Photo: Ethan Miller (Getty Images) American cultural aesthetics have adopted some particularly strange fads throughout the decades, but few strike that particular chord of nostalgic resonance as well as late-’90s movie theater carpets—those thousands upon thousands of square feet of garish, neon-colored cosmic bodies, squiggly lines, and splatter paint set against dingy black backdrops. As it turns out, that strain of floor fashion can be largely traced back to Pattern Patient Zero: AMC Theaters’ “The Odyssey.” Advertisement What was The Odyssey, and what was its purpose? As Foster Kamer, writing for A24's blog, recently explained, “If those carpets could talk, they’d tell you a story about late-’90s economics, showbiz, multiplexes, and an era of world-building that changed moviegoing as we know it—maybe more than any other.”