http://www.themovieblog.com/2007/10/why-commercials-before-movies-is-worse-than-piracy
I agree with this editorial completely.
I hate pre-movie commercials with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns. No seriously, I hate them that much. You should hear the ear-full I give Lauren at every single movie we go to and show up for on time. It is gotten to the point that I show up a good 10 minutes late, and loiter in the lobby until I think they will be over.
Why hate something so innocuous you say?
Because it is anything but innocuous.
Let me paint some scenarios not covered by this guy in the article.
Rocky. He put ads on his warm-up robe so Pauly could make some money. This would never bother me if I were at the fictitious Rocky boxing match it would cost me zero since he would already be wearing a robe that would otherwise provide me with no information other than his name, and it is good to know that Rocky supports local businesses.
But, anything that I pay for, that costs me time or some other unannounced cost associated with this thing, really bothers me.
It is completely and totally 100% false advertising to say that a movie starts at 7:00, and then it actually starts at 7:20 (I’ve timed the commercials, lately they are averaging almost 20 minutes around Minneapolis), that is called lying.
If someone says “Easy setup” on an electronic device, but it takes 47 steps to put together and get running, that is false advertising…a.k.a. lying, and I would start a class action suit over that.
I propose, here and now, that you leave a comment if you would join me in said suit against every major movie franchise. We could begin to take back the precious commodity of our time from the over-bearing media companies that want us to jump through hoops by making commercials on DVD’s unskippable, and get the movie companies to either lower the cost of admission, or finally change the movie start times so that you would have to show up early to see the commercials and previews.
Hear my call, fellow movie watchers. Movie theaters are not houses where we should pay them to watch commercials that they get paid for without compensation. Let us band together and force them to return to honest showtime listings.