New Disney Streaming Service: Disney+

[Farerb]

If I'm not mistaken, it only means that you can pay for the movie through Google and Apple but it will still be only available to watch on D+

[gaastra]

Phineas and ferb candace against the universe
Alice through the looking glass (again)
Fantastic four 2005

That's it. Man these last three weeks had been slow. Again why not add some more classic disney cartoon shorts or disneyland episodes to pad it out? Still waiting for house of mouse and the stitch follow up shows.

[Ben]

They will announce soon that you can actually get more content...but you have to pay over the subs price to access it...

[gaastra]

Disney plus now has a ad for mulan on the top page. Funny thing is they don't say it cost $30 at all on the ad. It says with "premier access" but does not tell you what premier access is or that it cost $30 more. You click on the ad and the page it takes you to---does not tell you it cost $30 also! They tell you it's "premier access" but again does not tell tell you what that even is! Disney is hiding that this cost $30 on the disney plus page and ad!


My sister saw the ad yesterday and was talking about how she can't wait to see it. "Did you know mulan is coming to disney plus! I saw the ad for it!" She was pretty excited. I told her it will cost $30 extra to "unlock it" early and it's not going to just drop like everything else on disney plus. Needless to say she was not excited for it anymore. She was letdown and will wait when i told her it will be free later. Wonder how many people who don't keep up with movie news will see that ad and think they are going to get it like every other movie only to be in for a big shock!

Disney needed to put the price in big letters on that ad to avoid confusion. How many people are getting confused from this.

[Ben]

...including Disney!

[gaastra]

Disney has added the price to the mulan ads now! Good.

Also it's confirmed it's free after dec 4th.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DisneyPlus/

[Ben]

Like I said, a treat just in time for Crimbo!

[Ben]

Just sent a catch-up email to Rand and figured I'd share my thoughts on the two new D+ movies...

Last night was a Disney Double of Howard and The One And Only Ivan...

Howard was, um, okay? As an Ashman nut (the lyrics to a musical I wrote are very inspired by his style) I learned or saw nothing new — actually, my biggest takeaway was that Peter Schneider was involved as far back as Little Shop's tryouts — and the film was really just wanting to lean into the threat of AIDS the whole time, which felt unbalanced. The first half, before Disney, was infinitely better, but afterwards it was the same ground as covered in previous documentaries about Beauty And The Beast, although also surprisingly not as in depth as those. There was disappointingly nothing on how Ashman came to Disney originally for Oliver & Company, and Aladdin kind of gets the short thrift, so it felt quite disjointed overall. I’m not really sure it even worked as a straight "celebration", since the AIDS references kept pulling it back to that, so there’s a gloomy cloud over the whole thing, and I felt quite a few interviewees wee missing — I mean, how about Oz talking about the Little Shop movie and how Howard came in and "fixed" the ending? That’s only very briefly touched on in one archive soundbite from Ashman himself, but it would have been good to hear from more people. Overall, good, but not something that would shed much light on its subject for newbies, or even blow a fan away, I don’t think.

After that, it was still earlyish, so we decided to keep the bulb burning and run Ivan. Huh. Bee-zaarre!!! What a depressing film! So oppressive and claustrophobic. And those poor animals! To think that this actually happened, and that Ivan was in a cage for 27 years is just awful. Yeah, the point of the film is to kind of shine the light on that, but that message is totally at odds with the "fun and happy" way it’s depicted the animals live all that time. Typically Disney in its everything is rainbows approach, but everything was not rainbows here, and it was frustrating that the Cranston character, when he got "slightly annoyed" was clearly toned down from being a complete a-hole and probably beat them. And, of course, we get the "nice" assistant, who sees this but can’t do anything but look on sympathetically, and his kid daughter, who feels shoehorned in so as to give the kids an access to the story (why is she giving these animals crayons anyway? Wouldn’t they try and eat them and get sick?), and the ending is too ambiguous — sure, Ivan is finally given a better life, but the grainy VHS archive of the real gorilla at the end made me wonder why we weren’t seeing current footage: a quick look up shows he died in the zoo quite a while back, but this goes totally unmentioned. It’s a sad, inappropriately handled story that is dressed up as a heartwarming family film, which makes it something as fake and false as the CGI animals. Actually, the more I think about this film, I find I hate it, and it’s quite a nasty thing. I have no knowledge of the events or the book it is based on, but going by this movie alone, the poor gorilla had a crap life, was treated appallingly, and is now being used to sell a completely fabricated version of "happy times in captivity" without it being truthful, real or even open about Ivan himself at the end. I actually feel quite sick after watching this.

[gaastra]

Live action cinderella has been added.

[Daniel]

Nice write up, Ben. Guess I can rest easy having to wait a bit on Howard. Shame about Ivan. Having some knowledge, I was wondering how they were going to tackle the film. Oof.

[Ben]

Oof indeed! This is such a misguided and ultimately very sad film. I’m just not sure what they were thinking or who it’s actually for. Just so very strange.

[EricJ]

It was a popular children's book at the time, so they likely got it while they were out rights-shopping for new original-movie projects to go with Stargirl.
(It wasn't a Hyperion book they could grab in-house, like Artemis Fowl.)

If you liked it, the sequel, "The One & Only Bob", is now on shelves.

[gaastra]

This week

Mulan for $30. (what you think you would get everything on disney plus for one price? Surprise sucker!)
Wolverine (i'm guessing crappy pg-13 cut that cuts all the cool ninja fight out that was in all the trailers.)
Earth to ned S1 (muppet series)
Mighty ducks 2
Mighty ducks 3
Donald duck trick or treat short
Plus a shorts folder has been added.
Never been kissed (again)
Strange magic (again)

Have been added.

[Ben]

Yay! Strange Magic!

Er............

[Daniel]

Ugly. So very ugly.