…there’s a lot of truth to be found in this:
Cory Doctorow has some further discussion of this image and its concepts over at BoingBoing.
Okay, I hate the trailers on a DVD*, and they make me purple with rage when they’re unskippable (though I don’t think they’ve managed to create trailers that you can’t fast-forward thru as of yet). I hate them even more when they’re listed on the DVD’s Special Features menu with some sort of vague name like “Bonus Previews” or something, so when you choose them, you’re not only watching an ad for a movie you don’t care about, but you’ve been suckered into watching it. I despise the various FBI Anti-Piracy warnings – on a disc that, as Doctorow observes, I’ve legally purchased or rented – invariably followed up by disclaimers in three or four different languages wasting a further 30 seconds each informing me that that I can’t sue Warner Bros. for things in the interviews and commentary contained on the disc that may offend me. And after that, there is often, these days, yet another little thirty-second-to-a-minute bit where they’ve made another little movie – either new material or cleverly-edited clips from an old movie – to remind me that piracy is wrong, wrong, wrong. But none of that, amazingly, is what bugs me the most.
* Though, curiously, the trailers are one of my favorite parts of actually going to the movies. I guess I expect more control over the movie-watching experience in my living room. At the theater, it feels like an essential part of the experience; at home it feels like being forced to watch ads when I’ve got a remote with a gawt-dammed “Chapter Skip” button on it in my hand.
What bugs me the most is the fucking animated menu screen, often listed on the back of the case as a selling point for the disc. It makes me long for the old days (can something only ten years old be considered the old days?) where the DVD menu was completely static. Yes, it looks kind of quaint on the screen when you pop in an old disc these days and you get a static image and no music or sound effects, but isn’t it mighty nice? But now, oh, no. The people putting together the DVD have to dazzle you with their clever and innovative menus. I’m certainly an advocate of presenting information in clever and interesting ways – but I contend that a DVD menu is not, in fact, a presentation of information, but rather a means to an end. I put the disc in the player because I want to watch a movie, not because I want to check out the latest advances in DVD menu technology.
I mean…I mean…I sit through all the other extraneous bullshit to arrive at the menu screen, and then I have to wait thirty seconds or a minute more for the menu screen to even let me select an option? And then once I hit “Play Movie,” I get thirty seconds more of “animated menu” bullshit before the movie actually starts? It just ain’t right.
The menu – like a non-skippable Flash-animated splash page for a website – is content-free. I understand it can be pretty, and it can be interesting to look at…but at the same time, I shouldn’t have to sit through a pointless 45-second-long animated tour of Cerebro if I want to pop the disc in the player and watch X-Men for the tenth time. Hell, I shouldn’t have to sit through it if I want to watch a movie for the first time. If it doesn’t improve the experience of using the disc, if it only increases the frustration factor of using the disc, why is it included?
I don’t know. Maybe static imagery and silence is too 20th-century. Maybe I’m destined to be an old curmudgeon, complaining about how things were better back in my day, when it was okay if something wasn’t moving and flashing and beeping and playing music and sound effects for us at all times. But I’d like to think I’m not alone in my curmudgeonity.