And so, finally, we come to Part 3, the final installment of a short mini-series in which we have been discussing some of the reasons why the transition from the theatrical movie model to a streaming model has had a catastrophic effect on the quality of the movies Hollywood actually produces.
I was a little before your time. Double features were the style and one theater. We would go to Westwood in its heyday and cruise the different theaters to see what we wanted to see.
I could gas up the car, get two tickets and popcorn and coke for $20. Once while dating my future wife in high school we went to the movies and I asked her if she wanted popcorn. (she never did). This time she said yes,so she got the popcorn and I sat with nothing. I spent my whole $20.
Two of our "second choices" due to a sold-out first choice were Silence of the Lambs and Clueless. We didn't what they were going in, but they both were thoroughly entertaining. I remember the days well. Sure it's great to reserve a seat for Dune 2 and have a huge recliner to sit in, but not the same.
That's great! Silence of the Lambs... so cool. It's been catastrophic for the business that no one goes to the movies without a specific plan in place to see a very specific movie at a very specific time and place. I guess it's nominally better for the consumer this way but in the long time, they are likely enjoying the movies they see a little bit less than they used to.
The biggest problem for me is that they don't really produce movies. Everything now is a 2-hour movie concept stretched into three seasons of nonsense and filler -- backstories you didn't need, ancillary characters getting entire episodes... even dance routines that come out of nowhere (Umbrella Academy). They're just wasting my time.
Even a proven concept like West World got stretched to the point that by the last episode I couldn't wait for it to be over.
I absolutely agree with you when it comes to modern streaming series.... everything you complain about in your comment is a huge problem for long running streaming shows. I'm more focused on movies which I think were better when they were in theaters... there's just not enough incentive to make streaming movies great
The last movie I waited in a line to see was Batman in the late 1980. I usually didn't go during the prime watching hours, so we really had little problem seeing Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter movies. I enjoyed them all. But the theater movie-going experience began to lose its luster fro me with the rise of cell phones.
Around that time the crowd noise got much louder, the background music got much louder, people lit up the spce by using their phones to either capture (parts of) the movie, or explain, quite loudly to absent friends exactly what they were seeing on the screen.
The last Harry Potter movie was the last I saw in a theater.
As for "marketing", well, whoever those folks are today they have obviously lost the plotline of their business. And it's not just in marketing movies. It's darned near everything. I tend to suspect it's because few, if any, of the people in marketing have any idea of what the great mass of citizens is like or what they actually want. They probably haven't intereacted with even 2 "normies" in any given year. Well, except maybe for those performing jobs where the marketing types come in brief contact, like waitstaff, pool boys, lawn care dudes, and so on.
I don't see the situation improving any time soon, or maybe ever.
OK. This is just silly. I do remember being hyped as a kid to see The Mysterians in 1957 but couldn't because my parents wanted to take me on a vacation. When I saw it years latter I realized they made the correct choice. I was only in one movie theater that was sold out and I and a few friends got the last seats. It was for the first Star Wars and that was in a small town and word went around about he movie by word of mouth. Not hype. I spent some time in a very small town which had one theater. Opened on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Also had a one of the last drive in movie theaters but only in the summer and on weekends. You could go to a nearby city but it was about an 80 mile drive so unless you had shopping to do or wanted to go out to eat, not worth it really.
The town I grew up in had one movie theater also. That was it. You could take a bus to nearby cities to see other movies in other theaters but if you weren't old enough to drive it was basically the bus. I did see the first James Bond movie with my father at a drive in.
You should realize that the rest of the world wasn't\isn't Hollywood or NYC or even close. TV brought more movies to people who never saw a movie than anything else. Ditto cable and satellite. I also lived in a small town for a while where the AM radio station shut down around 5PM and the FM around 11PM. It was in a canyon so no radio from anywhere else till the next day. And if the cable went out, which was from a repeater on a nearby mountain. No TV either.
Welcome to the rest of the world George.
The real problem with streaming is that most of it is crap. And the parts that aren't are kept in play for to long and become crap. TV shows jump the shark a lot earlier than people think.
I'm more than a bit older than you but the town I lived in that had only one theater was in the mid 70's Ditto the radio and TV. First Star Wars movie was in 77. What really changed everything was when Big Screen TV's got affordable to most people. Wasn't quite the Theater experience but than the food\snacks were cheaper, no talking and people looking at their phones in the theater. iI you had to go to the bathroom you could freeze the picture. There was big chance from even the largest tube TV's to the digital models. Much bigger than from B&W to Color. Also VCR's to DVD's and VCR's.
The main problem now is dilution in quality of the programming. For every Game of Thrones there are 10's of huh?? if you have 100's of channels you need 100's of hours to fill them 24/7. The quality dilution is obvious. Look at "night television." Steve Alan to Jack Parr to Johnny Carson. Then Letterman.and Leno. A step down. Then Colbert, Kimmel and "other guys". They wouldn't even have been guest hosts back then. Probably not guests either.
I was a little before your time. Double features were the style and one theater. We would go to Westwood in its heyday and cruise the different theaters to see what we wanted to see.
