The ever-evolving nature of home video over the past 20 years or so has changed what materials actually make it onto the physical media we can purchase (DVDs, Blu-rays, and now 4K UHD discs), In some cases, those behind-the-scenes and “making of” features and featurettes do appear as extras when those movies or television shows are purchased digitally (think Amazon and Apple, Movies Anywhere and Vudu, and others.
Sometimes access to those extras are available on digital rentals, as you would have back in the day when you rented a DVD, but more often than not, when a movie makes the shift to 100% digital, where you cannot buy it on physical media anymore, those extras are lost to future viewers of those films. I can’t make a blanket generalization, but I can say that indie movies and genre shows seem to be the victims of the shifting marketplaces and dwindling availability of these extras on digital rentals or digital purchases.
Where Do We Go From here?
What I’d like to see are some new ideas, some new ways to make those commentary tracks and other bonus materials for any older and newer releases more readily available to potential viewers and consumers.
What I don’t have are any suggestions or propositions for solutions, but part of me wants to make it easier for people to find out what commentaries are out there on what versions of the media releases that are available, and go from there.
The best way to address an issue is to acknowledge there is one to begin with. Movie fans and TV show addicts miss having that wealth of commentaries at their fingertips. What can we fans and consumers do about that now?
What Commentaries Mean to Us
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