Physical Movie Releases Shouldn’t Be This Annoying to Get

With Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and more shopping destinations removing their film and music media, we’re missing buying our little entertainment treats while on errands—the adult version of being a kid racing up and down toy aisles to see what’s new. Even shopping online for movies has lost some of its enjoyment, especially if you’re a physical media collector, with limited editions of films selling out too quickly if you missed the drop.

One recent example: Walmart’s Wicked steelbook—the retailer was the only one to carry the collector’s edition—sold out online months in advance of the film’s physical media release this past week. Fine, ok, things sell out online. But on top of that, fans like myself who were hoping to hunt down the Wicked steelbook in stores have also run into obstacles. Not only has the release proven difficult to find, there’s been a bit of confusion about whether the steelbook release was actually online-only. On Walmart’s web site, the option to search nearby stores is clickable—but when you hit it, no nearby stores are reflected as actually carrying it. Meanwhile the shipping and delivery options are greyed out, which is frustrating because not only are entertainment aisles in stores rare these days, but the scarcity is hitting online too.

But you can buy the standard cover, which is aesthetically less appealing; instead of the movie poster, it opts for big close-ups of the film’s main characters. And that style choice has become so prevalent on family films, especially with animation. Want to add Pixar’s Toy Story to your collection with the poster art from the original film? Nope—best you can do is get one with Woody’s giant forehead slapped across the front. And yes, I get that this could seem like a childless collector’s gripe, but I have a kid and I’d much rather have the gorgeous imagery of the poster art as part of their physical media collection. My childhood memory is of my VHS clamshell with Buzz and Woody flying over Andy’s bed. Let kids grow up with taste!

It’s becoming harder for upcoming generations to rediscover the power of actually owning the things they buy. We need Gen Z to save video stores and sections like they did books at Barnes and Noble, something they did thanks to social media and popularizing the stores as hangout spaces. They’re already being pushed out of movie theaters thanks to pricing, meaning they’re missing out on the experience of going to the cinema, then going to the store to look around for movies. That was a fundamental part of my teen years, and it’s something that seems to be getting lost in the sea of internet consumerism.

Having a kid now, I’m learning to treat the things they grow up with with more reverence, much like when my father would buy the special edition Star Wars trilogy set with the gold box and Vader slip. That’s a clear image of my childhood, going to the video section with him and picking it out to replace the previous versions we had at home. I’d like my kid to have those kinds of memories over just an email alert and a click of a button. Admittedly, I haven’t been great at following through on those intentions; it’s easier for me to be like, “Ok, Tuesday Target run: toilet paper, baby wipes, cheese, and Moana 2 steelbook” once all the adulting is done. How can it be easy to remember when a collector’s edition movie release will go up for pre-sale, when as soon as I hit a browser or open my phone I’m hit with distractions that make me forget why you reached for it in the first place? I must confess I was on my phone at a quarter to midnight refreshing the Walmart app for another shot at the Wicked seelbook the night before the street date—only to be thrown off by Reels to pass the time, and then it was 12:30 a.m. and it was sold out.

The push to digital life and leasing things in a space where anything can just suddenly disappear is one of the ugly takeways from our current state of dystopia. It’s been amazing to visit Barnes and Noble during this resurgence in shoppers who are getting to know the beauty of wandering through curated spaces to inspire knowledge and create more tastemakers of physical storytelling culture to pass down. It’s cute to see tablet-raised youth seek out books, records, and CDs, and hopefully time will extend their interest to movies too. At least B&N carries Criterion releases, which happen to include a really neat edition of Pixar’s Wall-E at least. So while, we’re sad we don’t have the Wicked steelbook in hand, we’ll hope to fare with better luck upon the physical release of Nosferatu, which better come in a coffin.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.