Movie geeks are an interesting brand of fan. They want to be heard, catered to, and in the front of the minds of filmmakers and boutique labels when it comes to the things they are most passionate about.
It’s interesting that on one hand, you hear geeks decrying the loss of physical media yet, but then on the other, you see them gatekeeping the hobby of collection. I wholly admit that as someone who grew up in the 1980s and lived the VHS and laserdisc era I absolutely love getting the very best versions of the movies I love. Throw in some tchotchkes connected to the film and I am there for it. While I love collecting, though, there’s a part of the hobby that we’re all missing, and that is the future of it all.
Sure, if I can afford it, I can go out and buy crazy collector sets of the movies I love and have this crazy collection of movies and books and art and such but what do the kids who aren’t even into movies yet do? What will the hobby look like for them? Especially when so many of the releases now are limited in edition sizes. Oh, sure, the big, fat editions with all the geegaws are limited, but often there’s an entry-level set as well, but not always. So, what are future fans going to do?
That was the thing about VHS: after it went mainstream, the prices started to come down on them and families could purchase them and start a collection. Same with DVDs. While laserdiscs were pretty much only for the hardcore collector, the DVD was for everyone. It had extras for the collector and film aficionado and the movie for the basic fan. Heck, I remember the big controversy of whether films should have the “black bars” to preserve the original aspect ratio or not. Some folks, a lot of folks, hated it. This was a time when televisions were square and people felt that something was wrong when the movie didn’t fill the entire screen. The novelty of extras on home releases still thrills me. I remember a need to get John Carpenter movies on laserdisc because I HAD to see his movies in widescreen, as he shot them, and was desperate for the extras. The first time I watched HALLOWEEN on Laserdisc and saw that some scenes had been cut off (same goes for THE THING) by the cropping blew my little mind.
So, the fans to come. Sure, hopefully, there will still be used DVDs and Blu-rays out there for them to collect but what if they discover a favorite film and want the best, most stacked version there is out there? And this is beyond the limited edition collector stuff, which is always for the lucky and people with expendable income. No, I mean the stuff below that is still limited and being hoarded by fans and resellers.
What are they supposed to do?
There’s a chance that physical media, this iteration of it, comes to an end, and folks move on, leaving all of this stuff behind. That’s absolutely a possibility. I know of someone who gets the best editions as they come out, burns them, and then sells the disc off. They want the movie but don’t need it to be a physical thing. Great idea, as a backup, but man, I have yet to meet a medium that can take too much abuse and wouldn’t want to trust a hard drive not to crap out on me someday. So there’s a chance that resale shops will still be around and offer Blu-rays, DVDs, and even 4K discs for sale. That’s the hope. The fact is that there is an end coming for the greater part of physical media as the conglomerates try to force everyone onto their streaming platforms with the promise that everything will be available, a promise that will never be fulfilled.
If you find yourself scoffing at the idea of some kid who’s playing with Bluey toys today falling in love with physical media, then I’d like to introduce you to the record aficionado. Records were all but dead and buried when I was a teenager, and now they are still in the middle of a resurgence. While you can still find a lot of vinyl out there, it’s a matter of finding it in good shape and affordable; that is the sticking point. With so many gatekeepers looking to make a buck, fandom eats itself. You see it all the time with movies these days. Something is announced and people immediately load up on it and then list it for a higher price on online resale sites. It’s not fandom. It’s gross. And it’s not retail either, because they are flipping a product for a mark-up.
As I look to the future and wonder – what next? I just don’t know. Physical media will be around for a while. It’s the players that will disappear first and when they do there will be niche companies that make new versions for exorbitant prices. It’s the movies themselves and their releases that will be the story. Sure, CANNIBAL FEROX has a lot of editions out there but will a movie coming out in three years get any release at all? No matter how popular it is? Or better yet, the cult movie that bombs on release and develops a fandom years later. Will that be something people can own or do they have to hope a niche company streams it? A day will even come where we can’t buy digital films but can rent them or essentially pay a service to borrow them until the day the company takes them back.
This isn’t meant to be an alarm so much as a question – what next? Take a look at what’s happening in the video game hobby and how the past is being lost – some of it willfully so by the gaming gatekeepers. There are so many games that are unplayable now or are locked away that history is being lost. We don’t want that to happen to movies. Heck, with music you have oceans of work that’s been lost in the record stacks never having made it to any other formats. And in that, what’s next question, is the realization that movie geeks, as much as we love movies and their history and impact, don’t necessarily care about fostering geekdom beyond our own. We’ve become the grouches that won’t share their love of that classic punk band no one ever cared about with a kid who wants to learn about them. We’re the snob that looks down their nose at someone who starts reading new works by an author and not the first books they released. The hobby is more than the stuff we own, it’s the love we have for these films and the passion we share with people open to hearing about why we love them. There are enough gatekeepers out there blocking the paths into horror, music, literature, comics, video games, and everything else. Let’s maybe try to be a little better than that, eh?
…c…
The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 