herpek relative fylomyne
Matilda Equiluz
The end of an era is upon us. On April 18th, Netflix sent out a tweet which read, "On September 29th, 2023, we will send out the last red envelope. It has been a true pleasure and honor to deliver movie nights to our wonderful members for 25 years. Thank you for being part of this incredible journey, including this final season of red envelopes."
That news brought two reactions from movie watchers. You were either surprised that their DVD service still existed and that in 2023 anyone still rents DVDs, or you were heartbroken because one of our last sources of physical film media is on its way out. With that might mean the end of so many indie and foreign films that cinephiles have depended on Netflix to provide them.
In 1998, when Netflix first started their DVD mailing service, video stores were still very popular. The internet was in its early days, and we were years away from streaming. Netflix served a two-fold purpose. They were obviously convenient. If you wanted to rent a movie, but didn't have the time or energy to browse through Blockbuster, you could hop on Netflix's website, add movies to your queue, and within a day or two it would show up at your door. You could get one, two, or more at a time if you wanted and keep them as long as you wanted. Goodbye, late fees.
The other great thing about Netflix was how stacked their selection was. Blockbuster was sure to have about every popular movie you could think of, but what if you were looking for a hard to find horror movie or a foreign film? You could drive around to other video stores, even going to other cities if you were desperate enough, or you could browse Amazon and eBay, hoping to find some bootleg copy or one being sold for an astronomical amount. Netflix, however, had thousands of titles, from the newest releases, hard to find classics, and movies so rare most people had never heard of them. They allowed anyone to affordably and easily explore their film fandom in deeper ways. It opened us up to film history. For example, you could be a slasher fan and rent every Halloween and Friday the 13th movie at Blockbuster over and over again, but with Netflix, you could dig into the smaller but just as important movies like Madman, The Burning, or Black Christmas. The same went for classic film and foreign film buffs.
Even when Netflix introduced their own streaming service in 2007, which eventually blossomed into there being just as many streaming services as TV channels, the DVD service was still there, slowly shrinking in subscribers but not in content. They were still a film-obsessed fan's dream come true, especially as video stores quickly disappeared. Now Netflix's DVDs weren't just an option, they were the only option. Redbox was out there, but their limited content was reserved for new releases and a few popular slightly older films.
A huge demographic has teased DVD renters for not letting go of the past; however, it's not just a past technology that they're reluctant to let go of but the past itself. The loss of Netflix's DVD service worries many that we will lose so much past art as well. It's not even just older movies but how we used to present them up until very recently. So many streaming movies don't have special features or audio commentaries, a move that makes little sense. These behind the scenes looks at our current popular films and explorations into how they came to be can often only be found on DVD. Streaming gives us new art, but no stories to go with them. We get the finished product, but no look at the artist.
Many have spoken out about what Netflix's DVD service means to them. Nora Zuckerman, the show runner for Poker Face, which airs on the Peacock streaming service, tweeted this week, "You might ask who is still getting DVDs through Netflix, well... I am. The vast selection has dwindled over the years, but it has been a resource for movies (classics, foreign, or just the odd outlier) that are not streaming. I will miss my red envelopes."
It's not just so many smaller movies that we're losing with the end of Netflix's DVD service. Streaming movies aren't accompanied by trailers either, unless it's to promote something on that service. With DVDs, like in movie theaters, films were accompanied by several trailers that played before the movie. In most cases you could just skip them if you wanted, but many of us watched them, wanting to know what other movies were coming out. The majority of film watchers only go to a movie theater a few times a year, but we'd watch rented DVDs dozens, maybe hundreds of times. That's how we found out what was going to be out there soon that we might like. Of course, some will say that DVD watchers need to adjust to the times and go to a trailer website or watch them on YouTube like everyone else, but it was damn near romantic to pop in a DVD and know trailers were going to play first. It was also exciting, not knowing what the trailers were going to be.
That romanticism of anticipation has been lost with the rapid decline of physical media. We've already lost VHS and DVD boxes, picking them up at a video store, looking at the photo on the front, reading about it on the back. With Netflix DVDs, while we no longer had the boxes, we still had the anticipation of requesting a movie, having to wait for it to arrive, checking our mail to see if today was the day it arrived like a present from the post office. That's soon to be gone.
In September, we lose access to so many old and hard to find films. We lose access to so many voices, not just from times past, but even present day, as directors have their voices silenced by a lack of commentaries and featurettes. The art of film is quickly fading. More and more, a movie is a button we push, fed to us on our phone, or played on our TV while we're on our phone. We half-consciously consume it, then move on to the next, without stopping to savor what we just had. It's a loss for all, whether you're someone who grew up on video stores and doesn't want to let go of those little discs, or a little kid who might never get to fully experience how a move should be felt.
