Shortly after the projector came back to life, the movie resumed a few minutes prior to the crash… only to crash at that very same spot a second time. Apparently they had been having equipment problems all morning. At some point Katie gave me a worried look as she clasped her hands over her ears.īefore I made the final decision to leave however, the screen went black and an employee returned with John and a flashlight, apologizing and letting us know they would resume the movie shortly. It wasn’t constant, that screaming sound, you see? It lowered to a near whisper and became loud enough to make my head buzz. A little boy was crying and the mother had to leave when the sound became ridiculously loud. She was always pretty smart and mature, knowing she could watch it at home anyway. Katie didn’t seem phased by this and shrugged it off, waiting patiently. When nobody came to check on us, John got up and left to ask someone to turn that thing off or restart it. I guess nothing will ever replace a good ol’ human being.
I have a other friend who worked at this theater and he quit for another job around the time computers replaced people in the cabins projecting the films. The kids were confused, but for those who had just enough knowledge of computers, it was really funny. It made me nervous, but when John and the father burst into mocking laughter, I uttered a nervous laugh too. Maybe it’s because I used to have a computer that crashed on me every half hour and kill my files. Hell, I always thought a scratchy record or CD teeth chattering eerie. I always found the loopy, jumpy sound that comes with a blue screen of death disturbing. And then we got to look at the well known blue screen of death, with that awful screaming sound going on and on like a broken record. The moment they hit the belt, the screen flickered and the sound jammed on a constant loop with the toys screaming when they fell. The little Pizza Planet aliens get taken away by one of the trucks in the dump, and then Woody and his friends are carried onto a conveyor belt. There’s a point in the movie where Woody and the toys end up at the dump after Lotso managed to drag Woody into a dumpster and the garbage truck picks them up. It didn’t seem off at first, but I would soon find out, as every other family in the theater would. Nearing the end is when things got strange. While I noticed it, the kids didn’t care as long as they got to see their heroes in jumbo size. Once in a while it would glitch, where the image would freeze for a second and then fast forward to catch back with the sound. The intro was the part Katie liked the most, where Woody and Jessie chase the train and Buzz saves Woody at the last minute.Īctually, nothing off happened for most of the showing. I’ll go into the cliché of stories like this and say that the movie started normally, because well, it did.
#Toy story 3 incinerator free
The theater employee apologized and offered us free candy. Some parents left, frustrated, but I stuck around, as did about half a dozen other mothers and one father with their kids.
It wasn’t so bad, since the kids were having fun together. The showing was supposed to start at 8:AM, but it didn’t start until 9. Even though Katie had seen it countless times before, there was nothing like watching it on the big screen, and I knew she’d be ecstatic, I invited my friend John to see the movie and he accepted. So when I found out Toy Story 3 was being shown at the kid’s theater, I jumped on the occasion. She was afraid of trucks by the time she turned two, so I taught her to pull the strings on either Jessie or Woody to scare the bad trucks away in the middle of the night. We had all three movies on DVDs which she watched religiously ( thank god I loved those movies too because you can get sick of watching the same thing a minimum of five times a day, let me tell you), and also had Woody, Buzz and Jessie dolls which she loved to sleep with. It was fun and enjoyable, and that way Katie mingled with other kids her age who loved the same movies.Īt the time Katie was literally obsessed with anything related to Toy Story. It went from old classics like Snow White to recent Pixar movies. One thing I loved to do was take her to the theater every few Saturday morning for a kids’ movie presentation. Katie had just turned three a couple of weeks before the incident. It’s the wails of my now four year old daughter at night that remind me that it did, indeed, happen. Then I could doubt it like the rest of you because even though this happened to me, even though there were witnesses, sometimes I’m not quite sure I believe it myself.
Then I could make it a lot less gruesome in my head than it really was. I wish I could give you the classic “ this happened to a friend of a friend of mine”.