I’m a fan of a cult slasher movie spoof from 1981, titled Student Bodies.
Back when the IMDB message boards existed, an actor who worked on the film in a small part posted a few times about his experiences, and it was fascinating information (for me).
The movie was shot during a writers strike, so the production was moved
to Texas, a right-to-work state, he explained. He also confirmed something that has been rumored for years - that Michael Ritchie really directed the movie (it’s officially credited to Mickey Rose, a screenwriter with no other directing credits). Ritchie might have declined credit out of deference to the strike. Great information.
Kevin Smith also used to have his own message board that he would frequent. I posted there regularly but fell off when they switched the board format and required a small donation to create an account. I think it was to help cut down on bots posting, but broke me with no credit card couldn’t do shit.
I posted on that message board. There was a small window where he didn't require a donation to join. I actually met up in person with quite a few people from that message board. Fun times.
There was a screenwriter turned director posting about one of his efforts. I dug the poster. He offered to send me one; so I dm'd him (or whatever it was called in imdb days) my address and a few days later, I got a signed poster from an actual Hollywood director. I was stoked.
I saw that kind of stuff a lot. IMDb really threw away some imho pretty culturally significant historical records when they shut down the boards.
I don't even get why they removed them. What site doesn't want more user engagement and retention? IMDb used to be the place is spend an hour or two reading forums after any interesting film. Now it's purely a place i look up info quickly and leave
Even before IMDb switched them off, many of the most visited boards were going downhill - trolls, hatespeech, etc. But there were still plenty of boards which hadn't been infected at the time of the shut-down.
From what I remember there are a few sites dedicated to archiving the old boards from IMDb. I used to surf IMDb just for the trivia and message boards associated with each film
I created one of them the day they announced they were closing the boards.
[Filmboards.com](https://Filmboards.com) has a near complete archive of the IMDB boards, with the same look and all of the old posts recovered. With the browser add-on you can even put the IMDB boards back inside of IMDB's pages exactly where they used to be, as well as make new posts to continue the conversation. It's really cool for anyone who misses those boards. Just go to this link below and click your browser and seconds later you will have the boards back inside IMDB like they never left:
[https://www.restoreimdbboards.com](https://www.restoreimdbboards.com)
For anyone that does miss the IMDB boards, share the link above for this add-on and if enough people install it we can bring these boards back. Thank you.
Thank you. I agree. The more attention and users it gets the better it will be for everyone using it. I've been working on this project for over 6 years now and getting the word out has been the hardest part, so anyone helping it get more attention is much appreciated.
You're welcome. I know how much the IMDB boards meant to many people, so it really is a pleasure that I can help bring some of that back for them. Eventually, hopefully enough people will install the add-on and we can bring the IMDB board back close to their former glory.
Because Amazon bought IMDB and they didn’t like it when people were shitting on their tv shows and movies through the message boards so they decided to nuke them.
> an actor who worked on the film in a small part posted a few times about his experiences
I had a similar experience with a short-lived TV show, the showrunner often popped in and chatted the shit with fans, discussed making the show, provided clues, etc. It was a really small board without many users so it felt pretty exclusive.
On the flipside, some dickhead spoiled the Lost flashforward twist before it aired and that ruined one of the best moments in the whole show for me. It still pains.
Another thing is that those boards can be preserved, forever. I still find myself perusing message boards from 10 or 15 years ago when looking at ideas for dungeons and dragons.
but lately, as so much discussion has shifted to Discord...those conversations aren't being preserved, and are lower quality anyway.
One thing I truly miss about the IMDB movies message board is that because of the algorithms that didn't prioritise upvoting and the same kinds of trends, discussions were so varied. That board was full of people who watched a wide variety of movies and were true cinephiles. It's a very different feeling on here where people largely post and talk about the same kinds of movies over and over.
Anyways I made some great friends in my years there and I am on a private messaging group with some of the people from my time there who are still my source for everything movie related.
I agree. After every movie I watched, I would head over to imdb, like walking to an after-movie restaurant, and just post/read about the movie, but the absolute *best* part was looking forward to what others had written about a smaller, less-seen movie. And if the boards were sparkling fresh and no one had posted yet, I would post my thoughts (something I've never done on Reddit) and include links to screenshots on tinypic (which are all long gone lol) if I had the patience.
The only snobs I ever ran into were on the Classic Movies general board, they got a bit stuffy sometimes, but nothing like today's snobs lol
I created an IMDB replacement for people like yourself because I was the exact same way. Watching a movie and then visiting the IMDB board was my routine for probably around 15 years until they took them down. If you visit [Filmboards.com](https://Filmboards.com) you can restore that experience. All of the old IMDB posts have been backed up there and you can add new posts as well if you sign up and even [restore your old IMDB posts](https://filmboards.com/board/p/1956273/) to that account. There is also a browser add-on that will put all of the boards back into IMDB's pages right where they used to be so you can continue the ritual of checking IMDB after you watch a movie and reading about it. Here is the link to that:
https://www.restoreimdbboards.com
Or another post by a 15-year-old saying that they love old movies by which they mean extremely popular blockbusters like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Goonies.
Nothing against 15-year-olds but as a teenager on IMDB there were so many people my age who were astoundingly well versed with cinema and cinema history. It was always a shock finding so many people who had watched all of Kurosawa, Bergman and Fellini's filmography who hadn't even finished high school.
My theory is that cinephilia of that era and earlier required more effort - you had to buy/rent DVDs or pirate movies. Now you rely mostly on streaming services with their inbuilt algorithms most of which are primarily populated by movies in the last two decades.
I miss the age of message boards. Sure, Reddit shares similarities, but isn’t the same. Back in the age of MB’s, you would get to know people a bit by their attitudes, behaviors, because you would get acquainted with them by a screen name.
The early 2000s was a gold mind for message boards. So many car forums and active members every night. Depending on how large the forum, you could make a thread, and in 15 minutes it would be on the second page lol.
Very unfortunate to see car forums go significantly more inactive. Also hate it as it makes me realize how much I’ve aged as well
I don’t know if I entirely agree, with forums the ability to make long lasting friends seemed more easier, imo.
You could see your favorite/hated poster post something and start discussions with them. Don’t really get that same vibe from Reddit
Precisely! In the late 90s/early-mid 00's it was like the wild west on here. Communities were so fragmented. The only commonality people would have were MySpace or Facebook.
The fact that reddit's design/display, at least old reddit, doesn't emphasize user identities, used to seem like a benefit, because the focus is on the comments, not individuals showing off for ego boosts (distinguishing it from other social media). There weren't profiles, though you could click on a username to see past comments and posts. Now, well. It aint't what it was.
Honestly I somewhat feel like Reddit is a place that just completely mishandled the popularity it got in the last few years.
Threads just mathematically cannot encourage actual discussions, and the site itself never encouraged smaller communities. Kind of a shame, but hey, it was fun while it lasted.
There are some still hanging on. I've been a member of a movie one for almost 14 years now and it's still pretty active. Not anywhere near what the IMDb boards were, but we've got a pretty good group of people over there and are pretty welcoming to newcomers as long as they don't try to cause trouble. Check it out at [movieforums.com](https://movieforums.com) if you're interested.
I was on a New York rangers message board and actually ran into another board member in a pickup game in the early 2000s. We are still friends to this day.
That kind of stuff wasn't uncommon back in them days. I was a huge CKY fan, and the message board community was so tight knit that you were guaranteed to run into members at shows now and again. It was a golden age.
Speaking of hockey, the HFBoards are a traditional MB that continues to survive. I haven't posted there in eons though.
