Euan McGrory: Spoilt for choice in the digital age

Published on Tuesday 7 July 2009 09:28

IT was one of those magical moments which you'll always treasure. It was nothing like when I queued to see Superman II as a boy, but it was still something special. The venue was Fountainpark, the occasion a screening of Ice Age 3: The Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and the event my eldest daughter's first visit to the cinema.

She was thrilled, after some initial nerves, and even wore the 3D specs for about ten minutes, before getting fed up of them slipping down her three-and-a-half-year-old nose.

Before taking them off, she and I both jumped back a little in our seats more than once as the 3D adverts before the main feature jumped right out in our faces.

It was all so different (naturally) from my first time in a cinema audience almost 30 years ago.

I vividly remember queuing as a nine-year-old with my parents, literally around the block, to get into the Odeon to see the Superman sequel.

I don't honestly remember much about the film, but I still recall the mounting anticipation and the sense of occasion as we waited to get in.

I've seen the film since and it wasn't that great. You could almost see the wires as Christopher Reeve "flew" stiff-as-a-board through the air.

It's a true sign of these technology-driven times, that my daughter's first cinema experience was in 3D. And not some gimmicky, gets-in-the-way-of-enjoying-the-film type of special effect. This was the real deal. A brings-it-to-life, naturalistic 3D, that can only inspire the imagination.

Of course, it is the quality of the story-telling that is always going to make – or break – great films, but special effects like this give movie-makers much brighter colours to paint with.

And it's not the only way that technology has changed our film-viewing habits for the better. The "digital revolution" means we have access to much more cinema, more easily than ever before, if only through our satelitte/cable TV packages and internet sites such as YouTube.

Yes, there is a lot of rubbish on, but there is loads worth watching too, plenty that's funny, moving and smart.

Just check the growing audiences for thousands of non-mainstream films if you don't believe me.

All this choice, though, is threatening to spell the end of the fondly remembered blockbuster.

There are lots of films made since the dawn of the internet age which have attracted huge audiences – the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series spring instantly to mind.

But fewer are hitting the heights of the true blockbuster, those films that everyone feels they just have to see.

None of the top 20 blockbusters of all-time were made this century. The industry bible Box Office Mojo compiles a list adjusting for ticket price inflation to get a fairer picture than that offered by the traditional straight comparison of box office takings.

It features several highly placed films from the 1990s, including Titanic, Jurrasic Park, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and Forrest Gump. There are examples from the 80s (ET, The Empire Strikes Back, etc), the 70s (Star Wars, Jaws, etc), the 60s (The Sound of Music, Doctor Zhivago), the 50s (The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur) and the 1930s (Gone with the Wind).

The war-disrupted 1940s and the present decade are conspicuous by their relative absence. Last year's Batman movie The Dark Knight (which charts at number 27) is the 21st century's biggest blockbuster to date.

Of course, the cinema is not alone in being affected by the shift away from the blockbuster as we increasingly take advantage of the bigger choice that's on offer.

It's part of the same change that means Michael Jackson's 1983 album Thriller is still the greatest selling of all time – even before last week's sales leap – and that once-common 10-million plus TV audiences are becoming as rare as hen's teeth.

Personally, I'd happily swap queuing with every man and his dog to catch the latest must-see movie (fun as it was) for being spoilt for choice in the way that we are today.

That's not to say there are not downsides. One of which can be found in my own industry.

If you are reading this article in print, you are far more likely to have stumbled across it by accident, than if you are reading it online.

The sprawling nature of the internet encourages us to search for what we want, rather than browse, chancing upon items we weren't looking for and discovering new things we didn't even realise we were interested in.

In a strange way, newspapers can be more mind-expanding than the mass of the worldwide web.

I can hear the cries of "well you would say that wouldn't you". But, forget this column, think what else you might have missed without good old-fashioned newsprint.