My CinemaBlend brother in physical media, Mike Reyes, wrote an excoriating piece about why he's furious that the Netflix DVD Plan is coming to an end after 25 years.
And, I guess we're just processing grief differently. Mike seems to be on stage 2 of the 5 stages of grief, which is anger, whereas I'm more on stage 4, depression. And, that’s because I knew this day was coming. I mean, how could I not?
When I wrote my article last year about why I still use Netflix's DVD Plan, I knew it was only a matter of time before Netflix gave physical media the 'ol heave ho. I mean, I'm not blind. I've seen the greasy smiles that people give me whenever I tell them that I still get DVDs in the mail. Truth be told, a lot of people are surprised that a DVD program still even exists from Netflix. But, come September 29th, 2023, it won't anymore, and I have so many feelings about this right now. Commiserate with me?
Ending Its DVD Plan Is Just Further Evidence That I'm Getting Old(er)
I vividly remember when I first got a Netflix DVD in the mail. I was still in college, and my sister gifted me with a subscription. I'm a little fuzzy on what my first movie was, but since it was around 2003, it was probably The Matrix, or Go, or something like that. Maybe even Pi (which is still one of my favorite Darren Aronofsky movies -- I still haven't seen The Whale yet, though).
Honestly, it's not important what my first movie was. What is important though was the experience that I first had, as I marveled at the idea of receiving movies in the mail. You see, I'm old enough to remember the Blockbuster days, when I'd endlessly go up and down the aisles to find something to watch. So, getting movies in the mail was a big deal for me back then.
And, you know what? It's still a big deal to me. I know most Americans now find streaming to be the norm, and I do, too. But, I've never really warmed up to it. Yes, I get as excited as the next Power Rangers fan when something like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always appears on Netflix. But, at the same time, I'm already kind of over it.
That's because everything on streaming just feels so ephemeral to me. Sure, Once & Always likely isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but, there's always the chance that it could one day just disappear. And, that's just a fact of life that most people who enjoy streaming have come to grips with – You watch something, and then forget about it and move on to something else.
But, I’m just not like that. I love popping in a disc and coming back to movies again and again, and with Netflix’s DVD plan coming to an end, it just reminds me that I’m getting old, and that I enjoy old things. Which sucks, to say the very least.
There Are Still Several Movies In My Queue That I'll Probably Never Get To See
Let me just tell you some of the movies that I currently have in my queue that are listed under “Very long wait,”: Hearts in Atlantis, (which our very own Eric Eisenberg got to watch, but I didn’t), The Killing Fields, Jennifer’s Body, and Road House.
Do you want to hear some of the movies that I have in my “unknown” wait queue? Scarecrow, Soldier of Orange, Gaslight, La Strada, The Deadly Trackers, and The Big Heat, just to name a few. Now, a lot of those movies are mega old (Soldier of Orange, a Rutger Hauer film directed by Paul Verhoeven, is the most recent film, at-gulp-1977). But, not all of the movies in my “unknown” queue are from the ‘70s and earlier.
In fact, some of them are actually super recent. During the pandemic, I watched almost every Best Picture winner (mostly through Netflix’s DVD plan), and do you know the one Best Picture winner that I haven’t seen yet? CODA, which came out in 2021. That’s on my “unknown” list, and I’ll likely never get to see it unless I go through Apple TV+, which I don’t want to do. Also on that “unknown” list is Return to Seoul, which came out just this year.
Sure, I’d probably never get a movie like Scarecrow in my mailbox no matter how long I waited (even though it starred both Gene Hackman AND Al Pacino), but now, with Netflix’s DVD plan ending in September, I’m almost positive that I’ll never get to see it, and that just blows.
In Turn, There Are Probably Countless Articles I'll Never Write
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. A vast majority of the articles that I pitch to CinemaBlend are for movies that I watched on Netflix’s DVD plan. For instance, I likely never would have written (or even bothered to watch) movies like Black Narcissus, which is about horny nuns, or the Martin Scorsese hidden gem, After Hours, if not for Netflix’s DVD plan.
Did you happen to read the article about classic black and white films that we recently put out? Well, I wrote that, and it was only after going on a black and white binge from movies I watched on Netflix DVD. The same goes for my recent article where I watched Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress to compare it to Star Wars, which share similarities.
The fact of the matter is, I get a lot of my ideas for articles through movies that I’d watch on Netflix’s DVD service, and now I’m not entirely sure where I’m going to get my inspiration from, since I don’t spend much time watching stuff that’s streaming on Netflix. It’s just all too much for me.
Goodbye Special Features
One thing I’ve always loved about DVDs (and hate about streaming) is that you usually get special features when you rent or buy a DVD. Commentary tracks, trailers, other films to check out, deleted scenes, alternate endings, you name it, DVD extras are one of my all-time favorite features when it comes to watching a movie or a TV show on DVD.
But, you don’t really get all that extra stuff when you watch something on one of the streaming platforms. Yes, you’ll sometimes find special features here or there, and there’s almost always the option to turn on subtitles. But, when it comes to director or actor commentaries, or behind the scenes looks, it’s extremely rare to find something like that on streaming platforms, which really sucks.
In fact, I can see a lot of production companies balking at the idea of doing special features at all when the film in question is likely just going to appear on some streaming platform rather than on a DVD, so I'm definitely not looking forward to that.
Dropping Off My Red Sleeved Discs At The Post Office Was A Big Part Of My Saturday Morning Routine For Years
Lastly, this might seem inconsequential to most people, but I really liked dropping off my red sleeved discs at the post office. It’s literally been my routine for the past ten years now ever since I moved to my current town. This is how my routine would typically go: I’d receive a movie in the mail on Wednesday, watch it that very night, put it in the sleeve, and then, send it back on Saturday morning after I do my recycling.
And, like I said, I’ve been doing this for TEN YEARS now. It’s been one of the things that I always look forward to on my weekends. I’d go to Dunkin Donuts, get my coffee, drive on down to the recycling center, drop off my bottles and cans, and then, drive on over to the post office to drop off whatever movie I watched during the week, only to get another DVD on Wednesday, to which the whole cycle would begin again. Wash, rinse, repeat. And now, that last step of my weekend morning routine will be coming to a close come September 29th.
Honestly, besides everything else I just said above, this might be the biggest reason why I’m upset that Netflix’s DVD plan is ending, and I don’t quite know how to process it just yet. Thankfully, I have until September to keep up the routine, but that will be here before you know it. So, I seriously can’t stand this. It really sucks for me.
But, what about you? Are you also upset that Netflix is ending its DVD plan? For more news on all things Netflix (streaming, I suppose) make sure to swing by here often.
