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Christopher Nolan Says Streaming-Only Content Is a 'Danger' 138

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Christopher Nolan made headlines earlier this month when he took a playful jab at streaming platforms while discussing the upcoming home release of "Oppenheimer." The atomic bomb drama, which grossed a staggering $950 million in theaters worldwide, is hitting Blu-ray and other digital platforms this month. Nolan said at a recent "Oppenheimer" screening that it's important to own the film on Blu-ray so that "no evil streaming service can come steal it from you." He told The Washington Post in a follow-up interview: "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," the director added.

Streamers have become notoriously known in the last year for pulling original titles from their platforms in order to license them out elsewhere and open up potential revenue streams. When such titles are streaming-only offerings, their removal makes it impossible to view the films elsewhere. Such was the case this year with the Disney+ movie "Crater," for instance. The streaming-only family adventure was pulled from Disney+ in June and could not be viewed anywhere until it was reissued as a digital release months later in September. For Nolan, owning physical media is the only way to combat such streaming trends. Guillermo del Toro agrees, having shared Nolan's recent quotes on X (formerly Twitter) and adding his own commentary on the issue. "Physical media is almost a Fahrenheit 451 (where people memorized entire books and thus became the book they loved) level of responsibility," del Toro wrote to his followers. "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."
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Christopher Nolan Says Streaming-Only Content Is a 'Danger' More

Christopher Nolan Says Streaming-Only Content Is a 'Danger'

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  • Arrrrrr! (Score:4, Funny)

    by HBI ( 10338492 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @12:22PM (#64021639)

    Mr. Nolan is not being creative enough.

  • My god...talk about first world problems. Is there a shortage of stuff to watch?

    If you can't watch Show/Movie A (for whatever reason), then go watch Show/Movie B, or C, or D, or F.....

    People are way too wrapped up in this stuff.

    Maybe I'm kinda jaded because every time I try watching something, it seems like it gets cancelled, or takes SO FUCKING LONG for the next season (or sequel) to come out that I've lost interest. "Severance", I'm looking at you!

    • Re:Is there a shortage? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @12:33PM (#64021683)
      He's not saying it's urgent, but there is a legitimate cultural concern. Streaming services aren't just putting up and taking down recent content to juice demand, they pull classic films too, and even do sneaky, undeclared ninja edits (aka censorship) of classic films on newly-produced physical media. So the owners of intact original films on physical media do play an important role in the long-term.

      If you want to see the original Star Wars as it played in theaters, you'll have to put in a little work. And if you want to watch a classic film that Disney acquired, you'll need to do some research to guarantee that what you're seeing is the original rather than some hack edit they did in later years for byzantine reasons.
      • With regards to authentic un-fudged Star Wars content as it was originally created, "Harmyâ(TM)s Despecialized versionsâ of the first three movies were the result of a giant crowdsourced restoration effort and while no streaming service will ever show them, they appear to be available on many xxxx sites. â¦.which would appear to confirm that itâ(TM)s important to maintain different ways to access our culture outside of the approved monetizable channels so many of us have come to ex

        • Do you know any good sites for fan edits like this? Someone told me there is a fan edit of the Hobbit movie trilogy that condensed it into one pretty watchable movie.

          I haven't had much luck at the usual sites

      • I just don't see it as a loss.

        Every movie and tv show ever produced could instantly be made unavailable tomorrow and that would be fine with me. People would just have to find something else to do. I don't see a real issue here.

        • The same media companies that pull that shit also do it to books.

          • Music isn't safe either. I tend to own all the music I listen to on CDs which I convert to a digital format and load onto my phone. No spotify for me. Can't say I know many people that do that or even own CDs anymore. They just listen to is on Spotify and pay the monthly sub.

            • Even buying physical media now is unreliable, since they sell adulterated content, remixed or re-cut to fit some current market model, and rarely feel the need to inform the consumer about changes. The market could do with an authenticity service that compares current offerings to archived products.

            • I was cleaning out my basement over the weekend. I found some 400 CDs. I hope to sell them for $100.

          • So read the ones that are available. There are around 130M unique titles. Surely enough to read a new one every day for the rest of your life.

      • I think it really is important to call this a "cultural" concern, because it stretches far beyond entertainment products, like movies and video games. Pretty much everything in society runs on computers, so almost all of our culture is at risk of just disappearing in 20 years.

    • And then for us geeks, there's material that no mainstream source will provide. So yes, just as one buys books to be able to read them, having a serious DVD collection is my way to ensure I can access the stuff I really want to see again.