Perhaps DVDs can be saved. Vinyl has made a huge comeback. Flip phones are finding increased sales. Maybe we'll wake up and decide that not all old technology is bad technology, DVDs included. Save us, Redbox, you're our only hope.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: After 25 years, Netflix is winding down its business of mailing DVDs to subscribers. Now, maybe that's a no-brainer in this digital age, but not to everybody. Here's NPR's Mandalit del Barco.MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Before it was a $150 billion streaming service, Netflix was strictly a DVD-by-mail operation created by two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings. The idea was to use the internet - the net - to rent out movies - flicks - to subscribers.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)MARC RANDOLPH: (Reading) Neither of us had ever actually seen a DVD.DEL BARCO: In the audiobook of his memoir, "That Will Never Work," Randolph says, before 1997, no one outside of Japan owned a DVD player. There were laser discs, VHS tapes and Betamax. Randolph and Hastings had a hunch DVDs could be the next big thing, and they could ship them to customers by snail mail.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)RANDOLPH: (Reading) Let's just try it. Mail a CD to your place. If it breaks, it breaks.(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CRAZY")PATSY CLINE: (Singing) Crazy.DEL BARCO: So Randolph went out and bought a CD of Patsy Cline's greatest hits and a pink greeting card envelope. He mailed it with a 32-cent stamp to Hastings' house, and it arrived the next morning undamaged. Fast forward to April 14, 1998.(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BEETLEJUICE")MICHAEL KEATON: (As Beetlejuice, laughter).DEL BARCO: Netflix shipped its first DVD movie, "Beetlejuice."(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BEETLEJUICE")KEATON: (As Beetlejuice) It's showtime.DEL BARCO: Since then, the company has shipped 5.2 billion discs by mail and now-iconic red envelopes - not pink - to 40 million subscribers. But now, as the DVD and Blu-ray disc business wanes, CEO Ted Sarandos announced the service will end on September 29, a real bummer for holdouts like 71-year-old Claire Ryan (ph) in Memphis.CLAIRE RYAN: Wow. That's the end of an era - you know, how space age we thought that was when we had our subscription initially.DEL BARCO: Ryan says since 2006, she and her wife have rented 418 films from Netflix. There are hundreds more on their queue - old black-and-white movies, documentaries, foreign films, and especially classic Christmas pictures.RYAN: There are many movies that you can't stream on Netflix. You can only see them on DVD.DEL BARCO: Some loyal subscribers say they can't afford streaming services or they live in rural areas without broadband. Ryan says she and her wife still have a VCR, a Blu-ray and a DVD player, and they plan to order Netflix DVDs to the end.RYAN: DVDs are really dinosaurs. It's like - never seeing one of those in my mailbox again is going to be really weird.DEL BARCO: There's a petition to keep the service going, and kiosk business Redbox reportedly even offered to take it over, but it seems that soon the last of those DVDs and red envelopes will be extinct.Mandalit del Barco, NPR News.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
AILSA CHANG, HOST: Netflix is marking an end to 25 years of mailing out DVDs in red envelopes by offering to send subscribers extra discs from their queue. NPR's Chloe Veltman says fans are welcoming the gesture ahead of the service shutting down at the end of next month, but it's also causing confusion.CHLOE VELTMAN, BYLINE: Longtime Netflix DVD customer Moe Long is a self-described film buff in North Carolina. He says there are 500 movies sitting in his queue right now.MOE LONG: It's ridiculous (laughter). I don't think I'm going to get through that.VELTMAN: Before Netflix ends its DVD service, Long is hoping to get to as many of those films as he can, including 1978's "Foul Play."(SOUNDBITE OF FILM TRAILER, "FOUL PLAY")UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: A new comedy thriller starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase.VELTMAN: Long says once he's done, he plans, as usual, to return the discs to the sender.LONG: You don't get to keep the DVDs. You do have to send them back.VELTMAN: A Netflix spokesperson confirmed the company is indeed expecting to get the goods back. But Netflix's promotional email doesn't explicitly say that. Because the company is scrapping its DVD service, many subscribers, like Leslie Lowdermilk, are assuming it's a giveaway.LESLIE LOWDERMILK: It appeared to me that at the end of their time shipping these DVDs out, they're yours to keep. Because after all, what are they going to do with them?VELTMAN: That's a great question to put to a company that has shipped out more than 5 billion discs to customers since launching in 1998. DVDs are not easily recyclable. Most of them end up in landfill. Entertainment lawyer Lindsay Spiller says Netflix couldn't give the DVDs away even if it wanted to.LINDSAY SPILLER: The filmmakers and property rights owners give Netflix a license, and then they can sublicense it to their subscribers. But they can't give anybody ownership. They don't have it themselves.MARY GERBI: They really should have made it clear whether this was a rental and what the return period is versus whether people were getting to hold on to these things.VELTMAN: Massachusetts-based Netflix DVD customer Mary Gerbi says she hopes the streamer will find ethical ways to dispose of its massive stockpile of plastic.GERBI: Maybe to get them into libraries.VELTMAN: She says she just doesn't want the DVDs to go to waste.Chloe Veltman, NPR News.
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