Just because it’s from Warner Brothers and it gives you access (not admission since it’s not an event they usually charge for) to a theatre without even a clue as to what it’s for I don’t think you can just assume it’s for a free movie. You pretty much are taking your chances by attending.
When driving an hour, setting aside a particular time, and waiting in line for something that you don’t even know is for you’re pretty much taking your chances. Your lucky it wasn’t a pitch for timeshares.
I’ve done the movie pre-screenings before. I’ve never gotten a coupon for a full movie off the internet; they’re always received by hand from a person standing outside the theater who asks if I’d be interested in seeing a movie with so-and-so and so-and-so. They’re also targeted, so I never got such offers for kids movies. But the people handing out the flyers give a specific night and have always said they were offering an opportunity to go to a pre-screening.
Sorry, Equipoise. I also think you’re overreacting to a decision you made that didn’t pan out the way you wanted it to.
I went on Let’s Make a Deal. Last time I watched, there was a car behind door number 3. So I spent hours standing in line, I got picked. I went up. I picked door number three. And I got GOATS. Damn Monty Hall, Damn you to Hell!
Well, you shoulda switched. The odds are better.
Aw, lighten up. It’s not heinous theft, like when 7-11 cashiers round the change up a penny.
So this is what irrational anger looks like.
That’s not really a good analogy, because the OP never got the equivalent of the name of the artist on the ticket. At best, she got the promoter’s name, since she knew this event was linked to WB. She got a free pass to an event at specific venue and time but nowhere did it say what would be shown. The OP’s own words were
She just knew to show up at a particular time and place, and that this was a WB-related event. She assumed the content would be this awesome thing she read about elsewhere and was disappointed when her assumption turned out to be wrong.
My town hosts free Thursday night in the park concerts. I’ve heard that some pretty good blues bands have played, in the past. Last Thursday night I went. It took me 20 minutes to drive there. I arrived an hour early, to get good seats. Then the local elementary school band came on stage and played 2 John Philip Sousa marches (badly). Who do I boycott?
Actually, what she assumed was that the content would be at least somewhat similar to her past experiences with this exact same type of promotion. Not an unreasonable assumption, in my opinion.
As i said earlier, i still wouldn’t go to something like this unless i knew exactly what i was going to get, but it doesn’t seem irrational to base your expectations on your prior experiences with the same type of coupons.
All we know from the OP is that she used “several different ways” to get free passes. There is nothing there to show that they were exactly the same, or that WB was even the one issuing the passes, for that matter.
She implied it wasn’t the same type of promotion:
Bolding mine.
Thanks to those who are sympathetic to my view.
I think it’s hilarious how I’m continuing to be piled on even after I said I’d cooled off and would pay for movies, just not at full price.
Not The Dark Knight though. I guess I’ll take the pileons because I refuse to pay for that. I’ll pay for an indie that’s been around for a few weeks. And of course I won’t try to duck in if they’re checking tickets at the door, geez. If they are I’ll go see the indie (again, since I would already have seen it) and try again in a couple/few days.
Test screenings and sneak previews…
I find it amazing that people are so shocked at using a mystery pass for a movie. Have some of you never heard of test screenings? This is done ALL THE TIME by the studios. Don’t you ever hear about movies where such&such was changed because of a reaction by test audiences (most recently, the ending of The Golden Compass)? A movie will be filmed and edited but in the tweaking stage. Often the movie has a temporary soundtrack (because the score is usually the very last thing to be added), and if it’s a special effects movie those are not finished.
The studio will show it to test audiences and then have the people fill out questionaires to get reactions, what they liked, what they didn’t, and often they’ll choose people from the audience to stay for a focus group. It happens more in Los Angeles than elsewhere, but often studios like to get a reaction from other parts of America. They NEVER say what the movie is in advance. Partly to keep away spotters, like folks from Aint-It-Cool-News, or professional critics, or humongous fans who Just Can’t Wait. They want normal everyday moviegoers. It used to be, they’d surprise an audience there to see another movie but more recently they just hand out mystery passes.