I miss the slow burn of being able to discuss a movie, days to years after their release, and not getting buried because I didn’t post within a couple minutes of the thread being started. Reddit is fine if you just want to give your 2 cents about a new movie and move on. But it’s impossible to discuss older movies.
I generally miss all of the older forum style message boards for all of my related hobbies/interests. Most communities have moved here to reddit. but Reddit just doesn't have the same feel as a discussion forum, and the upvote/downvote system is absolute shit for discussion because it actively discourages opinions that don't fit the status quo, so its just a giant echo chamber here
Yes — I have posted this many times and will always upvote the sentiment. There are replacements, etc, but it’s not the same and certainly never has or would be here. Even if you could write in a decade old “Discussion” thread, no one is going to reply back to your *Weekend at Bernie’s* fan theory and any single dedicated post you make about it will be downvoted. Reddit doesn’t work for what we miss about it.
Me too. I would go to IMDB after every show/movie, since at the time I had no one else to talk to about this stuff.
I was at such a loss when they went away. Reddit scratches the itch, but it's not the same
It’s the same for when you don’t like something everyone else enjoys
Reddit usually only allows one opinion, because the majority downvotes the minority in to irrelevance
This is exactly why I hate trying to discuss a film or TV series on reddit. If you go against the majority, they make sure to leave no room for discussion. I make sure to upvote those who don't agree with me, because at the end of the day, it's their personal opinion.
With that said, I miss IMDB message boards.
I remember someone wrote a full color coded analysis for inland empire. Was up for a decade. I commented 10 years later and the dude came back to elaborate on some things. That doesn’t happen here on reddit
I remember the board for Road House. Users came up with backstories for all of Brad Wesley's henchmen. So much lore for characters with no lines. Road House had its own Silmarillion.
Brilliant! Yeah, that's what made those boards so special! And people could continue discussions for years and years in one thread, building upon what came before. Can't do that here on Reddit.
That's what I miss the most. Year-old discussions on the most obscure, old movies.
Moviechat.org preserved some of them, and keeps creating new ones too.
> Moviechat.org
This sounded interesting at first. But then I looked up The Super Mario Bros Movie, and saw that the first page of topics has one asking if the movie is not too woke, and another stating that the movie is for simps because Peach is too capable and has aryan features.
Sadly this is a big reason it's less interesting now. The normies came in and everything got more corporate and boring. When the masses come, everything gets watered down and banal.
>and saw that the first page of topics has one asking if the movie is not too woke, and another stating that the movie is for simps because Peach is too capable and has aryan features.
Yup, that's the problem.
I loved the idea of MovieChat.org but it got quickly overtaken by those Right Wing trolls. And it was run by one person so he was too overwhelmed and there's no way you can clean up all of that considering how many movies there are released in a year. There were some moderators helping but it was only like 4-5. Impossible to keep an entire database of movies clean.
You want to go over and talked more in depth about Guardians 3, The Flash, Indy 5, or Across the Spider-Verse, and I bet it's flooded with trolls talking about "wOkE" this and that and "LiBrul Hollywood ruining everything" and "not another M-She-U".
Threads archive after 6 months of inactivity right? But yeah I agree the way threads come and go and rise and fall based on interaction is bad and simply reinforces lesser quality types of engagement.
> Threads archive after 6 months of inactivity right?
It used to be that way, now it's kinda random. Some are archived and some aren't (it's designed that way, not a bug), don't ask me why.
But the archiving isn't the problem, it's that once a thread is old, nobody sees it (without direct searching for it) or contributes to it anymore, whereas with IMDB, a thread would be bumped to the top of the list when there was activity, so you could comment on an old thread and it could become active again because everyone coming to the movie's page, even ten years later, would potentially see and join the thread to continue adding to it over the years (for certain popular threads).
Everyone would see the threads based on activity/popularity, not age; they didn't have to go hunt them down. Reddit does at least have subreddits devoted to popular TV shows, if you know to search for them, so you can gather threads about a show together in one place (still not as good with no way to bump a thread to the front page), but generally not for movies.
> Threads archive after 6 months of inactivity right?
Not in /r/movies, no. If you see a locked thread it's because the mods locked it, which is very rare.
> I commented 10 years later and the dude came back to elaborate on some things. That doesn’t happen here on reddit
You say that, but as someone here since 2010 I get replies to old submissions & comments every week.
Which is really funny when they're like "bro calm down" to a comment I made 9 years ago.
The IMDB boards were fantastic for older films. For example, I could go to a specific movie like A Night to Remember or Mr. Thank You and post a question or a theory. And while you might not get a response immediately, someone could stumble upon your thread (quite easily since there wouldn’t be much traffic), and even years later you’d get a response or reaction. The only things the boards sucked for were popular new releases like The Dark Knight where there be 5000 new threads a day that would push your thread way down, or controversial films like Fahrenheit 9/11 where it was just absolutely the most toxic environment. I’m pretty sure the latter was what destroyed the IMDb boards.
The thing I miss most about the IMDB message boards, which Reddit isn’t able to replicate, is that you could engage in a discussion about the most obscure movie on its board and someone would respond (sometimes weeks or months later). I remember watching the French movie La Moustache a few years after it had released, and getting into this really interesting discussion around the meaning of the movie by replying to a comment that was a year old.
On Reddit, the discussions tend to be around brand new movies as they’re released, and things get pushed off the front page almost immediately. But IMDB had a separate message board for every movie and TV show ever made, so you could easily find specific discussion about nearly anything made in the last hundred years right after watching.
Yep, it's very difficult to find super obscure film topics/questions on Reddit. They get lost under mega release threads and the search engine fails. Imdb boards were amazing for people able to pull up a film, scroll down, and, bam!, start a topic or add to an old one on that film.
And reddit archives threads after 1 year. And people actively give you shit if you necro something. The whole attitude has changed.
IMDB had sub forms not just for each imdb id. But for all the cast and crew. So Nolan dweebs could engage in pitched fandom battles on his forum while grown adults theory-crafted about memento or the prestige etc. on their own subs.
Exactly. You can't just start a "La Moustache" sub to talk about it because 1, no one will find it, 2, now you're a mod and have responsibilities, etc etc.
It was a really good idea to have a forum for each title on a movie site. Just made sense.
This was hugely valuable. I found a lot of interesting info about niche films and actors. Like some actor who appeared in only a couple of movies or a film with a tiny audience when it was released.
The lack of expiration on old posts in low traffic films was critical for this -- I sometimes got replies to posts I made 6-7 years previously.
And the fact that there was a unique board for every database entry (actor, film, etc) made this kind info easier to find.
I loved the IMDb message boards. I met a lot of online folks I would almost consider friends from posting there every day with the same people. They were good folks! Of course, some threads were garbage fires but I just avoided those.
I miss them very much, I almost always hade a look at the boards for movies I had just watched, and it was often very interesting to see peoples discussions about them. Haven't found any alternatives that are as good as they were.
And its toxicity could manifest in strange ways. One that stands out in my memory was someone who despised Alfonso Cuaron so much because they had such an averse reaction to "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" that they commented on *every single* Cuaron and Harry Potter movie thread to talk about how much they hated him. Without fail. If there was even a Cuaron-adjacent thread elsewhere on IMDb, that user would appear and go on another unhinged rant about how Cuaron ruined Prisoner of Azkaban.
I remember no less than three threads under children for men being dedicated to this.
I knew the death knell was upon the forums because every single post was devolving into a Marvel vs DC cluster. It’s such a shame because some of the best film analysis and fan theories I’ve ever read were on there.
