Upon its release in theaters, Star Wars: The Last Jedi made some theaters to be extremely cautious about it. Some theaters had increased security and others refused to simply screen the film. It turned out to be a monkey on the tin roof scenario with fans (typical to every Star Wars film), and one theater went to the extreme of ensuring that it didn’t face any complaints whatsoever from the viewers. For one particular sequence in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, there was absolutely no sound, and an AMC theater made it loud and clear that this was a deliberate creative call and not something wrong with their speakers.
Well, if you haven’t seen the movie, then it might appear as a spoiler for you, and you can go back from here.
There was a scene in Star Wars: The Last Jedi where the Resistance is compelled to execute the escape plan to escape from the clutches of The First Order fleet which has been after them for most of the movie’s duration. Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) stays back on the main ship to hoodwink The First Order while The Resistance members run away in escape pods. However, the Fist Order starts shooting their pods down. To bid time, Holdo directly brought her ship face to face with the fleet and in an iconic moment for the Star Wars saga, she activated lightspeed to slice through The First Order, splitting Supreme Leader Snoke’s ship in half.
This was a magnificent sequence and devoid of any sound, which made the moment sink in. In our opinion, it was very good. However, it seems as if some moviegoers felt that the absence of sound was a problem with the theater. Actor Paul Scheer shared an image on his Facebook page which shows a notice put up by an AMC theater, informing the customers that everything was fine, and it is deliberately done by director Rian Johnson. In fact, the theater also mentioned the exact time of the scene mentioned.
This implies that a lot of viewers must have complained to AMC compelling them to put up a warning. It sounds weird, considering that the silent spell was hardly more than ten seconds. But then, the theaters are not at fault for exercising caution while handling Star Wars fans. There was a near riot situation at one theater when The Last Jedi’s screening had no sound for close to ten minutes.
You might have watched this amazing scene in a theater during Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s screening, and we hope you enjoyed it despite the pin drop silence!