves.Report
This. I incurred a far greater risk of grievous bodily injury or death driving to play golf today than I would incur going to a popular movie. Yet no one suggests cowering in fear of the highways.Report
Not to mention when a foreign golfer might have done to you with his Alien Wedge,Report
Or his Eric Wedge, which wouldn’t actually kill you, but would destroy your MLB franchise for the better part of a decade.Report
Well, we actually do have empirical evidence of terrorists shooting up theaters.
It may not be politically correct, but I am now uncomfortable around red haired people.Report
For me, it’s people named Holmes.Report
Who besides yourself made any mention of cowering in fear? No one that I can see, so it would seem you are creating your own strawman. Sure there are risks in everything we do, the solution is to recognize those risks and attempt to migrate them.Report
I’m…really not sure what else to call this. The man is literally hiding from theaters.
(Alternate version of this comment: but where do we migrate them to? Europe obviously doesn’t have the social nerve to handle immigrants..)Report
Jeeez, even Star Wars is used to slam Obama.Report
He didn’t start these Star Wars; he inherited these Star Wars.Report
How much for just one Star War?Report
5 million kayceesReport
I don’t want to live in a country where there are metal detectors in theaters, not that I think they’d do much good. It’s just “security theater” like at the airport. If someone’s willing to trade their life for the death of another, there’s not much you can do to prevent it and keep any semblance of a free society.Report
Damon,
This is freakin’ easy for you to say, because you’ve never had someone stupidly grab a knife and try to stab you. Metal Detectors aren’t for seriously dangerous people, they’re for the dopes that “bring a gun/knife” wherever they go, unless specified otherwise.Report
I will actually be in Mexico (Morelia to be exact) when The Force Awakens is released, so it will be fun to see how that country deals with the crowds and hypothetical terrorist problems. Something tells me ISIS threats will not be an issue in the area.Report
I’m not sure I’d call them hypothetical…
There were certainly enough problems because of the prequels…
(Okay, so you might not strictly call it terroristic…)Report