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CNBC:
Disney's new streaming service will be called Disney+ and launch in late 2019, CEO Bob Iger announced on the company's earnings call Thursday.
The company announced in August 2017 it would pull all its movies from Netflix in 2019, and start its own streaming offering for its past titles. Disney also purchased Fox for $71.3 billion in cash and stock, further bolstering its library.
The service will also feature new, original shows and movies, including original Marvel and Star Wars series. Marvel fan favorite character Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston, will get an original series on the Disney+ service. A prequel series to Star Wars movie "Rogue One" about the character Cassian Andor, portrayed by Diego Luna, will also call the service home.
Are these streaming services the second coming of Cable?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday November 10 2018, @03:19PM (2 children)
No, Hollywood has some significant problems, and it is reasonable to say most movies are trash. Hollywood is awesome with the visuals. They try hard to get the looks fantastic, dramatic and exciting, and they spare no expense on that. They've really come a long ways from the days of visible wires holding up the planets and spaceships in 1950s sci-fi.
Where Hollywood routinely stumbles is the plotting. Very rare for the movie to be as good as or better than the book. Usually it's a lot worse. Sequels are another area they routinely botch. How about Highlander II? Batman and Robin? Those that aren't based on books are still full of cheese. Like, that line in Star Wars, "you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy". Arrrgh! And that movie is a supposed classic, one of the best. The Lord of the Rings movies are a case in point. Perhaps it is the very sort of "corporate overproduced trash" you mean, but the disease infects most movies. They cheapened and trivialized the plot everywhere. They reduced Gimli to a bunch of mean jokes against short people. There's that part where Gollum frames Sam for eating all the food, and Frodo believes that?!? Takes Gollum's word over Sam's? Bullshit! The battle scenes are mostly fine, but there's a brief break in the violence so an orc can deliver a majorly cheesy line "now is the age of orcs". Or, how about dropping the Scouring of the Shire entirely? I can understand leaving Tom Bombadil out, but Scouring of the Shire is an essential part of the plot. And so on. Some of what they did was to cram the story into a few hours worth of movie footage, and they ought to quit doing that. But most of the changes can't be justified by even that lame of an excuse.
Then there's Hollywood's penchant for getting wildly "nuking the fridge" unrealistic. Real human bodies can't take a fraction of what Hollywood shows people taking. Just walk away from a horrific automobile wreck, not only survive a helicopter or plane crash but stumble out of the burning wreck still alive and largely unhurt, and if they are hurt, they heal improbably fast and completely. Huge explosions somehow never cause any concussive damage, etc.
Disney is hugely formulaic, worse than average. And to keep things what is thought to be kid-friendly, they're the king of Bowdlerization. Deaths do happen, lots, but the Disney movie always looks away.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 10 2018, @04:00PM (1 child)
I would have enjoyed the inclusion of Tom Bombadil. That added extreme dimension to the perceived age of Middle Earth. Also, it explained how Merry and Pippin came by the swords they used to pierce the Witchking's enchantments so Eowyn could kill him. Without Bombadil, the struggle against Sauron is the sum total of what has happened in Middle Earth; with Bombadil it's an impermanent altercation against an eternal background.
Agree on the Scouring of the Shire.
It seems to me the underlying problem with Hollywood is that they tell the same stories over and over again with the same cast of characters. There are many more interesting story structures actually out there, but they don't make it to the big screen intact. It's probably because they don't test well with focus groups. I am still surprised that Cloud Atlas ever got made; it was a difficult story structure to follow but it came together nicely in the end.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday November 11 2018, @04:02AM
I also would have liked to see Tom Bombadil, played by Robin Williams.