The pan-and-scan DVDs seemed to die out long before everyone had 16:9 TVs. Consumers seemed to decide they preferred letterboxing over cropping.
And ye cropped is bad. Think STNG.
It's pretty big vertically as well. IMAX is close to 4:3
Well, you've just revealed which kind of “content” you watch (by revealing which kind you don't). A lot of well known films were shot on full frame, and never had any other variant.
Frankly, seeing them in theatres “as intended” would require inventing a time machine, or not missing some special film screening event, as they were made quite some time ago.
Also, back then, when they still had to make film prints for distribution, and had to deal with wide screen theatres and regular screen theatres (you couldn't just ignore the other half, and lose a potentially significant share of income), both filming and editing took that into account. Shots in one aspect ratio were usually composed to look god when cut to the other, and professional cameramen (working with both types) constantly kept that in mind anyway. Same for possible TV screening versions later.
Now compare that to the modern nameless editors working for giant corporations which pretend that it's an impossible task that has never been done, and either crop automatically, or let the “smart computer” toss a coin to shift responsibility.
Edit: By “theatres” I've meant types of film projectors installed in their halls. Some had multiple, switchable lenses, etc., some had only one. Keep in mind that to show a multi-reel movie without pauses you need at least two projectors (or a special feeding system for spliced together film if the number of screenings is worth the work), and a third one is often added for redundancy and required maintenance work, so there's a lot of investment to make already.
So now we just wait for a movie we want to see to become available on Apple TV, and then we rent it.
As someone who is blessed to live in a city where multiple cinemas screen old movies and therefore go to the cinema very often, I must say I can’t disagree more. The experience of watching a movie in a cinema is to me incomparable to watching on a tv.
It’s not only the bigger screen and better sound system. The act of sitting yourself in the cinema with other people to actively engage with a movie transforms the experience.
Sadly, I have to say I agree with the article however in that 95% of the movies produced in the USA during the past two decades could as well not exist. Thankfully, the rest of the world still exist.
To share an anecdote to counter this, a group of ~10 people gathered at a friends house to watch a movie none of us had seen. At the end of the movie, we all got up in a similar state and we then spent quite a bit of time talking about that shared experience. It was probably one of the coolest group movie watching experiences to date.
These days? Maybe an Imax film is a once a year experience.
I keep in touch with a lot of people I was on the film committee with and I'd say the opinion is pretty much split between people who still go to the theater a lot and those who basically never do like myself.
I saw a screener of The Matrix two months ahead of release at a theater in Harlem. It was the best movie-going experience of my life and nothing has come close to capturing that.
The problem is that was only possible one time. There are so few movies made anymore that really capture that kind of mass-audience wow factor that make going to the cinema worth it.
The great films that I've seen since aren't diminished by me seeing them at home. Sometimes it's a question of format where there are only a few screens in the country where you can really see a film unmolested but you have to be lucky enough to live there and those films still only come around once a decade.
I very much agree with this sentiment, unfortunately post-COVID that transformation has often been a negative one in my personal experience. This is entirely anecdotal, but I feel like there is an increase in the frequency with which I have had a public movie experience ruined by people on cell phones, talking to each other, or even yelling in response to the events on screen.
I feel like when a movie comes out now that I want to see, I am in a constant tension between dealing with a potentially rowdy or obnoxious public, or a less ideal viewing experience at home.
I will not go to a theater that does not have a well established policy of not tolerating this. For me, that's Alamo Drafthouse.
I think I understand that, but it's not for me. I've never felt that other people do anything but subtract from my experience in watching a movie. And I'm not saying that to be cynical or because I dislike the social experience – I'm an outgoing person and enjoy being around other people; I just don't want to watch a movie with them.
When I was an undergrad ages ago, going to the on-campus movies were a non-trivial part of the weekend experience. My understanding is that they're mostly dead at this point.
The first two I agree with, the third one is a stretch. The quality of programming that HBO was putting out in the mid 90s and 00s is far higher than any streaming series that has ever been released.
A ticket is less than $15 during the expensive times, and $10 off peak. Where in the world are you seeing movies?
