Behold: The future.
Nobody wants this future. Well, to be fair, I don’t want this future, and nobody I personally know wants this future. General opinion seems best summed up in this AV Club piece by Sean O’Neal, answering a question put forward by theater owners themselves at CinemaCon, an annual gathering of the people responsible for $12 tickets, $6 popcorn, $4 Jujyfruits, and 30 minutes worth of commercials that run before the 20 minutes of commercials that run before a cool computer generated roller coaster ride happens before the movie starts.
So why is it completely, utterly, irrevocably inevitable that texting in theaters will be commonplace within the next five years?
Because people aren’t going to stop carrying around highly powerful personal computers in their pockets anytime soon. They’re ubiquitous at this point. Ubiquitous things don’t just go away, especially as generations of people become accustomed to their presence in almost all manner of social situation.
But let’s imagine a future where we, the just and righteous, are triumphant in convincing theater owners it’s in their best interest to discourage texting as strongly as possible. There will still be popcorn. There will still be candy, and nachos, and hot dogs, all crinkling and crunching way too loudly at just the wrong time. There will still be rude people with no concept of what an inconsiderate inconvenience they’re being when they narrate what’s happening, or engage in one-sided conversation with the film, or heckle the images being (often shoddily, and dimly) projected onto the screen.
Don’t mistake me for being permissive, here; I’m not saying “let them text, your movie’s going to get ruined one way or the other.” When I’m in a theater and someone pulls out a phone, I ask them to put it away. When people are being verbally disruptive, I ask them to be quiet. But what I’m saying is that if major-chain theater owners actually gave a shit about the experiences at their theaters, they’d have tried mitigating any of these circumstances already, as opposed to accommodating them. But they always choose accommodation. They’re a service industry, after all. And they charge us accordingly for that service. They’re indulging our wants, aren’t they?
A whole bunch of us WANT to rip open a five-pound bag of M&M’s with all the grace of Oceanic 815 making an emergency island landing. So why not sell us that candy at a markup? A lot of us want to babble incoherently at the screen while the movie plays. Why not instruct the ushers to zip in and out of the screening once or twice while staring straight ahead and absentmindedly waving a stunted toy lightsaber from side to side? How many people have complained that the film is scratched, or dim, or jumpy? Oh, just one or two people? Nobody else came out to the lobby? I guess they’re okay with it, then. Let’s save some cash and run the bulbs at half power.
You know how these same owners dealt with a vocal minority of complaints, after people got sick of their theatrical experience being a dim, jumpy, scratchy, noisy mess? They didn’t train projectionists, they didn’t train ushers. They did reduce staff, and increase automation, and they paid large amounts of money to refit their theaters with digital projection technologies. Then they charged you more for it. And you paid, happily. Except there was still all that noise, and that unruly riff-raff. So they created special rooms in their multiplexes, rooms with couches and tables, and restaurant service. And they charged you more for it. And you paid that premium, happily, for the opportunity to experience the theater “the way it was meant to be.”
The message these purchasing decisions sends is this: You can be coerced into paying 20 dollars for the privilege of watching a movie, distraction-free, with appropriate focus on exemplary audio and image. If you want a regular, old-fashioned, jus’-folks styled moviegoing experience, you can pay the 12 bucks to sit in a regular, old-fashioned theater full of jus’-folks eating, chewing, slurping, yapping, and yes, texting/tweeting their moviegoing experience to their hundreds or thousands of followers.
Of course these major chains are going to let people text in the theater. They’re not about to jeopardize their constantly-shrinking audience by telling people “no.” And they’re definitely not about to lower prices. They’ve got too many gimmicks on deck; 3D, IMAX 3D, 48fps TruMotion 120hz Realer-Than-Real vision. None of that stuff is cheap, and competition costs a lot of money, and there’s way more to compete with now than ever before. $500 televisions are advanced enough that the 1080 lines of resolution they display is already hitting the upper limits of visual discernment for most moviegoers. 200 dollar home theater receivers can decode 9 channels worth of high-definition audio. The personal computer you carry in your pocket everywhere? You can play movies on it. Plug a pair of headphones in, and for many, you’ve defined immersion: It’s not you, in a darkened theater, staring at a 50ft screen. It’s you, your phone, a small space to occupy, and some earbuds.
