I just don’t get it. I can appreciate a good, crisp, meaty sound system like anyone. What’s the deal with surround sound, though? All the action is happening in front of me. Everything. And yet, for some reason, it’s apparently a good thing for me to get constantly distracted by noises that seem to be coming from behind me. There’s nothing there.

I can live with that, though. Each to their own. What I really, really can’t be arsed with is spending what must have amounted to days of my life watching Dolby idents. Fuck off Dolby. I’ve seen that goddamned starfield with the CG aurora borealis hundreds of times, and I still hate it as much as the first time. We’re here for the film, I couldn’t give a shit who did the sound as long as I can hear it. Why does Dolby think it’s so important that it gets the longest, most grandiose ident out of all of them at the beginning of films? More than the film studio.

On the topic of idents, being a big CG nerd leaves me very divided. Since the rise of cheap CG, every studio that put more than a dollar into the making of a film gets a ten-second ident at the start of a film. It’s now pretty standard to see four or five of them before the credits roll. And then…

THEN.

We see all their names again at the beginning of the credits. I have no idea why these film companies feel their brand is suddenly so important at this stage when all their marketing up to that point has concentrated on everything else: “From the writer of…”, “From the director that brought you…”, “Starring…”. No one ever goes to see a film based on what studio made it, and they know that because we never hear “From the studio that brought you…” in a trailer. So why do they think we care enough to want to sit through a parade of their unimaginative logos?

I’m done.