I could gas up the car, get two tickets and popcorn and coke for $20. Once while dating my future wife in high school we went to the movies and I asked her if she wanted popcorn. (she never did). This time she said yes,so she got the popcorn and I sat with nothing. I spent my whole $20.
Now the whole experience is a pain. So sad.
Two of our "second choices" due to a sold-out first choice were Silence of the Lambs and Clueless. We didn't what they were going in, but they both were thoroughly entertaining. I remember the days well. Sure it's great to reserve a seat for Dune 2 and have a huge recliner to sit in, but not the same.
That's great! Silence of the Lambs... so cool. It's been catastrophic for the business that no one goes to the movies without a specific plan in place to see a very specific movie at a very specific time and place. I guess it's nominally better for the consumer this way but in the long time, they are likely enjoying the movies they see a little bit less than they used to.
The biggest problem for me is that they don't really produce movies. Everything now is a 2-hour movie concept stretched into three seasons of nonsense and filler -- backstories you didn't need, ancillary characters getting entire episodes... even dance routines that come out of nowhere (Umbrella Academy). They're just wasting my time.
Even a proven concept like West World got stretched to the point that by the last episode I couldn't wait for it to be over.
I absolutely agree with you when it comes to modern streaming series.... everything you complain about in your comment is a huge problem for long running streaming shows. I'm more focused on movies which I think were better when they were in theaters... there's just not enough incentive to make streaming movies great
I believe you, but I checked out on stuff like that very early, when so much of what there was seemed both plotless and pointless.
The last movie I waited in a line to see was Batman in the late 1980. I usually didn't go during the prime watching hours, so we really had little problem seeing Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter movies. I enjoyed them all. But the theater movie-going experience began to lose its luster fro me with the rise of cell phones.
Around that time the crowd noise got much louder, the background music got much louder, people lit up the spce by using their phones to either capture (parts of) the movie, or explain, quite loudly to absent friends exactly what they were seeing on the screen.
The last Harry Potter movie was the last I saw in a theater.
As for "marketing", well, whoever those folks are today they have obviously lost the plotline of their business. And it's not just in marketing movies. It's darned near everything. I tend to suspect it's because few, if any, of the people in marketing have any idea of what the great mass of citizens is like or what they actually want. They probably haven't intereacted with even 2 "normies" in any given year. Well, except maybe for those performing jobs where the marketing types come in brief contact, like waitstaff, pool boys, lawn care dudes, and so on.
I don't see the situation improving any time soon, or maybe ever.
Unfortunatelty I think you're right. For me, standing in line on oepening weekend was a ritual I used to genuinely enjoy.
OK. This is just silly. I do remember being hyped as a kid to see The Mysterians in 1957 but couldn't because my parents wanted to take me on a vacation. When I saw it years latter I realized they made the correct choice. I was only in one movie theater that was sold out and I and a few friends got the last seats. It was for the first Star Wars and that was in a small town and word went around about he movie by word of mouth. Not hype. I spent some time in a very small town which had one theater. Opened on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Also had a one of the last drive in movie theaters but only in the summer and on weekends. You could go to a nearby city but it was about an 80 mile drive so unless you had shopping to do or wanted to go out to eat, not worth it really.
The town I grew up in had one movie theater also. That was it. You could take a bus to nearby cities to see other movies in other theaters but if you weren't old enough to drive it was basically the bus. I did see the first James Bond movie with my father at a drive in.
You should realize that the rest of the world wasn't\isn't Hollywood or NYC or even close. TV brought more movies to people who never saw a movie than anything else. Ditto cable and satellite. I also lived in a small town for a while where the AM radio station shut down around 5PM and the FM around 11PM. It was in a canyon so no radio from anywhere else till the next day. And if the cable went out, which was from a repeater on a nearby mountain. No TV either.
Welcome to the rest of the world George.
The real problem with streaming is that most of it is crap. And the parts that aren't are kept in play for to long and become crap. TV shows jump the shark a lot earlier than people think.
I grew up in a small town. We had multiplexes… several of them. I suspect my experience was quite common in the 80’s and 90’s
I'm more than a bit older than you but the town I lived in that had only one theater was in the mid 70's Ditto the radio and TV. First Star Wars movie was in 77. What really changed everything was when Big Screen TV's got affordable to most people. Wasn't quite the Theater experience but than the food\snacks were cheaper, no talking and people looking at their phones in the theater. iI you had to go to the bathroom you could freeze the picture. There was big chance from even the largest tube TV's to the digital models. Much bigger than from B&W to Color. Also VCR's to DVD's and VCR's.
The main problem now is dilution in quality of the programming. For every Game of Thrones there are 10's of huh?? if you have 100's of channels you need 100's of hours to fill them 24/7. The quality dilution is obvious. Look at "night television." Steve Alan to Jack Parr to Johnny Carson. Then Letterman.and Leno. A step down. Then Colbert, Kimmel and "other guys". They wouldn't even have been guest hosts back then. Probably not guests either.