From VHS to DVD: How My Life Has Changed

It may seem amazing that in this day and age, there are people that don’t have a DVD player. But there really are! I’m not ashamed to say that up until last fall, I was one of them. Yes, I was making due with a boring old VHS player and a collection of clunky, slowly disintegrating tapes. I knew I was completely behind the trend, that I was neither “hip” nor “with it,” but what could I do? So I continued dressing in black, writing pretentious poetry, and eating donuts.

Then, everything changed. I bought a DVD player, and some movies to boot. To say that this purchase greatly affected my life would be an understatement. Suddenly, donuts tasted twice as good as before. Instead of chasing girls (and failing miserably) I was now going to every used DVD store in southern California looking to buy my favorite movies on disc to replace those moth-eaten video tapes that wouldn’t last much longer anyway (I got a little brainwashed by blatant consumerism, can you tell?). Life, again or perhaps for the first time, made sense and all was well.

Kyle! You must own ALL of me!

It wasn’t an easy, or smooth, transition. I went from having every film I really wanted either from buying them on VHS or having recorded them off of cable to having to deal with some films not having been put on DVD yet or some films that were released on DVD being out of print or impossible to find except in the used racks. Which is fine, whatever, I enjoy a challenge. And it’s ongoing, and for all that I’ve achieved in my life I still wake up every morning and realize with a sinking feeling that I have every James Bond film on DVD except Thunderball and For Your Eyes Only. That hurts, it really does. But it gives me purpose, you know? And there is always the fantasy that somehow my search for Bond DVDs will lead me to that one special redheaded punk girl who shares her DVD collection and eventually her heart with little old me! But I digress.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from the whole DVD format. I knew that most films would offer special features including “making of” documentaries, commentaries by cast and crew, and all that other crap they put on these discs. I didn’t care then, I don’t care now. I like to see deleted scenes and alternate endings for movies, though seeing them usually just points out rather explicitly why they were cut in the first place. And sometimes the extras are really cool and entertaining; I’m thinking particularly of things like “Inside the Actor’s Studio Spoof” on Old School and the special documentaries on the Bond films, especially for The Living Daylights where you can see Sam Neill’s screen test for the James Bond role and realize he could have been cool. But I know a lot of people find the meaning of life reflected in a double-disc film release chock full of extras, so I’m glad the stuff is there. Maybe one day I’ll watch is all. Or whatever.

Obviously, though, the two main benefits of films in the DVD format are their longevity (assuming you don’t play frisbee with them, I suppose) and the ability to select the scenes you want to watch. That scene selection is the absolute coolest! I can put in Batman Returns and go right to the introduction of Bruce Wayne, and watch it over and over (that’s how I spend my weeknights, by the way: sitting in a chair in the dark, waiting for the bat signal to shine through the window). If there is a slow part in a movie, I can click right past it! Or I can just watch like the middle half-hour of a movie, and then watch it again, and again, until I have every single bit of dialogue memorized and I can impress that crazy movie trivia girl that hangs out at the bar downtown. Do you see how cool selecting scenes is yet? Just take my word for it, okay?

So, yeah, in closing, DVDs are really cool. Sure, DVDs are a little more expensive than VHS tapes, but it’s all good. Those dang DVD controllers have a lot of buttons and it seems confusing to figure out, but it’s all worth it. There are probably more reasons, but this is my article and that’s all there is to it. Sorry, people! Look, DVDs are cool and it really is a great format. I’m not trying to be a shill, because all the impressive picture quality and extra features in the world can’t redeem a disc that has a crappy movie on it, and a really great movie (like Raiders of the Lost Ark) will be fun to watch whether it’s on cable or on a fuzzy, rapidly decaying VHS tape. But until we get those little tiny discs that they had in Men in Black (Tommy Lee Jones said they were for music, but you know they’ll be for movies as well) DVD is where it’s at! Enjoy the one you have, get one if you can, or just make friends with somebody that has a player and spend all your time at their house. Movies rule!