In case you were somehow unaware, Star Wars: Episode VII tickets went on sale tonight and people are rushing Fandango to secure their spots. But according to social media and an abundance of exclamation points and the conveyance of disappointment by-way of GIFs contained therein, it seems as though people are running into the kinds of problems that pop up when everyone tries to use one website at once. Should you be livid if you’re constantly running into that brick wall? Unfortunately, yes.
I got my tickets, by the way. This isn’t a boast, it’s just a statement of fact like when I say that the gods have blessed me with abundant luck and an uncanny awareness of when the time was right to go on to Fandango. Here’s the thing, though: I’m not the guy who goes to midnight screenings and other things like this. Why? I hate people. And I mean that in the nicest way.
You think the wait to get your tickets online is frustrating? Wait until you’re wrapped around the outside of your local cineplex in the middle of December, ticket in hand. You think cosplay is charming? Wait until you’re tightly nestled beside someone in an unwashed Wookie costume for 140 minutes while the glow of some other person’s lightsaber toy keeps pulling your eyes from the screen. I’m prepared to pay these costs, though, because I want to see the big thing before everyone else does so that I might sip the nectar of superiority from the goblet of “Suck it.” Also, I’m prepared to expose myself to the masses in the midst of high-tension pre-Christmas shopping and flu season because those plagues are more palatable than the plague that is spoilers.
Believe it or not, we’ve all waited patiently — amidst an ocean of casting rumors, story rumors and hype — for more than three years for this film to become more than its massive buzz. Because of this and the rocket fuel that is anticipation, everyone is going to see this movie in its first 24-hours of release and spoilers are going to be thick in the air like the smell of closely huddled parka-clad human cattle in your local theater. You will not be able to avoid it.
So, in an effort to avoid the hell of someone somehow lessening the majesty of the moment when Star Wars bursts back onto the screen, you really must push on, send your boss an email telling them that you are going to be too sick to work in the morning, fill a stock pot with coffee and keep clicking refresh so you can get your ticket. Because if you don’t and you’re somehow unable to see Star Wars before its opening weekend, you can bury your phone in the yard, cut your cable, tell your friends you’ve gone into hiding and sit in silence until the time comes for you to run through the gauntlet of screens and chatty strangers that you will face on the way to the theater, but you’ll still probably have something ruined for you. And after all this time, don’t you deserve a perfect Star Wars experience with 500 of your closest strangers?
