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When I was a kid I always used to love the process of renting a movie. My sister and I would complain we were bored and wanted to rent a film, and after persistent nagging we would be driven down to the video rental store (which back then was always an independent store, not a chain like Blockbuster) by my Dad to choose a film.
We then wandered around the shop, gazing at the shelves trying to find a film we wanted to see. Often we wanted to see the latest big release, but more often than not were disappointed to find every copy was currently out on loan.
Once we had chosen a film (sometimes two if we couldn’t agree) we drove home again to watch it. Shows how much free time you had as a kid because we would normally manage to watch each film at least twice before we took it back to the shop the next day.
Flash forward to today, and I personally can’t remember the last time I rented a film. I’m not even a member of one of those postal DVD rental schemes that seem to be doing the rounds these days. When was the last time you rented a movie?
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Most of the old-style independent rental stores around my way have long since closed down, as everyone I know just buy the films they want to see nowadays etc. In the old days of VHS in the 80’s & 90’s, it took a long-time for films to make it to video rental after their cinema release & then even longer for retail purchase. But by the end of the 90’s this had got shorter & then they also started to have dual rental/retail releases, so rather than rent the film, it was easier to just buy it – which I did myself in ’98 with ”Titanic”.
In 1999/2000, DVD came along & I remember it took a while for the local stores around here to make the change over from VHS to DVD (which was stupid as people wanted DVD not VHS anymore) & then when they did, the rental DVD’s often had no extras on them & were inferior to their retail counterparts – why rent a film for £2-£3 per night with no extras, when you could buy the film for keeps instead? Also, by the mid 00’s, the price of DVD players & discs had fallen quite considerably & with the rise of E-Bay too, you could pretty much get the DVD of your choice for a cheaper price – so why bother with the hassle of renting it out from a shop? Late fees, the travel to/back from the shop & then finding out the film you want is out, all became a thing of the past as we got into the habit of buying the films we wanted & not renting etc…
However, around 2006/7, some bright spark came-up with the idea of online DVD rental, such as LoveFilm (of which I am a member) & I have to say I do like this service, as it’s convenient as you can do it all online & then just drop the disc in the post (in a pre-paid envelope) when you’ve watched it. No late fees & no hassles etc, and I often use this to see a film that I may not want to buy. I pay £12.99 a month for unlimited movies (2 at a time) & this is quite good value & handy if I’m broke and can’t afford to buy any DVD’s etc. So, I do like LoveFilm, but I haven’t rented anything from an old-style shop in years!
So, I think to sum-up, it’s another case of something that was once big on the high street & which has now had a re-birth online as such. Maybe there should be another poll asking ”Aside from online stores (such as LoveFilm), when was the last-time you rented a film from a traditional old-style store?”. I would imagine that figure to be quite low nowadays, as only the major chains such as Blockbuster are still going.
A good summation of video rentals there Iain, thanks a lot. I certainly remember the massive wait between films being released at the cinema and on video.
These days you don’t have very long to wait at all for films to come out on DVD, which presumably is why cinemas are now having to charge so much for tickets.
I’m glad you find the online rentals useful. Personally I have such a backlog of DVDs that I’ve bought and never watched that I don’t have the need to hire movies at the moment!
Never remember renting a movie…. I know we borrowed first season DS9, the B5 pilot and the Alien Nation movies back in the day
Hi Big Boo & I just thought a bit of extra info would be useful on this topic, so glad you thought it was good. One thing I’ll add with LoveFilm is that you always seem to get the ‘retail’ versions of DVD’s from them & not the rubbish ‘rental’ versions that they used to have in the local stores around here. This may not be the case anymore, but it was until around 2008, when our last local store (a Spar near me) stopped doing DVD rentals, as they said ”there was no money in it anymore”.
