The Trouble With Streaming

I loved DVD’s when they were a thing. The higher image quality and the ability to jump to my favourite scenes instantly were neat, but the thing I loved most about DVD’s was the extra storage space they provided, allowing studios the freedom to bundle extras like blooper reels, behind-the-scenes documentaries, commentary tracks and making-of featurettes.

I adored seeing the magic behind the curtain. It never robbed me of the beauty of cinema, but made it shine even brighter. I watched those bonus features more than the movie they came with. 

But as DVD’s and physical media transitioned into the streaming services, those bonus feature became more and more difficult to track down. Netflix never had making-of specials included with the movie for the longest time, and still doesn’t for most of it’s content. Neither Prime nor Apple TV seem to make a habit of it either. Occasionally, someone would upload such content to YouTube, and even more occasionally, it would an official source.

In their defense, Netflix does have a series called “The Movies That Made Us” that looks back at an ever increasing catalogue of classic movies and the trials and tribulations that went into making them. I find every episode fascinating, even the ones on movies I’ve never seen, like classic slasher Friday the 13th. They get wonderful stories from costume and set designers, scriptwriters, producers, and actors and more. The documentary series highlights the less often heard voices compared to studio produced making-of features, and getting far more gritty and truthful confessions on what it was like to create my favourite, and not so favourite movies. 

Most recently, Disney+ has embraced it full on though. The recent Marvel movies and series all have additional content to support them available directly on the service, and I love them! As soon as I finish the movie or show, I jump into the making-of stuff, because it’s right there! Often linked in the end screen. 

I hope this trend continues and we see a return to the overloaded content that used to be included on DVD’s. Netflix does have some great features up for it’s recent high fantasy series,  The Witcher, so, I live in hope.