The Hunger Games: Midnight Movie Experience

As I mentioned in my review yesterday, I went to the midnight showing of the Hunger Games. It was super fun and was an event in and of itself. So I will tell you about it now...

My friend Laura and I, at the midnight showing

Well, first of all, we got there at 10:30 and already there was a big line outside. We found out that they were letting people into the auditoriums little by little and that our theater, number 5, had already been let it. So we hurried inside, but when the guy scanned our tickets, something absolutely terrifying happened: "Oh," he said, looking down at our tickets, "these are for 12 noon tomorrow." DUN DUN DUN.

We were so sad. I pictured myself just going home and sleeping while millions of people watched the Hunger Games without me, and I felt immediately depressed. Plus, I had been telling pretty much everyone I knew that I was going, so what would I say when I saw them Friday morning? 

So we ran over to the customer service desk, and there were two girls in line in front of us. The customer service guy was telling him that he could get them into the 12:10 showing that night, so that perked me up. I hoped he could get us in, too. And luckily, he did! It turned out that we got the last two seats in that theater! The odds were in our favor, clearly.

Not those kinds of games...

Then we got in line again, because our theater wasn't going to be let in until 11:45. The time in the line passed pretty quickly, and Laura and I just talked, mostly about the books, since we both just finished reading the last one.

There were so many people dressed up in line! I saw lots of braids, lots of homemade tee-shirts, lots of Mockingjay pins (where do people get those?? I want one!). I attempted to dress up as Effie/a person from the Capital, as you might be able to tell from the picture. I wore pink pants, pink shoes, and a colorful, sparkly shirt. I thought about dying my hair pink, but I had to be at work the next morning so, you know...that was out. Still, I loved seeing all the people dressed up in line and excited about the movie. It was almost as busy as the Harry Potter midnight premiere. 

The line outside

They called out the numbers for the auditoriums one by one, so that those people could go in, but my friend and I joked that it was like they were calling out the districts. It just so happened that there were 12 of them, too!

Finally, we got in. Once again, the odds were in our favor, because we managed to get the last two seats in the back, as in, not way in the front where you had to crane your neck up. They were nice seats, too, towards the middle and everything.  I saw three people I knew just in our auditorium, so that was cool.

I got a bag popcorn, which I was super excited about, especially because I had a 2 dollar off coupon. Aw yeah. I also snuck in a can of ice-cold Cheerwine. Shhh!

Popcorn!!

Then there were a bunch of previews, most of which I didn't care about. I took a quick nap during the previews, actually, so that I could perk up for the movie. Everybody in our theater laughed at the Breaking Dawn trailer, especially in the end when Bella comes out from behind that tree like a creeper. I yelled out "Team Katniss!"

Then the movie started and I was SO EXCITED. When those words about the Games appeared on the screen, I just thought, "wow it's finally here!" And then the movie began, and of course it was epic, and you can read all my many thoughts about it here.

A lot of people have said that they don't like midnight premieres because they're so loud, but that was not my experience at all. People joked around and yelled a lot before the movie started, but once it started, we were all pretty much silent. Everyone was totally engrossed in the movie, as you might expect from people who love it enough to go at midnight. I could hear every part of the movie, and no one was ever talking or yelling too much. Occasionally people cheered or made other noises when someone died, which I thought was pretty bad. I personally don't think that's supposed to be your reaction to the movie.

Once the movie was over, I felt really freaked out. I think I just got a really riled up and scared during the Clove/Katniss showdown, and I never really calmed down after that. The last scene on top of the Cornucopia also really scared me. For the rest of the night, after I went home, I was so antsy and felt like someone could jump out at me any minute. I had a really hard time sleeping that night and just kept thinking about the movie and what it all meant, whether it was about poverty or reality TV or America or what. But that is a blog entry for another time...