{"id":290,"date":"2018-07-31T03:41:34","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T03:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/?p=290"},"modified":"2018-09-23T15:03:13","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T15:03:13","slug":"the-age-of-laserdisc-remembered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/2018\/07\/31\/the-age-of-laserdisc-remembered\/","title":{"rendered":"The Age of LaserDisc Remembered"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Laserdisc:
LaserDisc: The coolest part of the 90’s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LaserDiscs. What are they? Where did they come from? Why did they ever exist in the first place? You\u2019re probably asking yourself these questions right now\u2026 Actually, you\u2019re probably not. You\u2019re probably not thinking anything about LaserDiscs at all. In fact, you probably aren\u2019t even reading this because the word \u201cLaserDisc\u201d is in the title.<\/p>\n

To answer the first question, LaserDiscs were the premiere (though never the most popular) way to collect your favorite movies in the early nineties. Sadly for many, they were shortly thereafter dethroned by DVD\u2019s arrival long before the end of the decade. Perhaps movies\u2019 only equivalent to records or 8-tracks are these LP-sized CDs that are three times as thick and conveniently have a large hole in the center.<\/p>\n

\"The
The size of LaserDisc compared to a DVD\/CD<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The discs were stored in large, glossy cardboard jackets that featured the film\u2019s poster and\/or production stills. These jackets were presentations in and of themselves, trophies that showcased any owner\u2019s love of a particular film. Some were basic slipcovers, others- namely the box sets or Special Editions- went all-out with artwork, presentational gatefolds, and collectible booklets. LaserDiscs had a physical presence<\/em> that was necessary due to the medium\u2019s limitations, but only adds to their nostalgia in retrospect.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Pioneer box set special edition of Terminator 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With picture quality that put VHS to shame (well, kind of) and since it was essentially the first medium to support digital audio and behind-the-scenes supplements for home video, LaserDiscs were, for a short time, the ultimate film geek\u2019s dream.<\/p>\n

Special features in The Age of Laserdisc (commentaries, documentaries, abandoned screenplay drafts, etc.) were educational and inclusive- not the regulated promotional tools that used to accompanied every new DVD or Blu-ray release. You could almost feel \u201cspecial\u201d just watching or listening to them: \u201cYou mean I can listen to Paul Verhoeven talk about making RoboCop during the entire movie like he\u2019s sitting right next to me?! And it\u2019s the X-rated cut?! For only a hundred dollars?!<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The gatefold for Criterion’s LaserDisc release of Robocop<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Did I mention they were expensive? It was hard to find a player for under $300. $24.95 was cheap for a standard new release with no special features. They could go as high as $49.95. Camelot Records (remember them?) sometimes had \u201cbargain bins\u201d where you could find clearance titles for eight to fifteen dollars<\/em>! Special Editions, such as those produced by The Criterion Collection (which was borne in the Age of LaserDisc, for the record) could be as expensive as $149.95.<\/p>\n

Painstakingly needless to say by now, LaserDiscs were an entirely flawed and outdated medium within just a few years of their hitting the marketplace. Their street value pretty much began to decrease after a few seconds of buying them. If you so much as breathed on the things wrong, obnoxious red and white flecks appeared on the video playback. You also had to flip them to another side or change discs every thirty or sixty minutes- depending on whether it was CLV or CAV format. But we\u2019ll save those fascinating details for another time\u2026<\/p>\n

\"The
The Boxing Helena special edition box set- not available on DVD! Wh-What?!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The greatest thing about The Age of LaserDisc is that it came before a time when millions of movies were available at our fingertips twenty-four hours a day. Before HD was the standard for American television. You had to work for and earn<\/em> the movies you watched on then-premium quality LaserDisc (or at least go through the trouble of having to explain what they were to confused relatives asking for Christmas or birthday present ideas). \u00a0And that somehow made those movies more special than they are today.<\/p>\n

Movies were transcended into tangible, valuable pieces of art on LaserDisc. \u00a0Today, they\u2019re taken for granted like air. They\u2019re expendable. They\u2019re background noise.\u00a0\u00a0 They\u2019re computer files.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"LaserDisc
LaserDisc and player<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LaserDiscs. You still don\u2019t have a clue what I\u2019m talking about, but now that you\u2019re a little more informed, I can only imagine that your next big Google search will involve the history of LaserDiscs\u2026 Or it won\u2019t. Actually, there\u2019s a good chance you won\u2019t even think about LaserDiscs after reading this. In fact, you probably haven\u2019t even read this far, and you will most likely never understand or know what a LaserDisc truly is.<\/p>\n

I pity you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LaserDiscs. What are they? Where did they come from? Why did they ever exist in the first place? You\u2019re probably asking yourself these questions right now\u2026 Actually, you\u2019re probably not. You\u2019re probably not thinking anything about LaserDiscs at all. In fact, you probably aren\u2019t even reading this because the word \u201cLaserDisc\u201d is in the title. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":554,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions\/554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}