This past weekend, Glen, Maria, and I went to see War Of The Worlds. The movie itself was visually impressive, and there were some nice scenes. Overall, however, I found the scripting of the characters, and the unbelievability of some of the events that happened to them – even within the context of alien invaders – to detract from it. But, that aside, I would have found it a positive experience except for one thing.

We had to sit through 25 minutes worth of commercials and trailers. Literally. I’m somewhat used to trailers – although the number of those has started to increase to the point where it gets tiring. However, what I’m really not used to is the ever-increasing tide of television commercials now being played in theatres before the trailers themselves start.

Whoever decided to allow the first commercial in a theatre (I’m pretty sure it was Cineplex Odeon that started the trend) should have been shot; whoever decided to allow 10 commercials in a row should be shot along with all of their peers in the company where they work. Okay, maybe not literally. But I’d certainly like to give a good piece of my mind to the executives in charge of these theatres.

I just today read a piece about how movie sales are declining. Specifically, it talked about the poor sales of the movie Cinderella Man. (Incidentally, this is one of my favourite movies – I’ll certainly be pre-ordering it on DVD as soon as I have the chance.) One bit of thinking is that people prefer to stay at home and watch DVDs on their home theatre systems. Another line of reasoning is simply bad marketing or timing for the genre of movies coming out.

Personally, I say it’s the recent theatre experience that’s responsible. If I could go to the theatre and just see the movie I went to see, I’d go more often than I do at present. Because, currently, I don’t want to have to put up with the bullshit of watching TV commercials on the big screen. That’s just ludicrous. At home, I can fast forward, go to the bathroom, or get something to eat. But, in the theatre, where I’m actually paying to be entertained, I end up being tortured with mindless drivel that has nothing to do with the enjoyable couple of hours I’d been hoping to spend. In fact, it colours the whole experience in a distinctly bad light. Whatever fun I got out of watching War Of The Worlds, the one thing I immediately think of now, and remember more than anything else, is … “25 minutes of ads and trailers!”

The studios are going to have to get involved in this at some point, and the theatre chains are going to have to start paying attention to the fact that, just maybe, their glee at ever-increasing ad revenue is having a negative impact on their audience members and box office sales. The experience just isn’t fun any more. And fun is what going to the movies is supposed to be all about.

At the very least, there should be some kind of change whereby the theatres publish the start times of the movies themselves – not the start times of the first set of commercials. Still, I suppose that would just result in people coming later and missing the commercials (and trailers) – and they can’t have that. Maybe I should just start arriving at the theatre 20 minutes late every time. In fact, I think that’s what I’ll do. But I’ll make it only 10 minutes late just to be on the safe side. After all, I do like to see some trailers.