How To Train Your Dragon

Christina and I took Tyler to see How to Train Your Dragon this morning in IMAX 3D.  The movie was great “but” here’s the deal, it was $60 for the three of us to just see the movie.  I think $30 (half that) is a more fair price but they did get me to fork over the money this time so I could see it with Tyler.  To make matters worse Christina was charged $4.50 for a cup of water for Tyler.  To call it a cup is insane in itself, they are practically gallon sized which is a little much for a toddler.  I told Christina to complain (if she wasn’t going to I was) and luckily a nice theater management person gave her the $4.50 back.  Evidently “corporate” mandates they charge by the cup and it doesn’t matter what goes inside the cup due to auditing purposes.

Listen up movie industry and movie theatres, we’re in a recession and the digital age is upon us.  At lunch yesterday I told my coworkers I was taking Tyler to see a movie and it cost $60 for three people and you want to know what they said?  They said “you know you can buy the movie for $14 right?”  The next person said “I just add it to my NetFlix queue”.  “I can just get it for free on the Internet.”  California’s minimum wage is $8.00 (source) which means to just get in the door and see the movie it would cost a family living on minimum wage seven and a half hours of work (not factoring in taxes).

The  movie is great but it is rated PG and I learned we’ll be sticking to G rated movies for Tyler for a while because the “bad” dragons were a little scary for him still.  After the movie we went to Barnes & Noble to look at books with Tyler which is yet another industry that won’t be around in a few years with the arrival of digital books.  Barnes & Noble has a train set in it so Tyler was very happy to see that.  He wasn’t however very happy to leave the train set when it was time to go.

Sorry for the soap box moments on this post but I’d argue we as a society don’t stand up for much these days.  Those who know me know I quote this over and over but “you only have the rights you stand up for.”  I didn’t take my own advice today and paid $60 for the movie but I’ve learned my lesson, I however don’t think the movie industry has yet learned what it needs to.  Consumers in general speak with their wallets and I have a feeling $60 for three people to go to a movie won’t last very long.  We need more open movies and shame on me for paying $60.

“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” – Proverbs