For example, when the film ”28 Days Later” was released on dual retail/rental back in 2002, I remember buying it on retail DVD (which had some good extras on it etc), but when a friend rented it from our local store, it was a ‘rental’ version & had no extras on it at all, just the film with basic extras (such as scene access & subtitles etc). I only paid about £12.99 for the retail version, but my friend had paid something like £2-£3 to rent the rental version. But all he got for his money was the film, whereas I had the film plus extras, so my point is that most people probably thought it’s best to wait & buy the movie (with full extras) then pay out for the inferior rental version with no extras. Perhaps this is why DVD rental in our local stores didn’t really do well. I guess it was a similar story across the country for most independent stores. The film companies said they did these ‘rental’ versions, as so people would rent the film & if they enjoyed it then go onto buy the retail version (not just for the film itself but to get the extras too), but would less likely to do so if the extras had’ve been available on the rental version. This idea backfired completely though, as just encouraged people to bypass rental completely & buy the retail version instead!…
Also, another thing that harmed rentals is the rise of satellite/cable/digital TV, as back when I was a ‘child of the 1980’s’ (pardon the pun! Lol) & we only had 4 channels, if there was nothing decent on the box, we’d often nip down the video store to get a film or two out etc. The time it took films to get from the cinema to terrestrial TV took ages, with some like ”E.T” taking many years, as I think it was shown on BBC1 at Xmas 1990, 8 years after it’s cinema release & probably a good few years after it’s rental debut. Also, another big draw was that even after films made their rental debut, they took a long-time to be available to buy on retail VHS. So the rental stores could make some extra money selling off ex-rental films too, as I remember my friend (a big ”Star Wars” fan) had bought ex-rental copies of the trilogy as they took a long-time to be released on proper retail VHS. So if there was nothing decent on BBC1/2, ITV & Channel 4 and with VHS rental the only way you could see the latest films, then it made the rental store a big priority for the majority of us in the 80’s & maybe upto the mid-to-late 90’s.
But with the arrival of Sky in ’89, cable TV in the early 90’s & then digital TV in ’98, we all suddenly got used to having more channels to watch (including the movies ones of course) & then with the launch of movies-on-demand services such as Sky Box Office & Front Row, this also meant that films didn’t take so long to get from the cinema to our TV screens anymore, which made us all less likely to want to go out to the video shop – especially on a cold night etc. Also as other attractions arrived in the 90’s, such as videogames & the internet, films became less popular with some people, as I used to have friends who were big films fans in the 80’s, but had become big gamers by the late 90’s.
Still, whatever has happened since, at least for a generation of us ‘children of the 1980’s’, the joy of going to the video store & picking out a movie or two was a real treat & something I always enjoyed as a kid. I remember the trailers were also fun too, including one for a film I never did get round to ever seeing, but must of seen the trailer a dozen times – ”The Taking of Beverly Hills”! Is that on DVD yet?…
More good points Iain! Your quite right that with today’s wide range of satellite and cable TV channels we’re spoilt for choice when it comes to wanting to watch something. Mind you, even with all those channels there’s still generally nothing much worth watching on the box sometimes…
Another change to movies being shown on TV is that in the days of only four channels we always had to wait until Christmas for most of the movie premieres in the year, which always added an extra layer of excitement to the Christmas holidays for me.
The trailers on the beginnings of films were great too, especially the ones for films you’d never heard of before, like The Taking of Beverly Hills, which sounds great! According to Wikipedia this film even had its own computer game *and* featured the first acting appearance of Pamela Anderson! It’s criminal this isn’t out on DVD!!! 😉
Hi again Big Boo & some good points from you there too! It’s a shame that ”The Taking Of Beverly Hills” isn’t on DVD yet (as it does seem like it could be worth a look), so let’s start the campaign here hey? Lol…
I remember those little independent stores so well! And also the films we used to rent. My friends and I loved anything with Madonna or Michael J. Fox. We used to rent the same things over and over although it probably would have been cheaper to buy them. We must have rented Back to the Future 25 times at least. Other favourites were Desperately Seeking Susan, Secret of My Success and Dangerous Liaisons. We also loved Marilyn Monroe and rented anything about her or which she appeared in.
I let my Blockbuster membership lapse some years ago as I got fed up with having to bring whatever I’d rented back so soon. I rent online now so I can watch at my own pace and I’ve had a lot of fun re-watching all my favourite 80s films.
Can’t say I went for the Madonna stuff, but I did use to look forward to seeing the next Michael J. Fox flick.