DescentBB

I don't think the big screen will go away any time soon, but I do think that the ending credits will. I notice that the vast majority of movie go'ers don't read them and most people who do want to know the cast and crew look it up online.

The only reason I like the ending credits is to hear the theme song of the movie, however new movies are starting to favor orchestra strikes instead of actual melodic compositions, like the stuff John Williams is famous for.

What do you think?
Are they still relevant in this modern age?
Does it cost movie companies anything to have a large part of the film be rolling text?

I don't see any reason why ending credits to movies would be eliminated. It costs next to nothing in the grand scheme of things to set up a simple text scroll set to background music...hell, most of us could easily do the same thing with free software on our own. Relevance aside, I'm sure production studios are contractually (and perhaps even legally) obligated to give due credit to all the people involved in the production, and opening/ending credits are the best way to ensure that said credit stays within the production itself.

Not likely any time soon. There are very specific laws that govern the how and the why of credits.

Perhaps y our generation will in 20 years or so as they seem to be very impatient, but mine probably wouldn't.

A lot of it has to do with contracts and recognition. Without that recognition, certain parties may not be help liable to pay smaller "insignificant" cogs in the industry. It HAS happened and that is why those laws are made.

I don't think end-credits will go away entirely, but over time they have certainly been slowly relegated to areas of smaller / lesser importance.

After all, in movies until the '50s or so, credits rolled (to music) at the beginning of films, not the end. And nowadays if you see a film on television, the credits are compacted into a tiny area in the corner of the screen over ads and played through in only a few seconds.

I'm sure that they will always exist due to contractual obligations, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them being creatively obscured more and more...

There have been some wonderful credits:

Several of the Harry Potter movies
Wall-e
KungFu Panda (the first one) if you haven't seen these, google it. It's inspiring artistically
and of course Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Not all the credits but the little bit at the end started whole presidence.

Smokey and the Bandit. I actually stayed in my seat to watch the credit sequence because they were showing all sorts of bloopers and outtakes. I may not have paid attention to the names, but the action was pretty funny.

I watch credits for a few reasons. One, for the music. Two, because of the stuff they put after it nowadays. Three, I look for first and middle names of people I know (it's like a game, I guess). And four, for information. I certainly hope they don't stop making them anytime in the near future.