Movie Theaters Are Cheating You

To see a movie, you have two options: downloading or renting to watch it at home, or going out to watch the movie in theaters.  Everybody has their own preference, and the majority of people lean toward watching movies in theaters, but is that really better? With the cost, conditions, and crowds, I would say no.  With the advancements in home entertainment, watching movies at home provides a better environment to actually appreciate all of the different aspects of the film.  In almost every way, watching a movie at home is better than watching one in the theater.

One of the biggest distinctions between going out to the movies and watching them at home is cost.  It is much more economical to stay at home to watch movies than to pay the exuberant fees at movie theaters.  For no extra cost, you can watch twenty movies at home instead of just one.  In the theater, even just five movies cost nearly fifty dollars.  Theaters are a gamble in themselves: it is impossible to know whether you will love the movie or even think it was worth the price of admission.  By stocking up on movies at home, if you decide you dislike the movie you’re watching, you can change it and watch another! Most importantly, you don’t regret wasting tons of money on bad movies. 

Another huge factor in the price is snacks.  Even if you don’t, under any circumstances, want to buy the ridiculously over-priced food, you will.  The sweet smell of candy, soda, and melted butter on popcorn will invade your nose until you cave in.  A small box that is only half-full of candy, a coke, and popcorn saturated with butter flavored oil is not worth fifteen dollars.  People often pay more for the food at the movies than for the movie itself!   At Kroger you can stock up on almost ten times more snack food for a movie night with fifteen dollars, than you can buy at a theater. 

Not only can you watch more and eat more at a fraction of the movie theater price at home, but you are in more control at home.  You literally have a controller to the movie: if you need to use the bathroom or get some more snacks, you can pause it, if you missed a part or didn’t hear what a character said, you can rewind it, and if your kids are scared of or hate a part of the move, you can fast-forward through it.   Instead of being in an imax theater with the sound so loud it could bring life back into the recently dead, you can sit at home and listen to the movie at whatever volume you want.  Instead of pushing your bladder to the max so you don’t miss the last fight scene, or waiting through an hour of commercials so you can get good seats, you can stay at home and watch the movie comfortably and without commercials.  You can do whatever you want in your own home: if you only have time for half of a movie you can stop it and watch the rest another day, if you don’t like the movie you can switch it out, and if you want to talk during the film you are free to do so.  You can make the movie experience whatever you want it to be: if you’re having a party you can sing along with songs in the movie, talk, and throw popcorn during it, or if you want to watch a meaningful movie by yourself without irritating distractions, you can do that too -- but you cannot personalize your experience in the theater.  At home, you aren’t forced to sit in an icee stained, butter smelling, chocolate covered seat either when you watch movies at home. You can sit wherever you want, watch it whenever you want, and in whatever you want, all in the comfort of your own home.

The absolute best part about watching a movie at home is that you are not subject to other inconsiderate people.  The main types of movie crashers are: the teen texters, the “I know the movie by heart and yes I will sing every song and talk along with the dialogue” people, the parents who do not know how to control their children, the “commentators,” the people with inadequately sized bladders, and the old people. If someone decides to text during a film, in a theater, while sitting in the front row as to disrupt everyone’s vision who is sitting behind them, you can do absolutely nothing about it.  You can try to ask them to stop, but seeing as they have no capacity for logic illustrated by their actions (buying a movie ticket just to look at their tiny cell phone screen during the move, and then deciding to sit in the front of the theater to ruin everyone else’s experience) asking them to stop probably will not work.  You can also try to throw popcorn at them, but that will get you escorted out of the theater – especially if you have bad aim.  These texters, coupled with the singers, screaming or crying kids, people blocking the screen to go to the bathroom, and (the worst of them all) the old deaf people who are constantly conversing during the film to figure out what’s going on, what was going on, and which character is which, can ruin any movie.  You can, unfortunately, do nothing to these horribly inconsiderate people who taint almost every movie-going experience; you can only leave the theater yourself, thus wasting your time and your money.   

               Going to see movies on a gigantic illuminated screen used to be amazing compared with the crappy television sets that people used to own in their own homes. With screens of everything getting bigger, movie screens to gigantic imax screens, and sixteen inch TV screens to sixty inch TV screens, the regular movie screen is no longer so impressive.  Movie screens used to awe people but now, only imax screens can create that effect on people.  Without that awe factor, watching a movie on ‘the big screen’ versus your own TV isn’t that different, and defiantly is not worth the inconvenience.  Imax is so expensive that it’s often not worth it to see a movie on an imax screen, and the screen is so huge and awesome that you focus less on the movie as a whole and more just on how its CGI played out.  With the extreme economic gain of watching movies at home instead of the theaters, the convenience of watching it at home, and the horribly rude crowds at movie theaters, it’s a much more enjoyable experience watching a movie at home. Yes, there are reasons to go to the movies (especially for teenagers) such as getting out of the house -- away from parents, going on a date in a dark theater, or simply having nothing else to do, but those aren’t about the true movie experience.  A true movie experience is getting into the plot, appreciating the different choices the producer made, and actually enjoying the film – which is what watching a movie at home can do for you.