Do people want to text in the theater? Obviously, because exhibitors are wondering aloud, in front of microphones, if they should let you, as if they don’t already. They’re obviously not all that interested in stopping you, just like they weren’t that interested in shutting you up, getting your feet off the seat, or having you deposit your trash in the garbage receptacles located by the doors.
And if you want to watch a movie without having someone flaunt their inconsiderate nature by flicking their finger across a touchscreen to livetweet whatever superhero blockbuster you just paid 16 bucks to watch in 48fps IMAX 3D? I’m sure you’ll have no problem paying the $25-30 premium ticket price to gain admission to a room in an alternate theatrical universe where the employees give a shit about the picture they’re projecting, and the ushers care whether your feet are on the chair, and nobody in the theater is doing anything but engaging with the movie they paid to watch.
If you care, then you get to pay for caring. And if you don’t want to pay that much, you’ll either learn not to care (which happens in the case of many technologies as they proliferate throughout our culture) or you’ll seek out alternative means to enjoy what you used to enjoy.
Maybe that means you build out a beautiful home theater system and you simply wait the extra two or three months for a film to finish it’s theatrical run and appear on the home market. Maybe you turn to television entirely, riding your trusty Netflix subscription until the wheels fall off, consuming series after series of stuff you should have watched by now. Maybe you’re lucky enough to live within distance of an independent theater owner like Tim League of the Alamo Drafthouse, or Greg Wood of the Roseway Theater, or Justen Harn and Dan Halsted of the Hollywood Theatre, people who still care about the theatrical experience and put in the effort to ensure audience satisfaction on all levels. And if you’re lucky, like we are here Portland, or Austin, Texas, or at Tarantino’s New Beverly in Los Angeles, they’ll charge decent prices for that experience, too.
But if your choice is major theater chain or nothing? I don’t see how the answer to CinemaCon’s question is anything but “Yes.”
Or you could just go to Roseway where the ticket prices are fair, the popcorn’s cheap and everyone is smart enough to shut the fuck up.
Fuck everything about this. You try to watch a movie while there is a bright goddamn light source flickering away from the row in front of you. I can tell you if it’s a theater I’m sitting in and you try to fuck up my movie with your texting, I will fuck up a lot more than your movie.
Why can’t people sit quietly for two hours? The texts will be there when the movies over…
I’VE TAKEN THE ROUTE OF THE HOME THEATER. 1080P,5.1, AND MY COUCH. THE DELAY BETWEEN THEATRICAL RELEASE AND BLU-RAY IS SHRINKING BY THE MONTH. I CAN SEE THE MOVIES BEFORE THEY EVEN HIT THE BEER THEATERS. THERE MIGHT BE THE RARE BIG ACTION MOVIE I GO SEE OPENING WEEKEND FOR THE EXPERIENCE (E.G. THE AVENGERS OR HUNGER GAMES) BUT I DIDN’T MISS OUT ON ANYTHING BY WATCHING TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY AT HOME.
Is It Time to Allow Moviegoers to Devour Irish Children During Films? Yes. Yes it is.
@graham
word.
I agree with everything Graham just said. If texting in theaters becomes an accepted practice, I’ll stop going.
free ipad
I just want anyone who texts in a theater to know that I have decided I no longer wish to miss any part of the movie because I need to use the restroom so I am going to piss in my soda cup after I finish drinking out of it. If your extremely offensive behavior is ok, then so is mine.
p.s. if you text and then get up to go to the restroom I will swap sodas with you, just sayin…
“riding your trusty Netflix subscription until the wheels fall off, consuming series after series of stuff you should have watched by now.”
Ouch. You got me. And my TV is Hulu. But, Bay area cost-of-living sucks, so fuck cable.
Ranting about movie theaters overcharging? Sort of a dated topic. We have several great movie houses in town who are committed to delivering an exceptional experience: The Roseway, Living Room Theaters and Cinetopia.
Has Regal been lax about their moviegoing experience. Sure. But then they build one of the largest IMAX screens on the west coast here.
This piece is just a masturbatory rant. Nothing really new or interesting here just Graham jerking off with words.
@geoffk – Graham didn’t write this. He did comment on it. His is the post in all caps.
