It seems more and more that everything is going online including our film viewing and it would appear it’s what we want with the rise of Netflix and Amazon Instant, however I for one miss the endless time standing around in the video store when you decided what you wanted to rent. This however seems to be just the start, as now we are being urged to download the films we want to own as well, well that is a step too far, if it’s a film I love I personally want the hard copy edition on a shelf
However how much of this is due to the poor experience the film distributors have given us? I for one love a special feature heavy disc, so much so I think I have brought my favourite film of all time, Jaws, on DVD, 20th Anniversary DVD special edition and the all singing and dancing BluRay edition but for every Jaws special edition, more and more discs come out with little or next to nothing, some discs find it acceptable even now in 2015 to release without English subtitles for the hard of hearing on them which I feel should be compulsory, luckily I don’t need them but this is clearly a cost saving exercise
I love when stores make a bit of an effort; just recently Sainsbury’s have released the Shaun the Sheep movie with a free plasticine kit with it and American Sniper with a free copy of the book it was based on, I used to have a Disney store near me which always had an offer for when you pre-ordered a release and HMV have given away art cards with titles as well but at present the only company really embracing the home movie fan in my opinion is Zavvi http://www.zavvi.com/ who are releasing selected past titles in steel book packaging
If more companies made the ‘hard copy’ release special in some way then just maybe they could steal the business back from downloads, just recently Tim Burton’s biopic of Margaret Keane, the under rated Big Eyes was released and surely that was crying out to be released with an art book/postcards of Keane’s work to enhance that movie experience?
This blog however was started by the inconsideration of Kaleidoscope home entertainment who have clearly not shown any interest in the consumer with their forthcoming release of Sharknado 3, I am a sucker for a shark movie and these are great but very stupid B movie fun and I own the first 2 but shall not be owning the 3rd simply because the decision has been made not to release this film on BluRay despite the first 2 having been released on this format. These films I accept are often known as dire and awful but they are fun and have a cult following so sure I am not only one who owns them so how does taking away the choice of format benefit the customer?
What are your thoughts? Would you buy more titles offline if more features/choice was on the disc or are you happy to have your collection on-line?