Streaming's Biggest Victim

Since my basement isolation began I've found myself with a lot of free time. Like many of you, I've spent a lot of this time watching movies and tv. For most of you, this means watching movies and television programs on streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Crave. I, as many of you know, have a rather large collection of DVD's and Blu-Rays - a form of media still available but largely forgotten. Over the last few weeks, I have discovered streamings' biggest victim - the special feature.

When DVD's first arrived on the scene in addition to the increased picture and sound quality to that of VHS special features were a big selling point. I remember the first DVD I ever bought was for The Matrix. I watched the heck out of every bit of that disc. Every feature, every alternate angle, and even every commentary.  There's a lot of interesting things about the filmmaking process that comes out in these features and some things that are just plain fun. These are things that you don't get now when films are only watched on streaming platforms - and as a result, I find that the studios are not even making them anymore for there physical releases - certainly not to the same extent they once were.

Take for example one of Netflix's biggest releases of last year, The Irishman. I would have loved to see how that movie was made and see a behind the scenes look at all these amazing actors getting back together to tell this story with Martin Scorsese, and to see how they de-aged or in some case aged these actors.

Even when you purchase a movie through Google or iTunes and shell out money to have these films in your digital collection you often don't see any of these features. The exception is the occasional iTunes extra - but you certainly don't get the level of features you once saw on disc. 

The pinnacle of this is, of course, the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition DVD and Blu-Rays. These discs offered consumers not only an extra 45 minutes of the film but also multiple feature-length commentaries which are both informative and fun, hours of documentary footage, and more.

I understand streaming and purchased digital media is the future but the studios need to continue to offer these features through their digital releases. There's too much history in film to allow it to go unrecorded.