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.

Another solution would be to add a second audio stream (2.1) and let the viewer choose how to watch their movie.

Do you also want to add different video streams for smaller TV’s ?

What you want is a made-for-TV adaptation of the same story, but that wouldn’t be the same movie. Watching a movie is an experience, and you simply cannot reproduce experience that on a small TV with 2.0 audio. Even if they did a 2.0 mix, you won’t get the same sense of awe that you get when you watch it in a theater. What is even the point of watching it if you cannot make you feel that?

Watching a movie is an experience, and you simply cannot reproduce experience that on a small TV with 2.0 audio.

You heard it here guys, enjoying a movie on a normal TV or an iPad is simply wrong and you should feel bad for wanting to be able to understand the dialogue. I guess it makes sense that a BorgDrone would be intolerably inflexible and demand people conform to their unrealistic standards.

You heard it here guys, enjoying a movie on a normal TV or an iPad is simply wrong

It’s simply pointless. Like listening to music with your ears plugged. Why even bother watching a movie like that?

Because I can still enjoy it, regardless of what your standards are.

Doesn’t it bother you immensely that you’re getting a subpar experience? Even if you enjoy it, doesn’t just knowing it could be so much better suck all the enjoyment out of it?

No, not at all. I just want to watch a movie in bed on my tablet before bed.

But it sure sounds like it bothers you a lot.

This is what I can’t stand about you humans. This tendency to be okay with mediocrity.

Aren’t you the one who’s okay with audio mixing you need subtitles to understand?