More people need to go to independent theaters. All the ones near me start the trailers early and the movies on time.

I'm always late so.. I kinda appreciate the ads

AMC recently added a disclaimer on their website that movies will start 20-25 minutes after the scheduled time, if that helps.

I'd be okay with trailers being at the end. Which according to wikipedia is where the word originally came from. Would also like the alcohol ads to be dropped, but thats a general pet peeve.

I wonder if that worked better because old movies tended to have the credits at the start of films. So to wouldn't have to wait for 5+ mins to see the trailers

Same. My wife is pretty bad with time so we usually arrive on the listed start time, which is 15-20 mins before the actual movie starts.

I like his solution: no assigned seating, you want the best seats? Sit through the ads. Seems like a reasonable compromise.

Maybe? My guess is once they started stuffing ads in people lost interest and left, so they had to do them up front?

Why enshittify at all? Things don't have to suck.

Ate you really a "cinephile" if you go to the cinema so infrequently that you're surprised by the ads and trailers? They are extremely predictable, as is the amount of time they will run for. You can just go later, no one is forcing you to sit through a 25 minute "pre-show" if you don't want to.

This is up there with those people that buy food and drinks for their entire family and then complain that watching a film in the cinema is "too expensive". No one is making you do these things guys, they are a symptom of your own stupidity.

Money. Businesses want money.

Because most people's principles goes out the window the moment sticking to them becomes slightly inconvenient so companies are allowed to get away with it.

Well... actually yeah. I was inadvertantly accepting the enshittification.

Perhaps my cinema ticket could pay for the movie without also subjecting me to advertising, that'd be even better.

I live pretty close to my local theatre, say a 5 minute drive if that should traffic allow.

I typically like seeing movie trailers before a film so I don’t mind a little padding but the commercials before hand are ridiculous.

Back to my point, today I went to see Whalefall and incorrectly remembered the start time, I thought it was at 1:30, it was technically a start time of 1:20. I left my place at 1:20, got to the place at 1:30, parked, had my tickets scanned, and walked in to the theatre and we were perfectly on time to sit down right as the feature was beginning.

So it’s a good 10-15 minutes of front loaded crap before the actual movie starts. And that’s if you get there right at the supposed start time.

Yeah honestly, my partner and I went to see a movie on the recent $5 ticket day, which also included $5 small popcorns, so we decided to get a popcorn this time and it was the first time in maybe like 5 years that I’ve actually bothered to get a snack for a movie.

Like I get that it does add a certain special occasion quality to it, but it will obviously jack up the price.

Also the reason cinemas died. Overpriced seats, overpriced snacks, no security, ads, and you even share the place.

OH and the threat that filming along lands you in jail as a warning/movie.

Im glad cinemas are dead.

When i worked in a cinema we used to tell people, "the film itself is on the screen at..." One projectionist used to marvel that people were still late, and sometimes thought that was when the ads started. I concluded that people were so used to that practice that the word "itself" was not enough on its own to make people realise what we meant. I generally added, "ads and trailers start at..." to hopefully avoid that.

I always wondered if there was any rule against this as obviously it would cut into ad viewings. The distributor occasionally sends someone round to check the cinema is reporting their tickets sold correctly (to pay them correctly) and I wondered if they ever rang up to book and check nothing like that happened!

It was a while after I stopped working there that they joined the 21st century and had online bookings at all.

I only go to the movies like once a year, but if they did that I would never go again.

They can get money without being shitty. We shouldn't be accepting any kind of norm where vile levels of greed is the expected behavior...

I mean... the ads are the inconvenient part, here. (and to a lesser degree, the incorrect movie start times) Even if their morals go out the window, they should still understand that they're being treated like shit and not like it.

I don't think you should pay for a movie and see ads.

I'm old enough that I remember going to my local cinemas and there being no assigned seating. This was the norm. It did actually suck if you were "late".

The inconvenient action here would be to vote with your wallet and stop going to the movies rather than rewarding them for showing ads prior to a movie that you paid to watch.

¿Por que no los dos?

Do people not like having assigned seats? I like to know exactly where I'm sitting and ensuring i get seats closest to where i deem to be the sweetspot when i buy my tickets

Probably a bit of both, but my bet is that the ad industry alone would have pushed it.

It's not uncommon for people to just sit whenever they duckling feel like around here, assumed seating or not.

I've only had that happen to me like twice and both times it was seemingly just an honest accident and they were in the wrong row and after asking they realised and got in their right seat

One or two seats along the row? Yes, likely accidental. Cinemas, if I even go, are hardly full anyway, I just let that slide.

Wrong row and ten seats out, and it just happens to be in the best seats? Hardly.