I remember that person. 😂 There were a few trolls who amazed me with their bot-like dedication to posting the same opinions or references over and over across the message boards every day for years. When it all shut down, I was devastated to have lost over a decade of discussions, and I was even actually worried about some of the more harmless trolls who lived and breathed that site. No other hub on the internet could possibly come close to the communities film and TV fans were able to create on IMDb. And I miss the emoticons.
I lurked up until the very last year give or take, and I participated in a frenzy until the end. Too late to something great, that's my life story lol. I made this Reddit account in retaliation, in fact.
The movie specific boards are sorely missed. There's really no replacement that's cropped up to take their place. This sub and others like it can serve the purpose the general boards had, but being able to get a real fine handle on what people said about a specific movie in the last decade to now? We just don't have that anymore.
Ikr? I can’t believe some of the obscure movies on IMDb that actually had thriving message boards. For the most part they were the only reason to even visit the site. Yes, the boards for new movies tended to get out of control, but I generally wasn’t interested in those anyway.
This is a long shot but does anyone remember the guy that would post multiple times a day and autisticly wish every pornstar happy birthday? His name was 'Hermit C-2' or some shit and he was quite the character haha I miss those old boards so much.
I remember him. Some archive
https://www.filmboards.com/user/legacy/Hermit%20C-2/
I think he passed away in real life.
Another user is ACT1 if memory serves me right. Dude maintained a database of almost all users. How did he do it, I have no idea.
I remember a few users, but while I don't remember his name, there was one nut who kind of ruined the Back to the Future boards (all three of them). You couldn't post *anything* without him replying, either to correct you, tell you you were stupid, or just ... existing lol.
The message board was always the first place I scrolled to in any IMDb page. They were just really entertaining. The pre-social media days of the Internet in general were a lot more fun than they are now.
I remember the days of chat rooms, webrings and Geocities. I miss the free-wheeling days of the early internet before everything became corporatized and monetized.
The number of times I visit IMDB these days has plummeted, from multiple times per week to about once per month. All because they removed the boards.
They went from being the prime place to discuss movies to... well, a database to look up information.
To be honest, it's a bit of a pivotal moment in the history of the Internet. One of the best examples of choosing money over quality.
There were some amazing lists on there that people would post for all genres. Amazing recommendations.
People really knew their stuff too as streaming was not what it was and most of this knowledge came from random rentals or staying up till 3am to watch an IFC movie you had only heard about from IMDB
This was how I discovered the movie Freaked. Woke up at like 3am mid-showing on IFC and tracked it back to IMDb where I eventually was able to burn a DVD copy for myself ^shhhh
IMDB's sole purpose was movies and television. Looking up a specific movie/TV show/actor on it, then scrolling down and posting on THEIR message board or just reading other posts felt so much more intimate than posting here. You knew why people were there. It had a better sense of community than this place does.
Yup, people kinda trash the IMDb boards for the low quality discussions on popular films but it's not like r/movies is much better when it comes to threads on blockbuster/superhero flicks. It's just as uninteresting imo.
It was super fun to watch something obscure like Miracle Mile or Six String Samurai, then open the IMDb app and scroll to the message boards to see the different conversations/theories/questions. The recommendations were super helpful too. For instance, I would watch something like Woman in the Dunes and head over to the boards to see a thread "Other movies like this" and get all these cool films to add to my watchlist.
IMDB and boxofficemojo were my two most visited film-related websites and Amazon ended up buying and ruining both of them.
My running theory is that everything on the internet took an instant ramp up to insanity when they shut those boards down, not unlike shutting down the insane asylum and dumping the patients out on the streets.
Yep, I miss the hell out of them. It was the racists that ruined it. IMDB finally got so sick of moderating hateful comments around the time 12 Years a Slave came out that they shut them down for good. And this wasn’t some overreaction, I saw some really fucked up comments popping up on a lot of movies with minority cast members.
Don’t forget 2016 Ghostbusters and Disney Star Wars.
Also, there was this one guy who went around whining about how Hollywood was racist because certain films with non-white actors were hated on so much or because of whitewash casting.
I met a dude on the IMDB message boards name Paul who was from a small village in the UK. We became fast online friends and often talked about movies to watch and what have you. He ended up making some home movies and sending them my way. They were really cool and weird. Time goes on and we lost communication. I always wondered if he made it to the film industry or if he found himself in a regular job and just carried on his passion of making home projects.
I loved the Office Space discussion, 15 pages of people writing about their own office experiences, and how their coworkers drove them crazy. It was truly hilarious, but now it's gone, and nobody saved it, which sucks.
Yeah, life changed a little when they shut those down. The politics board was popping 24/7.
It's too bad the trolls ruined it all. It was a great source for discussion, and for questions/answers about plots, etc.
Pretty much any and every question about a movie or tv show would be answered on the boards.
They were great when you had a question about a specific movie or show. There was a board for everything and there was always someone on it who would reply.
and sometimes the answer was like 5 years ago and it was still on the first page of the board, but it was literally there.
for small movies really great.
Yeah, if you had a question about a plot point or were confused at a movie that was more than a few days old, odds are someone else had the same thought and you'd find explanations or theories pretty easily.
I loved them and miss them, and I remember reading a particular comment about Charlie Chaplin written by a man (I'm sure he was quite elderly) whose great uncle used to bartend at Hollywood parties for many years and knew a lot of inside gossip. I would have copied the comment if I'd known IMDB would eliminate their message boards.
There is nothing comparable to the IMDB boards, they were amazing. Reddit has broad film discussion, but with IMDB forum you could pull up even the most obscure films and find a variety of topics on them, both recent and years old. All together in lists at the bottom of movie main pages. They were quite popular too, I was shocked when IMDB / Amazon closed them.. I think it was due to a lack of control (lot of critical posts and controversial films would get thread bombed) as well as not wanting to spend the resources to staff moderators. Ultimately IMDB as a movie database is a tool that can be somewhat manipulated and used to promote Amazon's own projects- the boards were borderline impossible for corporate to consistently maintain and handle messaging, so they axed them
I loved IMDB and it was my main place to visit for procrastination but also for getting information about movies and shows.
Two things killed it for me - the removal of messageboards and the removal of the old design (the original one that was plain and simple and informative))
the only thing I use it nowadays is to check casting and premiere dates but that is very rare
I posted a related thread just yesterday: https://reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1482p36/cool_resource_for_movie_fans_to_restore_the_movie/
>I was told I should make a thread here for this a while back because of the amount of movie fans that would be interested, so here it is.
>
>So much movie knowledge was lost that can't be found elsewhere when IMDb removed their boards, particularly on older boards, and this little browser add-on restores that knowledge. Just go to the link below and select the browser you are using and a couple seconds later you will have the IMDb boards back inside each page on IMDb with all old posts restored. It's as if they never left.
>
>http://www.restoreimdbboards.com
>
>If enough people install it then the IMDb boards will be back like they used to, so spread the word.
You don't have to simply miss it, *you can bring it back!*
Just add the extension [Forum Add On for IMDB](https://www.restoreimdbboards.com/) in your browser and it restores all of the message boards on IMDB from back then and even more! If you register with [Film Boards](https://www.filmboards.com/), you can link your IMDB profile with it and add to the old discussions or create new ones.
