A Toast - to Walking-Out-Early Movie Guy

Here's to you, Walking-Out-Early Movie Guy.

We've all seen your work, and marveled at what you do. When we're in the theater, and the film is coming to a climax, we're befuddled when you, suddenly, get up and walk out of the theater, right after the bad guy's gone down, right when the music changes and the crane shot rolls by of the police cars and ambulances surrounding our hero as he's savoring his hard-fought victory. Somehow - though your methods are beyond us - you know that the movie's about to end, and, proud and confident, you rise up from your seat, suppressing a knowing, slightly smug grin (though, we know, humble about your intellectual superiority over the rest of us unobservant simpletons), and stride toward the nearest door, avoiding, with ease and grace, the exiting tangle of humanity that we'll be trapped in two minutes after your departure.

As far as we know, lost in our gape-mouthed viewing as we are, the film could still be hours from ending. But you - you understand things more deeply, read the signs and divine the portents. While we're slaves to the screenwriter, helplessly trapped until the story has completely finished and the credits begin to roll, you cast aside the shackles and rise above the preordained. You are your own man, a free-thinking maverick who lives by his own rules. You're a bold libertarian, a vanguard of cinematic freedom.

We're not bothered by the fact that your brave actions draw our attention away from the hypnotic screen, pulling us out of the story as our eyes reflexively catch on you standing up and crossing in front of us. No, our enjoyment of the movie pales in comparison with your need to prove, and justifiably so, that your wisdom dwarfs our own, and the lessons we learn from your actions far outweigh the money we laid down to view an entire film, start to finish.

And what does it matter that you never see the end of the celluloid play? That you've lived the last quarter century thinking that the original Terminator ended when the big rig exploded? That Aliens, to you, climaxed when Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop arrived back on the ship? That you think Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is only about an hour long? Or, even less importantly, that you've never had Ferris Bueller speak directly to you after the credits? Or discovered the true fate of Neil Patrick Harris in Harold and Kumar 2? Or found out about the Samuel L. Jackson moment in Iron Man? None of these things can measure up to that feeling of self-validation when you step from the dark theater, pointless final dialogue still rolling somewhere behind you, and feel that surge of pride in your well-honed forethought, knowing that you'll be in your car and driving away while your peers are, like media puppets, reading the soundtrack list in the credits. You're the captain of your own destiny, standing above the masses, always looking forward. Those who dare complain about your actions will find themselves shamed when, after you've saved up all that time, those precious one to two minutes each film, you use it to cure cancer, or design the alternate fuel vehicle we all desire, or write the opera that brings the world to tears and enriches the nations that have suffered for its absense in silence. We know what you do is for the greater good, for all mankind. And words cannot express our gratitude for it.

So a toast - to you, Walking-Out-Early Movie guy. You have our undying thanks, and our eternal respect. Stand fast, friend, and carry on. May your days know no end - or, at least, may they end a couple of minutes before they're supposed to.