What's with the Pavlovian response to the credits rolling?!

I went to two movies last week while I was in Windsor. I saw Coraline in 3D. I enjoyed the flick. It is not for little kids, though. Quite scary (even for me sometimes) :) Then I saw He's Just Not That Into You. I know... I wasn't in the mood for Friday the 13th and the timing didn't work for anything else. I ended up enjoying that one as well. It's cute, predictable, but cute.

Now, the reason for the blog is not to critique the movies. I want to talk about why people feel they must IMMEDIATELY leave the theatre when the credits begin to roll, whether or not the movie is "done". I mentioned Coraline was in 3D. Pretty cool. They of course had things flittering around during the credits and at the end it seemed to come right out at you. I was the only one left in the theatre to experience that part. It wasn't actually worth waiting to see the whole length of the credits, but that's not my point here.

It was even worse for He's Just Not That Into You. There was still "movie" going on, and just because the credits had started, people felt as if the MUST leave the theatre. They didn't care that there was a bit more to each of the story lines. They were programed to stand up and exit as quickly as possible because they had seen words start. There were no excuses for this one. The extra snippets had started almost immediately, but still, because the credits were still rolling, they needed to leave. I just don't get it. The theatre wasn't packed, there weren't any huge crowds to beat, no line that would form in the parking lot. Not enough people to jam the washrooms. There was no legitimate excuse for not staying that extra one minute to see how things turned out. (Except not really giving a shit - which would be the most plausible. But really, you just invested over 2 hours. Could you not wait another minute or two?)