Post
by Ben » April 22nd, 2020, 4:09 am
I think you’re lucky that Onward got a VOD release at all, since as soon as it got yanked from cinemas my understanding was that it would go straight to D+ and only become available separately when it hit the other home vid formats.
But...I’m also kind of with you on D+. We got it day one in the UK and so far I’ve watched Lady And The Tramp and Togo, and that’s it. They’re stupidly releasing The Mandalorian every week, making us wait even longer, so I’m waiting until they have enough that I can run two at a time since it’s not worth powering up the proj for just one.
Instead I’ve just been looking through everything they have, and I don’t know if we just don’t have the breadth and depth of what’s on the US version, but it does seem pretty limited. It just seems under each section there’s a ton of stuff that they could bolster things up with, especially the very slim Star Wars offerings.
And they lump in random 20th Century titles with Disney stuff, which often feels odd to me. Wouldn’t it be better to let 20th Century have is own "silo" brand rather than muddy the waters? (I also don’t really like how LucasFilm has become "Star Wars"...what happens to other stuff from that company?) Or just lump everything together, a la Netflix, and simply have all the D+, 20th Century and Hulu things as one all-in mega-option service?
I know they want to keep D+ for the kids, but this limits quite a lot and then has some questionable options that don’t always quite fit in with that in mind. Better, I think, to have an all-in service, which would actually be pretty awesome — everything from Alien to Zootopia — but then have a couple of filters that save the adult stuff from little eyes.
"Disney Kids" would be a parental option to restrict titles to G, PG or PG-13 levels, with "Disney Family" being everything and offering something for the whole family, and/or you could have a "Disney Grown-Ups" filter that just contains PG-13 and R titles for those that don’t want to see singing princesses pop up in their viewing options. (Not only this, but we could have the return of some beloved Touchstone films and, had they not short-sightedly sold off the library, the initial run of Miramax titles).
Then you’d have a truly awesome range of content that would rival and beat Netflix. As it is, D+ is a great archive of (almost) everything we know and love...but have mostly seen a million times before. And where I have a Blu-ray disc, the quality doesn’t beat it (although that may be diwn to reduced bandwidth while everyone is stuck at home).
I’m not actually "knocking" D+, much as it might sound. And initially when you open it up it’s like Christmas. I do realise that people love it and are getting a lot of out it, but for me it’s still finding it’s feet and has a way to go. On one hand they want to keep things in nice Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars (grrr) and Nat Geo boxes, but on the other they throw in 20th Century content randomly.
Either let Century have their own box or lump everything in and filter it. At the moment, D- seems too limited by its own aspirations!
