Uh no, if they were turned and looking away from the screen and toward the disturbance, they would be able to see much better than Reeves who was seated in the rear most row because the light of the screen would provide light. Reeves would not be back lit like Oulsen was from Reeves perspective. It’s only when the area or object is between the person and the screen that backlighting obscures visual perception.
This is why theater staff will go all the way to the front and watch the crowd for miscreants. The reflected screen light lets you see quite well. In the theater I worked at we could stand behind the screen (yes, a secret access) and view the audience through the screen like a giant one way mirror. The screens are not solid, but a screen like fabric with millions of pin holes.
Your scenario is completely unsubstantiated. Otherwise the prosecutor would have brought this up at the arraignment because it completely destroys the claim of self defense because he would have been provoking the very act he claimed to be defending himself from. You can bet the prosecutor would have used it.
He had 30 years in the police department to gain the skills necessary to discern a bag of popcorn from a UFO.
The lights were dimmed but not off — which all theatres do prior to the movies while everyone is moving around during Previews. So he had enough light.
He was at most 3 feet away and knew what the man in front of him had in his hands — cellphone and bag of popcorn —
especially when he turned toward him.
When the bag of popcorn hit him, popcorn would have flown in 10 directions and he would have seen it and known that it was just popcorn and he did and that is why he invented the UFO sighting that his lawyer insisted that he was going to produce because he knew and knows that the bag of popcorn was not sufficient provocation for the use of deadly force.
And no one but the perp who claims to have been hit with a UFO is asserting it hit him in the face as if that means anything anyway.
And finally the wife was trying to block the bullet with her hand as the sheriff pointed out but the nutcase fired anyway.
Don’t miss the February 5th hearing — it should be a doozy.