Upgrade Upheaval.

I’m not sure I understand all this fuss about Blu-Ray. I understand it’s prettier, but no matter how flawlessly crystal-clear a movie is presented to me, I will still always know that I’m watching a movie. I feel much the same way about the recent return of the 3-D movie. It’s different, but I don’t really feel like I’m getting anything extra out of the experience.

And let’s face it, DVD is not really bad quality. True, it’s less crisp, but it’s crisp enough, I’d say. And honestly, how crispy do you need a movie to be? It’s not a Dorito, for crying out loud! And unlike VHS (a truly inferior format, in my opinion), DVD’s quality does not degrade over time. It starts good and it stays good until you scratch it up or break it. Blu-Ray is basically the same, only it costs more and looks 1% better on giant TVs.

I think there comes a point where we’ve gone about as far as we can go and we feel we need to make excuses to market something new. We’ve already made two or three DVD releases of practically every film ever produced, so I guess there’s nowhere to go but up. The same goes for video game systems. Where do we go after the Nintendo 64? Gamecube, 128-bit graphics. That's about as good as it gets, so what's next? The Wii. It's exactly the same, only now you can wave your arms around too.

Until Blu-Ray replaces DVD in all the stores, I for one cannot see myself feeling the need to buy anything on Blu-Ray. I’ve spent the last 10 years gathering my massive DVD collection, and I’m not about to start going through and replacing each movie I own with a SLIGHTLY higher quality version. I did it once when VHS went out, but until something truly mind-blowing comes along to replace DVD, I refuse to jump on this bandwagon.

I think my friend Teri said it best: "It [a good movie] should make you cry and vomit while you’re on a greyhound bus next to a smelly Asian with no teeth and a screaming baby with a crackhead mother. If it can do that, then it’s an amazing movie. Not if freak technology makes it that way in the comfort of your own home."

Amen, Teri. Amen.