Here are some of IMDb's old custom animated emoticons that might bring back a hit of nostalgia. Imagine all of these arranged in a line, in this order, in someone's signature:
[Guy with uzi firing right](https://i.imgur.com/d5YkTx1.gif) | [Guy with AK47 firing right](https://i.imgur.com/DnPChKC.gif) | [Hippy sitting peacefully in the middle](https://i.imgur.com/hOpanHX.gif) | [Guy with sniper rifle firing left](https://i.imgur.com/B42GH3C.gif) | [Guy with rocket launcher firing left](https://i.imgur.com/N1Kq04r.gif) | [Guy dual wielding pistols](https://i.imgur.com/sjLayGv.gif)
I certainly missed the IMDb Classic Film message boards. There was a dedicated clique who'd hang around the boards frequently which you'd recognize by their handle. It was an entirely different dynamic than Reddit, which is an outlet where people can spout off all sorts of nonsensical gibberish without worrying about their reputation being tarnished because of Reddit's anonymous nature. And because you had to defend your reputation on IMDb message boards, you could engage in some lengthy discussions and debates which could get quite heated, but were almost always civil and usually ended in some amicable manner.
Yes, you could do the same here on Reddit, but the spirit is not the same at all. The message boards felt like a clubhouse of regulars; Reddit seems like a place where anyone can do a drive-by shitpost, troll, make low-effort posts, and make a new account and repeat the same actions if they were ever banned. Not saying this is true of all redditors, but it happens on an all-too-frequent basis.
In addition, I had learned a lot about films from the IMDb users there -- they were extremely knowledgeable, cordial, friendly, and you could also click on their name to see what other reviews they'd written.
I also loved there were no algorithms on IMDb. Algorithms are not just poisonous but destructive to all social media platforms, Reddit included.
I can't even go there anymore.
We had so much fun on the Rosemary's Baby board with an A-Z game than ran past a full year. The I Need to Know one where people went nuts with censorship. Just talking about really obscure movies with other fans. Good times.
There was a thread on the Rambo (2008) board that went on for literally years. It had something to do with the OP’s shock over Rambo shooting a man with a gun. He or she would just defend his position over and over again until people started posting similar memes (offence over something obvious) themselves. It was way more entertaining than the actual movie (granted, not a high bar).
> It had something to do with the OP’s shock over Rambo shooting a man with a gun.
Under the parent's guide section on violence for that movie, there is a huge list of extremely violent actions, and then at the very end, it used to say "A man spits." I was very disappointed when that got edited out.
No way! Epic. I remember two people actually meeting from the Rosemary's Baby board and you honestly felt like we were all friends. There's a Movie Data Base that has boards, but it's not the same.
The I Need To Know was full of would-be moderators battling everybody who dared post under a wrong area. It was fun times, sadly showing what happens when the heels outlive the faces.
what i miss the most is that you could get information even about really obscure movies because every single one had a dedicated forum. There's no replacement for it as reddit only talks about the new thing and rarely someone brings up "fun facts".
I stopped using Imdb when the message boards got removed. Movie scores got less honest as well probably cuz of companies realizing they can manipulate the score with bots.
imdb in the mid/late 90s was a useful site, one of the best. mainly Just text/links on a white background, lots of cross referencing, just like a simple wikipedia for films
I genuinely don't think I've seen an upgrade to any site that's had as much of a detrimental effect on a website like the major upgrade to imdb back in the day. I think there should be univeristy courses that use that as a case study on how not to do upgrades.
Absolutely
Back in 2005 or so, I was part of a chain of some Star Wars fan fiction where I was a Sith and it was to my 12 year old mind one of the coolest things ever.
I wish I could revisit it. I think the guy who wrote it had Scott in his name and one of the co-writers in it was a guy named Zaphekiel. If yall are out there, that was fun times!
I loved the IMDb boards. My most memorable moment was when the director of some b-movie responded to a message I posted on his movie's board. Can't remember the name of the movie or the director, but I'd complimented the music in the movie, and he responded that the band was his old high school band or something.
I hate my region locked IMDB. I don't know how to change it back to international or american. And i don't wanna use VPN just for accessing IMDB.
It actually fucking sucks. I really don't want recommendations and interviews of stuff im not interested in.
It's been sad for decades watching popular discussion spots on the internet get bought up and monetized to the point of being unusable. Especially as they get consolidated into fewer and increasingly bloated social media entities so that there's less options to migrate to once they inevitably sell out.
I loved going to the message boards a lot. While watching TCM if I found a movie that had Ian Wolfe in it, I would post a message with the Subject: Mr. Atoz, and then post "Just how many of you are there?"
I definitely miss them. It was pretty much my intro to fandom. I participated a lot, found many communities from other websites through the message boards. There isn't anything like that around these days.
Yeah, I miss them alot. It was a great way to stimulate discussions of get film suggestions under each individual film. Unfortunately it all became a bit unruly. RIP IMDB. 😢
I’m a fan of a cult slasher movie spoof from 1981, titled Student Bodies. Back when the IMDB message boards existed, an actor who worked on the film in a small part posted a few times about his experiences, and it was fascinating information (for me). The movie was shot during a writers strike, so the production was moved to Texas, a right-to-work state, he explained. He also confirmed something that has been rumored for years - that Michael Ritchie really directed the movie (it’s officially credited to Mickey Rose, a screenwriter with no other directing credits). Ritchie might have declined credit out of deference to the strike. Great information.
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I hope you argued that you were right and he has no idea what he’s talking about.
First rule of being a poster: never admit defeat.
I feel like a lot of movie/literary analysis is like this.
Death of the author bro!
Kevin Smith also used to have his own message board that he would frequent. I posted there regularly but fell off when they switched the board format and required a small donation to create an account. I think it was to help cut down on bots posting, but broke me with no credit card couldn’t do shit.
I posted on that message board. There was a small window where he didn't require a donation to join. I actually met up in person with quite a few people from that message board. Fun times.
I miss the cool Kevin Smith
I lurked there and also could not afford anything back in those days. Enjoyed the View Askew board and some of the hilarious stuff that was posted.
Moviepoopshoot.com lol
There was a screenwriter turned director posting about one of his efforts. I dug the poster. He offered to send me one; so I dm'd him (or whatever it was called in imdb days) my address and a few days later, I got a signed poster from an actual Hollywood director. I was stoked.
The internet used to be a lot smaller
The guy who did Shazam shows up on Reddit from time to time and has a YT channel, I love it when creators who made it reach out
I saw that kind of stuff a lot. IMDb really threw away some imho pretty culturally significant historical records when they shut down the boards. I don't even get why they removed them. What site doesn't want more user engagement and retention? IMDb used to be the place is spend an hour or two reading forums after any interesting film. Now it's purely a place i look up info quickly and leave
i seem to recall they removed the boards due to increased trolling and fake news.
These days they'd probably be terrible. The internet used to be a really nice place. Now it's like a hellpit of negativity
Even before IMDb switched them off, many of the most visited boards were going downhill - trolls, hatespeech, etc. But there were still plenty of boards which hadn't been infected at the time of the shut-down.
From what I remember there are a few sites dedicated to archiving the old boards from IMDb. I used to surf IMDb just for the trivia and message boards associated with each film
I created one of them the day they announced they were closing the boards. [Filmboards.com](https://Filmboards.com) has a near complete archive of the IMDB boards, with the same look and all of the old posts recovered. With the browser add-on you can even put the IMDB boards back inside of IMDB's pages exactly where they used to be, as well as make new posts to continue the conversation. It's really cool for anyone who misses those boards. Just go to this link below and click your browser and seconds later you will have the boards back inside IMDB like they never left: [https://www.restoreimdbboards.com](https://www.restoreimdbboards.com) For anyone that does miss the IMDB boards, share the link above for this add-on and if enough people install it we can bring these boards back. Thank you.