Also, I mentioned the independent movie house option in the article as well. The topic isn’t dated because it was based specifically on a discussion theater owners had just this last weekend about specifically permitting texting in theaters as opposed to shrugging when it (inevitably) happens.
Also, that IMAX screen built here isn’t really an IMAX. They just knocked out a few rows of seats in the front and pushed a slightly larger-than-average theater screen closer to the audience. The phenomenon is known as LieMAX, and is pretty nicely detailed here:
http://www.slashfilm.com/qa-imax-theatre-r…
Basically – the pricing isn’t really the point. The point was to show why I believe texting is going to be allowed in theaters, and people who don’t want it will simply be charged a premium for a theatrical experience without it. There’s no way it doesn’t go down like that. Hopefully you have access to an independent theater owner who can offer a competing product.
I was actually just talking to a friend about how I wished that more places had actual ushers. I guess if you want to allow it that is ok but if you prohibit it and advertise the fact that it is not allowed then you need to police it and boot people. I recently attended a concert at the arlene schnitzer concert hall where the tickets had no photography printed right on them but the guy 4 rows in front of me was using his iphone on full brightness to basically video tape the entire show til his battery went dead. If I pay 60 dollars for a show I expect it not to be filled with tiny screens distracting from the performance, especially when it is advertised as such.
@ECONOLINE: I SAW A SHOW AT THE SCHNITZ A FEW WEEKS AGO AND HAD A SIMILIAR EXPERIENCE WITH PEOPLE TAKING PHOTOS AND VIDEO WITH THEIR PHONES; HOWEVER, I DID SEE USHERS COME OVER AND TELL PEOPLE TO STOP. AND THEY DID…. UNTIL THE USHER WALKED AWAY THREE SECONDS LATER AND THEN THEY STARTED BACK UP. AND WHEN SOMEONE IS SIX ROWS AHEAD OF YOU, HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO GO UP THERE AND TELL THEM TO KNOCK IT OFF? I’VE GOT NO PROBLEM TELLING SOMEONE TO PUT THEIR PHONE DOWN, BUT THERE’S A FEW TACTICAL ISSUES WITH DOING SO AT A SOLD OUT SHOW.
Hogwash & poppycock. People have been carrying telephones in their pockets for 20 years now, and we still don’t have people talking on them in the theatre.
@graham At the show I was at the ushers walked right past people who were doing it. In my opinion they would only have to announce prior to the show that anyone taking photos will be ejected from the show and then maybe eject 1 person who does it anyway. Problem solved.
I think this whole post could have been simplified down to, “People are going to be dicks, and it’s the rare business that’s going to pay to make them stop.” This happens everywhere in the service biz, and, in the world of Yelp reviews and social media, I can’t think of a single industry (only single businesses, like Alamo Drafthouse) that will risk their friendly image to boot paying customers for being rude.
That level of customer service (agreeing to serve only the “good” customers in hopes that they’ll be loyal and regular enough visitors to make up for the lost “bad” ones) is going to be a niche. But Bobby is right — Regal will never make texters stop, just like they won’t stop entitled parents from bringing their babies and kindergarteners into grown-up movies.
Living in Portland has really spoiled me. Most (all?) the beer theaters don’t allow minors after 9pm or so, the cumulative effect being no teenagers in the house. There’s the occasional texter but it’s pretty rare, even at a packed house for Cort & Fatboy’s midnight movies.
Recently I had to escape in-laws and went to a AMC and was just astounded at how much it felt like being in a high school hallway in between classes. Kids talking, texting, making calls, etc. Fuck the chain theaters, and super fuck them if they’re going to enable this. I’m with Graham, my WD TV streaming player gets pretty much whatever I need.
ALSO, RELATED! When are we gonna have another Hecklevision? Cuz that shit was bonkers.
Slightly off topic, but in reference to the photo used in the original post: I can’t help but read that as the Magneto States of America. Except that I don’t think Magneto would allow us to text in theaters.
@C&B, I’m very much looking forward to Hecklevision 3.
I went and saw Cabin in the Woods the other day and was pleasantly surprised by the more-forceful-than-usual disclaimer. It didn’t say ‘please do not use your phone’ it basically said, ‘if you use your phone we will kick you out.” I think the authoritive, no-BS tone actually works – and at the very least it deputizes the rest of the audience to keep the texters in line without any reservations.