Resurgence In Physical Media
Contributions by Gunner Stuns, Isaac Hinson, Keaton Weyers, photos by Keaton Weyers, design by Caleb Cleland
In an age where a monthly subscription controls what you can and can’t watch, or companies push you to buy your video games digitally, physical media provides an alternative method of engaging with your favorite pieces of art. Read on as Editor-In-Chief Gunner Stuns, Staff Reporter Isaac Hinson and Lead Photographer Keaton Weyers discuss their physical media collections and what it means to them.
*Conversation edited for length and clarity.*
For The Love Of The Medium
Gunner: So, Isaac, when did you start collecting?
Isaac: Oh man, I started collecting when I was really young. I very vividly remember, there [was] a Walmart right across the street from my mom's house. And so, pretty much every weekend, I would go to that Walmart and scour the $5 bin and just take home whatever Blu-rays there were for movies I recognized, whether [or not] I'd seen them or if I knew that they were good. I started doing this right around 13, I think, so I was just starting to get out of my phase where I only watched superheroes and “Star Wars" and stuff. So, I would go and I would see “There Will Be Blood”, you know, and then I'll grab that Blu-ray. I'll go home and I'll watch it and my mind will be blown. So probably about 13. What about you?
Gunner: For me, it's a bit more of a recent habit. I did it a lot when I was a kid; I would always like to rent movies when Blockbuster was still open. I have memories of being four or five and going to Blockbuster and checking out movies. I had a DVD copy of the original Tobey Maguire “Spider-Man” that I probably ground into dust in my DVD player, like it would not work anymore, it was so scratched up. But as I got older, we got into streaming our movies On Demand and stuff when that service became available and then obviously Netflix came around. We were a streaming service family. I think it was sometime in high school, though, that I was looking for something that had previously been on Disney+ or something and it wasn't anymore. I just got really frustrated at that. But that's kind of my motivation for all of it. I stopped and I thought, what's stopping them from just taking anything off streaming and what if I want to watch it?
Isaac: Right? Because even if you're buying something on Prime Video, you're not really buying the movie. You're buying the license to the movie. So if, for some reason, Amazon stops getting the license for “Harry Potter” six, then you don't have that movie anymore [in your] digital library. But if you have the DVD or you have the Blu-ray or the 4k then it's yours. That's in my hands forever.
Gunner: One of the movies that actually inspired me to start collecting was “Dogma.”
Isaac: That's Kevin Smith?
Gunner: Yeah, this is Kevin Smith. This is the first Kevin Smith movie I actually bought physically. I want to own his entire filmography though, he's one of my favorite directors. [The case] looks like a Bible. They're being satirical about Catholicism and stuff in the film and I think that's one of the reasons that you couldn't find it streaming anywhere for the longest time. The Catholic Church was really, really tough on this one. The other problem with it is, it was produced by The Weinstein Company. You couldn't really get it streaming anywhere. Kevin Smith couldn't re-release it on his own because it was all tied up in Weinstein stuff.
Isaac: One of my favorites that I have is the “Midsommar" director's cut on Blu-ray. I believe only a limited number of these were made. I bought this for about $50 when it came out. But you can't get the director's cut of this movie anywhere else. It adds about 30 minutes of screentime. Has this beautiful art inside and out. It's just absolutely stunning. You got all this art on the inside. And then the best part, it comes with a forward that was written by Martin Scorsese. He writes about the movie at the beginning. You can read that before you jump in. It's one of my favorite things I own.
Isaac: How big would you say that your collection has gotten?
Gunner: It's still pretty small. I've got most of the DVDs for all the movies that I love. Like, I've got all six “Star Wars” movies. Well, I know there's more now, but I've got the original 2000s DVD releases for one through six. They're all uniform looking.
Isaac: Speaking of “Star Wars”, this is another one of my prized possessions, which I came into very recently. My partner gave me this. This is the original “Star Wars” trilogy on VHS before they were edited by George [Lucas]. So this is pre-special edition and on the back, he actually left a little message for us where he talks about how this is the last time that the “Star Wars” movies would be released in their original form before the alterations. So I think this is extremely cool. They are uniform, but each [tape] evokes something different about the original trilogy. I rewound these the other day to try and watch them. It's fantastic. Like, Han shot first in this, it's perfect. I feel like this is the best way to watch these movies.
Gunner: I agree.
Isaac: Tell me about Superman.
Gunner: I bought [“Superman”] just because I really love this movie. I don't think it's in any particular danger of being taken off Max or anything. I feel that this is kind of, to this day, the golden standard for a superhero movie. I will defend this movie to my grave. I think that Richard Donner, with big props to Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder and John Williams and all those guys, put something really beautiful and earnest together with this one. And something that I love about it, that you can't really do with streaming, is that there's bonus features on this. So I get to see Christopher Reeve’s original audition tape for Superman and I can watch that and I can see him step into frame and go, ‘Oh, I'm sorry for startling you Miss Lane.’And I'm like, oh, Superman's real. There he is.
