Thoughts on Physical Media

Physical media is becoming harder to find in a world that embraces steaming more and more every day. It’s a frightening trend that I want to see reverse course. Let me say that I’m a proponent of owning physical media in all forms whether it be movies, music, video games, books, comic books, or whatever other forms of entertainment you enjoy. But for this post in particular, I’m only focusing on movies.

Last week my oldest daughter and I made a quick trip to our local Walmart to seek out a copy of the original Halloween movie from 1978. For some reason, I couldn’t find my copy and we wanted to watch it on Halloween night. At first, I thought it would be an easily solved problem in these glory days of streaming, but I was wrong. It was not available on any streaming service that we subscribe to, and that’s a lot. But no big deal, we’d just run out and pick up a physical copy of the DVD or Blu-Ray release. We had no luck in finding a copy to purchase, so we had to pick another movie from my collection to watch for Halloween.

The fact that I can’t find my DVD copy of the classic film is bad enough, but even scarier is the lack of physical movies available to purchase at retail locations these days. Our local Walmart had one small display of new-release movies…about 5 titles in all, and one small section of “horror” movies for the season. The horror section looked like it originally featured roughly 15 titles or so, but half of them were sold out this close to Halloween.

I certainly remember the days when Walmart had an entire aisle dedicated to DVDs, as well as a big bin somewhere else in the store filled to the brim with cheap $5 movies. But as streaming has become much more popular, fewer people are buying physical movies, thus Walmart and other retailers carry less of them. This is becoming really alarming as I feel like we are on the brink of seeing physical media disappear altogether due to the trends, especially with the recent news that Best Buy and Target will no longer be selling DVDs and/or Blu-Ray discs going forward. There is also the news from earlier this year that Redbox filed bankruptcy, so you can’t rent physical media either.

I’ve been a collector of physical media for years. Before DVDs came along, I had a budding collection of movies on VHS. Luckily I wasn’t too far into collecting them when DVD came along and was able to pivot to collecting the new form of media. In the years since, I amassed a collection of almost a thousand DVDs. Everything from kid’s movies to cult classics. But I greatly slowed my collecting as streaming became more popular, and eventually stopped buying DVDs altogether. I was part of the problem.

People like me slowed their buying and collecting habits so much, that the retail giants of the world slowed down their ordering of products, so distributors slowed down their production. The world we are left with today is small bare shelves where our favorite movies used to sit on display, waiting for someone to claim them and give them a loving home.

A lot of you reading this may fail to see the problem. You may still be having the same thoughts that I did for a few years. Thoughts like, “There are so many movies to choose from on streaming, why do I need to buy any?” or, “My favorite movies will always be available to stream.” Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Hell, there were a lot of years when I felt certain that The Andy Griffith Show would always be on TBS, but I missed on that one too. No, the scary truth is that we never know when our favorite movies or shows will be pulled from streaming for what could be a variety of reasons. The only way to safeguard against that is by owning physical copies of your favorites.

Let me share a few personal examples with you to help illustrate the point I want to make here.

One of my favorite examples centers around an early ’90s movie that was a big-budget movie that should have been a blockbuster but just fell short…Dick Tracy. I’ve searched high and low across all streaming services for years with no luck, as I don’t believe it’s ever been offered on a streaming service for whatever reason. If I want to watch it, I have to buy a physical copy of it, which is easier said than done. Head over to Amazon and do a search for it and see what you turn up. Nothing. It’s a near-impossible movie to find for whatever reason.

Or how about The Dukes of Hazzard? Thank God I purchased the complete series on DVD years ago as in the years since, it has been pulled from TV and streaming due to the controversy over the confederate flag being featured on the roof of the car. Because of the association, the show has been unofficially “canceled” in recent years, and you won’t see the show unless you own physical copies of it. This is one of my favorite examples actually because it illustrates that at any time, a favorite of yours could be pulled for any number of reasons.

Another fun example is the multitude of ’70s and ’80s movies that we all used to love renting from video stores back in the ’80s and ’90s. You know the ones that could never quite make the cut as “A” movies, but we loved them anyway? I’m talking about movies like Vanishing Point, Fortress, Duel, Crazy Mary Dirty Larry, White Line Fever, and too many more to name. Sure, every now and then some of them pop up on a streaming service somewhere, but are gon again nearly as quickly. Without owning physical copies, you find yourself at the mercy of the streaming giants, and the holders of the rights to the films, as to what you can see, and when you can see it.

I say all of this as an attempt to convince as many folks as possible to consider picking up physical copies of movies from time to time. The more that gets back in the game, then the more likely it is that the medium will not die out completely. If the production of physical media stops completely, then we no longer have control over our entertainment. We’ll always be at the mercy of big business to give us what they want us to have. Which I believe is why streaming became so popular in the first place, wasn’t it? To take control of our viewing away from the cable companies and put it into our own hands again? Now, it’s the streaming giants that threaten to do the same, and owning physical media is the new solution all over again.