In recent years, streaming services have become more popular. However, movie theaters are still a fun outing to go with friends and family to watch a film. The Channels asked two staffers: Which do you prefer, movie theaters or streaming?
Viviana Ruiz, Engagement and Opinion Editor
Streaming has made watching movies more accessible to anyone.
Subscribers get more movies to watch for only $30 monthly on most streaming services. Versus a movie theater where you pay $15 for a ticket and $15 for snacks each screening.
The movie streaming experience doesn’t come with the often loud or packed crowds movie theaters have and instead the film can be enjoyed peacefully at one’s home.
People talk throughout the films and large groups of obnoxious middle schoolers try to ruin a movie I paid $30 for. It could also get annoying constantly going to the movies when all you wanna do is stay home.
Streaming has allowed families to stay in and have movie nights instead of spending a costly day at the theater.
Yes, some streaming services make people pay for a movie, but they’ll have ownership of that movie for the rest of their subscription. Unlike a movie theater, where one pays for just that one screening.
Say someone missed a movie, they didn’t catch it in the theater and never got it on DVD.
Due to streaming services, people can just watch an old film on Netflix, Hulu or HBO Max at any time.
There are many times where my dad has said to me, “I wish you had watched this movie” and he never had it on DVD, but then pulled it up on a streaming site. People can’t do that at movie theaters.
Some may not even be near a movie theater. Therefore, being able to watch any movie at any time through a streaming service makes it overall easier to access.
Nyah Marquez-Dean, Staff Writer
Living in a world that often seems overrun with desire for convenience, many find it difficult to muster the time or energy to see new movies in theaters, an activity that seemed incredibly common only a few years ago.
Films often stream only a few weeks after release and that’s if they aren’t exclusive to streaming.
Even though this has become one of the most prominent ways that we watch film and television now, the movie theater is still the ideal way to experience new releases.
After years of this new way that we watch films, of “Oh, I was waiting for it to stream,” and “What’s that on?” It’s gotten old watching shows and movies that are created with the intent that viewers are only half paying attention, looking at their phones, cooking dinner or folding their laundry.
There’s a certain excitement one feels when being able to relax and go to the movie theater to watch a movie with your friends.
The intention of actually going somewhere to see a movie feels like a breath of fresh air.
The sitting in a friend’s car to debrief before or after a movie, the sort of kinship felt when you know you’re seeing something brand new with a room full of strangers, seems reminiscent of an era of connection over films that sometimes seems lost.
To say that streaming has not presented opportunities for great film and television to reach a wider audience faster and easier would be a lie, but it should not come at the expense of the connection and attention that good movies deserve provided by movie theaters.
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