‘It’s a Real Shame’ — Peter Jackson, Architect of the Much-Loved Lord of the Rings Extended Edition DVDs, Laments the Decline of Physical Media
by JannTosh70
‘It’s a Real Shame’ — Peter Jackson, Architect of the Much-Loved Lord of the Rings Extended Edition DVDs, Laments the Decline of Physical Media
by JannTosh70
21 Comments
When retailers stop carrying physical media and manufacturers stop producing players, this tends to happen. Yeah streaming is common but it’s not like consumers have as much of a choice as years past. Consumers are being forced down a path with more ads and less content with higher pricing. This could also be the driving force that leads to a resurgence in physical media.
Big collector, but nowadays I only buy used at thrift stores. I only buy boutiques if I really want them.
Blurays went from $10 to $40 almost overnight unless it’s Black Friday. It was a no-brainer for me except for absolute favorites.
Jackson’s right on this situation.
Back in the 90s/00s, you had comedies breaking out via home media, making them tons of profit. You had the video rental stores, and around the mid 2000s, we had the big fight between HD-DVD and Blu-ray, to see which format would win.
Now that physical media is declining, it’s clear that those times are now over with streaming (mostly) filling the void left by the physical media market.
It’s effecting production too
Every decade, every year for 50, 60 years I could probably point to countless brilliant films
Barely lucky to get one a year out of big studios now
Streaming has killed the industry but will admit that series drama and seasonal production has really improved
Tis a shortage of booty for us land pirates
Hijacking on high ways of Semi’s with DVD’s gone down to a trickle.
Barely enough to swab our poop decks
He can help my releasing Braindead, Bad Taste, and Meet the Feebles on 4k now please!
Me too…except when I’m moving.
I don’t mind physical media as a collectors item, but let’s not pretend we need more plastic crap in our lives and homes.
Then give us remastered DVD/Blu rays of *Bad Taste, Meet The Feebles and Brain Dead*, Peter.
[The making of the making of The Lord Of The Rings](https://youtu.be/k68X9r14XAw)
I bought some blu-rays from time those were popular recently. So many have unskippable (or extremely hard to skip), awful trailers for 15+ minutes ahead of getting to the menu. I don’t miss that part of physical media at all.
Ah dang, that confirms another extended cut won’t happen.
I get how “a few random scenes” could seem underwhelming, if you’ve watched these cuts every year for 20 years (*cough*) then something new, even if only 30 seconds, is something that I think could be interesting, although it sounds like these are REALLY uninteresting type cuts, but I would pre order Day one if they announced a new extended cut.
Well that sucks Peter but a whole generation of us shelled out $1000s for VHS tapes, then $1000s more for dvds, and then $1000s more for blue ray, and $1000s more to store all that media. Some even bough laserdisc too. The physical media market fucked us all over making media obsolete every 10 years. Now we can’t own it but have to pay $15 a month for streaming…thats fine. Still can release extras via streaming.
Lamenting the decline of physical media while soft-shoe endorsing the use of AI in film making is certainly a take.
A real shame indeed Mr. Jackson, a real shame indeed.
I have a huge DVD and Blu-ray collection that I keep adding to. Because quite frankly as easy as the streaming services have made our lives, in the end they get to decide what movies and TV shows they’re going to carry. And every now and again they drop titles . Meanwhile I have them preserved on disk format to watch at my leisure even in places without Internet access.
His have always been wonderful masterclasses in filmmaking. The audio commentaries, documentaries, etc. Etc. It’s film school for under $100
I still buy a bunch of blu-rays and DVDs
I don’t really care to subscribe to a bunch of services just to watch the handful of shows and movies each one has that I’m interested in.
Boutique blu ray labels and collectors are doing just fine, have been for years, and will continue to do so. Mass market type movies and retail stores not so much, but physical media is far from dying or dead. It’s just a smaller market, and the labels don’t cater as much to non collectors and people who aren’t genre enthusiasts or cinephiles.
In two years I’ve collected hundreds of 4K titles. In Italy, they’re usually under €10 each.
The real question to ask is why aren’t people buying 4k or Blu ray *players*