The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a strange beast of a film. On its surface, it has everything I could ever want in a big holiday movie; battles, orcs, amazing special effects, and the best representation of a dragon onscreen ever.
And yet it left me flat.
In their continuing quest to commit suicide, as noted by Techcrunch, Hollywood is taking measures to restrict access to their latest DVD releases from DVD kiosks that allow people to order a DVD online and then pick it up from a high-tech vending machine nearby. Not surprisingly, Blockbuster is in support of the move, since it props up their failing business.
But as Techcrunch says (and I heartily agree), all this move does is encourage piracy. If people can’t rent movies in a way that’s proven to be convenient to them, they aren’t going to leg it halfway across town to the nearest Blockbuster. What they will do is take five minutes to learn how to download torrents…and then the studios have likely lost a customer forever.