THE Colorado cinema where 12 people were killed and dozens injured in a shooting rampage last year has reopened with a sombre remembrance ceremony and a screening of the latest Hobbit film for survivors - but the pain was too much, the idea too horrific, for many Aurora victims to attend.
"We as a community have not been defeated," Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan told victims, officials, and dozens of police officers and other first responders who filled half the theatre's seats at the ceremony on Thursday.
"We are a community of survivors," Hogan declared. "We will not let this tragedy define us."
Pierce O'Farrill, who was wounded three times in the shooting, said: "It's important for me to come here and sit in the same seat that I was sitting in. It's all part of the healing process, I guess."
O'Farrill walked to an exit door inside the cinema where he remembers the shooter emerging. "The last time I saw (the gunman) was right here," he said.
James Holmes, a former neuroscience PhD student, is charged with 166 felony counts, mostly murder and attempted murder, in the July 20 shooting at the former Century 16 - now called the Century Aurora. A judge has ordered Holmes to stand trial, but he won't enter a plea until March.
Several families boycotted what they called a callous public relations ploy by the theatre's owner, Cinemark.
They claimed the Texas-based company didn't ask them what should happen to the theatre. They said Cinemark emailed them an invitation to Thursday's reopening just two days after they struggled through Christmas without their loved ones.
"It was boilerplate Hollywood - 'Come to our movie screening'," said Anita Busch, whose cousin, 23-year-old college student Micayla Medek, died at the theatre.
The remembrance was followed by a private screening in the former theatre nine of the fantasy film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
"We certainly recognise all the different paths that people take to mourn, the different paths that people take to recover from unimaginable, incomprehensible loss," Governor John Hickenlooper said at the ceremony.
"Some wanted this theatre to reopen. Some didn't. Certainly both answers are correct," Hickenlooper said.
Cinemark planned to offer free movies at the multiplex to the public over the weekend, then permanently reopen it on January 25.
Vanessa Ayala is a cousin of Jonathan Blunk, a 26-year-old Navy veteran and father of two who was killed. Ayala said she believed the multiplex should have been torn down and, perhaps, turned into a park. At the very least, she said, the auditorium where the shooting occurred should have become a memorial.
Cinemark reportedly spent $US1 million on renovations. Before it did, it allowed survivors and families to visit the theatre. Jacqueline Keaumey Lader, a US Marine and Iraq war veteran, did so.
"It does help significantly," Lader said. "It's taken the power away from the place."
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