#my childhood was filled with Disney movies and Harrison Ford Star Wars and Indiana Jones and LOTR and King Kong (2005?)

[randomfoggytiger]

Thanks for this creative tag, @amplifyme-- had a lot of fun. :DDD

show your 4 favorite ships and let your mutuals assume what your concept of romance is

Mulder and Scully, The X-Files

...I don't really ship characters or people like I used to (Mulder and Scully are an exception, of course-- aren't they always?); so, I'm digging deep to uncover these last three positions:

2. Robin and Marian, Robin Hood BBC

3. Han and Leia, Star Wars

4. Indiana and Marion, Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark

(Spoilers: Ironically, all these relationships have a "will-they-won't-they" element that I like to skip on rewatches.)

Tagging @baronessblixen, @dd-is-my-guiltypleasure, @welsharcher, @agent-troi, @deathsbestgirl, @suitablyaggrieved, @cecilysass, @thescullyphile, @virtie333, @spidey-is-tired, @numinousmysteries, @stephy-gold, @living-in-unreality, @demon-fetal-harvest, @nachosncheeze, @nimlurks, and whoever else wants to join~!

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #425

Top Ten Things Missing From Disney+

It’s been about a month now since Disney+ finally – finally! – launched here in the UK, and what a ride it’s been. It’s totally taken over my daughters, in the sense that now they don’t watch TV, they watch Disney+; apart from token gestures to the iPlayer for the more educational endeavours of the likes of Numberbots or Do You Know, they’ve not seen anything not produced by the House of Mouse.

But at least I now know all the words to the Vampirina theme song.

Of course, it’s not all kids’ stuff; we’ve been enjoying visiting and re-visiting some classic movies, and The Mandalorian – which I pretty much figured I’d enjoy – has totally blown me away. It’s true that I adore The Last Jedi, but Mando is more of what I want from Star Wars going forward; singular takes that employ the classic iconography we know and love, but with fresh storylines and characters, giving us something familiar but different. It’s the Lone Wolf and Cub breezy space western I didn’t know I needed.

But the more I look at what’s on offer, the more I see things that aren’t there. This isn’t me being greedy and demanding more and more content (well, not exactly); rather, it’s things I find curious by omission. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of stuff on here that I really want to see; but at the same time, I don’t really get whey it’s not there. Or even if I do, I also find it a little odd. There are some obvious rights issues at play; but this is Disney, could they not fork out the money? And I’ve left off other films where I guess they’re timing the release to maximise publicity – for instance, whilst they brought Frozen II to the US earlier than planned, I sorta get why keeping it back in the UK might make financial sense. Similarly, the Christmas-themed Noelle was essentially a Disney+ “launch title” in the States, but I imagine we’ll eventually see it come November. Again, adding fresh content throughout the year makes sense, from a brutal capitalist perspective.

So this list isn’t a whine, necessarily; nor is it a deep-dive into Hollywood rights issues. It’s really just me pondering the reasoning behind what we got and what we didn’t. But make no mistake: I’m seriously pissed off we didn’t get number one.

The Ewok movies: Caravan of Courage (1984) and Battle for Endor (1985) were video rental staples of my childhood and really synonymous with my early love for Star Wars in general and Ewoks in particular. I am absolutely certain that they will not have aged well, and I wonder if their low-fi cheesiness is what keeps them off the service. Plus, maybe Disney doesn't want to acknowledge their continuity? Regardless, I think they’re missing a trick by not acknowledging the weird hinterland of Star Wars stuff pre its late 90s renaissance.

Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars: not the more famous Dave Filoni CG one, but the earlier series of shorts from the beloved Samurai Jack creator that ran from 2003-05. Beautiful, elegiac, and filling in minor plot points between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith (we all wanted to know how Anakin got that scar, didn’t we?), these were fantastic tone poems dedicated to our favourite sci-fi universe, and I'm a bit mystified by their absence. Surely these at least are still canon?

1960s Marvel cartoons: y’know, like Spider-Man (1967-70) – the one with the theme tune. There were several of these shows, often adapting the comics, sometimes very literally (the Hulk one is practically a motion comic). Their quality now is perhaps variable, but they’re fascinating artefacts of their time. I'd love to see them again (especially as we’re probably not gonna see the Sony Spider-Man films any time soon).

