I think Disney branding is very important in the U.S. If Hulu becomes a tile on Disney+, I don't know how Disney will effectively market adult content for the service. "Come see Handmaid's Tale, only on Hulu, which is actually on Disney+". Ultimately you're selling mature content on a family service, which is a tricky tightrope to walk.
I don't know about streaming services, but they should bring back 20th Century Fox studio branding. The opening "fanfare" before each movie was so great. Then the silent pause before the Star Wars main theme plays. Soooo great.
Bob Iger was considering keeping 20th Century Fox branding for films containing violent/sexual content, including decapitations which are banned by Disney. He was also considering the 20th Century Fox branding only for small independent productions.
Before Disney, Star Wars has its share of tasteful lightsaber decapitations (eg, Jango Fett, Count Dooku). I believe the blanket ban for Disney's family friendly image will mean such scenes (which make complete sense in the context of Star Wars) will be banned. It's a shame. Also for a more low brow example, in the R18 Deadpool films, Deadpool used his samurai sword to behead a villain then kicks the head like a soccer ball to incapacitate another villain. It's not highbrow action sequence, but it was excellent choreography.
It's a small thing, but a great example of content which Disney will not consider family friendly. If they don't have such content, people will go elsewhere to watch the content they want. Whether that's Netflix, or an anime streaming service like CrunchyRoll.
Is there a mistake here... I think one of the tables is duplicated and we're missing one. The first and second ones seem to be the same. Just a heads up. Great analysis like always!
I wonder if a US based solution would be a separate Disney Bundle app that integrates the three services (Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu) on a home screen. It could then have separate tabs for the individual services as well that shows you the content available but once you click on a piece of content, it auto-switches to the appropriate service and starts playing. This would be very clunky as it would be way better to just play the content natively but I could see some agreements particularly with Hulu preventing that. It would ultimately be similar to the Apple TV app on the Apple TV device and iOS devices. I have the Disney Bundle but rarely use Hulu or ESPN+ because I just don't go into those apps much but I wonder if there is content I would watch if it was presented to me in the same place as what I am watching on Disney+.
I'm a lifelong Star Wars fan who has seen Star Wars: A New Hope around 12 times. I'm only on Disney+ for Mandalorian then cancel as soon as the season finishes. I haven't cancelled this time as I want to try and finish the Clone Wars show.
Mandalorian itself is very inconsistent in quality. Some episodes (mostly by Jon Favreau) are near perfect. Definitely pure Star Wars joy. But the bad episodes (which is most of the show) are mediocre at best, unwatchably bad at worst. Despite this, before Mandalorian all Disney Star Wars content was pure unadulterated garbage. Now it's slightly better, but honestly not by much. Disney are a company of quantity, not quality. They were happy to release trash like the Star Was sequel trilogy. They are just in it to cross-promote their other Star Wars shows instead of providing a consistent narrative with good pacing.
I hope Disney can improve the quality. I'm not very hopeful. They've already damaged Star Wars far more than George Lucas' prequels ever did.
OK I just thought I'd return here after seeing all of Wandavision just to say how freaking great that show was. Generally very well written and acted. Kevin Feige is doing a great job.
If they can keep up that level of quality then great! Hopefully Falcon and The Winter Soldier is good too, I've only seen 2 episodes so far.
Went through the Star line-up here in Ireland this morning. There's a handful of movies there that I'll watch that weren't available before, but not many. I think there's only about 250 "new" movies on there. I added a half-dozen to my watchlist, and will probably never look at the rest again. A lot of the stuff on there that I'll ever rewatch (like the Wes Anderson movies), I already have on DVD/BR.
Ditto the TV series. Feud: Betty and Joan has never been available after its initial airing a few years ago, and I'll rewatch Terriers again, but that's about it.
They've literally only four shows labelled as Star Featured Originals, and none of those are interesting to me at all.
Also, for all of Disney+'s talk about separating the various channels (Disney, Nat Geo, Marvel, Star, etc), the only way to see the full Star catalog is to see it mixed in with all the others. It's very odd to see The French Connection displayed next to Frozen II or Summer of Sam next to Star Girl.