Isaac: I feel like that's something that's been really lost is special features. Even Blu-rays nowadays don't come with director’s commentaries every time and that's something that's so special. A couple of Halloweens ago, I watched one of my favorite movies, “Scream.” I watched that with the Wes Craven commentary over it and Kevin Williamson, the writer and it was fantastic. I learned so much about the movie. I did the same thing with “The Lighthouse", I watched it with the Robert Eggers commentaryGunner: I bet that was great.
Isaac: That was incredible. It shed so much light on the movie. But with streaming, very rarely, like on the criterion channel, they offer commentary tracks. But on Max or on Netflix, you can't get that stuff. It's so special and so unique and it's kind of been lost to time. And the same thing you were talking about with Christopher Reeve and his audition tape. You could find that on YouTube, yeah. But there is something special about going to the special features tab on a disc menu and seeing Christopher Reeve audition tape.
Gunner: Yeah, and you get to hear what Richard Donner had to say about it too. Like, ‘Oh, this is how we knew Chris was going to be Superman.’ That's special to me.
Isaac: I mean, that's something that you can only get on those types of special features, right? [I also have] every single “Friday The 13th” movie on Blu-ray. This is released by Shout Factory. They always do a fantastic job with preservation and Blu-ray releases. But the best part about this is that every single movie comes in its own case. Typically with collections, like with a “Star Wars” collection, you'll get it all in one case, you'll have every movie, but it all comes in one case. But here with this, I have you know, “The Final Chapter, Part Five” on disc. And then I have a unique case for “Part Five, A New Beginning" as well. It's just all super gorgeous, all super uniform. And then it also comes with this little booklet just detailing the history of “Friday The 13th.” I love the Friday movies. This is probably, for my money, the best collection set for any franchise, really. I mean, the ability to have every single movie, in its own case, that's so rare to come by, especially for a franchise this long.
Gunner: I think it's really special. Are you willing to commit and tell us what your favorite “Friday The 13th" movie is?
Isaac: Absolutely. It's Part Six. I think that movie is a perfect blend of comedy and horror. I think it's where the franchise finally found its footing. Obviously, [it’s] installment six, so they knew what they were doing at that point. But I think [this is] where they really rounded it out. I also love four and seven. Seven is “The New Blood” and that's where, essentially, Jason fights “Carrie.” He fights a telekinetic girl. I think it's really, really cool.
Gunner: That is sweet. I don't have it with me because it's back at my parents’ house, but I actually have a complete 10 season box set of “Smallville" that's just like that. And each season is an individual disc like that and there's special features on all of them. One day I'm gonna achieve peak nerd and just watch all of the directors commentaries and all of the special features. That's my mission. It comes in a cool box. It's got Tom Welling’s face, and you can see the Superman symbol reflected in his eye. It's pretty sick.
Gunner: Keaton, I see you brought some stuff too.
Keaton: Yeah, I got some stuff. What's interesting is you guys are talking about collecting it and buying it yourself. Most of my stuff, even the collection part, was inherited. My parents had just tons of DVDs. We loved watching DVDs. When we were traveling on these road trips, we would have the little DVD player in the car for me and my brother in the back, so it's always been there. I have a couple box sets where it's like, “Lord of the Rings”, “Star Wars” and those are all in one, but then we have “007” from the beginning all the way to “Casino Royale", all individual. And then [when] I was like, 10 or 11, my mom sat me down and made me watch “Good Will Hunting" with her and how young [Ben Affleck and Matt Damon] were when they made it, it inspired me. Like, I can do that. And so that opened my mind to even going into being a film major
The Future Of DVD and Blu-Ray
Isaac: What’s interesting now is that even as all these stores populate their shelves with vinyls and books and stuff, movies are going away.
Gunner: Yeah, Best Buy doesn't sell Blu-rays anymore.
Isaac: Target is severely minimizing what they have. Walmart, same deal. Fred Meyer, they have an extremely limited section, and it's all way bloated pricing.
Keaton: I think we're in a transition period. I don't think we'll lose DVD, I think it and Blu-ray [are] the superior format. We're not going back to VHS, because rewinding those tapes is a nightmare.
Isaac: Well, actually, it just got announced the other day that Disney is releasing “Alien: Romulus” on VHS. Just as a collector's item and you know what, I'm gonna get it. I'm getting “Alien: Romulus" on VHS.
Gunner: That's kind of cool, actually.