‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Projector Malfunctions, Skips Ahead and Spoils End of the Movie

For so long, we barely even deigned to dream. The idea of another chance to do Star Wars and to do it right, to wipe clean the slate that the prequel trilogy had so thoroughly desecrated was beyond imagining, and yet then it was, all of a sudden, very real. It took on a director, and then some actors, then it got a release date and a poster and a trailer and it existed. After years of silent prayer, the masses had finally received their newest testament, and so maybe, in some way, it’s understandable that audiences reacted like this when what they had waited so long to have was snatched away from them at the last moment.

The video above was taken on Friday night at the Arclight Hollywood movie theater in Los Angeles during a showing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Once we’ve all finished clucking our tongues in disapproval over the uploader’s having illegally taped any part of the program, we can gawk with fascination at the Lord of the Flies-type situation that broke out almost instantaneously when the projector malfunctioned prior to the beginning of the film.

Everything appeared to be going as planned when the 3D stopped working, the picture warped and disappeared, and then, much to the furor of the crowd, jumped to a point much later in the film that spoiled later developments in the film. As audible in the video, audience members began screaming and hollering at the blank screen when denied their Star Wars, then shouts of “NOOOOO!!!” as it skips head about 20 minutes into the movie. As the footage starts going backwards (continuing to spoil parts of the movie), the crowd screams “MORE! KEEP GOING!” immediately prepared to devolve into jungle warfare over the delay of a movie about adventures in space.