Christopher Nolan Highlights the Biggest Danger of Streaming Services

Summary:

• The rise of streaming services has forever changed the movie and TV industry, making the experience easier for viewers
• However, they also brought with them a whole new set of problems, which became more apparent over time
• Christopher Nolan believes the key to solving one of them is to use physical copies, or you could lose your favorite content forever

In the span of about two decades, streaming services have come a long way from being a rather obscure and puzzling innovation to a huge part of billions of people's lives, pushing "classic" television further and further to the sidelines with each passing year.

Where once you had to keep an eye on what was playing on each channel to make sure you didn't miss the movie or TV show you wanted to see, or mindlessly flip through channels until you stumbled upon something decent, now it's all just a few clicks away.

But while it has made things easier in many ways, the rise of streaming services has also created a whole new set of problems.

Streaming Services Are Not As Great As They First Appeared

With many services creating and sponsoring their own exclusive content, people need to keep several different subscriptions active if they want to watch everything they want, and of course not everyone can afford that.

However, often this exclusive content can be quite underwhelming, a great example of this being Netflix originals, which are incredibly hit and miss, ranging from great creations to utter garbage created just to justify users' subscriptions.

This has led to a number of old-school filmmakers expressing their distaste for streaming, such as Martin Scorsese, who, despite releasing his 2019 film The Irishman in collaboration with Netflix, claimed that streaming devalues "the art of cinema" by turning it into mindless content.

Two Big Names In Hollywood Say It Is Crucial To Buy Physical Copies

Another big Hollywood name to speak out against streaming is Christopher Nolan, who earlier this year urged fans to buy his film Oppenheimer on Blu-ray so it wouldn't be "stolen" by "evil streaming services."

Now, in an interview with The Washington Post, the filmmaker has clarified that his previous statement was just a joke, but he did point out a real, major problem with streaming.

Nolan said that if a movie or TV show exists only on streaming, it can easily be lost forever if it is pulled from the service or if the service itself simply ceases to exist.

Another renowned filmmaker, Guillermo del Toro, agreed with his colleague in a post on X (formerly Twitter), comparing owning a physical copy to the novel Fahrenheit 451, where people had to memorize their favorite books, and calling such people "custodians of those films for generations to come."

Fans agree that this is a legitimate issue, as many of them have encountered a situation where a movie or show they wanted to watch was no longer available on their streaming service.

Moreover, if an exclusive project is taken down from its respective streaming service, there is no way to watch it, at least not legally.

For some fans, this only highlights the importance of keeping physical copies of their favorite movies and TV shows, lest they one day find out that they have been pulled from the service they are subscribed to.

However, it is highly unlikely that streaming services will disappear anytime soon, and even though they have the aforementioned problems, they may be more appropriate for other people, so everyone makes their own choice between physical copies and subscribing to streaming.

Sources: The Washington Post, Guillermo del Toro on X, Reddit Harper’s Magazine