How important is being about to watch a movie over and over again, something I call “rewatchability,” to you? It’s pretty important to me. I tend to rank movies I can watch over and over again higher against ones I can’t/don’t. And that’s not a knock against those movies I can’t watch over and over again, I quiet liked some of them when I originally saw them. It’s just that I’ve never gone back to them like I do with other movies.
I loved movies like Juno and Hot Fuzz in the theater, I even bought them on DVD when they were released, but so far I’ve never gone back and watched them again. I don’t know if it’s the tough subject matter that keeps me away from them or what? But so far with movies like those they are “one-view-wonders” for me.
And it’s not just movies like those two that I’ve only seen once. I think I’ve seen the movie Armageddon one and a half times and so far have only watched Doctor Strange once too even though I own them on home media. Though I think the “home media” version I own of Armageddon is VHS!
With a movie like Armageddon, I found that after you’ve seen it the first time, and admittedly the first time I saw it I was on the literal “edge of my seat,” the magic is gone. There’s not a lot of story holding the big action set pieces of Armageddon together and once you’ve been through the twists and turns of Armageddon once watching it again is a bit dull.
And with Doctor Strange, I saw the movie on home media after it came out and thought it was good. I didn’t think it was spectacular or anything, but I didn’t dislike it either. But as I sit here and write this a) I honestly can’t remember what the movie was about other than it had Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) becoming the master of the mystical arts and b) I honestly have no desire to watch the movie again to see what I’ve forgotten.
And to be quite honest — I feel the same way about Avengers: Infinity War too. I liked the movie when I saw it in the theater but honestly don’t have any plans to go back and check it out again when it comes out on home media.
Again, that’s not to say that Armageddon, Doctor Strange or Avengers: Infinity War are bad movies, just that watching them once is probably enough for me.
But then there are other movies I obsess over and watch again and again. These are movies I’ve watched so many times I can quote them practically line for line, I own them and also will watch whenever they’re on TV too. Movies like the original Star Wars trilogy I’ve seen more times than I can count and still end up watching them whenever they pop-up on cable. Even a movie like the 1989 Batman I remember watching over and over again on VHS is a film I own on Blu-ray and will still watch whenever it’s on TV.
Newer films like The Martian, Dredd and Mad Max: Fury Road too are ones I end up watching a lot. In fact, with these movies I have to force myself not to watch them when I see that they’re on, since I find that sometimes if I watch things too much I start disliking them.
I suppose in the end movie rewatchability doesn’t matter too much to the movie studios. All they’re concerned about is me paying for the movie at least once, either by buying a ticket or paying for the movie on home media — no matter what that is be it VHS, DVD, Blu-ray or digital download. After that it’s all “icing on the cake” for them.
But to me it is important. I love going through some movies again and again to see what I’ve missed and to view them in a new light as I grow older. Nothing makes me happier than to watch a movie I’ve seen a dozen times before again and catch something new that I’ve never noticed until that moment.
