I took myself off to the movies lastnight. First time since 1917. The Sam Mendes film I mean, uh, obviously.
Having gone on my little Godzilla binge earlier in the year, I thought it fitting that I take myself out to the latest instalment. The film itself was fine. Good loud dumb fun. Exactly the same formula as the others. A great soundtrack. Rebecca Hall being her wonderful earnest self. Dan Stevens being… whatever he is now (though he’ll always be Matthew to me). Content to one side, though, it was just great to be in the cinema again. For someone who allegedly studies the stuff from time to time, I don’t watch as much as I’d like; and I certainly don’t go to the cinema often at all. Lastnight showed me I probably should change that.
I’ve often ruminated, in text and in brain, about the changing media landscape. I’m far from the only one, and recently Paris Marx put up a post about his quest to find Dune: Part One on home media. This story resonated with me. I have a sizeable physical media collection; it’s a dear asset and hobby, and one I am constantly surprised is not even close to mainstream nowadays.
The production of physical has shifted considerably as demand has waned in the streaming era. DVDs are still, somehow, fairly popular; mostly due to an ageing and/or non-discerning audience (though that last bastion of DVDs, the supermarket DVD section, seems to have died off, finally). Blurays maintain a fair market share, but still require specialist hardware and are region-locked. Despite 4K Blurays being region-free and, with even a semi-decent TV, utterly gorgeous, they hold next to nothing of the market, being really only targeted at huge AV nerds like me.
During COVID, the streaming platforms cemented their place in the homes and lives of everyone. I am certainly no exception to this. It was insanely convenient to have pretty much the world’s media output at the touch of a button. It was a good time: subscription prices were still relatively low, and the catalogues were decent enough to be worth having more than one or two services on the Apple TV at any given time.
Netflix, Stan (an Aussie streaming service), and Prime Video were staples. They were also producing their own content, so in a way, they were modelling themselves on the megalithic studios of yore — as producers, distributors, marketers, even as archivists of popular culture.
Things change, of course. They always do.
Post-COVID, catalogues were culled. Most streaming services were operating, if not at a loss, then at least just breaking even with the equation of producing original content and/or buying distribution rights to older properties, or just other stuff in general.
Then the original producers (in some cases the original studios) figured out they could just do it themselves. Disney+, Paramount+, Sony Core (aka Columbia); their own catalogues, their own archives, their own films straight from the cinema deal to the home media deal with no pesky negotiation.
Prices for all streaming services have steadily risen over the last few years. For your average household, hell, even your above-average household, having all subscriptions active at one time simply isn’t feasible. It’s usually a question of who’s got what content at what time; or employ our house’s strategy and binge one or two platforms in one- or two-monthly bursts.
Finding something specific in a given streaming catalogue is not a given. So you either pay Apple or Google or whoever to rent for a day or two or a week or whatever; or you pay them to ‘lease’ a copy of the film for you to view on-demand (they call this ‘buying’ the film). If giving money to the megacorps isn’t what you had in mind, maybe your brain would turn to the possibility of buying a physical copy of said media item for yourself.
So you load up a web browser and punch in your best local media retailer. In my case, it’s a loud yellow behemoth called JB Hi-Fi; for more obscure titles or editions, it’d be something like Play DVD. These places are thin on the ground and, increasingly, even thin in the cloud. But JB’s physical media collection is dwindling, and has been for years. Their DVD/Bluray shelves used to occupy half of their huge stores; now they have maybe half a dozen tucked down the back, with the old real estate now occupied by more drones, more influencer starter kits, more appliances or pop culture paraphernalia.
It struck me lastnight, as I headed into the cinema, that perhaps the film experience could see a bit of a bump if streaming services continue to fracture, and if physical media stock continues to disappear. If it’s a specific film that you want to see, and you know it’s on at the cinema, it’s probably more efficient overall to go and see it then and there. There are no guarantees any given film will be put up on a given streaming platform, nor that it will even get a physical media release any more. And if it does appear in either form, what quality will it be in? Would the experience be somehow diminished?
There’s also something to be said for the sheer ubiquity and disposability of media in our current moment, particularly within the home, or home-based clouds. If I spot something on Netflix, I’ll add it to my List. I may watch it, but 7 times out of 10, I’ll forget it existed; once Netflix changes their catalogue, that item just floats away. I’m not notified; I’m not warned; unless it’s something on my watchlist on Letterboxd, or in a note or something, it just vanishes into the ether. Similarly with home media; if there’s a sale on at JB for Blurays, I might pick up a couple. They’ll then go on the shelf with the many, many others, and it might take years until I eventually get to it.
There’s an intentionality to seeing a film at the cinema. In general, people are there to be absorbed in a singular experience. To not be distracted. To actually switch off from the outside world. I don’t claim any media superiority; I am a big old tech bro through and through, but there is something to the, ahem, CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE that really does retain the slightest touch of magic.
So yes, perhaps we will see a little hike in moviegoing, if the platform economy continues to expand, explode, consume. Either that, or torrents will once again be IN for 2025 and beyond. Switch on that VPN and place your bets.
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