Ella writes:

Sherman Oaks Galleria, 12:01am show, theatre #3.

In short, our projector broke. How? The vertical hold. When? The CLIMAX OF THE MOVIE. That's right. It's the 1 scene every fan has been waiting to see for 30 years. The 1 scene that that this particular movie, the prequels, and the myth of perhaps the greatest villain of all time has BUILT UP TO. And the vertical hold goes off.

For those of you who remember old TVs, you'll have distinct memories of 2 knobs that controlled the image. Every now and again, a line would split the TV in two, and the torsos would be on the top half of the screen and the heads would be at the bottom. Invariably, your father would politely ask you to get up and toggle the horizontal hold knob until the image was righted. In the case of our theatre of morons, no one's father asked anything. Instead?

Pan?de?monium. People are freaking out, and right well they should. A sea of booing, screaming - people are pounding on the back wall, yelling at the projectionist - you can't hear the movie, which is still playing (split-screened 80% above & 20% below) - people start running out of the house to look for staff - I start doubting my will to live.

In what felt like 30 minutes, the image on the screen righted itself, but it was too late. The ultimate scene of all scenes had already passed. What remained were 10 minutes of 1000 angry people fully taken out of the moment, and using the rest of the screen time to yell out commentary like a rabid Mystery Science Theater gang of idiots.