Everything goes on too long

[Soduku1234]

Is it just me that thinks that given how busy everybody's life is that things should be shortened.

Recent examples. I saw a film recently and there were 25 minutes of ads/trailers and then the film was 2 hours 20. It could have been 10 minutes of ads and 1 hour 45 easily.

I went to a theatre show a few weeks ago and it was 2 hours 20 mins and a 20 minute interval. It could have been less than two hours.

I attended a webinar this week that was ok but could have been much shorter.

There's probably loads of other examples but I don't know if I'm just being a grump. Aibu?

I’m with you @Soduku1234 so many things (TV shows & films in particular) are so much longer than they need to be, often padded out by pointless ‘action’ sequences or drawn out, graphic violence that does nothing for the (usually very dumbed down) plot.
I don’t have a problem with my attention span if there is a great story being well told but most of what gets made is not that and I do begrudge anything that feels like a waste of time because I am time poor

Films were better when they were 1hr30min as standard. You could watch one of an evening without ending up going to bed at 1am. I remember when Titanic came out. One of the talking points was its length, 3hrs. Now almost every DVD (I'm a collector) is 2hr+ with 2hr45min being quite normal. It's annoying. I don't actually want to sit down for that long. I have other things to do and I seize up sitting down so much. I think films should be somewhere between 1-2hrs really. Less trailers at the cinema too, half hour of them is too much.

I’m going to see the Nutcracker at the cinema next week and apparently it’s 3.5 hours. I assume a fair bit of that is ads because that isat least half an hour longer than the live performance.

Is this thread too long?

Yeah 2 hours 40

I never said I didn't want to see it.

How do shed loads of trailers, ads, meeting fillers etc enhance quality?

Agree I can’t watch a film of 3 hours plus drives me mad I like 1.5 max my attention span isn’t great tbh

Well I time it so I miss 90% of the ads before films. But yes endless meetings at work that could have been done in a couple succinct emails.

We always time our arrival so we are seated just before the movie starts! Don’t have the time to sit through all the ads/trailers!

It’s OK to sit, relax and let your mind wander during the ads. It’s OK not to have to account for every single second of your day being ‘productive’. Some of our most inspirational ideas materialise during such moments. It is good to practise patience.

Work meetings - totally agree.

Everything else you can exercise some control over your own life! I don’t like long slow films so I don’t go and see them. I love the theatre and am disappointed if it’s over too quickly. Occasionally there’s a show or play that seems too long but that’s because it’s a bit crap and disappointing in general.

Outside work just do a bit of research and don’t go to see stuff that you consider a waste of your time.

Saw argylle tonight. Enraging. Dumb as hell: can anyone explain to me why a pastiche action film needs to last 2h20? Give us a good time in 80 min, jaysus

It's the quality -v- quantity thing, isn't it? I've noticed that in documentaries on TV, because the amount of information (versus the pretty effects) seems to have diminished in recent times. I'm certainly not time-poor (I'm retired) but I resent having my time wasted.

Agree. We've decided to skip Wicked For Good for this reason. None of us want to be in the cinema for 3 hours. Instead, our xmas cinema trip will be to watch Spongebob mainly because its only 1hr 35 minutes which is plenty for a family film.

Also, Titanic had an intermission when it came out and the DVD was split across 2 discs!

Cinema ads are to make money. Films are edited to be the length most people prefer for that genre. The theatre has an interval so the cast and crew can have a break/prep for the second half.

What in God's name are you on about? A whole host of things across every facet of life, culture, and society have to be shortened because of your short attention span? Deary, deary me...😂

Yes, this. Take a note of when the film actually started compared to the advertised time, and just show up with a 5-10 min window for that time difference next time. It’s not hard - we live about 20 mins walk from the cinema and usually leave the house at the scheduled start time, walk there, go to loo/get a drink and we’re still in our seats with a couple of trailers to go.

And I like it when plays last more than a couple of hours - I’m not planning on doing anything else afterwards.

Work meetings - yes, we finish them early if we’re done, and it’s annoying if they get dragged on.

I do agree some films could be shorter though. But there’s no need to get bogged down in the trailers and advertising.

Just more evidence of the decreasing attention span of the population

Sad

Maybe you don't have time to go to the theatre OP.

