I agree with everyone who said that people have ruined the theater experience. Everytime I head to the theater I worry about being kicked in the back for 2 hours. Ticket prices are high but you can get around that by going to a matinee. However with the movie experience brought home there is rarely a reason to go. Sure this summer I'll see Star Wars, Batman, FF and CHarlie and the Chocolate Factory but there are plenty others that I will just pass until they come on DVD since we're only talking a month or so. Lets face it summer movies are fall DVD's.

There was a time when I had my Pro Logic setup and it was better than the theaters, then came Dolby Digital and it was back to the theaters, now we have DD and 16 x 9 at home. Maybe they should make movies in 3D or 4D like the shorts you see at Disney, then I'd go alot more. I know there is IMAX but the closest to me is 2 hours and its not always easy to watch a movie on THAT big a screen if you are suseptable to motion sickness. Oh well time to go watch a movie in my home theater!

Here's an idea..the studios should start giving movie theaters a bigger cut of their mega cash pie they hoard...then the theaters can pay better wages to the employees, keep ticket prices down and have less expensive consession food.

To offset the bigger cut to the Theaters, the studios can then go back to contract players instead of actors being independant agents that escalate their UNWORTHY asking prices of $20 mil dollar salaries..let them operate on MERIT increases just like the rest of humanity does...its total bullshit that an actor who one day makes $1 mil a film, gets lucky and wins an Oscar can then command $15-$20 mil a flick... INSANE...oh and apply this same formula to overpaid friciking Sports figures as well. This is nothing but Capitalism at its worst, when its supposed to be the BEST form of economy..ie..working for ALL the people FAIRLY... its fucking greedy people that abuse it all.

I am under the belief that watching a film is similar to a religious experience and i will only experience a film alone... i have not watched television or a film with another person in about 9 years or so and will not do so ever again.

i always have amazing experiences that are very personal if it be a very touching moment that brings me to tears or just a very heartwarming moment that lifts my spirits up and puts a big smile on my face... these are very moving and touching experiences that i feel is very personal and i could never sit there with other people in such an experience.

nothing is better than sitting in my comfortable bed watching my widescreen hdtv alone... and being able to pause and rewind or take a break maybe... and just have my own personal experience i would never trade that for the theater experience i love it too much.

personally i don't understand how people experience films or great television in the company of others... maybe they get a different experience than i do but it is very spiritual and personal and i prefer it the same way i came into life / the same way i will leave life ALONE.

Loud talking rude morons are also the primary reason I stopped going.

Jack, you hit on about every point that I was going to make. But I'll reiterate.

For one, until Hollywood learns that pumping out dozens of the lame romantic comedies, coming of age films, and mindless horror thrillers, and start making the epic movies of old and the occasional major blockbuster like ROTS, people are just not going to continue got to the theaters.

Two, due to the advances in home theater equipment, people are just waiting for the DVDs these days. When the invention of television forced Hollywoood to change from 4:3 movies to some sort of widescreen, the influx of massive numbers of Home theater systems, Hollywood needs to come up with something new that will bring the folks back to the theater. With George Lucas starting to tinker with 3D may well just be the ticket...so-to-speak.

Third, and this goes along with the above, going to the theater is just a pain in the ass, quite frankly. Between waiting in line, hoping to get a ticket before they sell out, fighting the crowd to get a good seat, wondering if that particular theater has good sound, and fiddely fartin' around with refreshments, it just isn't worth the hassle. Besides, at home, with your DVD, you can start and stop the movie at your own pleasure, to go to the bathroom, have sex, or whatever. ;) Plus you're not stuck with just eating junk food and a soft drink. I usually eat a home cooked dinner while watching a movie.

Fourth, the increasing phenomenon that we're not always getting the final intended version of the movie the director wanted. With the increasing rate of releases of Director's or Extended Cuts of movies, why go spend a bunch of money on movie tickets and concession stand stuff, to watch an incomplete product. Reminds me of the PC game industry. Many of times games are released that need immediate patching or lacking features that were originally promised but didn't make initial release.

Following on that thought, a few years ago, when the DVD medium finally solidified itself as a prominent home video format, it was said that the theatrical release of a film would become just a trailer for the eventual DVD. Because as we all know, DVDs usually come with so much more than what is offered at the theater, beit commentaries, documentaries, special effects featurettes, etc. So why go to the theater, spend $10 for a ticket, when you can just wait another 4-6 months for the super-duper DVD with all the extras?

Basically the DVD, itself, is killing the movie theater market, just as advanced generations of home video game consoles killed the traditional arcade. DVD Piracy? A drop in the bucket compared to the real reason as I stated above.


