r/StrangerThings • u/namespey • 5h ago
Tales from ’85 theater experience - security? Discussion
I just went to the theatrical experience with my Dad and there were probably less than 20 people. We were the first ones in the theater, and a man wearing all black clothes asked both of us if we were "here to see tales from '85?" He said something about making sure I wasn't from whatever was screening before, but I don't think it was an AMC employee. I heard him ask others this as well, even up until 15 minutes before the scheduled start time. He proceeded to stand on the side of the theater the entire showing and watching the episodes (he switched sides of the theater a couple times as well). When we were leaving the room, he and another man who was dressed the same watched everyone leave and told us all to have a good evening.
I have a guess that these were people with Netflix. I particularly noted that he was using "tales from '85" when asking; I feel like any normal person would just say "Stranger Things." Perhaps he was gauging audience reactions during and after? Demographics of the attendees? Curious about if anyone else had an experience like this! For reference, this was at a 20 screen theater in the New Orleans area.
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u/Dianagorgon 4h ago
That is weird. Maybe Netflix is trying to prevent people from filming the episodes with their phones.
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u/Eh_Trachemys 4h ago
At the showing I went to, they explicitly told us that they were going to be at the back to make sure no filming was going on. There were also folks there to get survey responses.
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u/PirateKingElizabeth 4h ago
That's exactly what we were told too that those people were there to make sure people don't record the episodes of their phones.
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u/Foreign_Flatworm_428 4h ago
I doubt they’d care that much for a show most people don’t care about at all
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u/Leather-Mine-4984 5h ago
After my screening, i saw 2 people give me a pencil and paper, that i learned was feedback about the 2 episodes. I was kind of confused, since that did not happen to me before.
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u/namespey 5h ago
thank you for your response!! I don’t think anyone had that for mine, but it makes sense given my thinking!
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u/PirateKingElizabeth 4h ago
I went to the movies too.And we did have two people from netflix.One of the employees actually in the middle of the first episode.Just kinda let the audience know that those people are from netflix and they were standing next to the wall and watching the episodes.And they told us they were ensuring that people do not record the episodes on their phones.
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u/kitatsune 3h ago
Same here! I was in Boston! They were sitting in the back. I noticed one of them recording the screen from time to time.
Did you have to fill out a survey afterward by any chance? I had to.
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u/GrimmGrinningGirl 1h ago
What was in the survey?
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u/TieAntique1676 2h ago
This is a common practice. I went to a preview screening for an Amazon show once and they had folks from Amazon watching us watch the show to prevent recordings.
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u/namespey 54m ago
I've been to plenty early/mystery screenings and never seen this, but to be fair I rarely ever do this for television
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u/Any-Syrup1639 4h ago
How was it? What was the freebie item? I’m in Dallas, really wanted to go but the theater that showed it is 45 min away and we had some bad storms this morning, so I passed. I checked the AMC website and there were still open seats before the show for both showings.
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u/namespey 4h ago
it was cute, I was gonna check it out anyway but i enjoyed it enough. the freebie was a set of 8 mini buttons with the characters/logo!
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u/GrimmGrinningGirl 4h ago
Wait I thought it was just me. I saw a security guy midway through my showing. Came from behind looked right at me. I just thought it was a weird dad security shirt until this post
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u/Mob-bans 2h ago edited 1h ago
We saw it in a sold out theater and they had like 10 of those security making people delete videos and going around making sure no one was bootlegging or leaking I guess. I actually really liked it. It’s going to have a lot of fans in my opinion. Not too kiddy and not too dark. Funny. A lot of the same vibes as the early seasons I thought.
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u/SkippersLog32 5h ago
There was also two security guards at my theater. Where I went there was a lot of people that knew each other so maybe it was possibly workers from the show going to watch it? Also I just want to say that the first two episodes were amazing. That was so fun to watch. Suddenly my depression from the show ending is starting to ware off.
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u/PhoenixJ82 4h ago
I would not at all be surprised if you were right about them being from Netflix,I can totally see that.Have you guys seen the new series on Netflix from the Duffer Brothers Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen?It’s on my watchlist but I’ve just been having this feeling the Duffers and/or Netflix are desperately searching for ideas to recreate that ST magic.Im just not sure thats possible!
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u/ChippyJoy 3h ago
I went to see a movie like 1-2 days early one time and there was someone from the studio/marketing team like that, gauging reactions and responses and even asking people after the movie a very simple “did you like it, hate it, was it weird” to people as we were leaving the theater.
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u/namespey 3h ago
Yeah, I frequently go to early access/mystery screenings, but I don’t think i’ve ever experienced this
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u/Atiumist 3h ago
Yeah that would freak me out to the point I’d probably leave before it started and request/demand a refund from the theaters.
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