Netflix ruined "Schindler's List" with their terrible captions.

I showed my wife "Schindler's List" tonight. She had never seen it before and I was excited (for the lack of a better word) to show her one of my all time favourite movies that means so much to me. We had to stop my DVD since it was scratched, but it was on Netflix so good news, right?

Many movies uploaded to streaming services have their original super imposed text removed and replaced with the service's own text. Usually it's just subtitles in case native speakers want to watch the movie without them. (Though why Disney+ does that with the original six "Star Wars" movies, I'll never understand. Are any native Toydarians or Hutts watching?) Anyway, if you haven't seen "Schindler's List", there are portions of the movie with large paragraphs of text explaining the history leading up to the events of the film, the context of various locations and events occurring, and what happened after the war ended. Netflix entirely removed those paragraphs and added their own text. Why they deemed that necessary, God only knows. But what's worse is rather than displaying the full paragraphs, they broke them into subtitles, sticking them in various areas of the screen- often in broken sentences- while you race to finish reading them, ignoring entirely the action on screen. A filmmaker puts text on screen knowingly and deliberately- in a font which fits the film and in a pattern for a length of time deemed necessary for the viewer to read and absorb the information being provided. "Schindler's List" in particular does this expertly with a washed out text which enhances the archival feel of the film. Gone is the ominous fade in of the word, "Auschwitz", as the viewer realizes where they are, and in it's place an awkward quick flash that if you blinked you missed it.

There is no reason this was necessary and it completely ruined the pacing of the film. Netflix took a classic piece of filmmaking and made it feel amateur. Why would they even begin to think this was a good idea and something that needed to be done? What's in it for them? It's up to streaming services like Netflix to properly upload films as their makers intended, especially for viewers who are experiencing classic films for the first time.

Submitted July 24, 2020 at 01:12PM by knifeyspooney89 https://ift.tt/3jyNHbW