Current Events > Are you saddened that there are no more physical movie rental places?

(+) Yeah! (+)

remember blockbuster, hollywood, family video? How long were they in business for anyway?

There's still redbox.

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yeah im still on dial-up so i cant stream
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Not really but Id love to walk around one from back when I was a kid. I loved going to them.

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No

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WrestlinFan posted...

Not really but Id love to walk around one from back when I was a kid. I loved going to them.

yeah so did i. Kinda like shopping malls, good place to hang out

FabIe posted...

No

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Not even a little bit

Obligatory Psychostick:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1wwvxFgTkc

not really

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No because any new release i feel like watching will come out on demand on my cable box so i can rent it to watch at home. Recently i rented Tenet and that was really dope

I miss the smell. I miss going on a Friday with friends and selecting movies. I dont miss them being out of all the good new releases for 2-6 months. I dont miss the late fees.

there still are


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GhettoFlip posted...

there still are

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I dont not miss it, but its not like I feel empty without them or anything. I can stream-rent things now or if its something I like, Ill buy it on disc when its cheap (or if I REALLY like it, Ill get it day one).

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Remember having to sign the wait list lol.

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i remember my friend removing the overnight sticker and putting a 3 day sticker on the more expensive game rentals instead. the chain video store in my area went by the stickers so it was easy to cheat them.

$5 overnight games became 3 days

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My town still has a Jumbo Video (a Canadian national chain about as big as Blockbuster was in the 90s).

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I have a nice nostalgia for them but I don't really miss them.

Hell I had one down the road from me that only closed down last year. It just wasn't the same and I barely used it. The front door had Lock Up Hillary and 9/11 was an inside job Infowars stickers on it. I live in Australia.

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nope streaming ftw

There were four different movie/game rental places within walking distance of my house when I was a kid, and I have very fond memories of going to rent stuff with my brother or with friends. So, yeah, it makes me sad that I can't ever do that again.

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be honest. you wouldn't really be renting physical stuff these days.

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Maybe, but I think it's more nostalgia for my childhood. There was a Family Video near me that I visited a few times in the past five years and, while it was neat, it reminded me of a lot of the hassles of renting. I had to drive out there to return movies. The rental period was set up in such a way that you were guaranteed to either incur fees or have to make your way out there on a weird day.

Say I rented a five day movie on Saturday night. I would have to return that by Thursday night or get charged a late fee. This location was kind of far out, so that's like an hour of driving on a Thursday night to return a movie to avoid a late fee. So, most of the time, I'd just consider the late fee an extra convenience charge and take it back on a Friday or Saturday. I could tell the employees hated me for doing that though.

It's not like when I was a kid. In my hometown, the video stores were all in the center of town. I could rent something on the weekend and my grandmother would drop it off in the return slot when she went to get lunch on Mondays while I was at school. Same thing when I'd go visit my cousins who lived in a big city. They had Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and more. We'd load up on games and movies and then their mom would take them back after a week (or less in the case of some new titles) when she was out running errands.

Hell, I don't even particularly like renting from Red Box because it means I have to get my ass back out to a kiosk the next day. Sometimes it works out like, I'm out on the town on a Saturday night having fun, grab a movie, watch it, and then return it to the kiosk in the grocery store when I go shopping on Sunday. Covid has absolutely killed the first part of that though, so I rarely rent from Red Box anymore. I don't think you could return Blockbuster rentals to just any Blockbuster though, so that was probably even more inconvenient. We didn't have a Blockbuster in my town, only local video stores, so my only exposure to them was when I'd visit family.

The tl;dr is that I (and I suspect many people) don't necessarily miss the physical video store so much as that period of my life. When physical video stores were still commonplace, I was a kid/teenager with fewer worries and more hope for the future. Getting out of school on Friday and going to the video store to rent something (likely the same movie for the tenth time) was the highlight of the week/something I looked forward to immensely. As an adult, I just think about the hassle of it all and would rather rent something digitally.

Some of my fondest memories are related to video and video game rentals

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We still have them in Australia.

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FabIe posted...

No

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So, one of my fondest memories was renting Bully (for PS2) from the Movie Gallery (it was a chain video store that mainly popped up in places too small for a Blockbuster, think like Dollar General vs Walmart) in my town. I played it over Christmas and had so much fun with it. I'd also usually get a Wonka Bar (they were graham crackers coated in chocolate) from there too, since it was one of the few places that sold them.

Other fond memories include the local video store that let their dogs and cats roam around. I also always vividly remember a frightening "Jack Frost" VHS with a lenticular cover that would shift from a friendly snowman to a vicious killer snowman. They had an entire wall dedicated to "North and South" (a mini series about the Civil War from the 80s) tapes.

Not so fond memory: the local video store (with the cats and Civil War tapes) put up a sign advertising that they would soon have PS2, GCN, and Xbox games for rental! This was circa 2002, so this was new and an improvement over the extremely stagnant N64/SNES offerings they had for years. Well, time passed and no new games showed up, so I asked an employee what was up. In the most snotty, bitchy, condescending tone she could muster, she told me that, "Kids scratched up DVDs, so we're not going to get those disc games." I later laughed when they got ran out of business by the Movie Gallery (which in turn got shuttered by Netflix and a Red Box in town). They always had terrible prices (two day rentals for like $5 on super old movies versus Movie Gallery offering five day rentals for the same or less) and that experience really soured me on them. When they were almost going out of business, they started selling their games and thus were left with pretty much just garbage. I rented some Spider-Man game for the N64 and the damn thing didn't even work. This was in the mid 2000s, when it should have still been fine and I knew how to get a stubborn cart to work. This thing was dead.

008Zulu posted...

We still have them in Australia.