How to solve this problem? Easy...instead of releasing to theaters...just launch major advertising blitzes with trailers, merchandise tie-ins, etc. and just release most movies direct to DVD. Hell, that's the way I've been doing it for the last few years. Any movie that I wanna see I just watch the trailers and say, "Oh wow!" and just wait for the DVD.

Let's don't even mention the greedy ass sit-com stars that demand nearly a million bucks to do a ~20 minute episode. Sheesh...I'm in the wrong line of work. Between the Seinfeld cast and then the Friends cast, who changed the wage system amongst TV stars.

Hate to disagree with you, but most "Art" movies do not help the Boxoffice, it is the Action, Family and Comedy movies that keep the Boxoffice going. If the "discerning cinema-goer" ruled the boxoffice, then we would not have any movies to go to. The Star Wars, Die Hards, Hitches...make up for all the other movies that do not make enough $$$ to keep the Movie Studios/Theaters in business.

Have a nice day.

The only movies I have seen this year:
1. Phamton of the Opera
2. Hitch
3. Star Wars III - saw it 4 times

I love going to the theater, I like being around people, their reactions make the movie more exciting/funnier.

I do not like the high price for ticket or junk food.

My family and I use to go to about 12-15 movies a year, but after being layed off, we cut way down. I am working again, but I will only go to about 4-5 movies the rest of the year.

I have also cut WAY down on my DVD buying:
Old: 50 year
This year: 2 or 3 so far

all I can say is wow!!!

I always go to movies with friends and watch DVDs with friends. To me, it's more fun to experience stuff with others, including movies. You can talk about it afterwards and stuff. Plus, movies are always an easy option to take a date to.

These are pre-paid ticket vouchers that are good for Loews, Sony, and Cineplex Odeon theaters. They're only good on Monday-Thursday with no other restrictions. You can see opening night movies (if it opens on a M-Th) or even a holiday if it falls on one of those days.

I used to get these vouchers through my college when I went. Now I get them through Columbia House...they're $5 each and shipping is $3-$5.

During the summer, the Loews website sometimes has special deals on these.

Absolutely. :up:

Although there's little they could do about rude customers (except for throwing them out and installing cell-phone jammers), they can clean the floors more often and get rid of the commercials. After sitting through 20 plus minutes of lame coca cola slides, the last thing I want to see is a damn commercial. Trailers, yes. Ads for videogames and the military, no.

I go to the movies every couple weeks and enjoy it as much as ever. Sometimes with someone in the evening...sometimes I'll catch a matinee by myself. The theater is rarely even 50% full at any time of day. Sometimes I'll get the $5 popcorn and $4 pepsi, sometimes not...

I love the word scamples and slideshows before the movie starts! I could do without the commercials and especially Charlie Sheen and the 2 and 1/2 Men cast telling me the rules of the theater. Maybe thats only at showcase...or lowes...

Whenever I go to a movie ( which it very rare, due to HT) I always go out and have a nice lunch, or dinner depending on the time of day, before I go to the theater, so I won't have an appetite to spend money on that overpriced snack food, that's being served in the theater.
If I am going to spend twelve, to fifteen dollars on junk food at the movies, then I might as well eat a wholesome, decent full coarse meal, for a much lesser price. I refuse to pay five dollars for popcorn, three to four dollars for a soft drink, and two dollars and fifty cent for a box of candy. That's ridiculous.

Yeah.

Food prices are expensive at other places as well, like concerts, sports events, amusement parks, fairs, carnivals, the circus, etc.....

They figure if you're there and you're hungry, you'll pay what you have to. And with the lines I see at the concession stands I would have to agree.

I enjoy going to the theater.

However, since for the cost of me alone going to see the movie, not to mention taking the wife, I can own the movie. If the movie is good, essentially I will purchase it twice. If it is bad, I am still out around $15 with nothing but a crap movie experience to show for it. Gawd forbid I should take a couple kids. For my daughters birthday the wife took her and two friends to see Madagascar today. Over $30 later, they come home and talk about how that was such a fun movie, and we should definitely buy it when it comes out. This movie will end up costing me $50. I cannot economically justify going to the theater.

Do you guys still have drive-in's around your area? We still have one in town although i haven't been in years. They show 2 (sometimes 3) movies for one "carload" price and you can take your own food. And if your floor is sticky then you only have yourself to blame for not cleaning your car.

Maybe thats the answer. We just convert back to drive-ins.

