First watch this video.

While it is a fascinating discussion of Betamax versus VHS, this is not the main reason I’m sharing this video. Specifically, did you notice that he mentions the two hour recording time on VHS? At that moment it suddenly hit me; Have movies been getting longer simply because directors no longer feel constrained by this two hour limitation for home-video release?

If so, would it be such a bad idea if DVDs and Blu-Rays were restricted to a recording length of two hours? It would certainly force directors to be more critical in the editing room. If a long movie is really amazing, people won’t mind so much changing discs halfway through. In fact, I think multi-disc releases would mostly hurt sales of mediocre movies. And this would then result in a steep decline in the population frequency of long, boring movies. It’s natural selection. It’s a good thing. It’s just a thought…