Forced pop-up menus at end credits on recent Sony titles (1 Viewer)

[Dick]

Ah, the frustration I had signing up a forum account.. I had to go through 15+ iterations of my own name before it satisfied the Gorts' ultra-stringent "use-your-real-name" policy at the time. I actually had to PROVE that my name was my own, incorporate capitalization (one attempt got rejected b/c I didn't capitalize!) and come up with that separator thing because it had to be all one string of characters and no other spacer met approval. Further, each "attempt" that failed forced me to wait days in between, while powers that were made an executive decision.

Now, it's like anything goes, and you can be JBinkLass, CamMooMoo64evr, ChungyDarshum, T'achPah/T'achPeh or whatever.

Back on topic-- Anything distracting onscreen during the film or content proper should be a no-no. Disc or streaming. I personally can't stand the streaming thing where you get to the credits and the next show, film or ad pops up on a transparent menu and just "starts", and when you try to get out of that, you get another transparent menu that takes forever to respond. The posted example looks like physical media masquerading as a streaming experience. Not a good trend.

I also like to be able to turn off player-generated text, too, like "||> PAUSE" that stays up on a still frame. It bugs me because it reminds me of the frustration of trying to dub a VHS tape, when the slightest picture noise caused a blue screen, then the channel and time have to pop up, then the picture comes back with that stupid "HI-FI" flashing text that took forever to go away.

Damn, being old and cranky sucks!

I only just ran into this thread. I haven't purchased any Sony titles of late, but perhaps by now (2022) the practice you describe has been dropped (?). If not, they should be considered quite contemptuous of its consumers. Many people who buy Blu-rays are big movie fans, and want to watch through the credits without their being circumvented by needless clutter.

My feeling is this: if you pay for a movie, you should be able to watch it uninterrupted...by anything! I was in a theater watching INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS in 1978, and after just a couple of end credits, the lights went on and the image onscreen vanished. I protested to the manager, and he didn't think it was a very big deal. "We need the extra time to seat the audience for the second show..." What bullshit is that? I demanded that either the operator run the full credits for me then and there, or give me a pass for another movie, which he finally agreed to do just to shut me up (no one likes it when an irate customer makes a scene).

The "pause" problem exists with not all, but certain home video companies, and I abhor it. When running a classic Disney animated film or a photographically stunning film like BARRY LYNDON or CITIZEN KANE, I love to freeze on various images just to take in and study the composition and art. Twilight Time had mandatory timelines built into any pause, and I finally complained on this forum to the late, great Nick Redman (I wasn't the first) and he very kindly said he'd not been aware of the specifics in authoring the discs, and promised to stop incoporated them. Within two months, all new releases paused without the bothersome graphics, which were then rendered optional. Good for him. Incredibly nice man. Disney leaves the timeline up when you pause, but usually you can get rid of it by pushing the down button on your remote's circular navigation tool.

NOTE IN INDY: I checked my 60th Anniversary Edition of ALICE, and using the down button does eliminate the timeline graphic.

Premium channels are stealing part of your enjoyment of a movie you paid to see if they speed up end credits, or overlay their own ads on top of your picture. Enough conplaints and/or subscription cancellations will ultimately lead to change.

 

[Ross Gowland]

O/T but Britain’s oldest working cinema, the Duke of York’s in Brighton, were showing The 400 Blows last week. I went and as the opening credits, complete with beautiful shots of Paris, played the house lights remained on. A staff member was standing at the back of the auditorium and I complained.

Her response was that the lights would go down when the film “began”. By this she meant when the titles ended.

I won’t be rushing back to that cinema again.

 

[TJPC]

Wow! I guess I am just too impatient. I have literally 1000s of Blus and DVDs, and I can't remember one that I watched without ff through the opening credits and skipping the end titles. I was delighted recently to discover that some after credit sequences had chapter stops on Marvel discs, so you can skip to them.

 

[Jeffrey D]

O/T but Britain’s oldest working cinema, the Duke of York’s in Brighton, were showing The 400 Blows last week. I went and as the opening credits, complete with beautiful shots of Paris, played the house lights remained on. A staff member was standing at the back of the auditorium and I complained.

Her response was that the lights would go down when the film “began”. By this she meant when the titles ended.

I won’t be rushing back to that cinema again.

This is appalling. When the projector or playing device starts the film, opening titles or not, the house lights should immediately be turned off.

 

[Robbie^Blackmon]

I was in a theater watching INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS in 1978, and after just a couple of end credits, the lights went on and the image onscreen vanished. I protested to the manager, and he didn't think it was a very big deal. "We need the extra time to seat the audience for the second show..." What bullshit is that? I demanded that either the operator run the full credits for me then and there, or give me a pass for another movie, which he finally agreed to do just to shut me up (no one likes it when an irate customer makes a scene).

I was always one of the few geeks who would sit in the theatre until the film ran out past the credits. One of the Leslie Nielsen Naked Gun pictures had a joke that ran right past the end credits and into the tail/slate/leader portion-- the one with the bathroom microphone joke. There was the "Womp-ba-ba-bomp-ba-bomp" musical bit, a flush, whistling and washing up, and footsteps leaving the washroom as all the tail scrawl and lab markings rolled up the screen. I think that kind of thing is neat.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Well, although the reviewers have not called this out, I have heard from someone who got an early look at the Ghostbusters Afterlife disc that it does in fact have this same forced menu appear- even though the movie has a post-credits scene!

I am officially done with Sony at this point. I never fully forgave them for the stunt they pulled in the mid-2000s when they reissued many DVDs with only the pan and scan versions when they previously had both that and widescreen on the same disc- and this was right when people were switching to widescreen TVs! Ghostbusters was one of the few recent titles I was looking forward to buying but I simply will not reward this behavior, instead I will just wait until I can rent it digitally at a cheap price. (If I didn't care about quality, I would have just bought it digitally a month ago as they had made it available that way early in an obvious attempt to make people abandon discs as many studios have been doing. It's likely the regular DVD doesn't do this but that's simply out of the question.)

There hasn't been much other discussion about this at all but the only things said so far have been negative- I first learned of this from a post on another forum year before last. What GOOD has this done for anybody? If Sony is trying to kill off disc sales (despite being the main company behind the Blu-Ray format) they are doing a great job, but I will not be purchasing their movies digitally either.

 

[bmasters9]

Her response was that the lights would go down when the film “began”. By this she meant when the titles ended.

Why would that theater only count a film as having started once the title sequence/opening scenes ended?