The Hulk movies: Hulk (2003) and The Incredible Hulk (2008) are, neither of them, very fondly remembered; Edward Norton's solo outing very much the MCU’s red-headed stepchild, and Ang Lee's film predates the idea of shared universes to deliver a very singular vision. The rights to the Hulk are tied up in complex pre-Disney contracts, meaning a solo Jade Giant movie would need to be released via Universal, and I imagine that holds true for streaming. But come on; he's a major Avenger. Surely they could come to some arrangement regarding The Incredible Hulk at least, just to try to bolster the MCU playlist? It's not as if Disney can't afford it. 

Droids and Ewoks cartoons: in the Eighties ('85-’86 to be precise) young Star Wars fans could relive adventures in a galaxy far, far away with two different classic animations: one following the high-camp adventures of Threepio and Artoo, and another focused on Wicket W. Warrick and his furry friends. I've not seen either since I was very little, but I remember them both with enormous fondness, and I find their absence from D+ to be a personal attack. Even if – let’s face it – these are definitely not canon.

Sofia the First: Once Upon a Princess (2012): see, this one's a bit strange. Sofia the First – the pleasant Disney Junior cartoon about a young village girl becoming a princess – is on D+, as expected. But its double-length pilot, released essentially as a TV movie, is not. The Tangled series had a similar debut, with its pilot “movie” Before Ever After, and that's on the service; so whither Sofia? It's not as if they’re gonna cause a Twitter storm by releasing it later. Did they forget? Is it down the back of Bob Iger’s sofa?

Logan (2017): yeah I know why this one isn't on there; it's full of effin' and jeffin' and blokes getting their arms lopped off. But it's a bit weird to only get two of the three Wolverine movies. True, the continuity of the Fox X-Men films is all over the place, but all the same, to miss out the “last” one feels a bit off, ultraviolence notwithstanding. Skipping Deadpool is more understandable, mind.

Futurama (1999-2013): Disney have rightly made a big deal about The Simpsons. But Futurama is more-or-less equal to Simpsons at its height (and being a much shorter run, less variable in quality). Whilst it skews a bit older, I don't see it as being unsuitable for Disney+, so not sure why it's not there. My guess is they're waiting to release it with a big splash somewhere down the road (unless there's some rights issue I'm not aware of).

The Indiana Jones movies (1981-2007): this is either another rights issue (do Paramount still own the distribution? Are they signed up to another service?) or they’re waiting for an opportune moment to strike. Because, really, this is a no-brainer; Indy is right in Disney’s wheelhouse. Sticking Harrison Ford’s weathered but beautiful face on their advertising is a huge draw. But if somehow they can’t show the Indiana Jones movies, then it’s gonna be weird come Christmas 2022 or whenever it is that James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Quiet Sunday at Home Watching Antiques Roadshow reaches the service. Say, they’re not gonna make us wait that long for the other films are they?!

Star Wars Holiday Special (1978): no, wait, hear me out. This could be big. I get why it’s not there, really I do; it’s a much-lambasted relic, a TV variety special kitted out with emerging Hollywood glamour, made when Star Wars wasn’t really Star Wars and therefore a perennial embarrassment to George Lucas. But its naffness is now legendary. Disney should give it a rudimentary nip and tuck, clean up the noisy VHS transfers that flood the internet, and whack it on National Geographic or something, maybe with a humorous retrospective documentary from the guys who did The World According to Jeff Goldblum or something. This could be a huge, and that’s a hill I’ll die on.

Right, that’s ten big ones whose omission either baffles or offends me. There are others, both large (whither Titanic?) and small (I find it a bit weird that Garfield 2 is on there but not Garfield 1). My eldest also noted that The Nightmare Before Christmas is missing, although I’d wager that’ll pop up before the year’s end (EDIT: turns out it is up there. I'm pretty sure it wasn't at launch, though). Disney is playing a clever game with content that is, to some degree, limited (in the sense that it can only really add new movies or shows that it makes itself, and there’ll only ever be a few of those a year); holding back some prestige flicks for opportune moments makes sense. But, c’mon; give us our Ewoks, man.