I Worked At Blockbuster In Its Prime & Here Are 7 Nostalgic Things They Can't Bring Back
Be kind, don't rewind.
Josh Elliott. Right: A customer at a Blockbuster Video store.
The views expressed in this Opinion article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Narcity Media.
Blockbuster is teasing yet another comeback this spring, and as a former employee who loved working there in my teens, I really wish they'd just give it up.
Saying you worked at Blockbuster is like saying you used to be a soda jerk, a telegraph operator or a lamp lighter. It’s a job that (mostly) doesn’t exist in 2023, and while there’s definitely a nostalgia factor to it, there are some things that you simply can’t rewind.
Still, that hasn’t stopped my old employer from trying. Blockbuster has been clinging to life for years with its one and only store in Bend, Oregon, where they've tried a few different approaches to making money over the years. Those efforts have included posting the store on Airbnb and selling retro merchandise from Blockbuster's heyday to its last days.
Let's also not forget the dark irony of Netflix's failed Blockbuster comedy series, which flopped on release and simply gave Netflix a chance to kill Blockbuster a second time by cancelling it.
The latest Blockbuster "comeback" started in late March, when the company's website came back online with a cryptic message.
"We are working on rewinding your movie," read the message, which went up a few weeks before April Fool's Day.
Prank or real comeback, here are the classic Blockbuster elements that I miss as a former employee, and why they can't — or shouldn't — be revived in 2023.
Drop box roulette
Walk into a Blockbuster on Friday night, and you're probably not going to get what you want. Each store only had so many copies of a given movie, and if you expected to get the latest release on a weekend night, you were almost certain to go home disappointed.
Unless you got lucky. Maybe, just maybe, there'd be a newly-returned copy of that movie in the drop box, and it simply hadn't been put out on the shelves yet.
"Can you see if it's in there?" customers would ask me. "Please?"
I'll be honest: that please was a huge factor in whether you got your movie because if you were rude, chances are we'd "overlook" a stray copy of the movie you wanted. And if you were nice, you were much more likely to get that same movie.
Was it corrupt? Absolutely.
Are things better now that you can watch anything you want at any time? I'm not so sure...
'Settling' for a new movie
One of the best parts about visiting Blockbuster was the chance that you'd stumble onto an old classic or something unexpected.
Maybe you were just there to browse, or maybe your first choice of movie was rented out, but either way, you might've ended up reaching for something outside of your comfort zone and been pleasantly surprised by it.
It's just not the same today, when you can watch absolutely anything you want on a streamer without worrying that it's rented out. You simply can't recreate this feeling anymore with so many options at your fingertips.
Free rentals
Blockbuster used to occasionally guarantee its biggest new releases, so if you walked in on a Friday night and they were out of Walk The Line, you could get it for free the next time you came in.
Free movies are great, right?
You know what's better? Getting a movie whenever you want at home because you can stream it. Although now that I think of it, maybe Netflix should give you a free month every time the service goes down...
Hilarious movie knock-offs
One of the best parts about working at Blockbuster was seeing all the "trap" movies they'd put out on the shelves. These movies were essentially knock-offs of the biggest blockbusters of the day, with titles and cover art designed to confuse your out-of-touch parents into renting them.
We're talking about movies like Transmorphers (Transformers), King Of The Lost World (King Kong), and The Da Vinci Treasure (The Da Vinci Code), just to name a few.
The fact that these movies exist is hilarious, although I'd hate it if my mom brought Transmorphers home on a night when I expected Transformers.
Trailers on loop
Remember when they'd air trailers on the in-store TVs?
I do. The song from this RENT trailer is still burned into my brain, and it might take 525,600 years for me to get it out.
Now, you can browse Netflix, Disney+ or Prime Video without being force-fed trailers for stuff you don't want to watch.
Don't let Blockbuster bring this back!
Late fees
You knew this was coming, right? No one's nostalgic for late fees. But how do you feel about restocking fees?
I worked at Blockbuster in the early 2000s, and that's when they tried to pull some shenanigans by "getting rid of" late fees.
Instead of charging you for a late movie they'd just go ahead and assume that you were never bringing it back, and they'd charge you accordingly. That way, the next time you came in to rent a movie, you'd have a $30 fee on your account from that copy of She's The Man that you lost in the couch. And if you did find that Amanda Bynes hit? We'd charge you a $2 "restocking fee" just for the trouble of putting it back on the shelf.
I can't tell you how many times I had to explain the difference between a late fee and a restocking fee back in the day, and let's be honest: there was no difference.
Let late fees stay in the past.
Blockbuster employees
Is this dude really nostalgic for his old job?
Answer: Yes. Blockbuster was a great job. All I did was run a till, put DVDs on shelves and watch movies in my spare time. (You could argue I still do some of this today.)
But it's not the job that I miss — it's the personal conversations about movies. I miss talking to strangers about the movies they love and then guiding them to something else they might like.
That simply isn't coming back. Film criticism is dying these days, with even the head guy at the New York Times on his way out.
Now we have tastemakers on Reddit and TikTok to help us make movie choices, angry mobs on Twitter to sound off on every superhero movie and Rotten Tomatoes to guide your next theatre experience with a score instead of real advice.
Blockbuster employees are history, and while I do miss being one, it's time to accept the new reality and move on.
With all of this in mind, I'll be watching to see what Blockbuster tries with its potential comeback in 2023.
If Zellers can do it, maybe Blockbuster can too!
In the meantime, I'll be trying to find my old uniform.