Featured image: (Pacer Graphic / Dylan Sulcer)

The Flight Crew on UT Martin’s campus provides students a free movie with complementary food/candy and a drink to promote the movie theatre in Martin, Ciné.

It is a great time to take a break from studying and sit back, relax and enjoy a movie with the added fun of watching it with your college friends. As someone who enjoys going to these movie nights, I can not help but wonder why they decided to have these movies, most of which do not end until midnight, at 9:45 pm on a Monday and how many of us have to wake up for an 8:00 am class the next day.

I suppose the movies start so late to fit in classes and after-class meetings, but why Mondays specifically and not Fridays? These were thoughts I had while walking back to my car, extremely tired, inspiring me to write this article. 

“I believe that the Flight Crew movie times are a little bit too late. Every time that I’ve ever seen that it’s at 9:45, usually I’m either done doing something with a club or studying at that time, but that’s also time where I like to wind down, go back to my apartment, and just chill out.” said Luke Stepney, a junior vet science major. “I believe that they should be earlier. I think that somewhere around 8 o’clock or 7 o’clock would work better for a lot of students because not many students want to be up past 11:45 to 12 o’clock on a Monday.”

Sophomore veterinary science major Isaiah Reed shared a similar perspective, noting that earlier showtimes would allow students to enjoy the event without sacrificing productivity. Reed explained that an earlier movie would serve as a mental reset before returning to studying later in the evening, rather than cutting into sleep.

Chemistry major Jose Carrizales also pointed out how Monday night movies clash with demanding academic schedules. “Some of us have labs that start at 8 in the morning,” Carrizales said. “These movies are a good break from studying, but they should be earlier, maybe around 8 or 8:30.”

Students seem to agree that the movie starting time is too late, and even just pushing it up an hour may help with students’ schedules. Hopefully, these opinions could be the start towards amending the start times of the Flight Crew’s movie nights, which may be beneficial to us all.