Because they insist on mixing the audio in a shitty way so unless you want to fiddle with the audio-level every 5 seconds or have your eardrums shattered by action/suspense-scenes, you can’t hear dialogue and need subs to understand what the fuck is going on…

Edit: and before people start saying “5.1 in stereo is the cause!1!!1!1”, no forcing stereo does absolutely nothing to alleviate this.

The ‘problem’ is dynamic range. They mix movies with a large dynamic range because explosions and shit are a lot louder than spoken words. You are supposed to have your eardrums shattered during action scenes. That’s hot it’s intended to be listened to.

Could they mix it differently? Sure, but that would mean that the people who want to watch it as intended can’t. There is also no reason to because you can simply adjust this during playback. Any half-decent A/V receiver will have an option for dynamic range compression. Just because you didn’t set up your surround sound system properly doesn’t mean the movie is badly mixed.

I don’t have a surround system…I have 2.1 stereo, and even with dynamic range compression this is an issue.

I don’t want eardrums shattered when watching a movie, nobody wants that, it’s unpleasant and 100% unnecessary for watching at home.

I don’t want eardrums shattered when watching a movie, nobody wants that, it’s unpleasant and 100% unnecessary for watching at home.

They don’t mix for a 2.1 home setup, they mix for a (home) theater. You’re using a set-up meant to watch the news and maybe a soccer match to watch a movie and then complain that it’s a crappy experience. Yeah, no shit.