# Those red dots in films are INFURIATING!! Complain! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 25, 2003, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087 "2003-11-25T01:39:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087/81 "2003-12-07T06:49:48Z")
> [@](#): > > That’s the last time I pay full price for a big deal Hollywood movie. Don’t let the theatre door hit you on the way out. Seriously… you don’t see this as a gross overreaction? They’re _LITTLE RED DOTS_. It’s not like they have a red-hot iron dildo pop out of the seat and shove itself up your ass. ---
**Author:** ![racinchikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@racinchikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racinchikki)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087/82 "2003-12-07T07:08:32Z")
They’re a very large pattern of a prodigious number of medium-sized red dots right in the center of the film and they reappear distractingly during dramatic moments. I consider that to be deliberate sabotaging of my theatergoing experience and I do not think it is at all justifiable. ---
**Author:** ![Nightime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Nightime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightime)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087/83 "2003-12-07T07:40:11Z")
Is there any reason the dots have to be bright red? Or did they choose that color just to cause the maximum distraction? ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087/84 "2003-12-07T07:53:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SPOOFE \* > \*\*Don’t let the theatre door hit you on the way out. > > Seriously… you don’t see this as a gross overreaction? They’re _LITTLE RED DOTS_. It’s not like they have a red-hot iron dildo pop out of the seat and shove itself up your ass. \*\* I get the feeling that you wouldn’t mind if they started putting the studio logos at the bottom right of the screen, which could very well happen. No, it’s not a gross overreaction. You’re obviously lucky in that you haven’t seen these things yet. I envy you. Nightime, the dots aren’t bright red. They’re more orangish/brownish red. ---
**Author:** ![Nightime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Nightime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightime)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087/85 "2003-12-07T08:03:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Nightime, the dots aren’t bright red. They’re more orangish/brownish red. In that case, I may have seen them before and just not noticed. Of course, now that I know about them, I will probably notice them the next time I see them. Probably during a dramatic scene in Return of the King. One more question - couldn’t the people putting the dots in make sure they are not putting them somewhere particularly jarring (such as on a white background, or on an actor’s face)? ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087/86 "2003-12-07T08:28:19Z")
> [@](#): > > I get the feeling that you wouldn’t mind if they started putting the studio logos at the bottom right of the screen, which could very well happen. It’s not a matter of “not minding”. It’s a matter of not getting so annoyed by it that I blow a gasket. > [@](#): > > You’re obviously lucky in that you haven’t seen these things yet. What you call “luck”, I simply call “not anal”. ---
**Author:** ![peri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/67e7ee/32.png) [@peri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peri)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087/87 "2003-12-07T09:12:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SPOOFE \* > \*\*It’s not like they have a red-hot iron dildo pop out of the seat and shove itself up your ass. \*\* They may as well for as jarring as it was. I’ve read about the dots, but hadn’t seen a film in theater since their inception. My first encounter was at the FOTR screening: Galadriel and Celeborn, ethereal lighting. A pattern of dashes appeared smack dab in the middle of white robes. Repeatedly. Are they deliberately placed for maximum impact? \_ * * * ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087/88 "2003-12-07T10:51:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SPOOFE \* > \*\*It’s not a matter of “not minding”. It’s a matter of not getting so annoyed by it that I blow a gasket. > What you call “luck”, I simply call “not anal”. \*\* I’m not anal, I’m one of the most laid-back people you could imagine, but peri is right, they _are_ jarring. They take you out of the movie. You’re thinking about the dots instead of what you’re supposed to be thinking about: the movie, the action, the plot, the visuals. I’ve tried to ignore these things, I really have, but they’re getting worse and worse. To put them on a brand new movie for fear of pirating is one thing, even if I minded them (which I do, of course) I could at least understand the reasoning, but my gasket got blown even more this time because this movie, LOTR: FOTR Extended Edition, **HAS BEEN OUT ON DVD FOR A YEAR**! Really, come on, can’t you see the ridiculousness of that? There is NO REASON for this. > [@](#): > > Nightime: One more question - couldn’t the people putting the dots in make sure they are not putting them somewhere particularly jarring (such as on a white background, or on an actor’s face)? > [@](#): > > peri: Are they deliberately placed for maximum impact? The people who are putting the dots on only care that they’re placed so that they can be seen. The purpose of the dots is to try and trace the theaters where the bootlegs are coming from. These idiots are not worried about the film, or the audience. They’re only concerned that the dots are seen. I first noticed the dots in **Mystic River** , the first time in a daylight scene, and the second time in on the wall of a kitchen. It seemed as if they were trying to “blend in” the dots with the kitchen wallpaper. We go from that to Master and Commander, and Fellowship, where they’re mainly placed on very light backgrounds (grey in M&C and white in FOTR), so it’s as if the first person got fired or quit, and someone else started doing them. I have no idea. I would LOVE to know what’s going on here