The Disney+ Renaissance

A while back, I wrote a piece criticizing Disney for acquiring 20th Century Fox. I still hold by much of it, especially with them recently shutting down Blue Sky Studios. The only area I regret is my statement that their then-upcoming streaming service, Disney+, was bad. It goes to show how naïve I am in retrospect. To be fair, Disney+ had little to offer in original content that wasn’t The Mandalorian for a while. But even now that’s changing.

Originally, Disney+ was the service to own for its pre-existing material. It had some new shows, like The World According to Jeff Goldblum, but much of the content was from Disney’s past. Even then, going by MCU licensing, some of it wasn’t available right away. If you wanted the streaming service that badly, you were already a diehard Disney fan. Was that really enough to warrant subscribing to it?

Well…it depends on who you asked. For some people, like my cousin’s daughter, that was more than enough. For others, like myself, it wasn’t. Sure, I like much of Disney’s content, but not enough to pay $9 a month Canadian for the service. Any content that I liked, like Star Wars, The MCU and Pixar, I’d probably buy on DVD or Blu-Ray if I wanted it that much. It’s not like I didn’t already have a DVD collection...

It wasn’t until I received a year’s subscription as a 30th birthday gift that I considered Disney+ a viable competitor to Netflix. Yet even then there wasn’t much there that wasn’t The Mandalorian or the final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It didn’t have what I wanted long-term, and its promise of “awesome content” felt like an IOU. It was frustrating.

All that’s now changing, though. Beginning with the controversy-mired Mulan remake, Disney+ has upped its game with enticing content. Since then, it’s seen a second season of The Mandalorian, a tease for The Book Boba Fett, the official release of Soul and now WandaVision. That’s ignoring the 50+ original shows and movies slated for release, as well as the 16 more that are in various stages of production. If anything, Disney+ is transforming from an IOU to an investment with high returns. It’s great!

You know what the best part is? It actually excites me. There’s the obvious, like the aforementioned The Book of Boba Fett and Raya and the Last Dragon, and there’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. And Ms. Marvel. And a reboot of Darkwing Duck. And a series of Pixar shorts. What’s not to love?

I’m beginning to regret ever doubting Disney+. It’s not only becoming a platform for content of all ages, but much of it seems tailor-made for me. And of the tailor-made content that’s already there, a lot of it’s held in high-regard by critics and fans. That’s hard to pull off, but they’ve done it…somehow.

It’s especially good with Disney+’s release system. Unlike Netflix, which opts for binging, Disney+ releases new episodes once a week, much like television. There are benefits to that, even though I prefer binging, and one of them is keeping shows in the public consciousness for longer. After all, what’s better advertising than hype? (Maybe word of mouth, but that only goes so far.)

Disney+ is now the go-to for content I never knew I wanted. If I crave an action show, I can get that. If I crave a cerebral series, there’s that too. If I crave a Pixar or Disney series, guess what? It exists! This isn’t only good for options, it’s good for business!

I’ve made my frustrations with streaming known before on The Whitly-Verse. I’d, honestly, much rather own physical media. Streaming also has the downside of relying on connection speeds, and those are fickle. In that sense, I’m not the biggest fan of Disney+.

That said, if streaming must be the future, then it should be worth my time. Especially with streaming platforms being so expensive. So Disney+ slowly becoming worth it is welcomed and exciting, and I regret ever badmouthing the service. That’s a big tick in its favour. It’s also me admitting that I was wrong about it.

I’ll still have plenty of issues with Disney as a company. Their anti-competitive practices are bad for the entertainment industry. Their monopolistic behaviour is too. And their draconian attitude on copyright is unfair to small-timers, especially given how they view intellectual property. All of this makes me want to tear the company apart, and I’ve barely touched the surface!

That doesn’t mean that I can’t recognize when they’ve done something right. And Disney+, while slow to start, is exactly that. Is it unfortunate that it took so long? Yes. Would I like for more original content to have been there from the start? Again, yes. But better late than never, especially considering that, while reasonable compared to its competition, it isn’t cheap!