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Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

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Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#21

Post by ezekg »

I miss Blockbuster. We had a small haven here called Family Video, but they unfortunately closed down due to the COVID lockdowns/lack of foot traffic. It was my family's spot to grab a Friday night movie and snacks, even through the pandemic. We were super bummed to see it go. Streaming just doesn't match the experience of browsing movies IRL. We'd usually leave with a few movies to watch that week, including a kids movie for the kids. We typically give up on endlessly browsing Netflix/etc. for something interesting and fall back to our "usual." Boring.

Hoping similar stores make a resurgence someday.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#22

Post by corrral »

Dig1t wrote: post #6
kerblang wrote: post #3

It's sort of bizarre that an entrenched, widely despised corporate behemoth thoroughly deserving its own demise has turned into an anachronistic mom-and-pop shop that just gets by. But isn't this the worst of both worlds? It's dystopian nostalgia. Maybe I just have too much of a grudge against the 1980's...

I grew up in the 90's and have nothing but warm fuzzy memories of renting a movie on Friday night and watching in the living room with my family, eating popcorn and candy. I think there's probably a lot of people who have that from their childhood.

That part was great. Getting charged late fees because you didn't have it back at 8:00AM sharp (or whatever) sucked.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#23

Post by noduerme »

I run IT for a franchise chain. All requests to me are supposed to come through corporate, but franchisees and sometimes managers and even front desk employees try to do end-runs and get directly to me with software issues, local networking issues, etc. I want to stress how difficult this would be for one person to manage, and how much work for little pay it probably was if it was based on service contracts with individual stores. At least, when there were 30 independent Blockbusters left. Now it's probably pretty chill.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#25

Post by LeifCarrotson »

Dig1t wrote: post #6
kerblang wrote: post #3

It's sort of bizarre that an entrenched, widely despised corporate behemoth thoroughly deserving its own demise has turned into an anachronistic mom-and-pop shop that just gets by. But isn't this the worst of both worlds? It's dystopian nostalgia. Maybe I just have too much of a grudge against the 1980's...

I grew up in the 90's and have nothing but warm fuzzy memories of renting a movie on Friday night and watching in the living room with my family, eating popcorn and candy. I think there's probably a lot of people who have that from their childhood.

I did as well. While helping set up my parents (now Grandma and Grandpa) on our Disney+ and Netflix plans, we discussed the demise of Blockbuster.

As it turns out, they did a really good job of insulating us as kids from the backup plans for broken VHS tapes, late fees, mis-boxed movies, returns that were accepted but never registered, out-of-stock hit movies, and other 'adult' problems. Their memories of movie nights did not have quite the same golden hue, but they were happy that they'd fostered that kind of memory in spite of the stresses of parenting.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#26

Post by awacs »

Growing up in the 80s with VHS, Betamax, Laserdiscs (if anyone recalls), and being a dj in the late 90s when the thought of a "USB stick instead of traveling with all this vinyl was an impossibility", makes this whole nostalgia tour a fun one. I think we all forget though just how poor the quality was back then, and what we've become accustomed to, with VHS being 240 lines, DVD 480p, etc. It's like reminiscing about the first iPhone and then looking at one and realizing how damn small it actually was compared to modern versions.

I started converting / collecting most of my movie collection onto a localized server years ago, and glad I did. Though I rarely watch all my old movies (a growing list of about 1000 including most of my favorite TV shows), the end game I think we all know is everything streamed, with no actual ownership of content. It's not a terrible notion, but the problem I think we've all seen is it's now turned into a corporate ownership game, and you never know where the content you're interested in watching is. One day Star Trek is on Netflix, the next Paramount, etc.

The only problem has been keeping up with resolution changes, even though I'm a firm believer in unless you're watching on something well over 100" a nice high-quality 1080P file looks just great on a large 85" tv (which I currently have).

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#27

Post by hinkley »

corrral wrote: post #22
Dig1t wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in the 90's and have nothing but warm fuzzy memories of renting a movie on Friday night and watching in the living room with my family, eating popcorn and candy. I think there's probably a lot of people who have that from their childhood.

That part was great. Getting charged late fees because you didn't have it back at 8:00AM sharp (or whatever) sucked.

They also had quite a markup on those snacks. Not movie theater levels, but a lot higher than the convenience store.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#28

Post by _fat_santa »

kerblang wrote: post #3

It's sort of bizarre that an entrenched, widely despised corporate behemoth thoroughly deserving its own demise has turned into an anachronistic mom-and-pop shop that just gets by. But isn't this the worst of both worlds? It's dystopian nostalgia. Maybe I just have too much of a grudge against the 1980's...

The way I see it, there are really two Blockbusters. One is an evil corporate behemoth, the other is the neighborhood video store that lives on in our memories. These guys aren't keeping Blockbuster running so much as they are keeping the nostalgic memory of it going.

TBH I'm a bit surprised no one has tried to buy the Blockbuster brand from Dish and restart the company. I feel like you could effectively run one much like a comic book store, there's always a niche that will patronize the business.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#29

Post by rconti »

awacs wrote: post #26

Growing up in the 80s with VHS, Betamax, Laserdiscs (if anyone recalls), and being a dj in the late 90s when the thought of a "USB stick instead of traveling with all this vinyl was an impossibility", makes this whole nostalgia tour a fun one. I think we all forget though just how poor the quality was back then, and what we've become accustomed to, with VHS being 240 lines, DVD 480p, etc. It's like reminiscing about…

I ripped my entire DVD collection 15 years ago, and I just never watch any of it. If I want to watch one of the movies I just pay the $4 to 'rent' a 4k stream instead of suffering with DVD quality.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#30

Post by altdataseller »

Dig1t wrote: post #6
kerblang wrote: post #3

It's sort of bizarre that an entrenched, widely despised corporate behemoth thoroughly deserving its own demise has turned into an anachronistic mom-and-pop shop that just gets by. But isn't this the worst of both worlds? It's dystopian nostalgia. Maybe I just have too much of a grudge against the 1980's...

I grew up in the 90's and have nothing but warm fuzzy memories of renting a movie on Friday night and watching in the living room with my family, eating popcorn and candy. I think there's probably a lot of people who have that from their childhood.

Same, Growing up in the US, I also have warm memories of TGIF, where we'd watch Family Matters together as a family on Friday night.
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