Everyone knows the black theater stereotype. Lots of people hollering out at the screen, improving (or detracting from, depending on your point of view) the movie experience. I've had a good deal of experience watching movies at theaters where most of the patrons were black (my dad and I were the only two white guys at a screening of Menace II Society in Kansas City), but the easiest touchstone on the subject for me was watching Do the Right Thing in college.

The crowd was about half black and half white. With some exceptions, the black members of the audience were rolling in the aisles. The white kids seemed too nervous to laugh at what has to be one of the funniest movies ever made (of course, it does have its serious moments, too).

All this is just a lead-in to my Star Wars reminiscence. Or, more accurately, the night I went downtown to see The Empire Strikes Back.

My dad, ever cagey, rigged it so that he would take me and each of my brothers on separate nights. The theater was the Midland, which is more often used for traveling Broadway productions and the like. I don't know how many it seats, but it seemed like 10,000 to me.

This was THE ticket in town, of course, with more white folks than usual venturing downtown after dark. I was only 10, and really wasn't thinking about stuff like that. I just wanted to see the movie.

But I experienced it instead. My first hint that this wasn't a normal evening was the moment where Han Solo blasts the Imperial probe droid out of the sky. A loud "sho’ 'nuff!" rang out from somewhere in the crowd. General sounds of approval followed. The movie proceeded to play out much like a football game, with patrons cheering each time the rebels did something good, and booing every time Darth Vader choked another admiral. It was years until I realized that the rebel soldiers also cheered when that AT-AT went down.

The ultimate moment of participation came when Darth Vader shoved Luke Skywalker into the carbon-freezing chamber. Someone yelled out "He's got your ass now!" and then, when Luke leapt out before the carbonite encased him, the entire audience rose from its seats and cheered lustily.

This was one of those times where people applauded excessively after the completion of the film. The screen was huge, the sound was loud and the crowd was crazy. Needless to say, I had a great time. Certainly, the best time I will ever have at a movie.

I'm sure some of my memories are spurious. The Midland can't seat more than a couple thousand (and it may be closer to one). The crowd probably wasn't quite as animated as I recall. I've seen the movie several times since then, and that snow creature seems to have a much smaller part than I remember.

But all that doesn't matter. There's a reason why classic movie memories are created at such young ages. And there's a reason why Star Wars became a phenomenon. Because the story is clunky, it encourages imaginative extrapolation. Because the action is not explicit, again, our minds have to fill in the blanks. The actions figures simply provided more opportunities to imagine. And the more we can imagine, the better the overall experience becomes. That's how something like Star Wars can happen, when a generation of kids is encouraged to think beyond the immediate reality.

So when I go see the Phantom Menace, I'm gonna be that jerk right in the middle who keeps yelling things at the screen, cheering when the little pipsqueak wins the pod race, hissing when Darth Maul does something nasty. Because that's what all this means to me. And I'll be damned if 20 years is going to take that away from me.

Jon Worley has never been kicked out of a movie theater. Yet.