I dropped my sub. Was paying roughly $7.50/mo for 2 years for the legacy bundle and they nearly tripled it to $18.99/mo.
Of all my streaming services, I literally do not watch ESPN, and barely use Hulu and Disney. I could justify $7.50 by stretching the definition of justification, but $18.99 is more than I pay for streaming services I use regularly.
During last year, I watched two series (only murders, Andor) and one movie. Disney+ is convenient and I can share the account with some friends. But at some point, it’s literally cheaper to buy the things I watch directly and then also own them. Set up a Plex instance and it’s also easier to share with friends.
The term is generally reserved for, especially in legal cases, goods that are required to maintain a minimum quality of life but are in finite supply. If you were to suddenly increase the price of food, water, or communication technology during a widespread emergency, you would be committing a very clear case of Price Gouging and in most places found in violation of the law.
However, Disney+ Streaming service is the epitome of a good that is NOT necessary to live. It’s a minor luxury with no positive impact on the consumer.
I think Loki was nice. Au least it was nice to look at. For Star Wars I recommend “Andor” which is maybe the best Star Wars ever made (of one removes the nostalgia-factor from the original trilogy). But seeing the rest on Disney+ Andor seems like an incredibly unlikely fluke. The one thing that luckily sneaked by the Disney content police. The one thing that wasn’t dumbed down by endless focus-grouping and insertions of memberberry-characters and -items.
I also didn’t feel preached to, which is the Disney watermark today. Characters were interesting and complex, no matter their sex or skin colour, and not once did we have an oppression/capitalism monologue. Just a good story which everyone could enjoy. Such a rarity for Disney now.
Andor was about people living in a world ruled by an oppressive authoritarian regime which put little value on life hence was calously violent.
And as people they were vastly more complex than merelly good or evil, at time acted in stupid ways, others in intelligent ways, sometimes made the greatest sacrifices for others and other times were selfish and self-centred.
All that meant we could empathise with them because they were like us, only in that imaginary universe and those imaginary circumstances.
This is what great Acting is all about and this is, IMHO, how you make viewers deep down “get it” how it is to be in that kind of situation (which for some leads them to understand the “other” side).
Living by proxy that “truthful living under imaginary circumstances” of a good actor with a good script is how you get people to understand, not political speech decorated with a few bits and bobs from an imaginary universe to try and disguise its nature as “present day politics opinion making”.
PS: I suspect that it’s actually not by chance that both Andor and Rogue One, which was maybe the most full-bodied Star Wars film (in the sense that it was as good “chewing gum for the brain” as Ep4-6 but also had more depth), have the same actor cast as a main character.
Please re-read my comment. Oppression was a theme, yes, but there were no oppression monologues. Ridiculous cringe like this. Instead, the writers told good stories and didn’t rely on beating viewers over the head with ham-fisted messages.
I mean, seriously, who is still watching this streaming stuff? I mean I’ve heard there are still DVD renting stores somewhere… It’ll die eventually and they know it, they just wanna extract as much as possible from the rotting corpse & the worst is: they’ll get it.
I’m okay with that. The golden streaming age was when there was one platform that had virtually everything available (early Netflix) for a fair price. That was also when many people gave up on piracy, because the availability and convenience was the same, and the price was fair as well.
Ideally this short sighted greed decimates all those streaming services again, collapsing all those spread out shows and movies into a convenient and affordable platform like it used to be.
At least music streaming services have largely avoided this walled garden crap, most of them have the same range and selection of artists and music available as the others because making music exclusive works even less than for shows and movies. Notably this has also helped to avoid undue price spikes because good competition is ensured.
I had no idea they charged 80/mo…now upping that??? looooool. I always thought the new subscription services were between 10 & 15…we’ve been on the high seas for a long time I guess.
The Mandalorian had overall been excellent. Really enjoyed that series. Absolutely hated the way they dumped off a good portion of it in the center of book of boba fett. Was not as thrilled with book of boba fett. But it wasn’t horrible. It just didn’t have the hook that the Mandalorian did. Not watched any of the new series yet. But yeah they’re just really wasn’t enough to justify its existence. It could have just as easily been put on hulu. After all they have such a large investment in that too.
Do not waste your time watching Kenobi. That show was just awful. Ahsoka was pretty good if you watched rebels, otherwise it was simply meh. And, generally unpopular opinion, Andor was terrible, and took me 2 separate attempts just to get through it. Hell, if you haven’t seen season 3 of mando, even that can honestly be skipped. The Star Wars content overall, hasn’t been awesome beyond Mando S1+2.
Hence why I said it’d be an unpopular take, and knew I’d be downvoted, even though that show was immensely boring. There were cool parts, like the ship battle with the German dude, or the fact that Andy serkis is now officially 2 characters in the Star Wars universe. But overall I felt like the plot was severely lacking a good pace, and the acting was only so so. Plus, they never got me to actually like Andor as a character, so that dragged the show way down for me. But hey, different people can have different opinions. It’s why the Taylor swift movie made 100 million yet I’m not a big fan of hers either.
Ahsoka was pretty good if you watched rebels, otherwise it was simply meh
I come with a bias of having watched Rebels.
I still found the Ashoka story to he meh. And I thought that Rosario’s and Natasha’s acting fell short of what I’m used to seeing out of them. They felt restrained, especially when together.
That aside, the visuals and soundscape (music and effects) were outstanding, I was absolutely blown away. The fight sequences were well coriagraphed and well differentiated between all the different combatants. I also found the acting out of the remainder of the cast was very solid.
I’m still not sure how I fell about the night sisters getting there lore tired up with the spinners/norns/fates; but perhaps that the trope repeated in so many cultures is what makes it such a good story telling tool.
I support that take. The unique fighting styles were indeed quite awesome, especially between Baylan and Ahsoka. It didn’t help my review that I just saw the Honest trailer for the show, and they hit a lot of points that bugged me. Like Thrawns dad gut that they tried so hard to hide, but failed. The night sisters take was odd, and I feel like they falsely teased that the inquisitor with the mask (Rakan?), or the gold faced stormtrooper were going to be someone special. But that was likely me reading too much into YouTuber theories.
That’s because more than 75% of the people affected keep paying. The results for Disney are Immediate savings on resources (less people streaming) and they still increase profits.
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