New Disney Streaming Service: Disney+

[ShyViolet]

Will be made available at the end of 2019. Supposedly will be cheaper than the base price of Netflix, although no number has been announced as of yet.

Here’s some more details:


http://fortune.com/2018/08/27/disney-st ... netflix-2/


My thoughts:

Rip off, rip off, and more rip off. I don’t care if it costs less than Netflix. It’s still another subscription to have to pay for...what on earth was so wrong with showing their older animated titles on Flix (Pocahontas, Hercules) and newer ones (even classic Pixar like Inside Out and WALL-E) on Starz? I guess their plan to print money for the next one hundred years or so by buying every single entertainment conglomerate out there just wouldn’t be complete without this extra category of “gouge”. Why in the world should people pay a monthly price for (as far as I could see from their content lists) entertaining-but-not-exceptional media that has already been widely available for the last thirty years or so??

I guess it goes without saying that I looked for classic Walt-era Disney animated features, shorts, live-action films and television shows. Couldn’t find any, of course. I guess to Iger and his pals, ripping off customers monthly for a copycat version of the Disney Channel (and not when it was good of course!) is a much more profitable move than actually providing classic Disney entertainment, the kind that the executives in charge would rather shrug off than make available to the masses. Who knows if the audience even cares about Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck anymore, ten Star Wars sequels and another Deadpool movie is where it’s at!


About their specific “programming”: it’s mostly either original Disney TV shows made for the service, old Disney films like Honey, I shrunk the kids and Three Men and a baby. (Hmm, I didn’t realize it was still 1989.), High School Musical Films, the Clone Wars series, basically stuff everyone has already seen and many no doubt own! .


One more thing: I pasted this in the DuckTales thread..it’s basically contemporary kids, most of them under 10, reacting to the opening titles. (From classic DT) At first, it really shocked me how cynical, closed-minded and unimaginative they seemed when expressing their feelings on it. (One six-year-old actually says: “Mickey Mouse is getting old.”) But the good thing was that even with this initial reaction, they eventually seemed very curious about it, and almost all of them expressed a desire to watch it if it became available. That’s hope right there: kids STILL need innocence, playtime and imagination to be happy, even in this age. Walt’s entertainment was geared towards children and the child in all of us, and Iger has discarded that notion so he can make Disney into a money-making machine. Our kids need Walt/era stuff, stat! And so do we.


https://youtu.be/_y9qGngsyA4


(EDIT: The service will be made available at the end of 2019, not 2018. Fixed now.)

[Randall]

If the service offered all Walt-era films and Wonderful World of Disney, I'd be all over it.

[Ben]

Exactly. When DisneyLife was launched here I got excited because I figured they'd open the vaults to "proper" Disney stuff like the Disneyland and Wonderful World Of Disney (pre-1990-ish) programs.

Until that’s the case, I have every single Disney title I could want on some kind of home video format.

EDIT: actually just read Vi's link...there’s nothing to say that they’re just focusing on new content. And Iger says this will be a "suite" of Disney offerings, so maybe Vault Disney could make a comeback. If they are seriously challenging Netflix then it’s way too early to say if this is a rip-off or not: sure the big Star Wars and Marvel offerings are going to be what draws people in firstly, but they won’t keeo up their subscriptions without more than jusy that. They’re real dumb if they don’t realise what gold they have in all the Walt-era content they have, which they know is what will bring in the old-time fans. In short, have faith...this may be all SW and Marvel on the surface, but it’ll (hopefully) be much more than that underneath...

[ShyViolet]

God, I sure hope so. If we even get a facsimile of what the Disney Channel was like in the 80’s I’d definitely be on board. .


However, I can’t help but have doubts since so much of Classic Dis has been practically “missing” from the company’s offerings for a very long time now. I guess the exception is their periodic DVD/Blu-ray releases of Classic (as well as 90s Renaissance) feature films, but that is not anywhere near enough. (For fans as well as the audience, whose children unfortunately are being deprived of something truly special. )


****************************************************************



Just a random/wild thought: How about lobbying to change the name Walt Disney Animation Studios back to Walt Disney FEATURE ANIMATION! . It has such a “grander” sound than the WDAS moniker. It always made so much of an impression on me as a kid...it sounded so important! Lol. I think Lassetter was one of the prime advocates for the change, so maybe they’ll change it back now that he’s gone? Although it’s certainly possible (and likely) that Catmull had a hand in it, too.