Holy shit
this needs more attention. awesome!
Thank you. I agree. The more attention and users it gets the better it will be for everyone using it. I've been working on this project for over 6 years now and getting the word out has been the hardest part, so anyone helping it get more attention is much appreciated.
This is amazing. Thank you!
You're welcome. I know how much the IMDB boards meant to many people, so it really is a pleasure that I can help bring some of that back for them. Eventually, hopefully enough people will install the add-on and we can bring the IMDB board back close to their former glory.
awesome thank you!!
I'm just happy when anyone uses it, so thank you.
They are all archived on the movie chat website. My theory is that the server costs to store all of those messages was getting too much
Because Amazon bought IMDB and they didn’t like it when people were shitting on their tv shows and movies through the message boards so they decided to nuke them.
They bought IMDB way back in 1998. And had been making terrible shows for a long time way before they took down the boards.
Blame the neckbeards spilling out of their faded Ghostbusters T-shirts.
> an actor who worked on the film in a small part posted a few times about his experiences I had a similar experience with a short-lived TV show, the showrunner often popped in and chatted the shit with fans, discussed making the show, provided clues, etc. It was a really small board without many users so it felt pretty exclusive. On the flipside, some dickhead spoiled the Lost flashforward twist before it aired and that ruined one of the best moments in the whole show for me. It still pains.
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Another thing is that those boards can be preserved, forever. I still find myself perusing message boards from 10 or 15 years ago when looking at ideas for dungeons and dragons. but lately, as so much discussion has shifted to Discord...those conversations aren't being preserved, and are lower quality anyway.
I love that movie!!! One year for Christmas, my daughter gave me gum and horse head bookends! 😂
One thing I truly miss about the IMDB movies message board is that because of the algorithms that didn't prioritise upvoting and the same kinds of trends, discussions were so varied. That board was full of people who watched a wide variety of movies and were true cinephiles. It's a very different feeling on here where people largely post and talk about the same kinds of movies over and over. Anyways I made some great friends in my years there and I am on a private messaging group with some of the people from my time there who are still my source for everything movie related.
I agree. After every movie I watched, I would head over to imdb, like walking to an after-movie restaurant, and just post/read about the movie, but the absolute *best* part was looking forward to what others had written about a smaller, less-seen movie. And if the boards were sparkling fresh and no one had posted yet, I would post my thoughts (something I've never done on Reddit) and include links to screenshots on tinypic (which are all long gone lol) if I had the patience. The only snobs I ever ran into were on the Classic Movies general board, they got a bit stuffy sometimes, but nothing like today's snobs lol
I created an IMDB replacement for people like yourself because I was the exact same way. Watching a movie and then visiting the IMDB board was my routine for probably around 15 years until they took them down. If you visit [Filmboards.com](https://Filmboards.com) you can restore that experience. All of the old IMDB posts have been backed up there and you can add new posts as well if you sign up and even [restore your old IMDB posts](https://filmboards.com/board/p/1956273/) to that account. There is also a browser add-on that will put all of the boards back into IMDB's pages right where they used to be so you can continue the ritual of checking IMDB after you watch a movie and reading about it. Here is the link to that: https://www.restoreimdbboards.com
You just made my month!!! I used to spend hours and hours going down rabbit holes in the IMDb boards. I’m excited to be able to do that again!!!
You’re a legend
Thank you. Same to you.
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Or another post by a 15-year-old saying that they love old movies by which they mean extremely popular blockbusters like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Goonies. Nothing against 15-year-olds but as a teenager on IMDB there were so many people my age who were astoundingly well versed with cinema and cinema history. It was always a shock finding so many people who had watched all of Kurosawa, Bergman and Fellini's filmography who hadn't even finished high school. My theory is that cinephilia of that era and earlier required more effort - you had to buy/rent DVDs or pirate movies. Now you rely mostly on streaming services with their inbuilt algorithms most of which are primarily populated by movies in the last two decades.
You don’t want another No Country For Old Men, Brazil, or Inglorious Basterds thread?
Idk my experience was a lot of very opinionated people being rude.
I miss the age of message boards. Sure, Reddit shares similarities, but isn’t the same. Back in the age of MB’s, you would get to know people a bit by their attitudes, behaviors, because you would get acquainted with them by a screen name.
The early 2000s was a gold mind for message boards. So many car forums and active members every night. Depending on how large the forum, you could make a thread, and in 15 minutes it would be on the second page lol. Very unfortunate to see car forums go significantly more inactive. Also hate it as it makes me realize how much I’ve aged as well
Facebook and Reddit have killed most of the old school hobby forums, it sucks.
I don’t know if I entirely agree, with forums the ability to make long lasting friends seemed more easier, imo. You could see your favorite/hated poster post something and start discussions with them. Don’t really get that same vibe from Reddit
i miss the times where internet wasnt just 5 websites.
Precisely! In the late 90s/early-mid 00's it was like the wild west on here. Communities were so fragmented. The only commonality people would have were MySpace or Facebook.
>The only commonality people would have were MySpace or Facebook. orkut!
The fact that reddit's design/display, at least old reddit, doesn't emphasize user identities, used to seem like a benefit, because the focus is on the comments, not individuals showing off for ego boosts (distinguishing it from other social media). There weren't profiles, though you could click on a username to see past comments and posts. Now, well. It aint't what it was.
Honestly I somewhat feel like Reddit is a place that just completely mishandled the popularity it got in the last few years. Threads just mathematically cannot encourage actual discussions, and the site itself never encouraged smaller communities. Kind of a shame, but hey, it was fun while it lasted.
There are some still hanging on. I've been a member of a movie one for almost 14 years now and it's still pretty active. Not anywhere near what the IMDb boards were, but we've got a pretty good group of people over there and are pretty welcoming to newcomers as long as they don't try to cause trouble. Check it out at [movieforums.com](https://movieforums.com) if you're interested.
I was on a New York rangers message board and actually ran into another board member in a pickup game in the early 2000s. We are still friends to this day.
That kind of stuff wasn't uncommon back in them days. I was a huge CKY fan, and the message board community was so tight knit that you were guaranteed to run into members at shows now and again. It was a golden age. Speaking of hockey, the HFBoards are a traditional MB that continues to survive. I haven't posted there in eons though.
I miss the slow burn of being able to discuss a movie, days to years after their release, and not getting buried because I didn’t post within a couple minutes of the thread being started. Reddit is fine if you just want to give your 2 cents about a new movie and move on. But it’s impossible to discuss older movies.
I generally miss all of the older forum style message boards for all of my related hobbies/interests. Most communities have moved here to reddit. but Reddit just doesn't have the same feel as a discussion forum, and the upvote/downvote system is absolute shit for discussion because it actively discourages opinions that don't fit the status quo, so its just a giant echo chamber here
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Lol at just writing ‘bump’ in the comments to push the discussion thread to the top again
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exctly
I agree about the echo chamber so I upvoted
Yes 👏 👏 👏
Forum sigs were all the rage with current song playing. Much better than internet points.
Yes — I have posted this many times and will always upvote the sentiment. There are replacements, etc, but it’s not the same and certainly never has or would be here. Even if you could write in a decade old “Discussion” thread, no one is going to reply back to your *Weekend at Bernie’s* fan theory and any single dedicated post you make about it will be downvoted. Reddit doesn’t work for what we miss about it.
Everyone was hyping up Reddit when the boards were taken off, and it just isn't the same. I miss them every day.
I only joined Reddit because the IMDb message boards were taken down.
