The night Bloem saw red Stars
2005-05-23 22:47
Bloemfontein - As if a bunch of apes and cockroach look-alikes in spacesuits fighting off robots with light swords wasn't enough for the Star Wars fans - they also had to contend with a Russian soundtrack.
Richard Frade, 21, of Bloemfontein and a Free State University student, said although he went to the 17:30 premiere of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith only because he had a free ticket, he could see a lot of the moviegoers were real "Star Wars nerds".
"I knew some people had spent five years waiting for this movie. It was supposed to be the moment for Star Wars fans.
"When the lights dimmed and the movie started, I thought the foreign language (Russian) was part of the dialogue. After all, it is a strange movie."
Frade said moviegoers became itchy after 20 minutes' non-stop Russian (with no sub-titles), and some started leaving.
Some wanted their money back
A manager walked in and apologised for the "inconvenience".
Frade said the moviegoers were so upset, that some wanted their money back.
"It's been said the wrong Star Wars film had been forwarded from Johannesburg to Bloemfontein.
"We were offered the choice of reclaiming our money or hanging on to the ticket till the next day (Thursday, the day the movie was originally scheduled to hit the countrywide circuit)."
On Thursday, Frade went off to see the English version of Star Wars.
Mark Harris, Numetro's national production manager, said nothing like this had ever happened before.
"We definitely lost business, but the next day, the Russian version was replaced with the correct (English) one.
"The film's distributors, 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles, America, sent the wrong reel to Johannesburg.
"The first reel, comprising the first 15 minutes of the movie, had been swapped with the one that had to go to Russia. And the reel that had to go to Russia, ended up in Bloemfontein."