      At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Given there are sites selling off DVDs at less than $1.50 a throw, that's a lot you can buy if you forgo a streaming service...

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by sconeu ( 64226 )

        And for BluRay, you need a player that can't have AACS keys revoked.

      • Given there are sites selling off DVDs at less than $1.50 a throw, that's a lot you can buy if you forgo a streaming service...

        This. Save the monthly stream fee and buy a handful of DVDs each month. Just like streaming, it's way more than you can watch in a month, but the advantage is you will have all that content on hand for whenever you *do* have time to watch.

      • If Chris asked nicely I'd make him an account on my Serviio server and he could watch his movie anytime he wanted.

    • Re:Is there a shortage? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @12:51PM (#64021743)

      My god...talk about first world problems. Is there a shortage of stuff to watch?

      No. Just a surplus of those who fail to grasp the point.

      Imagine there was a movie/show/series that you fell in love with. NOT for the pure entertainment and on-demand schedule that seems to be the priority in your catalog, but something of actual substance. Something that's important to you. Important enough to want to show others to educate them. For them to learn about. Perhaps learn about the mistakes of our past in order to avoid repeating them. Too bad that series lasted online barely long enough for you to put up a few social media posts that were likely ignored, because your audience was too busy watching some other drivel.

      Kind of ironic I'm using this example as TFS references Oppenheimer, but I'll take irony over ignorance in the next generation that will ultimately lead families, lives, and countries. Ever heard of the blind leading the blind? Guessing not.

      • Babylon 5
        The West Wing
        The Good Place
        American Gods
        House
        MASH (at least some episodes)
        1980s Twilight Zone

      • If the show is that good then buy the blurays (or dvds, if it is an old one, like babylon 5).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Calydor ( 739835 )

          But that is the whole point. What if no such physical media exists? How do you buy a bluray version of a movie or show that no one ever released a bluray version of?

      • There is also the question of image quality .
        See: https://www.howtogeek.com/8727... [howtogeek.com]

        A 1080p Blu-ray disc typically has a much higher bitrate than a 4K compressed video stream. This means the Blu-ray can use more data to represent each frame, resulting in a clearer and more detailed image than the highly compressed 4K video stream.

        And also the lossless blue-ray sound vs compressed streamed sound.

        • Very good points, as it brings into light varied network performance too.

          Hard to count on minimum impact on an HD video/audio stream when you're also suffering from degraded ISP performance at that time. Your Compression May Vary.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by drhamad ( 868567 )
          And what few of us actually remember to think of - the audio quality. Audio on a BD is completely different from a stream.

      • They're just movies and TV shows. I don't find them important at all, regardless of whether I like watching them. If they are not available, meh, no biggie. Plenty of other shit to do.

        I don't view telling someone else about a movie or playing it for them to be "educating" them. I'm not that arrogant.

        • I don't view telling someone else about a movie or playing it for them to be "educating" them. I'm not that arrogant.

          I don't encompass the entire point of media as a whole to be about mindless entertainment not worthy of education. I'm not that ignorant.

          As mega-corps continue to grow and consume media and print, the ownership ideologies in charge of those corporations will ultimately determine what the digital-only catalog looks like, or does not look like. Including what they want you to remember, and what they do not. Bradbury drove this point home in print with Fahrenheit 451, and we're marching towards the Orwellia

          • Those in power use that power to do what they want. AND? I mean, duh!!!!! What's the point of having power if you're not going to use it that way?

            I gots me real shit to worry about.

    • The guy's job is to create films that aren't just interchangeable "content A, B, C, D" to pass the time.

      • I've never seen such a movie.

        • You've clearly never watched a trilogy, series, or any other multi-part story. Or you have and just don't give a shit about the story overall. You can't just substitute one part of Nolan's Dark Knight series with the Barbie movie simply because Netflix decided to drop one of the films (which they have, you can't watch the entire trilogy on one streaming service right now).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fuzzyf ( 1129635 )
      Yeah, we'll tell you what you can watch and you'll be happy about it! Be a good consumer and don't you dare own anything...

      But to put forward some arguments on the matter. Maybe some people like to own the movies that they like to watch? In case they want to watch them again some time or show them to friends or family? It also comes with a nice bonus that they can alter the movie afterwards to be acceptable for a new country, audience or political climate.
      And for those who like to collect stuff, why not

    • My god...talk about first world problems. Is there a shortage of stuff to watch?

      Ummm. He never said anything remotely like there is not "enough" content. He said very specifically that streaming-only content can be taken down at any time. If you want permanent access, you should have it in another medium like Bluray, DVD, whatever. Seriously this is not a new thing.