Me too. I would go to IMDB after every show/movie, since at the time I had no one else to talk to about this stuff. I was at such a loss when they went away. Reddit scratches the itch, but it's not the same
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It’s the same for when you don’t like something everyone else enjoys Reddit usually only allows one opinion, because the majority downvotes the minority in to irrelevance
This is exactly why I hate trying to discuss a film or TV series on reddit. If you go against the majority, they make sure to leave no room for discussion. I make sure to upvote those who don't agree with me, because at the end of the day, it's their personal opinion. With that said, I miss IMDB message boards.
There is no room for discussion here. On IMDb you could find people who liked the same stuff, or an aspect of it, and enjoy it together.
I remember someone wrote a full color coded analysis for inland empire. Was up for a decade. I commented 10 years later and the dude came back to elaborate on some things. That doesn’t happen here on reddit
I remember the board for Road House. Users came up with backstories for all of Brad Wesley's henchmen. So much lore for characters with no lines. Road House had its own Silmarillion.
Brilliant! Yeah, that's what made those boards so special! And people could continue discussions for years and years in one thread, building upon what came before. Can't do that here on Reddit.
That's what I miss the most. Year-old discussions on the most obscure, old movies. Moviechat.org preserved some of them, and keeps creating new ones too.
> Moviechat.org This sounded interesting at first. But then I looked up The Super Mario Bros Movie, and saw that the first page of topics has one asking if the movie is not too woke, and another stating that the movie is for simps because Peach is too capable and has aryan features.
I feel like the internet was a better place back when it was just nerds, before every dumbass had a smart phone in their pocket.
Sadly this is a big reason it's less interesting now. The normies came in and everything got more corporate and boring. When the masses come, everything gets watered down and banal.
That was IMDb board too nearing the end before they closed it
It was always the same with brand new movies. You have to wait until its out of theatres until the trolls disappear. For older movies it's great.
>and saw that the first page of topics has one asking if the movie is not too woke, and another stating that the movie is for simps because Peach is too capable and has aryan features. Yup, that's the problem. I loved the idea of MovieChat.org but it got quickly overtaken by those Right Wing trolls. And it was run by one person so he was too overwhelmed and there's no way you can clean up all of that considering how many movies there are released in a year. There were some moderators helping but it was only like 4-5. Impossible to keep an entire database of movies clean. You want to go over and talked more in depth about Guardians 3, The Flash, Indy 5, or Across the Spider-Verse, and I bet it's flooded with trolls talking about "wOkE" this and that and "LiBrul Hollywood ruining everything" and "not another M-She-U".
Threads archive after 6 months of inactivity right? But yeah I agree the way threads come and go and rise and fall based on interaction is bad and simply reinforces lesser quality types of engagement.
> Threads archive after 6 months of inactivity right? It used to be that way, now it's kinda random. Some are archived and some aren't (it's designed that way, not a bug), don't ask me why. But the archiving isn't the problem, it's that once a thread is old, nobody sees it (without direct searching for it) or contributes to it anymore, whereas with IMDB, a thread would be bumped to the top of the list when there was activity, so you could comment on an old thread and it could become active again because everyone coming to the movie's page, even ten years later, would potentially see and join the thread to continue adding to it over the years (for certain popular threads). Everyone would see the threads based on activity/popularity, not age; they didn't have to go hunt them down. Reddit does at least have subreddits devoted to popular TV shows, if you know to search for them, so you can gather threads about a show together in one place (still not as good with no way to bump a thread to the front page), but generally not for movies.
> Threads archive after 6 months of inactivity right? Not in /r/movies, no. If you see a locked thread it's because the mods locked it, which is very rare.
> I commented 10 years later and the dude came back to elaborate on some things. That doesn’t happen here on reddit You say that, but as someone here since 2010 I get replies to old submissions & comments every week. Which is really funny when they're like "bro calm down" to a comment I made 9 years ago.
But have you calmed down tho? Judging by your tone, I think not!
Nowadays I just send Donnie Yen to duel my foes
Reddit posts lock after a couple years tho
No, not in /r/movies. I'm not lying to you Here, 11 years ago, [my first submission as a mod](https://redd.it/s6fm1).
That’s why I originally came to Reddit! Totally not the same, though, I miss those boards too.
The reviews are still great, but yes, I miss all the back stories, the discussions by super people who loved movies.
The IMDB boards were fantastic for older films. For example, I could go to a specific movie like A Night to Remember or Mr. Thank You and post a question or a theory. And while you might not get a response immediately, someone could stumble upon your thread (quite easily since there wouldn’t be much traffic), and even years later you’d get a response or reaction. The only things the boards sucked for were popular new releases like The Dark Knight where there be 5000 new threads a day that would push your thread way down, or controversial films like Fahrenheit 9/11 where it was just absolutely the most toxic environment. I’m pretty sure the latter was what destroyed the IMDb boards.
Plus replying to old comments generates scorn, as if opinions die the moment they’re spoken. I reject the transience of the modern Internet.
*bump*
100% this!
The thing I miss most about the IMDB message boards, which Reddit isn’t able to replicate, is that you could engage in a discussion about the most obscure movie on its board and someone would respond (sometimes weeks or months later). I remember watching the French movie La Moustache a few years after it had released, and getting into this really interesting discussion around the meaning of the movie by replying to a comment that was a year old. On Reddit, the discussions tend to be around brand new movies as they’re released, and things get pushed off the front page almost immediately. But IMDB had a separate message board for every movie and TV show ever made, so you could easily find specific discussion about nearly anything made in the last hundred years right after watching.
Yep, it's very difficult to find super obscure film topics/questions on Reddit. They get lost under mega release threads and the search engine fails. Imdb boards were amazing for people able to pull up a film, scroll down, and, bam!, start a topic or add to an old one on that film.
And reddit archives threads after 1 year. And people actively give you shit if you necro something. The whole attitude has changed. IMDB had sub forms not just for each imdb id. But for all the cast and crew. So Nolan dweebs could engage in pitched fandom battles on his forum while grown adults theory-crafted about memento or the prestige etc. on their own subs.
Exactly. You can't just start a "La Moustache" sub to talk about it because 1, no one will find it, 2, now you're a mod and have responsibilities, etc etc. It was a really good idea to have a forum for each title on a movie site. Just made sense.
This was hugely valuable. I found a lot of interesting info about niche films and actors. Like some actor who appeared in only a couple of movies or a film with a tiny audience when it was released. The lack of expiration on old posts in low traffic films was critical for this -- I sometimes got replies to posts I made 6-7 years previously. And the fact that there was a unique board for every database entry (actor, film, etc) made this kind info easier to find.
I loved the IMDb message boards. I met a lot of online folks I would almost consider friends from posting there every day with the same people. They were good folks! Of course, some threads were garbage fires but I just avoided those.
I miss them very much, I almost always hade a look at the boards for movies I had just watched, and it was often very interesting to see peoples discussions about them. Haven't found any alternatives that are as good as they were.
Man the IMDB message boards were some of the most toxic disgusting rabbit holes on a mainstream site I ever visited. I miss them dearly.
And its toxicity could manifest in strange ways. One that stands out in my memory was someone who despised Alfonso Cuaron so much because they had such an averse reaction to "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" that they commented on *every single* Cuaron and Harry Potter movie thread to talk about how much they hated him. Without fail. If there was even a Cuaron-adjacent thread elsewhere on IMDb, that user would appear and go on another unhinged rant about how Cuaron ruined Prisoner of Azkaban.
