Hollywood Keeps Reminding Us Why We Need Physical Media More Than Ever

A new year means another shakeup of the movies and TV shows available on the many streaming services customers must follow today, but even though the age of digital

media

promises unlimited access and

more

options than

ever

, a We have often seen the opposite. In a recent example, this happened: most of the Star Trek movies were pulled from Paramount Plus in the United States in early 2024, leaving only the newest movie trilogy starring Chris Pine. Paramount may have promised that their in-house streaming service was the place for all your Tre

need

s, but if you want to stream the first 10 movies you'll have to turn on HBO uh Max, but this isn't an isolated incident, although most of the major movie studios now have a streaming service of some kind. type or another, the idea of ​​all

media

for fan-favorite franchises being in the same place has largely proven to be a mirage. 1 2 3 W, okay, it fuels the confusion over where the various installments are and the anxiety of knowing that the powers that be could take them down at any moment is further proof that it may be time for

physical

media to make a big comeback .

Do you feel in charge? So why should you consider going back to the box shape? Let's take a look at the way movie and television consumption has changed markedly in recent years, largely due to the growing importance of subscription streaming services. There is a better way to rent movies. Netflix all the movies you want for $20 a month and no late fees. The technological leap itself. is as neutral and inoffensive as most - at its core it's just another way of viewing media, one that's uniquely suited to an era of persistent online connectivity - but the way streaming has altered viewing and spending habits has arguably been negative for the art form and culture in general due to how it supplanted and diminished the relevance of many of the

more

traditional forms of media distribution to the point of creating a cultural landscape for film and television that is barely recognizable from the that existed even a decade ago.

The big argument for streaming was consumer convenience, a massive collection of your favorite movies and TV shows, all in one place, all for a reasonable subscription fee with the cost of living rising, who could resist such entertainment offering, but the subsequent destruction of the home video market? The struggles of theatrical distribution and consumers' loss of control over their own media that followed was the cost of allowing streaming to become the primary, if not only, way of watching things and now with subscription pricing constantly increasing. Ads are used as a stick to push higher level upgrades and more and more services appearing in the streaming space have become even more hostile to consumers who just want to enjoy their marathons in peace, particularly after it arrived The Covid-19 pandemic solidified streaming as the central hub through which most of our entertainment is made.

The

need

s were met, but that also means that any disruption to said Hub can be a difficult hurdle to overcome if a movie or show disappears from one service and moves to one you don't have or, worse yet, doesn't appear anywhere else . Everyone is supposed to know that at the end of the day, there will only be three streaming services. We'll leave our Jolly Rogers out of this for the sake of legality, but the answer in the old days was to just put out the records. The same discs that retailers like Best Buy are phasing out and that major studios like Disney have stopped releasing in certain international markets, if this trend continues, streaming could be the only legal avenue to watch what you want and that's a big problem. when they won.

I don't let you see it, no you can't, there must be another way, as mentioned above. Paramount plus has drawn the ire of sci-fi nerds, myself included, by removing the first 10 Star Trek movies and moving them to Max suu, take us away. Home may be one of Paramount's most popular franchises, but it seems the studio is unwilling to license other platforms, even if it undermines its own preparation, what

ever

damage they have caused, this is not the only case in which Paramount allows Star Trek media to spread. far from the so-called home of Star Trek I don't need you to lecture me.

I was saving the galaxy when your grandpa was in diapers last year. Paramount canceled the children's show Star Trek Prodigy after one season and axed it. From the service, the show eventually moved to Netflix, where it secured a second season. Sure the Star Trek movies will probably end up back on Paramount Plus eventually, but it still can't be the definitive place to watch everything from the franchise, even if Star Trek isn't your thing and it should be, by the way, there are plenty of others examples. Disney plus took over the distribution of the new seasons of Doctor Who outside the UK and their tenure began with three specials starring David Tenant as the 14th doctor, but the previous Revival. the seasons are on Max, why would he do that?

Because you knew that if we stayed here I would be faced with an impossible choice and if you want to delve into all 26 seasons of the classic, then I hope you know what Britbox is, where did they do it? Come on and talk about British sensations Amazon may have bought MGM, but aren't all the James Bond movies on Prime at all? These are wildly popular franchises with massive catalogs, exactly the kind of thing streaming was supposed to make easy to watch in one sitting. the public has to find where they can see the articles and hope that nothing changes by the time they can finish everything.

Bond, I need you back. I never stopped shopping digitally, it doesn't exactly solve this problem either. There are many platforms where you can. buy movies and TV seasons so you always have access unless they decide otherwise in December 2023 Sony sparked a firestorm of controversy when it announced it would remove access to discovery shows from PlayStation video libraries, even if they had been purchased, the reaction was so great. that Sony had to backtrack with a rollback later that same month, but even though they changed course, the fact that eliminating purchases was even on the table shows how precarious digital ownership really is the only way to ensure that they always you have purchased media.

A

physical

release is no longer guaranteed as streamers take on more and more projects. The Grail cannot pass beyond the Great Seal, which is the limit, just to clarify that we are not anti-st. Streaming here can be wonderful when it works as advertised. and streamers are responsible for many big film and television projects in recent years; However, that only exacerbates the problem we're talking about, many streamer-specific movies and shows never receive physical releases outside of perfunctory theatrical releases of movies like Glass Onion or May. Many Netflix original movies are never shown in theaters, and if a streaming platform decides to remove a project entirely without any physical release, then that project virtually ceases to exist.

Look what happened with Willow and many other projects on Disney Plus or Max removing media as a cost cutting measure if streamers don't want you to have access to something there is nothing you can do when they are available buy physical releases of movies and programs is the only way to ensure that you can always watch them, however, that's not all. history more than anything this situation is a symptom of the vast and insipid corporatism that is devalued art and the artists who create it while the companies that own these platforms try to impose strangled control over popular culture the failures of streaming have very little to do with it With both technology and the constant battleground of IP hoarding and ruthless corporate governance that film and television production has become, which is particularly egregious when you realize that many streaming platforms don't actually They are generating profits.

Streaming could absolutely work as a way to watch media and as a source of income, but only as a complement to traditional models, such as theatrical distribution. Network television and home video releases, not as a replacement. Media companies betting on streaming was a bad bet from the beginning and will probably take them quite some time. It'll take a while to figure out, but in the meantime, the best way to binge is to find physical copies of your favorite movies and shows. Fixing streaming problems will require a lot more than simply buying a bunch of Blu-rays, and the practice can certainly be expensive.

If you want a big collection, I speak from experience, but at least you know they're yours. If you truly love a piece of art, you should never let the whims of a corporation take it away from you.