This past week a new streaming service that people have been anxiously waiting for finally became available. Unlike so many others, I was excited but I wasn't about to spend money on something that I might not get to fully enjoy, after all, Disney+ only advertised Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and National Geographic even if there were articles that indicated there would be a bundle deal that included Hulu and ESPN. My husband was more than agreeable to this. So we canceled the WWE and Hulu subscriptions we had and we'll very likely be getting Disney+ before the end of the month. Once that happens, my writing will definitely take a major nosedive since I've heard the series So Weird is fully available on it.
I've searched online to find the series to buy on DVD, but never did, not even on the official movie site! I'm not a huge fan of Star Wars, nor do I care for Star Trek before anyone starts to try to call me a Trekkie. I may be a geek/nerd, but that doesn't mean I have to be typical or stereotypical about it! We also own a number of movies - not just Marvel, Disney, or Pixar, but independent films and Paramount Pictures, but a lot of Disney. It doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that I have everything that will be on Disney+ as evidenced by the knowledge that one of my absolutely favorite television shows is available on it while I've been unable to get it. I have managed to get Dark Angel and most of Leverage of DVD (still need season 5...)
While Disney is no longer on Netflix, it doesn't mean there aren't shows on Netflix that I won't be watching. They have exclusive content just as Hulu does that are, in my honest opinion, worth spending time watching. They also have shows that aren't on Hulu and don't forget that streaming is only one part of Netflix. Originally, Netflix didn't stream. It was basically just an online Blockbuster (for those who don't understand, Blockbuster was actually a brick and mortar movie rental. It started with VHS tapes at least when I was a child before DVDs and the internet. It wasn't just a local movie rental either. I'm sure a quick Google search can help you find out more, but suffice to say, good luck finding one anymore. They died before several small-town movie rental businesses did.) When Netflix first started they would mail the DVDs and charge your card for the length of time you kept it. I don't remember all of the particulars, but it added streaming as an alternative, but it doesn't and never had their full library available for streaming. Nowadays, you can no longer rent since they rely solely on streaming services and that consumers are more likely to watch their shows and movies online using their internet services.
I'm so thankful we have DVDs that we can watch because weather happens as does just general other reasons for power outages or internet blank-outs. Life happens, so it's nice to have back-up plans. Whether or not things will go great for Disney+ will depend on their competitors and what they do with the vast amount of content at their fingertips. They have to compete with Netflix which has constantly changes content and there are rumors that they may team up with Nickelodeon. If they got Nickelodeon and say Funimation to bundle up with them, Disney+ would definitely have some competition. Americans are aware of anime, mostly thanks to Toonami, but Sailor Moon, DBZ(DragonBall Z), and so many others made kids of the late nineties and early 2000s (so born in late '80s to early '90s) search for more. It started a wave of other culture awareness that also made us aware of more to the world than what we learned about in our little worlds.
Anyway, Disney may have access to Marvel which means a wealth of characters as well as multiple possible storylines and that's just from the well-known Marvel characters. They have their old Disney shows, many of which left fans wishing for more - looking at Gargoyles and So Weird among others. Some shows need to be redone to set them up to what we are yelling about today, but to do so will definitely offend some. They won't want anything to change what they loved. It's like the outcry when every single superhero movie or series has ever been made and books to movies: people will compare and contrast and find one version better than the others. Those who grew up with the original will always prefer it. They'll find problems in how things are portrayed. Things that have been changed or left out which changed some of the dynamics while pulling forth dynamics that maybe weren't as apparent in the original (this sentence is mainly targeting Harry Potter which is rife with missing depth and more obvious depictions of certain foreshadowed futures, but it's not the only nor is it the first offender, just the easiest to explain because very few don't have any idea what Harry Potter is about even if they've never read the books or seen the movies.) Others will find problems with the original shows either because of the effects or because they willfully ignore the time period its set in or they see the stereotypes and take offense (not that they shouldn't in some cases, but look at when the show/movie was made before arguing its validity and the setting!) I mean something set in the 80s or as old as set in the early 1800s would treat certain types of people severely differently than we do now or how they may have been treated in years before A.D. It doesn't mean the thoughts of how they were treated would have been different.
There is a movie set in a time period that is very much a decent representation of the time period and place it's set in - Mary Poppins. No, I'm not talking about Jane, Mary, Michael, Mr. Banks or even the servants, chimney sweeps, or birdwoman (though they all can help my case) I'm talking about Mrs. Banks, the children's mother. There's a scene talking about their plans on a day Mary Poppins is supposed to be off. She said she had to attend a rally and she wore a political-based sash. Mrs. Banks was a fighter for women's rights. For the time period and place it is set in, it makes sense that at least one of the several women in the show would be fighting women's rights. And this was a Disney movie. Thank you, Disney, for giving a mother who was willing to try to make things better for her daughter, even if she didn't spend much time with said daughter.
Netflix, however, tends to really delve into the darker things and nostalgia that plagues our generations with shows like Stranger Things, Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, among several other shows. There are several classics and reality shows available through Hulu, though. That's not to forget about other streaming services - YouTube, Amazon Prime, Funimation, PlutoTV and Crunchyroll just to name a few. Wherever you find the shows you enjoy, keep an eye for things that change such as the variety of content on others. If you have a to watch/rewatch/finish watching list like I do, you may find it growing with all the original content that appears on different streaming sites and spin-offs and crossover episodes for whatever you may be watching not to mention reboots and movies...wow, Buffy, Charmed, Doctor Who, Bleach, Supernatural, CSI, JAG, etc. have really made things hard for me to truly catch up on things for story ideas I might have or blog posts...
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