New Disney Streaming Service: Disney+

[Bill1978]

I have never managed to finish Fantastic Mr Fox. But as I typed this it is one of the few Dahl books I never read as a kid. So maybe the story of Mr Fox never appealed to me.

[gaastra]

We heard this rumor before but here we go again. Kingdom hearts cartoon coming to disney plus?


https://whatsondisneyplus.com/kingdom-h ... to-disney/


Gaston the movie! Why?

https://whatsondisneyplus.com/beauty-th ... an-menken/

[Ben]

Hey...what’s the deal with Tron: Uprising on D+? I went to start the show last night and it went straight to the second episode, with only the "previously on" recap on the front. It all felt too fast for an opener, so I checked and it was episode two. Went back to the menu and I can’t seem to find the first episode anywhere!? Is this a UK glitch or is the first ep unavailable for some reason?

[Daniel]

Not a UK bug, it has been an issue since launch. No real reason why. You can view the episode, "Beck's Beginning", in bite size chunks on Youtube. Silly not to include the pilot, it sets the foundation!

[Ben]

Yeah, it’s nuts. There’s either some mistake, or some kind of strange, murky reason why this can’t be included. But it’s a pretty stupid situation either way!

[Randall]

Wow. I am glad I caught the initial episodes on Netflix when it was there.

[gaastra]

Glad they added schoolhouse rock.

Added this week--

Artemis Fowl
Mighty med s1 and s2
Disneyland episode the liberty story with ben and me
Disneyland episode the story of the animated drawing
Walt and el galpo

has been added.

Disney plus is now out in japan.

https://whatsondisneyplus.com/disney-launches-in-japan/

[Ben]

We just ran Artemis tonight. Lots of behind the scenes stories I can’t tell you, but it’s nice to finally have my name on a real Walt Disney Pictures movie (as opposed to others only tangentially linked to the Mouse House), even if it’s, um, sadly not too great.

On the upside, and just after I managed to watch it via YouTube clips, the first episode of Tron: Uprising *is* now available on D+, so we continued with that as well, which I’m liking so far.

[James]

The wife is a big fan of the book and has been looking forward to this one. She even went to the author’s panel when we were at Comic-con in 2008.

I on the other hand hated the book! But I’m a huge Schoolhouse Rock fan, so I got that going for me!

Stunts? I was expecting editing or something! Have to at least give us that story!

[Ben]

I was the troll that destroys the Italian wedding.

(And that’s only half a joke!)

[EricJ]

Also, the service is slowly--SLOWLY--starting to amnesty some of the vintage 60's-70's live-action classics, once they get their DMC disks:
The Moon-Spinners, Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, The Apple Dumpling Gang...Pretty soon, they should be down to some of the ones I've still got on my Vudu VOD queue. (Then I won't have to spend $5 for "Bon Voyage" or "Superdad".)

[Randall]

It was a rainy Sunday afternoon, so my son and I decided to give Artemis a try....

Well. Um....

I did share my thoughts with Ben via email already, but suffice to say... well....

Let's just say it has more in common with A Wrinkle in Time than Harry Potter.

Ouch.

There must be some juicy stories about the production of this one, because it certainly turned out to be a mess.

Lovers of the books will hate it. Movie fans will not enjoy it. But at least it's just 93 minutes, so the morbidly curious will not waste too much time.

Sorry, Ben. But at least you have some interesting memories.

[Ben]

You can’t say I didn’t warn you...!

[gaastra]

Artemis Fowl had a 12 RT score! It's dropped to 10! Ouch!

[EricJ]

Artemis Fowl had a 12 RT score! It's dropped to 10! Ouch!

Or, as one RT critic put it, "Art amiss...Foul!"

Let's just say it has more in common with A Wrinkle in Time than Harry Potter.
Lovers of the books will hate it. Movie fans will not enjoy it. But at least it's just 93 minutes, so the morbidly curious will not waste too much time.

I actually consider the Wrinkle In Time comparisons unfair--This one at least TRIES to be the book (about as well as it can), while AWIT put in "diverse" characters, went to town on the "visual stylization", and hired Oprah Winfrey...Nuff said.
The one thing that restored my morbidly-curious hope in sitting down to watch Fowl was Kenneth Branagh as director--He may not make great films, but he tries hard at them, and has fun. If he could direct the only good live-action Disney remake (Cinderella), he could do a good Harry Potter knockoff...He was Gilderoy Lockhart, after all.

My complaints were in two categories:
--The Book: I remember the great 00's El Dorado search for "the Next Harry Potter", and whether it would be Artemis Fowl, or Cornelia Funke's "The Thief Lord". I was working in children's books at the time, and my argument was that neither ONE of them were characters kids would find remotely likable or sympathetic...Kids might dream about going to a resident private school in a castle, with an unlimited expense account, learning magic and making friends who look up to them, but who dreams about becoming a wanted amoral criminal genius? Artemis seems to be completely dominant in every situation and in control of almost everyone around him, what obstacles are there for him to overcome?

--The Movie: First, everything in Colfer's entire book series has to be explained so that the first story makes sense--Either "Gay Hagrid, as played by Jack Black*" has to explain everything as narrator, or "black Race Bannon" has to explain it to Artemis, or Fowl has to explain it to everyone else.
Second, in the book, Artie was driven by avenging his father, but here, he's just a hard-edged snot. In the early scene where he's outsmarting his school counselors, he so unnervingly resembles one of the spoiled blue-eyed Hitler clones from "The Boys From Brazil", that when he gets the mysterious ransom message, you expect him to shout "You kidnapped my dad, you freaked-out maniac!"
(And I'm only halfway through it btw, and never finished the book--Would I be correct in guessing early on that the transition from the nasty, rasping ransom message, to Fairy Central and its nasty, rasping commandress, is one of the LEAST suspenseful twists since we thought Chancellor Palpatine "sort of sounded like" the Emperor?)

Still, I kept Disney+ around long enough to get the "free" summer-movie premiere, so now I can cancel with a clean conscience.
----
(*- Yes, Dacey, I KNOW it's Josh Gad. Sit down.)