I miss renting movies

[Kaido]

I miss the whole process - driving down to Blockbuster, browsing the aisles & discussing titles, fighting over which movies we going to narrow it down to, and going home & watching movies together. One of the nice things about renting movies as a physical activity is that it became more important somehow. When you have the world's library available at your fingertips with Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and Vudu, I think it becomes less of a "thing" - you can just flip through, choose a movie, and decide if you want to stick around to finish it or not. When we'd rent movies, especially as kids, that movie was usually only there for the weekend, so if you didn't watch it then, you might not get a chance again, so you hunkered down for the show.

And having a limited selection helped, both when browsing and when bringing them home. You only had so many things you could choose from instead of a million different titles; it was easier to pick something out instead of turning a movie search into a research project. When I have friends over, we sometimes spend more time hunting for a movie and talking about the summaries than we do watching the movie, haha. Plus once you got home with a rented movie, you only had one or two to choose from, so it was easier for everyone to agree on something & then stick with it.

I can't really decide what I like more. I definitely watch more shows now that I have an unlimited firehose of content thanks to the Internet, but I liked the old experience & togetherness of physical movie tapes & DVD discs. My 2-year-old has no idea what a DVD is. He doesn't know what a music CD is. Heck, a ringtone means someone is calling on the phone, not an actual ringer from a house phone. I actually picked up a cheap record player off Woot and we go to Goodwill to find records once in awhile, just to have a change of pace for music in the house. Most of the time it ends up being a Hotwheels centrifuge :biggrin:

I think it's the same with music - no more mix tapes or personalized CD's, the best you can do now is make your girlfriend or S.O a custom playlist, which kind of seems pointless. I think having things exist in the physical world brings more attachment to them because they have more meaning. Look at how things changed from buying tapes & CD's to downloading songs from Napster - my relationship with music is way different than it was in the past. I used to buy a CD and really get familiar with the album in the past, but now I can make playlists on the fly from my smartphone using an Internet streaming service. Not quite the same!

TL;DR: Miss the old days of physically renting movies - choosing a movie from a limited selection & renting a couple for a short period of time. It was a different experience than the unlimited movie selection available now on your Roku box.

 

[smackababy]

Yeah! Please bring back that time when if I got really busy or just forgot to return a movie, Blockbuster can charge me $10 a day until I return it!

 

[Imp]

I prefer renting it over TV/cable by pressing a button... Except my bandwidth cap means a single movie in SD can put me close to the monthly limit (shared connection), and I don't know the code to order from my cable box (sharing sucks).

 

[shortylickens]

I dont. Too much driving, standing in line, walking around trying to find something decent, seeing its already checked out, expensive, plus late fees, asshole kids hanging around inside and outside.

No, I dont miss that at all. And neither does anyone else. Theres a reason Netflix killed blockbuster, it wasnt a freakin accident.

 

[lxskllr]

I miss little about the bad old days. No comment on the movies since I don't watch them often, but music is infinitely better. The joy and convenience has far exceeded the dream system I thought up in the 80s. Album art became virtually irrelevant when CDs came to be, so there was little joy there. The only thing I miss is choosing an unheard of band based on album art, song title, and song length. I was pretty good at picking new music I'd like, but not 100%. I don't miss losing $15 a shot when I chose wrong.

 

[KeithTalent]

I do really miss just perusing all of the cases to figure out what to watch. I think that's why I've sort of replicated it at home. I like just looking through all of the discs and waiting for something to jump out at me.

KT

 

[TwiceOver]

There's a local place, but I haven't been to it in years. I did RedBox for a while, now I just basically don't watch movies.

 

[Doppel]

I miss that it seemed to make the movie better and more important. It was a full trip to go to the movie store and pick something out. The lack of it has made movies less exciting.

On the other hand everything else about it sucked shit. Your selection sucked--often anything good was rented. Also you were mainly deciding a movie's worth by its cover, not any rating you can get online. There was also the time involved getting it and the huge hassle bringing I back.

