In an article published in The Washington Post, and picked up by the ever-reliable Dark Horizons, filmmaker Christopher Nolan has expanded on some previous comments he made about physical media and streaming alternatives. He is echoing an opinion we have heard many Outposters express in the Disqus around here. Previously, when out doing press for the BluRay release of Oppenheimer, he said everyone should buy a physical disc so that:
“…no evil streaming service can come steal it from you.”
Now, the subject was touched upon in the interview with the Post, and he got serious about things, saying:
“It was a joke when I said it. But nothing’s a joke when it’s transcribed onto the internet. There is a danger, these days, that if things only exist in the streaming version they do get taken down, they come and go.”
This is true. The original Star Wars trilogy is no longer available to anyone, only the bastardized Special Editions with unwelcome screams, Jabba Rocks, a distinct lack of Yub-Nub, and fucking Greedo. Other titles have been yanked of streamers with little or no warning. As the streaming model fails and producers wonder where all their licensing revenue has gone, this will become more common.
Even more disturbing is the existence of Orwellian “Sensitivity Readers” just waiting to swoop on beloved works and edit them for current year. Another Hollywood heavyweight has now chimed in on the same subject. Guillermo del Toro quoted Nolan on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) when he said:
“Physical media is almost a Fahrenheit 451 (where people memorized entire books and thus became the book they loved) level of responsibility. If you own a great 4K HD, Blu-ray, DVD etc etc of a film or films you love…you are the custodian of those films for generations to come.”
Like many Ouposters, my physical media collection is a thing of myth and legend, however it has been many years since I last bought physical media.
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