      If you can't watch Show/Movie A (for whatever reason), then go watch Show/Movie B, or C, or D, or F.....

      And if I wanted to watch Movie A and not anything else? Your premise falls apart.

      • Then you should adjust your wants to your reality.

        I want to fuck supermodels all day long. I've accepted that is not my reality and moved on.

        • Then you should adjust your wants to your reality.

          The point which you missed again is he had a specific complaint that you neither addressed nor acknowledged. Instead you straw manned it. Now you are advocating that people not complain about a situation because you failed to address it.

          I want to fuck supermodels all day long. I've accepted that is not my reality and moved on.

          Another irrelevant argument from you. You do know in this reality, people can buy the movies they want in a physical media, right? We are talking about movies. Movies.

    • Re:Is there a shortage? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @08:44PM (#64022807)

      Is there a shortage of stuff to watch?

      Yes. Not everyone consumes to consume. Some people want to consume *something specific*. If that isn't available then there is a shortage.

      The worst examples of this are streaming services where they offer new releases in part of a multi-part saga, but don't have that saga. Hey honey John Wick 4 is out, do you want to spend the weekend doing an epic movie marathon? YEAH! *grabs popcorn*, *launches Netflix*, types "John Wick", and the results: "John Wick 2, John Wick 3, and John Wick 4".

      This isn't some contrived scenario. This is a very real thing that very really happened to me and the wife a couple of months back. And it very really required me to jump on pirate bay and get John Wick because the industry has its head so far up its arse that it knows a full quadrilogy is worth more than the sum of its parts and refuses to license it.

      What's your suggestion as an alternative? Substitute the original John Wick film with the Barbie movie?

  • It's time to quit having "(Formerly Twitter)" appear every time someone mentions X. Anyone who cares, already knows.

    • Or we could just keep calling it twitter, regardless of the desires of the Chief Twit.

      • Or we could just keep calling it twitter, regardless of the desires of the Chief Twit.

        OK, BoomerX...

    • It's also time to continue writing in a manner that people will recognize what the hell you're talking about. Saying that it was 'xeeted' or whatever the fuck is only going to invite more confusion and less efficient communication, rather than putting in a whole two extra words that makes what is being said unequivocally clear.

      It's not our problem that Elon, in a fit of ego-driven stupidity, decided it was time to shit all over one of the world's most recognizable brands because he has a decades-long unhea

  • I want to watch it again, once, with subtitles, as his sound mixing is not optimised for clarity of spoken dialogue. Preservation is super important, but streaming also has its uses.

    • You know that you can turn on subtitles in a multitude of languages off of optical media being played by a local device, right?

      Subtitles are not streaming-only, and never have been. Subtitles in multiple languages goes back to DVD, and probably LaserDisc.

      • Yeah but I don't want to pay to own a DVD just to watch something with subtitles. I can happily stream it, once.

  • Ministry of Truth (Score:3)

    by MDMurphy ( 208495 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @12:50PM (#64021735)
    I wouldn't equate possible changes in Oppenheimer to the Ministry of Truth in 1984, but books, movies, and music do get changed. (Han shot first). If you rely on streaming for all your media then you leave it to someone else to not only make the media available, but to give someone else the ability or responsibility for fidelity.

    Some combination of libraries and personal collections are needed to not only to insure the availability in the future, but to insure they are unchanged in the future.

    It's not a stretch to imagine the same people who want to ban or alter books being in the position of gatekeepers for some sort of streaming or online archive. You can fight the system to keep them from getting into mischief, but you will likely be more successful in keeping your own archives.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Han shot first

      Meh.

      We need to keep the evidence answering the "Moonraker: Braces/No braces" question available.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )

      Han shot first

      If you think that's something, check out what they [google.com] did to [youtube.com] The French Connection - and it won best Picture. They chopped an entire scene because of objectionable language, and hoped that no one would notice.

      Then again, Disney also edited Fantasia [youtube.com] so that the Pastoral Symphony wouldn't have blackface (in mythical Greece!). I'm not sure anyone except film historians will care too much about that one.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hawk ( 1151 )

        In fairness, Fantasia was never *meant* to be fixed.

        However, this kind of change isn't what was meant. Rather, entire pieces were expected to be replaced with new ones at re-releases.

        hawk

    • Han shot first

      Han shot ONLY.

  • We had better hope that blu-ray players survive longer than VCRs did.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by whitroth ( 9367 )

      Oddly enough, mine still works.