I get it, I don't go to the theater anywhere near what I used to, but the nice one near me with a bar and a player piano in the lobby is still nowhere near $75 for two tickets.
We just saw Superman in a Las Vegas IMAX and it was $85 including fees for three tickets. $75 for two seems perfectly reasonable in LA, SF or NY once you include concessions.
Perhaps it's reasonable for a very occasional and special event, but it's not actually that expensive for anyone that cares about seeing movies in theaters. I'm paying $27/mo for effectively all-I-can-watch[1] movies via a subscription in SF, and includes IMAX. When I travel to LA I can use it there too, and it's available in NYC. I saw Superman for the cost of popcorn because I saw Elio earlier this month, it's a great deal.
If one doesn't go to theaters that often or cares for IMAX, there's other chains that offer 1 2D-only movie for $12/month and the tickets roll over.
[1] 4x movies/week, which is indeed more than I have time for.
the local theatre I normally go to is $12 off-times and $20 on-time. A nice special kick to the head that they need to separately specify a $2 "convinience fee" for saving their time and ordering online.
I was a bit surprised at the price too. Seems maybe 15-20% more than my last theater outing last Summer. We don't go often because we have a dedicated home theater room that's fully sound proof with total light control and 9 custom theater loungers on two levels facing a 150-inch screen with 4K HDR10+ calibrated digital laser projector and built-in 7.4.2 surround THX-rated speakers. While there was nothing wrong with the "LieMax" theater, the picture, sound, seating and overall experience at home are meaningfully better - even when everything works at the cinema and no one is annoying. And I say that as someone with fairly significant professional video engineering experience. Of course, one of the ~30 real IMAX screens is objectively better (when showing 15-perf 70mm film, which they don't always do) but the nearest one is nearly an hour drive, costs even more and has $15 in parking on top. The last time I went was for Oppenheimer two years ago. But short of going there, it's hard to see much reason to go to a local cinema if you have a high-end home theater rig (other than just having a night out).
There's not even an advantage to the claimed "big screen" at the LieMax. While I prefer a slightly larger theatrical field of view than most people (around 45 degrees), my FOV at home is 46 degrees sitting 12.5 feet from the floor-to-ceiling screen (https://acousticfrontiers.com/blogs/Articles/Home-theater-vi...).
I agree that the average experience could easily cost half that, but the point of how expensive cinema can be (imagine adding a second popcorn or, God forbid, nachos!) is a good one.
Dresden, Germany
We don't watch streams, as my wife constantly talks over it. Which she cannot in the movies
Fucking absurd.
I miss the days of the slideshows that would play while people where getting seated for the film. I loved the occasional trivia slides.
Makes me want to only go to that theater.
There are still some fun things to do at particular theaters, like Twisters in 4dx. But there is little compelling reason to otherwise.
Internet access was widely available.
Blockbuster video was a thing in almost every town.
Netflix mail service was getting big, making huge back catalogs available.
DVD players often included S/PDIF out for surround sound, which was becoming a more common part of home theaters.
Plasma TVs were becoming far more common, dramatically improving picture quality and size versus CRTs.
HBO and other premium channels had already gone digital with set top boxes (that also often supported surround sound), and the death of analog broadcast TV was (theoretically) scheduled for 2006.
So while I probably couldn't find any single specific reason for a peak in 2002, we had a whole series of tech improvements in place that were slowly chipping away at the edges in quality and content availability.
DVD adoption (and later Blu-Ray) was certainly a huge factor in the gradual changes and 2002 was when people really started amassing them at home https://i.imgur.com/OHZ9H69.png. I'm sure piracy has a role as well too, but most of the deltas listed were also gradual changes which had their start prior to 2002, same as piracy. The only thing special about 2003 is it's the year the momentum changed, not that it's the year something brand new was introduced.
At the time, did you think the quality of that DVD was about the same as the experience you got in the theater?
