The Town of Odyssey

snubs wrote:just sign up as see if you like it.

I'm going to. I just wanted to be able to have some kind of plan going in for some things I know I want to check out rather than figure it out after I was on the clock. Very limited trials (like one week) make me anxious if I'm going in with no real idea what I want to do with it; I don't want a period of the short time I have needing to be used familiarizing with the service, I want to use the trial time actually trying the thing.

bookworm wrote:

snubs wrote:just sign up as see if you like it.

Very limited trials (like one week) make me anxious if I'm going in with no real idea what I want to do with it; I don't want a period of the short time I have needing to be used familiarizing with the service, I want to use the trial time actually trying the thing.

I agree, a one week trial is lame. They should have AT LEAST a two week trial. Or like the first month is $1 or something.

Oh yeah, if they did a trial period to let you test it out and then the first month was at some discount to be extra sure you wanted to keep it I would sign up this minute.

As it is, I'm waiting for the perfect time (and at least a little pre-planning) when I know I'll be able to get enough out of the free week to really check it out because I have to make the decision immediately whether I'm staying on or not.

Though as you said, at that price going for one month if the trial was too short to really decide isn't a major concern.

The existence of Disney Plus has sort of left me with two big-ish realizations -

1. Disney has officially codified the future of entertainment by following the Netflix cue, and that's brilliant.

2. Disney's library as a whole is so wildly bland and family-friendly that it's almost comical, and that's also brilliant.

I think both of those things are brilliant because it shows Disney mastering and in fact epitomizing what a Western Brand can be. Disney has a strong and absolutely unwavering vision that has about as much broad appeal as you could possibly imagine, and its carefully tuned system seems practically immune to any legitimate controversy. What a successful monster. I honestly can't even force myself to feel any kind of disdain towards this capitalistic juggernaut because honestly, what is there legitimately not to like?!

On the same token, though, religiously insisting on that level of broad appeal inevitably means sacrificing depth, intrigue, or originality (immediately evident when you open the app and the most prominent titles all fall under the Disney formula for sequels, remakes and reboots). Scroll further through the app, and you start to realize that "Wow, Disney movies are all kind of the same, aren't they?" Like, when I'm scrolling through Netflix or Amazon Prime, there's this constant experience of "am I feeling *this* right now?" when you have such a diverse set of options at your fingerprints. There's feel-good TV, serious films, indie drama, experimental new stuff, thoughtful stuff, etc. With Disney Plus, you kind of just have to be feeling in the mood for one thing: Inoffensive Feel-good Fluff.

And to be clear, there's nothing wrong with that. The other night my wife showed me Bridge to Terabithia, which I had never seen before, and I cried because that was just a really sincere and well-executed movie. No complaints!

...I'm just grateful that that's not all there is to choose from. If anything, the entire Disney Plus library kind of just feels like a single genre/category in the much larger platform of digital streaming that is slowly but very surely sucking more out of our bank accounts.

Your impression is accurate, and it's by intentional design. It's been no secret that the content put on Disney+ fits a specific ideal. Anything outside of that they will release through Hulu; which is why they maintained ownership there despite launching their own service, to have the ability to profit on alternative content through the broader distribution there while Disney+ can be its own contained library with a strict vision of what kinds of things are included on that platform.

Ah. I didn't know that. I've never paid attention to Hulu because I don't think it's ever really been available in Canada, but I appreciate that tip.

On a related note, the "Love, Simon" series was planned for Disney+ but was moved to Hulu despite being based on a feel-good coming-of-age movie. That made me sad.

Honestly, I'm just deathly curious to see where Disney ends up putting Hamilton. I dunno if it falls under the Disney Plus umbrella because it has some bad words, but it also absolutely deserves the widest and most accessible release possible!

I don't like the rampant burning of money but to be fair its only $6.99 a month, so paying for a month beyond a week trial is hopefully not going to lead to financial ruin.

jelly wrote:Honestly, I'm just deathly curious to see where Disney ends up putting Hamilton. I dunno if it falls under the Disney Plus umbrella because it has some bad words, but it also absolutely deserves the widest and most accessible release possible!

I saw online today that Hamilton hits Disney+ on July 3, and immediately thought of Jelly's post! I have never seen it and I would like to, so I'm looking forward to this. I'm wondering if they are beeping or removing a few words as needed to do what Jelly said and give it a wider release.

This also makes me hope that there will be more stage musicals coming to Disney+ in the future!

literally just sign up and see what there is, that's the whole point of it you know the important stuff that's on there and it varies from country and region to country and region, so we have quite a different range of offerings here in the netherlands. one of the nice things however is that AFAIK, friends was taken off netflix in north america cuz HBO bought them out, but we still get it here

Catspaw wrote:

jelly wrote:Honestly, I'm just deathly curious to see where Disney ends up putting Hamilton. I dunno if it falls under the Disney Plus umbrella because it has some bad words, but it also absolutely deserves the widest and most accessible release possible!

I saw online today that Hamilton hits Disney+ on July 3, and immediately thought of Jelly's post!

!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been streaming quite a bit on my Roku and it's worked great; maybe my internet is good enough after all. I don't imagine this service would perform worse. I will at the very least definitely be signing up for the free trial sooner than later and testing it out.

And if the trial goes well I will probably go ahead and sign up for a month or two to watch some other things, but that is all I think I will want for right now. You do it by the month right? There wouldn't be a problem dropping it when I'm done and picking it up again later when I want it again? It's not like that movie pass where if you dropped then you couldn't sign up again for so many months?

Nope, in the US at least I've cancelled and re-upped before. If you have an unlimited data plan with verizon you get a year free as well.

Apparently they don't have a free trial anymore. Guess I signed up just in time.

Yeah, I saw that. I was kind of surprised, but I guess they figure they'll get the same number of paying customers (or more) without the trial, or they would still be doing it.

I'm sure stopping them at the same time as the Hamilton release was just a coincidence.

Yes, I'm sure there was totally no link whatsoever, because Disney is not good at finding ways to make money.

So internationally later this month they're added a new section called star that seems to have a lot of the content from Hulu and be more for adult audiences, even will have things like a pin code to keep kids out. In Canada they'll have 150+ tv shows and 500+ movies that they're adding

I heard about that. I also noticed there's a price increase coming to go with the new content. I wish that it was an optional addition, since I'm not sure if there will be much value for me in the addition and you get the privilege of paying for it either way. The few things I've seem the advertising weren't of interest to me, but to be fair, that doesn't mean that none of the content will be decent. I am glad they're adding a security feature, since a good part of Disney Plus is the more family friendly fare.