I'm happy the stuff is there, but it's not going to keep me subscribed in the long-term.
good insights here, thx
I think Disney branding is very important in the U.S. If Hulu becomes a tile on Disney+, I don't know how Disney will effectively market adult content for the service. "Come see Handmaid's Tale, only on Hulu, which is actually on Disney+". Ultimately you're selling mature content on a family service, which is a tricky tightrope to walk.
I don't know about streaming services, but they should bring back 20th Century Fox studio branding. The opening "fanfare" before each movie was so great. Then the silent pause before the Star Wars main theme plays. Soooo great.
Bob Iger was considering keeping 20th Century Fox branding for films containing violent/sexual content, including decapitations which are banned by Disney. He was also considering the 20th Century Fox branding only for small independent productions.
Before Disney, Star Wars has its share of tasteful lightsaber decapitations (eg, Jango Fett, Count Dooku). I believe the blanket ban for Disney's family friendly image will mean such scenes (which make complete sense in the context of Star Wars) will be banned. It's a shame. Also for a more low brow example, in the R18 Deadpool films, Deadpool used his samurai sword to behead a villain then kicks the head like a soccer ball to incapacitate another villain. It's not highbrow action sequence, but it was excellent choreography.
It's a small thing, but a great example of content which Disney will not consider family friendly. If they don't have such content, people will go elsewhere to watch the content they want. Whether that's Netflix, or an anime streaming service like CrunchyRoll.
Is there a mistake here... I think one of the tables is duplicated and we're missing one. The first and second ones seem to be the same. Just a heads up. Great analysis like always!
I wonder if a US based solution would be a separate Disney Bundle app that integrates the three services (Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu) on a home screen. It could then have separate tabs for the individual services as well that shows you the content available but once you click on a piece of content, it auto-switches to the appropriate service and starts playing. This would be very clunky as it would be way better to just play the content natively but I could see some agreements particularly with Hulu preventing that. It would ultimately be similar to the Apple TV app on the Apple TV device and iOS devices. I have the Disney Bundle but rarely use Hulu or ESPN+ because I just don't go into those apps much but I wonder if there is content I would watch if it was presented to me in the same place as what I am watching on Disney+.
I'm a lifelong Star Wars fan who has seen Star Wars: A New Hope around 12 times. I'm only on Disney+ for Mandalorian then cancel as soon as the season finishes. I haven't cancelled this time as I want to try and finish the Clone Wars show.
Mandalorian itself is very inconsistent in quality. Some episodes (mostly by Jon Favreau) are near perfect. Definitely pure Star Wars joy. But the bad episodes (which is most of the show) are mediocre at best, unwatchably bad at worst. Despite this, before Mandalorian all Disney Star Wars content was pure unadulterated garbage. Now it's slightly better, but honestly not by much. Disney are a company of quantity, not quality. They were happy to release trash like the Star Was sequel trilogy. They are just in it to cross-promote their other Star Wars shows instead of providing a consistent narrative with good pacing.
I hope Disney can improve the quality. I'm not very hopeful. They've already damaged Star Wars far more than George Lucas' prequels ever did.
OK I just thought I'd return here after seeing all of Wandavision just to say how freaking great that show was. Generally very well written and acted. Kevin Feige is doing a great job.
If they can keep up that level of quality then great! Hopefully Falcon and The Winter Soldier is good too, I've only seen 2 episodes so far.
Went through the Star line-up here in Ireland this morning. There's a handful of movies there that I'll watch that weren't available before, but not many. I think there's only about 250 "new" movies on there. I added a half-dozen to my watchlist, and will probably never look at the rest again. A lot of the stuff on there that I'll ever rewatch (like the Wes Anderson movies), I already have on DVD/BR.
Ditto the TV series. Feud: Betty and Joan has never been available after its initial airing a few years ago, and I'll rewatch Terriers again, but that's about it.
They've literally only four shows labelled as Star Featured Originals, and none of those are interesting to me at all.
Also, for all of Disney+'s talk about separating the various channels (Disney, Nat Geo, Marvel, Star, etc), the only way to see the full Star catalog is to see it mixed in with all the others. It's very odd to see The French Connection displayed next to Frozen II or Summer of Sam next to Star Girl.
I'm happy the stuff is there, but it's not going to keep me subscribed in the long-term.