The parent post is arguing that the gap in experience between home theaters and theater theaters has shrunk immensely. Right now I have a 85" wide OLED in my living room - That's not a thing that existed in 2002
It didn't need to be about the same or better, it just needed to be good enough to appreciate that you weren't dealing with the downsides. The theaters weren't that good back in the late 90's (in fact, most of the ones I visited in my teens have renovated to be more current sometime around 2010 or something). All people needed was more realistic alternatives. More and more folks were getting cable, DVD players were more affordable, and places like walmart sold DVDs for a cheaper price than you'd pay for a full price movie. Netflix started in the late 90s too.
Yes, I know folks could rent videos before this. I remember walking down to rent NES games when I was young - right next to the movies at the grocery store. This was a far cry from the stores of the late 90s, though. They got better (and worse).
I genuinely don't know what you're talking about. No it wasn't.
Movies on TV weren't glorious at all. They weren't "amazing." They were what you made do with. And when a classic movie played at your local arthouse theater you grabbed a ticket because it was so much better. The image quality. The sound. Seeing the whole image rather than a bunch of it hacked off.
That's why we went to the theater. Not just for action. For comedies too. Which is why comedies made tons of money at the theater!
And while maybe not amazing, they were wonderful at the time. Do you remember folks being amazed at the graphics on the PS1 or heck, even the N64? Those weren't good, really, but at the time? Yeah, it was good enough. Late 90's started seeing bigger tvs and sound systems. DVDs brought options to see all that stuff on the sides if you wanted. You didn't "make do" if you are out there buying modern tech - maybe you made do with whatever brands they sold at walmart - but then again, they sold game systems so it really wasn't "store brands only" or anything like that.
I'm not sure where you lived, but absolutely no theaters around me showed classics, save for something like Star Wars or Disney movies. One played second run movies - the ones in the space between theater release and home video release. So no, no one went to things like that. I graduated high school in the mid 90s, and both local theaters were pretty run down places that treated employees badly. The ones in smaller surrounding towns, if they had it, usually only played a handful of movies and were old places. And this seemed pretty normal for Indiana, outside of perhaps Indianapolis or a few richer areas.
No, I didn't. I don't think it either today, with my pretty big TV. The experience still pales in comparison.
2002 TV setup < 2022 TV setup < movie theater
My projector screen takes up more of my vision than any movie theater screen I've ever seen except IMAX.
Whereas it used to be very much about image and audio quality.
Fight Club as well.
It was no IMAX but at 1024x1024 we didn’t care.
I used to make exceptions for independent films when I lived near an IFC theater, but streaming/vod services now have me covered there too and I don't live near one anymore.
I take it you really mean "so why wasn't 2003 the peak year instead of 2002" to which I'd say "I'm not trying to explain one needs a 55" widescreen 4k TV before you'll ever consider going to the movie theater less often, rather that this kind of difference over time is why you can't say movie theatre ticket sales in 2002 were higher so people must therefore have watched more movies then."
If I had to throw a guess at the largest contributors I'd say 2002-2003 is when people really started buying lots of DVDs for the first time as well as the start of the modernization of TV sets. Even though much better versions of these were common 20 years later I feel they very likely helped make the absolute peak of ticket sales be 2002. This is getting more into speculation of what did happen rather than saying ticket sale data is not enough to support the conclusion though, which is what my comment was focused on.
>In 2002, watching a movie at home for most people meant flinging a low quality VHS or DVD onto a ~27" tube TV (with a resolution so worthless it might as well be labeled "new years") using a 4:3 aspect ratio pan & scan of the actual movie. Getting anything recent meant going out to the Blockbuster anyways. In 2022, watching a movie meant streaming something on your 50+" 16:9 4k smart TV by pressing a button from your couch.
Is what I was responding to.
The quoted section was in response to the claim movie watches are down on the basis ticket sales are down compared to the past:
> And this is highly relevant for things like this. People often argue that if movies were so bad then people would stop watching them, unaware that people actually have stopped watching them!
Hence the next line after the quote "Box office ticket sales say people go to the theatre less often, not that people watch movies less often."
Box office ticket sales say people go to the theatre less often, not that people watch movies less often. Unless you specifically want "the movie theater experience" or you absolutely have to see a certain movie at launch you're not going to the theatre to watch a movie. The number of movie views per person may well be down (or up), but box office ticket sale counts don't really answer that question.