Judd Apatow, Brad Bird, Peyton Reed & More Speak Up Against Netflix's Testing Of Variable Playback Speed Functionality

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Last week, I wrote about how reports were surfacing that pointed to Netflix testing a new function on its mobile app that would allow film fans the option to watch content at speeds 50% faster than normal. While Netflix has still not commented on the testing, it appears the variable speed functionality is intended to allow folks the option to devour more content at faster speeds, which seems fairly noble on paper. However, as several filmmakers have pointed out, taking a film or TV series and speeding it up for the sake of efficiency is a terrible idea.

After news began to spread that Netflix was looking at this option, folks like Peyton Reed, Brad Bird, Judd Apatow, and Aaron Paul all spoke up against this idea. And it shouldn’t be too terribly surprising why folks that have dedicated years of their lives to creating art that is released by Netflix would be upset by the company altering their work so that you can watch it a little bit faster and push it out of your brain almost immediately when you switch to yet another episode of “The Office.”

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“Whelp— another spectacularly bad idea, and another cut to the already bleeding-out cinema experience. Why support & finance filmmakers visions on one hand and then work to destroy the presentation of those films on the other???” tweeted Brad Bird, the director of films such as “The Incredibles” and “The Iron Giant.”

The sentiment was echoed by Apatow, who tweeted, “No @Netflix no. Don’t make me have to call every director and show creator on Earth to fight you on this. Save me the time. I will win but it will take a ton of time. Don’t fuck with our timing. We give you nice things. Leave them as they were intended to be seen.”

A Twitter user replied to Apatow saying that he should have it in his contract that his films or TV series shouldn’t be altered. The filmmaker tweeted back, “No. That’s not how it works. Distributors don’t get to change the way the content is presented. Doing so is a breaking of trust and won’t be tolerated by the people who provide it. Let the people who don’t care put it in their contracts that they don’t care. Most all do.”

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“Ant-Man” filmmaker Peyton Reed saw the news and also tweeted his displeasure, saying, “This is a terrible idea, and I and every director I know will fight against it.”

Someone who has a pretty close relationship with Netflix is Aaron Paul, the actor who stars in one of the biggest original films released on the streaming service all year, “El Camino.” But even he is upset by this news, even with his allegiance to the streaming giant.

“Stop,” he tweeted, in response to an article that used him as an example. “As the person talked about in this article I felt the need to speak out. There is NO WAY @netflix will move forward with this. That would mean they are completely taking control of everyone else’s art and destroying it. Netflix is far better than that. Am I right Netflix?”

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As mentioned, we still don’t have a response from Netflix, and considering this is merely a small test of the functionality, it doesn’t seem like we will get a comment. However, as I wrote last week, speeding up the playback of content for efficiency is hardly a new concept. Audiobooks and podcast apps have been using this for years. But one could argue that the variable playback works with audio mediums way better than it would for a visual art.