MovieChat Forums > Video > remember movie video rental stores?

remember movie video rental stores?

posted 4 years ago by lukejbarnett (1869)
10 replies | jump to latest

sad note: don't you miss video rental stores? the thing i miss the most in my life about nowadays is video stores. the reason why is there is something special about picking up a movie from a rack and an aisle and going to a counter, talking to the person working there, and renting the movie. we don't have that anymore and that is wrong. just because it's more convenient to rent movies on your computer or tv doesn't make it better than renting movies from videos stores. also, redbox only has horror movies made in the last year, so how can we rent horror movies that are from 5 years ago?

[–] AmeriGirl26 (12436) 4 years ago

Yes. We had them all the way up until I was in my early 20s, when people started using Redbox and Streaming. It felt a lot like going to the library and checking out a book, only you watched it on tv. However, there are many drawbacks to streaming, chief among them being that the various services keep putting on and taking off different movies and tv shows, so they are available one month, or one year, and not there the next. It's one major reason I've insisted my family keep dvd copies of films/tv shows we like, should our streaming services not have them at some point.

I frankly got tired of Redbox because they only put the most recent films on there, not all films within the past 5 years, and frankly, I'm not impressed with the majority of the crap that's come out in just this past year never mind the last 5.

[–] lukejbarnett (1869) 4 years ago

what is like going to the library?

[–] AmeriGirl26 (12436) 4 years ago

Think about it. Before the advent of the Internet, we would go to libraries and check out books for a short period of time; like a week or two, and pay a small fee. You then returned the book on time, or they would charge you for being overdue. It was similar in video rental stores. You would choose a movie to rent, pay a small fee, and keep it for a similar amount of time to library books. Eventually you had to return it.

The trouble with video rental places was, the tapes changed all the time. Sometimes they'd keep the same movies for years, but sometimes they disappeared (particularly if they weren't classics or all-time blockbusters), to make room for the new movies coming in. Libraries, at least, could keep the same books from the moment they purchased new ones, or got new donations, and kept them for as long as the library existed. Only issue with the libraries, by comparison was, they liked to shuffle their books around all the time, to make room for new arrivals.

[–] lukejbarnett (1869) 4 years ago

maybe you spent more time and rented more movies from blockbuster or hollywood video than i did because i don't remember them ever taking movies out of their stores to make room for new ones. maybe at mom and pop stores they never got rid of any movies to make room for new movies.

no, you didn't pay a small fee to check out books from the library. they were always free.

[–] AmeriGirl26 (12436) 4 years ago

Sorry, I got the video rentals and book checkouts mixed up.

[–] rudeboymurray (3241) 4 years ago

Yes, I miss them terribly. I am lucky enough to have an excellent movie library close by which I visit most weeks, but it's not the same as browsing the shelves of Blockbuster.

[–] lukejbarnett (1869) 4 years ago

what movie library? is that a video rental store? i didnt' think they really exist anymore, kind of like drive-ins. there is something americana, essential, community, and important about video rental stores. taking this away is taking away a big part of what it is to be a movie lover.

there's an integral social component that is video stores that can't be replaced by anything else. we need to bring these back. i always preferred mom and pop stores to blockbuster because they seemed more friendly, the people working there seemed more down to earth and neighborly, family member type.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

[deleted]

[–] bohemianroxie (2471) 4 years ago

I do miss them because I enjoyed the experience. There's more choices and convenience now but that's not always better.
Why did I hit a home run more often with my choices in rentals than I do now with endless choices in streaming?
Is it because movies use to be more often entertaining in general or is it just a matter of too many choices to wade through?

[–] lukejbarnett (1869) 4 years ago

yeah, technology doesn't always equal better. i son long for the days of talking to people in video stores about what i'm renting and browsing physical movies in mom and pop stores. everything is worse than it used to be with too much technology nowadays. if you think about it, with technology in this case and every other, we don't talk to people anymore.