If you could travel through time to see a movie or play when it premiered..

I saw Alien in the theatres, it was indeed a shock going in unprepared. Very few films could manage that now in the age of advanced hype.

Another film that it’s easy to forget the impact of is Hellraiser, which I also saw in the theatres on debut. It was so smart, so shocking, and so different, that it really revised the landscape of horror movies. We take for granted now what it did, just as we take so many other watershed films for granted.

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Man, I’ve seen all those movies so many times they all blur together, yes, it wasn’t confirmed until the next movie.

I saw ROTJ late in a half empty theater so no gasps, everyone else in the theater must have already seen it.

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Alien was my first R rated movie, that movie did have fantastic marketing, no one had any idea what it was about. My parents had my uncle go see it first before they would let me see it. It’s so much harder to avoid spoilers now, trailers and marketing spoil so much these days.

Saw Aliens on opening weekend in a packed theater, that was fun. Same with Jurassic Park. I think that was the last movie I saw on opening weekend.

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I’d wanna go back in time and see one of the plays of Aristophanes, such as The Frogs or The Clouds. Although there’s the issue of me not knowing ancient Greek…

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I wanna go with you. We can not understand the language and laugh anyway together.

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2001 would be at the top of my list as well - I did see it when it was first released, but I was just a lad of 6 :slight_smile:

It made huge impression me though, and by the time I was old enough to consider a ‘favorite’ movie, it was already firmly slotted into that spot and has remained there - tied, eventually, with Apocalypse Now, and those two have remained in my ‘number one’ spot ever since.

I have seen it in 70mm four times, plus a handful of 35 mm showings, so I would truly love to see it on its 70mm premier with a contemporary audience from that time.

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I was fortunate to be working as a doorman at the Cine Capri in Phoenix when Alien was released, and enjoyed watching it freak audiences out all summer. We even had Elton John and Ray Cooper come to see it during the very end of its run (theater was nearly empty) when they were in town to perform - ran home during the film and brought back my Captain Fantastic lp to ambush him on his way out the door :slight_smile:

Besides the films referenced in my posts above, even more than movies or plays I would love to be able to go back in time and see Miles and Monk and Dizzy and Coltrane and Parker perform during their peaks. I’ve seen Miles and Dizzy (actually got to meet Dizzy and pick up a couple of autographs) but near the end of their careers, and I would loved to have seen Monk (at anytime over his career) or a young Miles play…

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What about the premiere of Airplane!? No one would have ever seen anything like it.

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Was that before Police Squad on TV?

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Yes. Airplane! was 1980, Police Squad was 1982.

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As mentioned above, I used to be a doorman at the Cine Capri and we announced a sneak preview in late April or early May of 1980 - it was sold out, because everyone thought they’d be seeing ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ a couple weeks early.

It wasn’t, however - it was a sneak preview of a very rough cut - missing most music, a lot of sound effects, and had a couple ‘insert scene here’ markers - of Airplane.

You could hear the initial disappointment when the movie started and it WASN’T Empire, but by the time the screening was over, the entire audience was roaring with laughter, and all left the theater with very wide smiles on their faces.

The other great sneak we held was for ‘The Stunt Man’, which gave me a chance to meet both the director, Richard Rush, and the lead, Steve Railsback. All morning in the theater getting ready and talking with them, I couldn’t shake the feeling I knew Railsback from somewhere but couldn’t place him - it was his eyes. During the afternoon while I was back at home getting ready for the evening sneak, I read an article about the film in the AZ Republic and suddenly realized where I knew those eyes from - he played Manson in the TV version of ‘Helter Skelter’ and that was what was freaking me out !

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Another premiere I would like to have seen is one that is the premiere of The Jerk because it happened in the town I live in now, Terre Haute, Indiana.

He made fun of the town in Playboy, calling it, “stinky and boring.” To be fair, he was pretty much right about that. It’s a pretty boring college town and it used to have a horribly smelly paper mill which is, thankfully, gone.

It, of course, raised a big stink locally and Steve saw an opportunity, so he did an ‘apology tour’ of the town which, I believe, was aired on SNL, and announced that The Jerk would premiere here. I assume it premiered in our former Vaudeville theatre, the Indiana.

A huge crowd assembled when he gave his really funny “apology” speech and they had great signs. My favorite said “WELCOME DEAN MARTIN.”

I wish I could find the video of all of this. I actually saw it really recently, but it seems to have been wiped from the internet.

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Truthfully it would likely be something like catching Hamilton when it debuted.

The smartass answer however…

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For me, I would love to either the premier of the original King Kong in 1933, or the premiere of The Exorcist, just to see the reaction of the audiences.

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My first thought was I’d go back to see Gone With the Wind. My dad was friends with an elderly gentleman who’s father worked on the set for that movie and he had stories about what an undertaking it was to do scenes like all the wounded soldiers in the street at the train depot, or Atlanta on fire. It would be cool to see it back when it first came out, when such effects were still pretty astonishing in movies. Actually I’d go back and see The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston for the same reason :smiley:

And I would totally go back and see a Star Wars movie, but it would probably be Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, not the first one. Only because the franchise was popular by then and the experience of being excited for a movie together with other fans, and collectively freaking out over plot twists and stuff, is just such a fun feeling. :smiling_face:

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I remember the first time I saw Dirty Harry (years after release and not in the theater). I thought “this is the most stereotypical cop film I’ve ever seen” and couldn’t understand why people liked it. My father then clued me in that this movie was the basis for all the cop stereotype films that followed.

light-bulb-gru

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You guys are so high brow; I’d just go back to the 90s and relive being in a super overcrowded theater showing ‘Twister’ to an increasingly aggitated audience. That was magical.

Edit: and perhaps this is the paranoia of year 2 pandemic, but also maybe that’s an event lost to time o.o

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I’ve attended a few local premiers/ screenings they always have a interesting audience reaction.
Jurassic Park: Going in most people seemed to only know it would have dinosaurs in it, Afterwards everyone seemed to know it was going to be a massive hit.
Mars Attacks: At the end the crowd seemed divide between brilliant and “what the hell do I just watch” One of my bosses from the comic shop I was working at, was in the WTF crowd and asked why I enjoyed it so much. My response was that it was B-Movie flare, and they actually took an A level Cast/Crew/Budget and gave us a great B-Movie.
The Punisher: It was great, they did a trivia quiz before hand, and as most of the crowd were local press/people who won or were given passes, all the people who took home prizes were people there from the local comic shops. (I got a t-shirt & movie soundtrack)
Pacific Rim: Again another press/passes event where most people were there for work or freebie. Afterward you had people talking about how original it seemed, while my group were discussing whether or not it was Weta reusing as much from the cancelled live-action Evangelion project or not, that Tom Morello’s music banged, hey was that Kurgan from WWE?
Lastly because this one really hurt. A special cast screening I was invited to with other members of the local anime convention.
G-Saviour: A live action Gundam movie made for the franchise 20th anniversary. There was about 10 of us sitting at the back of the screening room at VFS, in front of us were dozens of actors/crew who were in the film, with other local members of the Vancouver film & voice acting community. At the end of the screening most people there were in a great mood, congratulating themselves on a completed project that was going to get a big release in Japan. By contrast my group all slipped out the back to avoid being asked what we thought of it which ranged from my view of passable story, decent enough effects, enjoyable watch, to one of our group who was a mega-fan who could tell you everything about the franchise who thought it was absolute trash.

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