      Now, about the cloud, and when Amazon decides that there isn't enough interest in one book or another, and doesn't serve it, never mind you "bought" it.

    • I ripped all of mine and keep them on my hone file server. Works fine with Shield TV. A bit easier to find what I want to watch instead of digging through plastic tubs in the loft for that 1 in 500 in our dvd/bluray collection.

      • Re: Nice paperweight (Score:4, Interesting)

        by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @02:22PM (#64021961) Journal

        And, the digital files are immune to unintended physical damage from use, such as disc scratches and broken cases that don't retain the discs properly which increases the chance of information-losing damage.

        I started ripping every optical disc I owned over 10 years ago and never looked back. At one point I had 5 BluRay / DVD drives plugged into a Mac Pro so I could queue up hours of ripping at a time, and it could work through the night and day while I slept, work, ate, and did meatbag things. Those files still exist on my ZFS pool today exactly as they did when I ripped them in 2009.

    • We had better hope that blu-ray players survive longer than VCRs did.

      My VCR has managed to outlast 2 DVD players and a Blu-Ray player. Says everything about our disposable society. They truly don't make 'em like they used to, and most don't care.

      Not to mention the hypocrisy coming from those slinging disposable crapware making large donations to 'save the planet' organizations, because optics.

  • Northern Exposure (Score:3)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @01:01PM (#64021777) Journal

    Northern Exposure finally became available for streaming recently. It's on Amazon for $1.99 per episode to stream (not included in Prime). There are 110 episodes, meaning it would cost $218.90 to watch them all (that doesn't include tax).

    Or you can buy the entire series on disc from Amazon for $26.99.

    • Damn I do love that show. Although you stop watching when Joel leaves and not miss much.

      • In re-watching the series, I forgot how late in the series Joel finally left. His last episode was episode 15 in season 6 (which was the final season). There were only 8 more episodes after he departed. For some reason I had it in my head that he left the season before the final season, but that wasn't the case.

  • Donate to the public domain. (Score:3)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @01:05PM (#64021789)
    Introduce a clause in copyright laws if all physical media stops being made and it is removed from all streaming services then it has to be put on Archive.org or a similar publicly funded service, with no DRM so it can be freely copied as backup. The 95 year current clause only benefits companies with long term roots like Disney and Warner Bros. Smaller companies just won't be around that long.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by khb ( 266593 )

      By the time a small company goes out of business, it is probably too late to mandate an upload. So, change the rules to "When you submit for copyright, you MUST turn a physical copy over to the Library of Congress." Congress should adjust the statutes to mandate this and that the Librarian of Congress SHALL move the bits from storage to a publicly accessible server or servers when notified and validated that the bits are no longer available to the public.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Introduce a clause in copyright laws if all physical media stops being made and it is removed from all streaming services then it has to be put on Archive.org or a similar publicly funded service, with no DRM so it can be freely copied as backup. The 95 year current clause only benefits companies with long term roots like Disney and Warner Bros. Smaller companies just won't be around that long.

      I'd rather a central repository of works under copyright, when a copyright is granted the finished work must be submitted to the repository.

      Not because I'm some kind of paranoid nutcase that thinks "they" are "ninja editing" for some nefarious reason, rather because works get lost. Take the old Doctor Who's, the BBC taped over a lot of the old episodes (film was expensive, storage space was limited, loads of reasons) so until recently a lot of the older episodes were lost. A few still are and most were o

  • They are physical objects, that hold media.

  • Shifting perspective (Score:3)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @02:48PM (#64022029)

    I've always been a mass collector of media. Over a thousand movies and TV series across 4 formats, possibly two thousand CDs, LPs, cassettes. But... the older I get the less I value "ownership" of media. In fact, my desire to own has dropped to near zero. I gave away my vast collection of movies and TV box sets to my sister and her family, and I donated crates of CDs. I have fully divested myself of physical media.

    - Streaming capability and network capacity closed the gap on picture and audio quality
    - Movies on HDR still carry the same price point they have for 20 years
    - The number of times I rewatch a film has dwindled to nearly zero.

    I have some desert island movies... but rewatching is reserved for a tiny few. My life is getting shorter by the day, and watching films that are merely "good" is not how I want to spend that time. But should the day come when I can't stream my favorites anywhere, I'll... watch something else. My life will not suffer for it.

    I won't say that ownership doesn't have advantages... but for me, the space taken on the shelf by media cases is blissfully reclaimed.

    • In fact, my desire to own has dropped to near zero.