I’ve been to three test screenings in my life. Scoresese’s The King of Comedy, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, several months before they both opened, and an indie documentary called The Atom Smashers.
You really have to be in the right place at the right time to get a test screening pass. I don’t remember where we got the King of Comedy pass, but we got the HP pass when we went to a matinee of something (maybe Howl’s Moving Castle, I can’t remember now). A lady was there handing them out in the lobby. No one knew what movie it was but we knew it was a biggie because security was very tight (you had to surrender cell phones and bags, and there was an infrared system set up at the front to catch people recording). It was a complete mystery until everyone was seated, the doors were closed, and a guy from the studio went to the front and said “Congratulations, you are the first people in the world to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire!” Much cheering ensued. No one even minded that the music was a temporary track, and none of the special effects were done. For instance, the stadium at the beginning was all in wire frame, during the flying effects the wires holding everybody up hadn’t yet been digitally painted out, and Ralph Feinnes’ facial features were still his own.
Test screenings are often used as excuses to make changes to the movie, based on what people say. Scenes might be made longer, shorter or cut out altogether. New scenes might even be re-shot. I don’t remember any major changes to The King of Comedy or Harry Potter when I saw their final versions in the theater months later, but sometimes drastic changes are made. In the case of The Golden Compass, test screenings in front of morons made the studio force the director to cut the entire ending of the movie and push it to the 2nd movie (if indeed they film the 2nd book), because the original ending was “too depressing.”
Sneak preview passes are a different animal, and are usually given out when a movie is finished and the studios are hoping to create buzz by people who liked it. A quarter of the movies I see each year are from sneak preview passes. The most recent sneak preview tickets I’ve gotten were for Atonement, The Kite Runner, The Bucket List, Lions For Lambs, and I’m Not There. I have passes next week for Juno and National Treasure: A Book of Secrets (ugh, but I’ll see anything for free).
I don’t know why it would be considered strange to receive sneak preview passes from the internet. There are several places online where sneak preveiw passes/info can be found, such as Film Metro, and Free Stuff (go to the last couple pages of the thread). I also get them from being on the IFP mailing list and reading other movie forums, plus I’m on a private mailing list of Chicago people who find out about passes in stores or in papers then pass the word on.
This particular pass to the Dark Knight preveiw came from a link at a movie message board. This is the link. I know now that it went to one of several viral marketing sites for The Dark Knight.
I know I shouldn’t have expected anything other than what we were given, but my expectations were born from the dozens and dozens of other times I’ve used passes.
Yes, I will be complaining to the studio.
Your joke writer?
Wow. What a bunch of bleating assholes. This is the transparentest pileon I’ve witnessed in a while: most of you would’ve kept this shit to yourself, or supported the OP, if the thread had gone that way. None of you has made any real point against the OP, and most of you have been called out for not even reading it. What a bunch of brainless sharks.
And, newsflash, this is not stealing. If I steal your peanut butter sandwich, that leaves you without your peanut butter sandwich. Paying for tickets that say one thing on them but then sitting in a different seat is stealing nothing from anybody, especially if the alternative was to boycott the movie in the first place. All she’s done is *give *free money to another studio.
You snarling retards need to find a puppy to kick, or something, if you really need that badly to vent your self loathing.
Jesus H. Fucking Christ!
Is it not possible to concede that the OP, as someone who has considerable experience with these types of promotions, might have reasonably expected that this particular promotion would not be so completely different from the other ones that she’s attended?
I never argued that WB was the one issuing the passes. I never argued about what an appropriate response might be. I’m simply amazed at how many people have jumped on her for having the unmitigated gall to expect that this movie promotion experience be similar to the ones that she’s gone to in the past.
Sure, the OP received no promise about what she would see in return for her pass. There was no guarantee of a full movie. I’m not arguing that she has any real redress in this situation. But i take her at her word that she’s done this sort of thing a lot, and that she’s never had an experience like this one before.