There can't be many left surely. There must only be like 2 left in Sydney now after the one near me closed down last year. At the very least they've gotta only be left in rural towns with shit internet or right in the middle of major cities with big populations that have a niche market that still use them. Which is probably the same for the US?

There are a lot of those Video Ezy vending machines though lol. Never really bothered with them.

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Renting via streaming is way easier and convenient. Damn shame blockbuster had a great way to counter Netflix too late to save the company. 20 dollar card a month, and you can take whatever you wanted. No more late fees, no more forced 7 day rental periods per purchase, etc. And I was a Netflix DVD user, even if it was only 8 bucks a month I was only getting 2 dvds a week at best. If I got it Monday and watched it that night and put it back in the mail, it wouldn't get sent out until Tuesday and they receive it Wednesday and send out my next one Thursday and I get it maybe Saturday. No mail on Sunday so they don't get it until Monday and that's how it went every week.

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Makeveli_lives posted...

Renting via streaming is way easier and convenient. Damn shame blockbuster had a great way to counter Netflix too late to save the company. 20 dollar card a month, and you can take whatever you wanted. No more late fees, no more forced 7 day rental periods per purchase, etc. And I was a Netflix DVD user, even if it was only 8 bucks a month I was only getting 2 dvds a week at best. If I got it Monday and watched it that night and put it back in the mail, it wouldn't get sent out until Tuesday and they receive it Wednesday and send out my next one Thursday and I get it maybe Saturday. No mail on Sunday so they don't get it until Monday and that's how it went every week.

A downside for something like that would be that the new releases would be even harder to get than they already were if the model was successful.

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Makeveli_lives posted...

Renting via streaming is way easier and convenient. Damn shame blockbuster had a great way to counter Netflix too late to save the company. 20 dollar card a month, and you can take whatever you wanted. No more late fees, no more forced 7 day rental periods per purchase, etc. And I was a Netflix DVD user, even if it was only 8 bucks a month I was only getting 2 dvds a week at best. If I got it Monday and watched it that night and put it back in the mail, it wouldn't get sent out until Tuesday and they receive it Wednesday and send out my next one Thursday and I get it maybe Saturday. No mail on Sunday so they don't get it until Monday and that's how it went every week.

Did you know that people still use the DVD-by-mail service? It's wild to me.

_Rinku_ posted...

The tl;dr is that I (and I suspect many people) don't necessarily miss the physical video store so much as that period of my life. When physical video stores were still commonplace, I was a kid/teenager with fewer worries and more hope for the future. Getting out of school on Friday and going to the video store to rent something (likely the same movie for the tenth time) was the highlight of the week/something I looked forward to immensely. As an adult, I just think about the hassle of it all and would rather rent something digitally.

You hit the nail on the head my man

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I have a Family Video like 5min away that has a little ceasers right next door.They always have foot traffic too.

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Darmik posted...

There can't be many left surely.

There are, but they are mostly in smaller towns and rural areas as you said. And don't call me Shirley.

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_Rinku_ posted...

So, one of my fondest memories was renting Bully (for PS2) from the Movie Gallery (it was a chain video store that mainly popped up in places too small for a Blockbuster, think like Dollar General vs Walmart) in my town. I played it over Christmas and had so much fun with it. I'd also usually get a Wonka Bar (they were graham crackers coated in chocolate) from there too, since it was one of the few places that sold them.

Other fond memories include the local video store that let their dogs and cats roam around. I also always vividly remember a frightening "Jack Frost" VHS with a lenticular cover that would shift from a friendly snowman to a vicious killer snowman. They had an entire wall dedicated to "North and South" (a mini series about the Civil War from the 80s) tapes.

Not so fond memory: the local video store (with the cats and Civil War tapes) put up a sign advertising that they would soon have PS2, GCN, and Xbox games for rental! This was circa 2002, so this was new and an improvement over the extremely stagnant N64/SNES offerings they had for years. Well, time passed and no new games showed up, so I asked an employee what was up. In the most snotty, bitchy, condescending tone she could muster, she told me that, "Kids scratched up DVDs, so we're not going to get those disc games." I later laughed when they got ran out of business by the Movie Gallery (which in turn got shuttered by Netflix and a Red Box in town). They always had terrible prices (two day rentals for like $5 on super old movies versus Movie Gallery offering five day rentals for the same or less) and that experience really soured me on them. When they were almost going out of business, they started selling their games and thus were left with pretty much just garbage. I rented some Spider-Man game for the N64 and the damn thing didn't even work. This was in the mid 2000s, when it should have still been fine and I knew how to get a stubborn cart to work. This thing was dead.

My town had a Movie Gallery too. Lots and lots of fond memories getting those popcorn tubs that you put in the microwave and those cookie dough bites.


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About the only thing I miss was seeing tons of anime on VHS at a Blockbuster.

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Balrog0 posted...

You hit the nail on the head my man

Yea, this. I could go on forever about my memories of going to the local rental store as a kid, but the truth is even if they were around now I wouldnt care. Part of the excitement as a kid was going and seeing what was new and if it was in stock to rent. You almost made a mad dash when you saw that tag or tape of something you wanted. Now it would just be Well this isnt available here but I can just stream it at home. Why did I make the trip out here?

Some incredible memories but nothing I long for in this day and age

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Yes, because internet is still scarce in the rural places I'd like to buy my next house

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At least before Covid, There was still a movie rental place by where I used to live. It took up like 1/2 the plaza I was in, so I can't understand why it was successful into 2020, but its still there.

The whole act of actually renting movies was always something I kind of enjoyed. Yeah, streaming services are basically better in every way, but you aren't actually going out to get one, and then maybe looking around to see if you can get something else because the thing you wanted isn't there.