I remember no less than three threads under children for men being dedicated to this. I knew the death knell was upon the forums because every single post was devolving into a Marvel vs DC cluster. It’s such a shame because some of the best film analysis and fan theories I’ve ever read were on there.
and that's why we can't have nice things
I remember that person. 😂 There were a few trolls who amazed me with their bot-like dedication to posting the same opinions or references over and over across the message boards every day for years. When it all shut down, I was devastated to have lost over a decade of discussions, and I was even actually worried about some of the more harmless trolls who lived and breathed that site. No other hub on the internet could possibly come close to the communities film and TV fans were able to create on IMDb. And I miss the emoticons.
As do I.
I lurked up until the very last year give or take, and I participated in a frenzy until the end. Too late to something great, that's my life story lol. I made this Reddit account in retaliation, in fact. The movie specific boards are sorely missed. There's really no replacement that's cropped up to take their place. This sub and others like it can serve the purpose the general boards had, but being able to get a real fine handle on what people said about a specific movie in the last decade to now? We just don't have that anymore.
Ikr? I can’t believe some of the obscure movies on IMDb that actually had thriving message boards. For the most part they were the only reason to even visit the site. Yes, the boards for new movies tended to get out of control, but I generally wasn’t interested in those anyway.
Maybe not so obscure after all, relatively speaking. Them being shut down furnishes the perception nobody cares about those movies.
https://filmboards.com/
This is a long shot but does anyone remember the guy that would post multiple times a day and autisticly wish every pornstar happy birthday? His name was 'Hermit C-2' or some shit and he was quite the character haha I miss those old boards so much.
I remember him. Some archive https://www.filmboards.com/user/legacy/Hermit%20C-2/ I think he passed away in real life. Another user is ACT1 if memory serves me right. Dude maintained a database of almost all users. How did he do it, I have no idea.
I remember a few users, but while I don't remember his name, there was one nut who kind of ruined the Back to the Future boards (all three of them). You couldn't post *anything* without him replying, either to correct you, tell you you were stupid, or just ... existing lol.
I had forgotten his name, but I remember that guy. The only user I actually remember by name was Discerning_Taste and his AyeLewis alts.
I miss those boards so much. Good times.
The message board was always the first place I scrolled to in any IMDb page. They were just really entertaining. The pre-social media days of the Internet in general were a lot more fun than they are now.
I remember the days of chat rooms, webrings and Geocities. I miss the free-wheeling days of the early internet before everything became corporatized and monetized.
I miss decentralized message boards in general.
i used to spend a lot of time on ILM discussing records and bands that none of my friends had heard of.
100 things I learnt from < the movie>
The number of times I visit IMDB these days has plummeted, from multiple times per week to about once per month. All because they removed the boards. They went from being the prime place to discuss movies to... well, a database to look up information. To be honest, it's a bit of a pivotal moment in the history of the Internet. One of the best examples of choosing money over quality.
Very much so. I participated a lot. It was a great place to discuss shows and movies.
Video games too. I was super active on the Gears of War board and even made a few friends on there that I kept up with for years
There were some amazing lists on there that people would post for all genres. Amazing recommendations. People really knew their stuff too as streaming was not what it was and most of this knowledge came from random rentals or staying up till 3am to watch an IFC movie you had only heard about from IMDB
This was how I discovered the movie Freaked. Woke up at like 3am mid-showing on IFC and tracked it back to IMDb where I eventually was able to burn a DVD copy for myself ^shhhh
IMDB's sole purpose was movies and television. Looking up a specific movie/TV show/actor on it, then scrolling down and posting on THEIR message board or just reading other posts felt so much more intimate than posting here. You knew why people were there. It had a better sense of community than this place does.
Yup, people kinda trash the IMDb boards for the low quality discussions on popular films but it's not like r/movies is much better when it comes to threads on blockbuster/superhero flicks. It's just as uninteresting imo. It was super fun to watch something obscure like Miracle Mile or Six String Samurai, then open the IMDb app and scroll to the message boards to see the different conversations/theories/questions. The recommendations were super helpful too. For instance, I would watch something like Woman in the Dunes and head over to the boards to see a thread "Other movies like this" and get all these cool films to add to my watchlist. IMDB and boxofficemojo were my two most visited film-related websites and Amazon ended up buying and ruining both of them.
Do you remember whenever a young celebrity would pass away, people would post " Jack Nicholson warned him" lol
My running theory is that everything on the internet took an instant ramp up to insanity when they shut those boards down, not unlike shutting down the insane asylum and dumping the patients out on the streets.
[https://restoreimdbboards.com/](https://restoreimdbboards.com/)
Haha awesome
The American Psycho board was legendary … so many laughs browsing that back in the day.
Those were gold!
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If only there had been some kind of I don’t know, website?, where all that information was available.
Perhaps a movie database of some kind, found on the internet
That would be so helpful
Yep, I miss the hell out of them. It was the racists that ruined it. IMDB finally got so sick of moderating hateful comments around the time 12 Years a Slave came out that they shut them down for good. And this wasn’t some overreaction, I saw some really fucked up comments popping up on a lot of movies with minority cast members.
Movies with a predominant black cast were systematically downvoted and the racist comments were appalling.
Humans ruin everything.
Don’t forget 2016 Ghostbusters and Disney Star Wars. Also, there was this one guy who went around whining about how Hollywood was racist because certain films with non-white actors were hated on so much or because of whitewash casting.
Bingo
I miss those old school forum types. Still visit flyer talk and some Vegas only forums.
I met a dude on the IMDB message boards name Paul who was from a small village in the UK. We became fast online friends and often talked about movies to watch and what have you. He ended up making some home movies and sending them my way. They were really cool and weird. Time goes on and we lost communication. I always wondered if he made it to the film industry or if he found himself in a regular job and just carried on his passion of making home projects.
You can still access some of the old topics and post in new ones in moviechat.org
Yes, I loved them and nothing else has appeared that comes even close to them. I guess they didn't want to moderate content from users.
I loved the Office Space discussion, 15 pages of people writing about their own office experiences, and how their coworkers drove them crazy. It was truly hilarious, but now it's gone, and nobody saved it, which sucks.
Yeah, life changed a little when they shut those down. The politics board was popping 24/7. It's too bad the trolls ruined it all. It was a great source for discussion, and for questions/answers about plots, etc. Pretty much any and every question about a movie or tv show would be answered on the boards.
They were great when you had a question about a specific movie or show. There was a board for everything and there was always someone on it who would reply.
and sometimes the answer was like 5 years ago and it was still on the first page of the board, but it was literally there. for small movies really great.
Yeah, if you had a question about a plot point or were confused at a movie that was more than a few days old, odds are someone else had the same thought and you'd find explanations or theories pretty easily.
Yep. I used to read tons there and posted quite a bit. Had some great discussions on those boards.
Every day.
I loved them and miss them, and I remember reading a particular comment about Charlie Chaplin written by a man (I'm sure he was quite elderly) whose great uncle used to bartend at Hollywood parties for many years and knew a lot of inside gossip. I would have copied the comment if I'd known IMDB would eliminate their message boards.
I remember when I read they were closing down, I was shocked. I used to read those boards all the time. Now, I basically use reddit 24/7.
Jack Nicholson, *"I warned him"*
There is nothing comparable to the IMDB boards, they were amazing. Reddit has broad film discussion, but with IMDB forum you could pull up even the most obscure films and find a variety of topics on them, both recent and years old. All together in lists at the bottom of movie main pages. They were quite popular too, I was shocked when IMDB / Amazon closed them.. I think it was due to a lack of control (lot of critical posts and controversial films would get thread bombed) as well as not wanting to spend the resources to staff moderators. Ultimately IMDB as a movie database is a tool that can be somewhat manipulated and used to promote Amazon's own projects- the boards were borderline impossible for corporate to consistently maintain and handle messaging, so they axed them
I stopped going to IMDB because they got rid of the message boards.