Kids these days will never know it. For better or worse.

Honestly the Internet has killed some of the adventure in life. I know if a movie will be good generally before watching it. Same with music. I can read reviews and see meta critics about it before it is ever out; no more buying an album and finding out if it all sucks or not. Also when did you last bad an argument about a random fact that lasted more than 60 seconds? Now you pull your phone and google tells you.

 

[Dirigible]

There's still a video store a few blocks from my house. Can still walk down and pick something out.

I don't, though. Because that sucks and I don't miss it at all.

Libraries are also good for perusing physical discs. I do use that for kid stuff.

 

[Maximilian]

There's still a video store a few blocks from my house. Can still walk down and pick something out.

I don't, though. Because that sucks and I don't miss it at all.

Libraries are also good for perusing physical discs. I do use that for kid stuff.

 

[Kaido]

Yeah! Please bring back that time when if I got really busy or just forgot to return a movie, Blockbuster can charge me $10 a day until I return it!

I don't miss the mechanics of it, so much as the experience. Going with your friends or family, browsing the selection, picking just one or two, and having the pressure to watch it. It made movie time & together time more meaningful; having it be a physical activity & having tangible movies made it more important, for some reason.

 

[Dirigible]

Hey. As far as you know, I'm watching Elmo myself and am totally not using it to lure children into my van.

 

[Kaido]

I miss that it seemed to make the movie better and more important. It was a full trip to go to the movie store and pick something out. The lack of it has made movies less exciting.

On the other hand everything else about it sucked. Your selection sucked--often anything good was rented. Also you were mainly deciding a movie's worth by its cover, not any rating you can get online. There was also the time involved getting it and the huge hassle bringing I back.

Kids these days will never know it. For better or worse.

Honestly the Internet has killed some of the adventure in life. I know if a movie will be good generally before watching it. Same with music. I can read reviews and see meta critics about it before it is ever out; no more buying an album and finding out if it all sucks or not. Also when did you last bad an argument about a random fact that lasted more than 60 seconds? Now you pull your phone and google tells you.

Yeah. Having limits definitely helps, I think. I learned that from art class. To me, the scariest thing was a blank canvas on open-ended projects - I did WAY better when my teacher gave me assignments with specific requirements, because then I could be creative within those requirements. Same with writing - "writing a story" means nothing; "write an adventure novel set in the 1950's" opens up a million possibilities - you could do anything from Dick Tracy to Back to the Future!

I think a combination of the Internet & Smartphones have killed a lot of the adventure you're talking about. I used to be HUGE into hardware, but now they usually have an app for whatever I'm looking for. Ooh, new Garmin GPS units with 3D maps & voice commands! Nope, there's an app for that. Oh hey, Canon has the new pocket cameras out with black & white and sepia filters built-in! Nope, there's an app for that. Music player for the gym. Portable movie player for the kids in the car. Reading books.

Don't get me wrong, I love integration. My son has never even seen a DVD disc because we're all digital as far as our media goes. But it does take some of the fun out of it and a lot of the meaning out of it. No more mixtapes. No more getting out the video camera for family events. No more going down to the store and renting movies. No more waiting for the latest album release on CD and listening to it 500 times the first week.

 

[Theb]

Ha. I was just thinking about this the other day. I miss the overall experience, but I could never go back to the limited selection or artificially inconvenience myself.

The town I went to college in had a giant independent video rental store with memorabilia sprinkled through it and an inscrutable sorting system. It was a strange combination of lead actor's last name, genre, and title, and it seemed to be weighted in that order. I could never find anything specific, but if I asked the staff always knew right where it was and it was fun to browse.

 

[Genx87]

I dont miss driving to a store to find out the movie is already checked out then picking another one and not returning it by 5PM the next day and getting a late fee 20% the price of the movie. And rental fee's were ridiculous as well.

The death of movie rental stores was a positive one in our progression as a society. More spcifically Blockbuster that was a horrible company in its prime.

