Movies vs TV Shows- Which is Best?

Ever since I started school at SCAD, I haven’t been able to find the time to watch the movies the way I used to before starting school. I tend to watch tv shows instead since I can watch one episode of a show that’ll be somewhere between 22 minutes to an hour-long. I can watch one or two of those a week and then eventually finish the story, which is far easier than sitting down to a movie between an hour thirty minutes to two and a half hours long. Other than convenience, I prefer watching tv shows rather than movies because I find it easier to invest myself in the series and the characters than in films. The reason t is simple; tv shows have more time to develop the characters than movies. This is why I believe that if you have a story that you want people to be engaged in, it’s almost always better to do it in a limited series instead of a single movie. 

            I think the best example of a story being told more effectively in a limited series rather than a movie would be Netflix’s Squid Game. The show’s first episode is perfectly structured like the first fifteen minutes of a normal movie. It Introduces the main character, who is down on his luck because of his gambling addiction, he is confronted by an obstacle with the mob threatening to take his kidney if he doesn’t pay, and he meets a man on the subway who introduces him to Squid Game. Towards the end of the fifteen-minute mark, the main character plays the first game and realizes the danger that he is in, which informs the audience of what the rest of the story will entail. The difference between the episode of Squid Game and a movie is obviously the episode taking place over the course of an hour instead of fifteen minutes. 

            Besides some side stories, the main plot of Squid Game is almost exactly like the traditional three-act story structure with the main character going through challenges, numerous moments of character growth, the story taking twists and turns, all culminating into a conclusion. I’m choosing this show as the example because you could edit the entire nine-hour tv show into one two-hour movie by cutting out some of the side stories, some of the games, and other tiny trims here and there. The story without a doubt could be condensed into feature-length, but the question I would ask is, would it still be as good? The answer to that is a definite no. I believe people became so attached to the show not because of the premise but because of the likable characters. The premise gets viewers interested in the story, but the characters keep them around. Ask yourself the last tv show that you watched where you hated every character on screen but still stuck around to see the conclusion of the story. 

            Several movies would have benefited from being a limited series instead of a feature because of how much that has to be introduced, leaving no time to develop the characters. A recent example that I can think of is Marvel’s Shang Chi. I felt that it was a decent movie but ultimately bland primarily because of it being constructed from the same formula that Marvel has made for all of their recent films. The actors in the movie did a good enough job. I might have been more invested in the story if I had time to get to know them because the movie not only has to introduce every character but also introduce a highly complex world with lots of lore. 

            Even though I’m arguing for every movie to be a limited series, there’s a clear reason why this won’t happen, and it’s money. Movies at the end of the day are a product, and it is far easier to sell a product when the complete package is two hours long as opposed to eight hours. Two hours is the sweet spot for audiences sitting in a theater watching a movie where it’s not too long and not too short for a movie. There definitely is a time and a place to recognize when a story needs to be stretched into a limited series rather than a ninety-page script. With streaming services being a direct competitor to movie theaters, filmmakers have much more freedom to create short series onto platforms like Netflix and Prime Video, where people can watch at their own pace. I would recommend the seven-episode Netflix series Midnight Mass, an excellent example of using its time to develop the characters. The show gives everyone time to develop, which would not happen if the show was two hours long instead of seven.