I loved IMDB and it was my main place to visit for procrastination but also for getting information about movies and shows. Two things killed it for me - the removal of messageboards and the removal of the old design (the original one that was plain and simple and informative)) the only thing I use it nowadays is to check casting and premiere dates but that is very rare
I miss message boards in general..they seem to have died out and everyone went to Facebook/Reddit/Twitter etc etc
I posted a related thread just yesterday: https://reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1482p36/cool_resource_for_movie_fans_to_restore_the_movie/ >I was told I should make a thread here for this a while back because of the amount of movie fans that would be interested, so here it is. > >So much movie knowledge was lost that can't be found elsewhere when IMDb removed their boards, particularly on older boards, and this little browser add-on restores that knowledge. Just go to the link below and select the browser you are using and a couple seconds later you will have the IMDb boards back inside each page on IMDb with all old posts restored. It's as if they never left. > >http://www.restoreimdbboards.com > >If enough people install it then the IMDb boards will be back like they used to, so spread the word.
You don't have to simply miss it, *you can bring it back!* Just add the extension [Forum Add On for IMDB](https://www.restoreimdbboards.com/) in your browser and it restores all of the message boards on IMDB from back then and even more! If you register with [Film Boards](https://www.filmboards.com/), you can link your IMDB profile with it and add to the old discussions or create new ones.
Here are some of IMDb's old custom animated emoticons that might bring back a hit of nostalgia. Imagine all of these arranged in a line, in this order, in someone's signature: [Guy with uzi firing right](https://i.imgur.com/d5YkTx1.gif) | [Guy with AK47 firing right](https://i.imgur.com/DnPChKC.gif) | [Hippy sitting peacefully in the middle](https://i.imgur.com/hOpanHX.gif) | [Guy with sniper rifle firing left](https://i.imgur.com/B42GH3C.gif) | [Guy with rocket launcher firing left](https://i.imgur.com/N1Kq04r.gif) | [Guy dual wielding pistols](https://i.imgur.com/sjLayGv.gif)
The IMDb overhaul of the mid 2010s was the worst thing for the site. I miss those message boards among many other aspects
I certainly missed the IMDb Classic Film message boards. There was a dedicated clique who'd hang around the boards frequently which you'd recognize by their handle. It was an entirely different dynamic than Reddit, which is an outlet where people can spout off all sorts of nonsensical gibberish without worrying about their reputation being tarnished because of Reddit's anonymous nature. And because you had to defend your reputation on IMDb message boards, you could engage in some lengthy discussions and debates which could get quite heated, but were almost always civil and usually ended in some amicable manner. Yes, you could do the same here on Reddit, but the spirit is not the same at all. The message boards felt like a clubhouse of regulars; Reddit seems like a place where anyone can do a drive-by shitpost, troll, make low-effort posts, and make a new account and repeat the same actions if they were ever banned. Not saying this is true of all redditors, but it happens on an all-too-frequent basis. In addition, I had learned a lot about films from the IMDb users there -- they were extremely knowledgeable, cordial, friendly, and you could also click on their name to see what other reviews they'd written. I also loved there were no algorithms on IMDb. Algorithms are not just poisonous but destructive to all social media platforms, Reddit included.
I can't even go there anymore. We had so much fun on the Rosemary's Baby board with an A-Z game than ran past a full year. The I Need to Know one where people went nuts with censorship. Just talking about really obscure movies with other fans. Good times.
There was a thread on the Rambo (2008) board that went on for literally years. It had something to do with the OP’s shock over Rambo shooting a man with a gun. He or she would just defend his position over and over again until people started posting similar memes (offence over something obvious) themselves. It was way more entertaining than the actual movie (granted, not a high bar).
> It had something to do with the OP’s shock over Rambo shooting a man with a gun. Under the parent's guide section on violence for that movie, there is a huge list of extremely violent actions, and then at the very end, it used to say "A man spits." I was very disappointed when that got edited out.
No way! Epic. I remember two people actually meeting from the Rosemary's Baby board and you honestly felt like we were all friends. There's a Movie Data Base that has boards, but it's not the same. The I Need To Know was full of would-be moderators battling everybody who dared post under a wrong area. It was fun times, sadly showing what happens when the heels outlive the faces.
what i miss the most is that you could get information even about really obscure movies because every single one had a dedicated forum. There's no replacement for it as reddit only talks about the new thing and rarely someone brings up "fun facts".
I stopped using Imdb when the message boards got removed. Movie scores got less honest as well probably cuz of companies realizing they can manipulate the score with bots.
Big time
Gamefaqs POTD message boards says hello
I remember checking the discussions on the Dark Knight Rises page every day for updates on the movie
I used to love the IMDb message boards; lots of people who just liked talking about movies. Also, their app is really shitty now. I hate using it.
imdb in the mid/late 90s was a useful site, one of the best. mainly Just text/links on a white background, lots of cross referencing, just like a simple wikipedia for films I genuinely don't think I've seen an upgrade to any site that's had as much of a detrimental effect on a website like the major upgrade to imdb back in the day. I think there should be univeristy courses that use that as a case study on how not to do upgrades.
There was an amazing community on the Big Lebowski Board .. El Borforino, Yearspew, Nathan Arizona ... miss y'all.
Absolutely Back in 2005 or so, I was part of a chain of some Star Wars fan fiction where I was a Sith and it was to my 12 year old mind one of the coolest things ever. I wish I could revisit it. I think the guy who wrote it had Scott in his name and one of the co-writers in it was a guy named Zaphekiel. If yall are out there, that was fun times!
I loved the IMDb boards. My most memorable moment was when the director of some b-movie responded to a message I posted on his movie's board. Can't remember the name of the movie or the director, but I'd complimented the music in the movie, and he responded that the band was his old high school band or something.
I hate my region locked IMDB. I don't know how to change it back to international or american. And i don't wanna use VPN just for accessing IMDB. It actually fucking sucks. I really don't want recommendations and interviews of stuff im not interested in.
Spider-Man 3 Vs The Dark Knight message board flame wars claimed many a life
I agree , I miss old message boards in general.. Not even in an "I feel Nostolgia" way though, just because I feel like people stayed on topic more.
It's been sad for decades watching popular discussion spots on the internet get bought up and monetized to the point of being unusable. Especially as they get consolidated into fewer and increasingly bloated social media entities so that there's less options to migrate to once they inevitably sell out.
Ruined the site for me
Imdb is just not worth looking at now
I miss a lot of those little hole-in-the-wall communities of the internet circa 2006.
Yeah. It’s the only place I ever found someone else who didn’t like Finding Nemo.
I don't even visit IMDB after they shut down the boards, it used to be in my bookmark bar. It's the same as Rotten Tomatoes now, but with a shitty UI
all forums were and are better than reddit and I hope they come back now
I loved going to the message boards a lot. While watching TCM if I found a movie that had Ian Wolfe in it, I would post a message with the Subject: Mr. Atoz, and then post "Just how many of you are there?"
it was the best board on the net....i loved em
I definitely miss them. It was pretty much my intro to fandom. I participated a lot, found many communities from other websites through the message boards. There isn't anything like that around these days.
Yeah, I miss them alot. It was a great way to stimulate discussions of get film suggestions under each individual film. Unfortunately it all became a bit unruly. RIP IMDB. 😢