[droosan]

It may just be childhood nostalgia, on my part .. but I've always preferred "Walt Disney Productions".

-----------------------

1980s-era Disney Channel was incredible .. and well-worth paying for. I don't currently subscribe to any streaming services .. but might consider Disney's, if their content offering is similar to what they presented back then.

But I do have all of their animated features -- and most of the live-action films & 'Treasures' sets -- on DVD/Blu-ray .. so, it would need to have something beyond that, for me to justify the expense.

[EricJ]

Rip off, rip off, and more rip off. I don’t care if it costs less than Netflix. It’s still another subscription to have to pay for...

(Let's settle in, folks, we'll hear a lot of that, from a lot of people, verbatim.
We're already hearing it from the Star Trek fans who don't want to subscribe to CBS AllAccess.)

what on earth was so wrong with showing their older animated titles on Flix (Pocahontas, Hercules) and newer ones (even classic Pixar like Inside Out and WALL-E) on Starz?

Or on Hulu, which they now co-own.
The problem is that it doesn't create "brand identity", or the security of what the industry is so Netflix-dazzled to think streaming is "About" now, ie. Original Programming.

Yes, no one cares about Original Programming, but one reason we've also seen the movies disappear off the other services is that studios want control over their catalog titles, rather than lease them off to a place where viewers can watch them for free all month. If we have a studio-owned service, the way that Warner and Criterion own Filmstruck, we have at least some reassurance that classic movies will actually show up there.

That was one of the good things about the 80's glory days of cable, including vintage Disney Channel, in that if you didn't know what you wanted to watch, you could occasionally enjoy the comfort-food of rerun-vault pot luck. That disappeared when early-00's Disney Channel pushed their old movies and Disneyland episodes to 2am, because they got in the way of "Sister, Sister".

[ShyViolet]

Cool profile of Bob Iger in The Hollywood Reporter; addresses many topics such as the Fox acquisition, Netflix and Disney Play:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ ... wn-1145493

[ShyViolet]

New on-line remake/tv show of High Fidelity (the John Cusack movie, which is excellent btw) on Disney Play to premiere in about a year from now. Except the Cusack character will now be a woman.


https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live- ... ce-1146529

[gaastra]

Hawkeye series with him training the young female hawkeye from the comics might come to the streaming service.

http://whatculture.com/film/mcu-rumour- ... v-series-2

[ShyViolet]

Everything that’s known about Disney Play so far: what’s on it, what’s not on it, etc...(Still no word about whether classic shorts/films/Mickey Mouse Club etc...will make an appearance. )

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/ ... rvice.html

[Dan]

If the plan is on course to launch in fall 2019, then I get the feeling that they'll probably do some big pushes regarding the service during next year's D23.

Which should make the both of us pumped, eh Rand?

[EricJ]

Everything that’s known about Disney Play so far:

Including the fact that it won't be named "Disney Play":
https://preview.disneyplus.com
(And, apparently, has also gotten National Geographic Channel away from its owners.)

[Randall]

If the plan is on course to launch in fall 2019, then I get the feeling that they'll probably do some big pushes regarding the service during next year's D23.

Which should make the both of us pumped, eh Rand?

So many reasons to be pumped.

[James]

...(And, apparently, has also gotten National Geographic Channel away from its owners.)

National Geographic came with the Fox acquisition as has been known for awhile. What I find a complete shock, however, is that they are promoting it alongside their other marquee brands! Nothing against NatGeo, I just wouldn't have expected it. I actually assumed they might put a 20th Century Fox logo up there. I think that is kinda big news a lot of people missed.

[Ben]

Most Fox stuff will go via Hulu, though. NatGeo fits more with Disney's educational and nature side.