Drive-ins are great! You can load up any amount of crap you want to take along, throw in some camp chairs, and have at 'er. Now they even have the FM radio sound, so you can get some pretty darn good audio to boot. There's one about 35 miles away. But it's tough to find a night when no one in the family needs to be up the next day before noon though. Those summer quadruple features that begin at 10pm sundown where you end up home at 5am get a little rough!

I think in sum total...
 

...I think moviegoing has gone down due to these factors:

1. The price of a movie ticket has gone through the roof. It now costs US$6 to US$8 for a matinee ticket and US$11 to US$13 for an evening ticket in most major metropolitan areas.

2. The price of concessions is just downright highway robbery, in my opinion. :down:

3. Many theaters are don't keep themselves clean enough, and seating is often uncomfortable with bad sightlines.

4. Picture quality and sound quality are just too variable.

5. The price of home theater hardware has dropped dramatically in the last 3-4 years. With non-CRT rear-projection widescreen TV's rapidly dropping in price and surround systems doing the same, you can get very good picture and sound quality at surprisingly reasonable prices nowadays. And with the arrival of high-definition DVD's with (likely) 1080-line resolution, that will reduce the incentive to watch movies in a movie theather even further.

6. Moviegoing audiences have become awfully rude in the last 10-15 years. Between not turning off cellphones/pagers, talking during the movie (a bad habit made worse by people wanting to do Mystery Science Theater 3000-style mock running commentary), and sometimes moviegoers engaging in fights, is it small wonder why moviegoers are less willing to go to a theater?

7. This is likely controversial, but the fallout from the 2004 Presidential elections (where too many Hollywood stars blatantly supported Senator John Kerry's failed campaign) has turned off too many moviegoers in the so-called Red States, with the results that many movies are being shunned even if there is no organized boycott of movies by Americans in flyover country. I think the blatantly political movie Fahrenheit 9/11 last year may have contributed hugely to this factor.

8. There hasn't been any movies this Spring that has brought out moviegoers in droves until the latest Star Wars movie finally did it. Hopefully, with movies like the highly-rated Cinderella Man, Batman Begins, War of the Worlds, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and a few others, the crowds will find a movie that will bring them back in large numbers.

The most frustrating thing for me is when I get to the theater early and set up without being near anybody. Lights dim, previews roll, and just as the movie begins some jackass and his friends sit down right in front of me and talk on their cell phones during the movie. I swear these people always find are looking for me.

Also dissapointing is that the Loews near me (Plainville, CT.) just jumped from $8.75 to $9.50 right before Episode 3. Bastards.

The key word is indeed most.

You have a nice day too.

Pro-B

What a shame... you were doing so well up until then.

My friends are not interested in polemics and frankly, neither am I. That said, politics won't keep me away from a film with artistic merit. Your point is a bit of an overstatement, although, I can imagine some on the extreme left/right would fall into the above category. *coughs* :rolleyes:

eh my date "IS" the movie... hehe. my movies don't like me bringing others to them.. my movie is like "christine" the insanely jealous car it will come to life and kill everyone around if i cheat on her with a live human being.. hehe.

but then again i am extremely hardcore film enthusiast it is basically my life to experience film.. it is all i care about.. the only thing that interests me... so i assume i am in the minority on my beliefs when it comes to film and watching it.

also i watch every film i can with subtitles as to me it enhances the experiences to reading and watching at the same time.. and i can't go and tell the projector to turn on subs for me... bah the theater is such a horrible experience.

the last film i experienced at theater must of been natural born killers and everyone but me and 2 others got up and walked out of the theater after the opening diner scene... hahahahaaha.. one of the funniest thing i ever seen.

such closed minded people should never be allowed to watch a film again in my own opinion... sickening.

You know...
 

...if Michael Moore didn't release Fahrenheit 9/11 last summer I wouldn't have listed #7 as a factor in declining movie sales. But it did come out, and the raging controversy over that film caused a lot of people to focus on the political views of entertainment celebrities, which we know are blatantly liberal given their generous support for Senator John F. Kerry's failed campaign last year.

By the way, I would add in a ninth factor to my list: the relatively short time between theatrical release and DVD release of a movie. It used to be 7 months or more, but nowadays it's more like 4-6 months. I mean, you know Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith will be out on Region 1 DVD by mid-November to early December 2005 time frame.

Friggin' cell phones too, they're my biggest peeve. Theaters really need to install cell phone jamming technology.

Also, Hollywood needs to make some better films. They should stop homogenizing movies for mass demographic consumption and focus group approval. If the general public will gladly accept any crap at the movies, why not let the movie makers run free with their art?