Like most things in life, if you do pretty much the same thing 100 times over, and the result is pretty much the same every time, it’s not unreasonable to be taken aback when, on the 101st occasion, things go completely differently. That’s all i’m arguing.
Bad day? I only ask because this is barely a pile on much less worth calling the people that disagree with the OP brainless sharks. There’s also the big point made repeatedly that the only reason for the anger were the mistaken expectations of Equipose, who even states in the OP that the offer itself was different from those prior.
Yes yes. You wrote something mean. Congratulations. May I suggest you take your own advice since it seems you need it more? Maybe Weirddave should take it as well since that comment about Yakko was way out of line.
Noted, mhendo. And your argument is reasonable. But this case is affected by two factors, in my opinion:
(1) The OP said that there was something “odd” about how this particular offer came about, and that it was “mysterious”, to which she explicitly added “there was no indication about what to expect”. She seemed to be going out of her way to explain particularly that this offer was different from the hundred that came before it.
and (2) Her expectations did not constitute anyone else’s obligations, in my opinion. And therefore the method she chose to retaliate seems ethically unsound. When she declared her intention to watch Warner Bros movies without paying for them, she crossed the line. She knows this at heart because she was unable to quantify what she thought they owed her other than some ambiguous “foreseeable future”.
No, it isn’t…as has been explained in the thread you are accusing others of not reading, the revenue from tickets mostly goes to the movie studio - not the theater owner. If it went to the theater, you’d be right - it wouldn’t make any difference which seat you sat in - other than if the movie was sold out you’d be taking the seat from someone who paid for it. But in fact, that isn’t how it works. Thus, if you pay to see one movie, but see another, you’d donated money to one studio - and “stolen” from another.
Is it a BFD? No, WB is not going to go under over a $5.50 matinée ticket. But neither is Wal-Mart going to go under if you shoplift Tic Tacs and then pay for them over at Target.
All I have to say is that I can’t imagine what other kind of pass would’ve been given to a movie theatre. Obviously, I now see that they want you there for free viewings of what are basically commercials, extended or otherwise. To me, that’s way weird. I don’t know how I’d have even thought of anything else. And seeing as how Equipoise is a billion times more the cinephile (file?) than I am, if she didn’t expect it, would any of the rest of us under normal circumstances?
Anyway, all I can say is that I would just chalk this up to experience as something to add to my repertoire whenever checking out such things in advance. However, I certainly understand where she must be coming from and don’t begrudge her feeling pissed off, venting or taking a hard-line stance on The Dark Knight. Though I’ve never done the buy one and swap for another routine, I’m having a really difficult time getting worked up about someone (obviously, if we can go on the reactions here, very few) who might. The only real practical issue would be “sold out” shows, as for as I can see, and as Una stated, they aren’t honest-to-goodness really. Plus, as has been pointed out by the lady herself, she’s backed down on her original proclamation. I think that should be good enough.
Last of all, I think it’s quite a bit hair-triggerish and over-the-top to denounce her as a thief for having, up to this point and in the heat of the moment, thoughts of what revenge she might get. If that’s truly a good reason to brand so harshly, then I’d better get in line for my own tarring and feathering.
Definitely agree with part (2).
As for part (1), i see what you’re saying. At the same time, though, i wouldn’t be surprised if the promoter for this event knows exactly what people like the OP expect from these sorts of promotions, and relied on those expectations in order to get people to stand around for ages waiting to see a 6-minute movie trailer.
Of course, the idea that advertisers are manipulative scumbags is one that should come as no surprise to anyone, which is precisely why i wouldn’t have spent a total of more than three and a half hours traveling and waiting in line to see something promised on a mysterious promotional ticket.
Hell, i wouldn’t have spent that much time even if i knew that the film was something i absolutely wanted to see. I’m generally happy to wait for the regular theatrical release, and even though i’m perennially short of money, i still consider my time too valuable to spend three and a half hours of it in return for 20 bucks worth of free movie tickets.
Jeebus Jiminy Creepers! Is it too much to expect for you to stand by what you said, which is that the promotions were* exactly the same*, rather than of a similar type?