      This, so much this. I still have hundreds of DVDs and CDs, but only because when we remodeled the house a few years ago we had these really nice oak shelves built into the walls in the TV room, and we can't figure out what else we'd put on them. But we don't buy physical media any more. It's a pain in the butt, and, as you said:

      The number of times I rewatch a film has dwindled to nearly zero.

      Exactly. And even if I do want to rewatch a film, it's more convenient to buy it on Google Play (or iTunes, if you're in the Apple ecosystem). Doesn't cost any more, I don't have to

  • Actually, that is the one valid argument (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PortHaven ( 242123 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @03:00PM (#64022053) Homepage

    At first I was planning to come on and be dismissive of Mr. Nolan. But he made the one point that I believe is valid. His point isn't really about streaming but about ephemeral existence. With Blu Ray, you buy it, you have it. In a 100 years people can find that copy. But the movie studios, and big industry in general, no longer want us to own anything, be it a movie or a farm tractor. They want it all to be pay-to-use licensing models.

    The result of this, is that ONLY the existence of piracy is protecting movies. If SONY decides a movie they made is no longer politically acceptable, we may never see it again. Unless someone pirated the stream and illegally made a copy.

    This is a totally legit concern.

    • With Blu Ray, you buy it, you have it. In a 100 years people can find that copy.

      Perhaps. If you can find a working player. And if there isn't some iteration of bit rot that has set in and rendered it unreadable.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • The result of this, is that ONLY the existence of piracy is protecting movies. If SONY decides a movie they made is no longer politically acceptable, we may never see it again.

      Remind me where I can buy a copy of "Song of the South"?

      With Blu Ray, you buy it, you have it. In a 100 years people can find that copy.

      Well, if they can still find or build a player, and if the disk hasn't degraded. Or been scratched.

  • This has been my problem with things like Spotify. If you don't have possession of the recordings in some format then you are at the mercy of the streamer pulling the recording for any reason.

  • Nothing to worry about.
    Lots of copies available on the Pirate Bay.

  • If you are a collector who wants long term access, physical media is best
    Most will watch it once and never again

  • If he had his way, he'd ban streaming and television. The only way to watch shows would be by getting reels of your favorite shows delivered by truck and then watching them on a 70mm projector at home.

    • Way to miss the point and strawman his argument. He argues that today if a movie is streaming only then it can be removed at any time. He is not arguing that broadcast nor streaming should cease to exist and be replaced with physical media distribution. The key word is "only".
  • Is Nolan okay with me ripping the 4k Blu-ray, so I can enjoy it more conveniently?
    • SCOTUS says yes legally. Technically that means you have to break the encryption which is another matter. I generally buy physical media that comes with a digital copy. The physical media is really just the backup in case of things like a Zombie apocalypse happens.

  • There's no denying the man makes incredibly good movies. And I get that he prefers to create his films uncompromisingly first-and-foremost for the big screens and epic sound systems in theaters. But man... Christopher Nolan has been giving off some serious "Old man yells at cloud." vibes lately.

  • I would never buy anything on Blu-Ray, since it can't be transcoded to my media server.

  • I will be a custodian for Frank Zappa music and memorabilia.
    remember - don't eat the yellow snow

  • Nolan makes a very interesting point and one that is *especially* relevant for multi-part stories. Do you want to watch the Dark Knight series right now on Netflix? Well you can in 3 simple steps:
    1. Just fire up Netflix and watch Batman Begins
    2. Then fire up Netflix and watch The Dark Knight
    3. Then fire up Netflix and *fuck you* you can find the Dark Night Rises on another streaming service because Netflix dropped it about 6 months ago meaning you cannot finish the trilogy on this streaming service. You can

    • Note: I realise the title said Part 2 and Part 3 while I'm talking Part 1 and Part 2, but I was originally going to make this post about John Wick on HBO Max and when I started typing I realised actual Nolan films suffer this problem.

  • That was with television before home VTRs became a thing. We have insane amounts of material lost from those times.
    Streaming attempts to bring back those dark ages in order to increase profits.

  • Companies going back and making revisions to already existing content, basically gaslighting the public "I was sure I remember those cops in ET were holding shotguns, and not walkie-talkies when Elliot got better and helped ET escape". And this gaslightning gets much more insidious than the ET example,or airbrushing away the WTC after 9/11. Like changing the dialog ever so slightly but enough to change the whole narritave. More gaslighting,more people feeling like they are experiencing the Mandela Effect.

  • there are a lot of old movies never got a physical release either, outside of the film reels they don't exist, and god knows what the state of those reels will be after all this time.

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