I regard the previews as commercials, and are often interspersed with actual commercials. As far as I’m concerned, you can do whatever you want to do up until the actual movie starts, when you should sit down and shut up with cell phones off. If conversations are quiet, I don’t mind them. If I had a little more foresight, I would figure out when the movie itself starts and come in five minutes before.
Whether or not one considers the trailers to be commercials misses the point: a significant number of people generally want to see them and you’re disturbing the experience. The point of staying relatively quiet isn’t for you, it’s out of respect or courtesy to those around you. Saying “I don’t need to be quiet because I think the thing you want to see is stupid” doesn’t quite hit that mark.
I picked 2, but I would choose a mixture of 2 and 3. You don’t need to be there before the trailers start and around here I would say that generally between 1/3 and 1/2 of the audience will arrive within the 20 mins of trailers. Many times I’ve sat down at the stated start time to a relatively empty theater, and 20 mins later when the movie actually begins it’s completely full.
You should not have conversations during the trailers but looking at your phone during them is fine. The lights are still on so the screens are not that visible anyway.
I picked 3 because there was no 2.7, While it’s certainly jerkish to be loud and obnoxious during the trailers, the real movie rules don’t begin until the real movie starts.
And I’m not staying home
Previews are commercials, and I find it silly to expect people to treat them the way they do the movie.
I picked option 3. I won’t be making phone calls or discussing politics during the previews, but I have no problem in texting, looking at my phone or asking my date if he wants popcorn.
During the film, I won’t look at my phone unless it’s a very sparsely attended showing. That’s actually common for me since I attend a lot of afternoon showings during the week.
I voted #3. Nobody gives a crap about the previews, they’re not part of the movie. When the film actually starts, shut up and turn off your phone.
This thread and the one that inspired it has proven that there are plenty of people who do care about previews and consider them part of the movie experience. Feel the way you feel, but don’t speak for other people.
I voted #3. It’s utterly bizarre for me to think of trailers as “part of the movie.” Pretty sure the director of the movie would disagree about that. My own feelings are more in the “2.7” crowd. There shouldn’t be a whole lot of unnecessary talking going on, but it’s still the “pre-game show,” as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t expect total silence and phones being put away until the actual movie starts.
And, it doesn’t matter, as I haven’t gone to the movies in about fifteen years or so. So far as I remember, I’ve always been quiet during previews, but socially I’ve always read it as being acceptable for there to be a good bit of “settling” until the feature starts.
Watching trailers on your phone is NOT the same as watching trailers in a movie theater with Dolby surround sound and a giant screen.
I like watching the trailers and wish people would STFU.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those who pulls out my cell phone in a theater and talks on it. But if other people want to have short, quiet (quiet being the operative word) conversations during the trailers, it doesn’t bother me in the least. I don’t go to the movies to watch trailers and wouldn’t miss them if they stopped showing them. As a couple of others said, the trailers aren’t part of the movie.
Probably better phrased as “Part of the going-to-the-movies experience” and one they hope to enjoy. I doubt anyone seriously means to imply that the trailers are legitimately an integral part of the feature film.
To me, the trailers give people a chance to end their conversations and settle in for the main event. It’s better than the movie abruptly starting with people still talking.
So now that you’ve been told that, yes, people like watching the trailers, and that you are not the arbitrator of what is or is not “the movie experience”, are you going to change, and show respect to the other patrons, or continue with the dickish behavior?
Fair enough and better than the bizarre strawman argument some people are making that “trailers are part of the movie” can only be parsed as “the trailers were written into the feature film script”, but no they weren’t so nyeah nyeah
Personally, I figure that the inevitable “Coca-Cola student film commercial” and cutsie “Time to turn off your phone” messages that show between the lights going down and the film trailers starting is my cue to wrap it up.
As I said, I don’t pull out my phone and talk in a movie theater. Sorry if other people are ruining your experience, but I’m not one of them. It just doesn’t mash my taters, that’s all. I’m not the arbitrator of other peoples’ behavior.
Well, when I asked JAQ to keep “during the previews” and “during the movie” behavior separate, he’s the one who said he considers the previews “part of the movie”. I don’t think he meant it’s literally part of the feature film script, but it seems like he’s saying the previews are just as important as the movie itself.
Sometimes the previews are the best part of the movie experience…
Yeah, that’s how I remember it, before the days of everyone being on their cellphone. As I mentioned above, it’s “settling” in time, so I personally would give a lot of leeway in terms of people jostling around and chatting, etc. I’ve been to movies where people were told to “shut the fuck up” during the actual movie; I’ve never heard such during the previews, even though there is usually a good bit of murmuring then. Your local social mores may vary.
Yes, if I’m understanding him correctly, he (we) are saying that the previews *are *an important part of the movie going experience. We are not talking about ads for products; just trailers for upcoming films.We *do *want to see those, without tons of distraction. As weird as you think it is that some want to watch"ads" (not an accurate term, imo)some of us cannot fathom how, even if you’re not interested in them, you can’t (or refuse to) imagine why anyone else *would *enjoy them. Why wouldn’t a movie goer want to see what other movies are coming out?:dubious: And I’m honestly not being snarky.