behind the scenes. Only Roger Ebert’s [“Answer Man”](http://www.suntimes.com/output/answ-man/sho-sunday-ebert30.html) column is addressing this. Here’s what was in his most recent column: > [@](#): > > - > > Q. When seeing a film, I sometimes feel like I’m part of an experiment by studio executives to see how much they can get away with. They’ve found they can get away with higher ticket prices, weaker plots, television commercials and even music videos in front of movies. They can get away with 20-plus minutes of preview advertising before a captive audience. Now they want to see if they can get away with cap codes – visible anti-piracy signals in a movie. This is one step away from the “bug” in the corner of television programs. Will the Fox logo (or MCA or whatever) now present itself in the lower corner? > > I’m just a guy out here, and I really like movies. But I’m losin’ my faith. The only thing coming up I really need to see in a theater is “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.” If that’s got cap codes, I’m never going back to a theater again. And don’t get me started on DVDs that play commercials without letting you skip to the menu. > > Kurt Kober, > > Somerville, N.J.\* > > \*\* > A. Crap codes – excuse me, cap codes – have enraged a lot of Answer Man correspondents. Will Sparks of Charlottesville, Va., writes: “I saw ‘Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World’ yesterday and was disgusted by the number of times that I saw those hideous dots during the film, especially during the chase scene around Cape Horn. Do the studios think we’re too dumb not to see them?” > > Why are the dots so big and visible? Why not do something subtle and subliminal? Because the dots are intended to identify prints that have been pirated by analog means – i.e., by being videotaped off a screen. Hollywood is in a paranoid seizure about piracy right now, spending a fortune on security guards who body-search movie critics while the real pirates steal from within the system.\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087/89 "2003-12-07T11:10:32Z")
I’ve been doing searches on “cap codes” and “crap codes” and found this in someone’s blog. It’s just an example of how people are picking up on this without know what they are. Word has to get out. This was in a blog review of the movie **Underworld** > [@](#): > > \*\*Several times during the movie, little clusters of orange dots popped up in the middle of white areas. I think they were two frames, one of orange dots, one of the same dots in black, then back to the white ground they were on, though that may have been a persistence of vision thing. I first noticed them in the scene where Selene (the vampire chick on the posters) is taking Michael (this mortal who becomes part of the plot) to a secluded room for safekeeping, then a lot popped up in the flashbacks, and in a few other Important Scenes. It was really distracting for me, to be honest. I vaguely wonder what meaning they were supposed to have. They were patterns of about 4-7 dots, in a few horizontal rows. I’m sure someone is dedicating a website to them even as I speak, or will be doing so once the DVD comes out and ordinary mortals can single-frame. > > (These were NOT the end-of-reel change markings that appear in the upper right corner of every feature to alert the projectionist to a reel change; these were right in the center of the screen, in the middle of reels, and mostly in scenes important to the plot.)\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087/90 "2003-12-07T11:25:52Z")
“without knowing” duh ---
**Author:** ![Anal\_Scurvy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c57346/32.png) [@Anal\_Scurvy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anal_Scurvy)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087/91 "2003-12-07T12:53:03Z")
I just saw them in the dollar theatre showing of Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Noticed them once, in the beginning. Don’t know if they were shown again. ---
**Author:** ![pilot141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e0b2c6/32.png) [@pilot141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pilot141)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087/92 "2003-12-07T14:34:47Z")
Here we go again. Didn’t we already have this conversation earlier in the thread? “Those red dots are jarring! I complained to the manager!” “Relax, you’re just being anal. It’s nothing to worry about” Well, I think it IS something to worry about. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I’ve had one very bad experience with these dots. The infuriating thing is that studios are doing this themselves: they are purposely ruining the experience that I paid them good money for. This is NOT the same as a crying baby or a cell phone; those are the result of random inconsiderate people in your theater. These dots are on EVERY print at EVERY theater: you have no choice but to watch them and have your movie (ruined? degraded? compromised?). I wonder how Peter Jackson feels about years of work splattered with red dots because the studio is worried about piracy? Especially, as **Equipose** mentioned, on a film that has been out on DVD for over a year! Well, I’m off to use my keyboard for something more productive: writing a letter to New Line about TFOR:EE. If I see them in ROTK, I’ll write another letter. After that, they get one for every movie that I would have seen, telling them that they lost my money because of their loony anti-piracy campaign. Petty and spiteful? Perhaps, considering that I only see about one movie a month. But how are the studios ever going to know that average viewers are frustrated with this? I doubt that they cruise the SDMB looking for opinions. ---
**Author:** ![Anal\_Scurvy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c57346/32.png) [@Anal\_Scurvy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anal_Scurvy)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087/93 "2003-12-07T16:34:29Z")
Good luck. I might join you if there are any movies coming out that are good enough to be ruined by dots. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-red-dots-in-films-are-infuriating-complain/215087.md?page=4)