 

[Kaido]

Honestly the Internet has killed some of the adventure in life. I know if a movie will be good generally before watching it. Same with music. I can read reviews and see meta critics about it before it is ever out; no more buying an album and finding out if it all sucks or not. Also when did you last bad an argument about a random fact that lasted more than 60 seconds? Now you pull your phone and google tells you.

It's funny because my family was just discussing this the other day - "remember when we were kids, and we wondered about something and had questions about it, looked it up in the encyclopedia, asked around, didn't find an answer, and just resigned ourselves to never knowing?" Haha! Now, everything you would ever want to know is available in HD motion video with instructions on Youtube. Or on Wikipedia. Or with a simple Google search.

I think that's a great thing, but then we could go into the discussion of people turning into information zombies. Shoot, I've got like 25k posts just on this forum alone, not to mention about 14k tweets and a zillion posts on other forums, emails, instant messages, etc.

 

[Kaido]

I dont miss driving to a store to find out the movie is already checked out then picking another one and not returning it by 5PM the next day and getting a late fee 20% the price of the movie. And rental fee's were ridiculous as well.

The death of movie rental stores was a positive one in our progression as a society. More spcifically Blockbuster that was a horrible company in its prime.

Eh, I don't disagree, but that's not the point of this thread. The point is missing the experience of selecting a movie & how important that movie because once you brought it home, vs. just flipping through an endless list of entertainment with hardly any meaning attached.

 

[waggy]

Hey. As far as you know, I'm watching Elmo myself and am totally not using it to lure children into my van.

Next you are going to be going to Chuck E cheese's. :hmm:

 

[dbk]

/firstworldproblems

 

[Eureka]

Redbox it.

 

[surfsatwerk]

TV killed the radio star.

 

[iRONic]

I especially miss that critical moment during the movie when our hero is about to destroy the bad guys... and the fucking disc skips!

So much fun...

 

[Kaido]

Ha. I was just thinking about this the other day. I miss the overall experience, but I could never go back to the limited selection or artificially inconvenience myself.

Yup, same. Life has gotten incredibly convenient. Roombas & Scoobas can take care of your floors; Lawnbots can mow your lawn. Netflix, Amazon, and Vudu have all the movies you could ever want. Pandora, Spotify, and MOG have an endless supply of music - I think MOG is up to 16 million songs, which at an average of 5 minutes per song is something like 150 years of songs played back-to-back. You can scan your mail into Dropbox & then shred the paper so things don't get cluttered up. Your Kindle can hold the world's library in the palm of your hand. You can voice or video call from your cell phone anywhere in the world, instantly, in real-time for an affordable price. Amazon Prime & local grocery delivery services like Peapod will deliver food & goods straight to your house. You can order an electric Tesla car online, right from your computer.

Would I trade any of that for the good old days? Nope! I'm just feeling nostalgic about the weight & importance of activities we previously did in a different way. The Youtube short "I forgot my phone" is great at pointing out today's electronic realities. I love the modern conveniences & efficiencies available that give us so much more free time than we ever had before. Tomatoes & fruit are available year-round now. Everyone has access to a huge variety of healthy foods, even if you have to go to a soup kitchen. Heck, the government will even cover a free cell phone for you if you're economically strapped. It's a pretty great time to be alive!

 

[waggy]

Redbox it.

I love Redbox. But i do agree with the OP i do miss walking around the Video store and just looking. Sometimes something i missed would jump out at me.

That experience i miss. I don't miss blockbusters expensive charges, the bs overcharges, etc.

 

[Doppel]

Eh, I don't disagree, but that's not the point of this thread. The point is missing the experience of selecting a movie & how important that movie because once you brought it home, vs. just flipping through an endless list of entertainment with hardly any meaning attached.

Remember when you were a kid flipping the tiny number of channels you had and. HOLY SHIT!!! Is this really Star Wars? On MY TV! And it only started 6 minutes ago?! Omfomfomf. Such experiences are nigh impossible now.