I agree with you about work meetings and also with a pp about TV programmes. Loads of them are bloated with recaps, reconstructions etc, they're literally telling you the same information five different times in five different ways.

Netflix is particularly bad for this but other broadcasters do it too. Eg I watched a programme that had been heavily trailed about the robin hood tree getting cut down, thinking it might be interesting to look into why so many people lost their minds about it, how it had become a big deal because it was in a film/was popular on Instagram etc - but no, it was just about the blokes chopping it down, that was it, but the fucking thing went on for hours, with barely any content at all.

When you compare nonsense like that with documentaries that were produced before 2010, it's astonishing how much more information there was on telly programmes previously, not signposted at five minute intervals before it's given, or regurgitated across several different formats in the same programme.

So yeah I do think there's a lot of padding around. Some films too, there is a fashion for long films rn I think. Sometimes it's fine, if there's genuinely a lot to say. But if it's just an endless showcase of effects they ram in to justify the expense or, again, a simple plot made even simpler by repetition, heavy signposting and loads of hand holding then it's annoying. Not everything has to be Lawrence Of Arabia quality but tbh if it isn't it shouldn't take three fucking hours to get through.

Also, Titanic had an intermission when it came out and the DVD was split across 2 discs!

Exactly. It even saw itself as too long! It's nice having that obvious break point when watching the DVD to pause and take a break. I often come back to the second part the next day. Even though its totally worth sitting through 3hrs of it and it was so full of everything that it really couldn't have been shortened.

Most of what's around now totally could be shortened and not lose any of the story. I read it somewhere, the reason why. It's something to do with the officials who make the films not being constrained by something-or-other that they used to be constrained by, which caused the time limits. It was never their true choice to keep them shortish. So now they have free rein they're extending their films to put all the bits in that they want to keep and they don't really care if the audience finds it all a bit long.

I don't mind trailers etc at the cinema, and think theatre is fine as it is, but I agree that more things seem to be self -indulgently long these days. It's like the creators have lost the ability to edit themselves for the benefit of the audience and express things succinctly. I find this particularly true of podcasts - we really don't need 10 episodes, with the first part of each being a drivelling recap or rewording of what they've just said.

It sounds like the theatre isn't for you. Perhaps stick to scrolling through tiktok if you don't have the time / attention span.

No I agree with you, many things I think take way too long!!

I get annoyed by programs that feel like they're dragging,... I love good storytelling, but there's a point where you know that they're just trying to hit a certain amount of running minutes and the story could have been wrapped up 25 minutes ago.

I take a lot of online courses and the pacing is so slow. I skim a lot, very quickly reading through, not often watching the entire video, at the end of the module I take the test which measures your understanding of the subject matter...i still get it right.

I get frustrated with meetings that should have been an email, discussed and resolved in a few sentences, instead we waste an hour plus.

An organization that I belong to, we hold a monthly draw, and it takes so flipping long. And it absolutely shouldn't. All they need to do is pull a ticket out of the hat, read the number, whoever has it stands up, and they can go to the front to pick their prize and then continue picking the next number, one after the next after the next. But no. It's done in such a super slow motion way that the draw (which shouldn't take any longer than 5 minutes) always takes 20. You're falling asleep.

I go to the post office, I have a few packages, they are properly packaged, ready to go, correctly addressed, I know what service I want, I just want to pay for them and go. And you get a line of people in front of you that wiffle waffle, they have to ask a million questions, they have to hem and haw... Then they don't have their package properly secured, and they don't have the correct address on it, and it needs a customs label and they haven't filled it out yet, and they won't move over to the other side of the desk to do all this they stand there right at the front of the line holding everybody up...

I sound impatient, but I'm actually not... I don't tap my feet, I don't huff and puff, I don't say anything rude. I wait patiently but inside I'm seething at the time wasting. Im just trying to cram more productivity into my day than most people get done in a week. It's exhausting. And the longer everything else takes, the longer it takes me to get done. No wonder I don't ever have any off time.

Exactly this. I have ADHD, so can struggle with staying focused, but the idea of dumbing everything down so people can fit more into their day / avoid long periods of concentration is ludicrous.