Another Disney+ Review for Nostalgia, but the Platform has Issues [REVIEW]

Here comes a Disney+ review. I know what you’re thinking. Another Disney+ review right? I have issues with Disney+ and I feel those issues should be discussed further and should be addressed by Disney as soon as possible. I also have some personal issues with the platform as well. Let’s breakdown Disney+.

Disney+ has a lot of nostalgia to offer, especially for me. I’m a 31-year-old man who grew up on cartoons like “Gargoyles” and “The Mighty Ducks” so the streaming service is fueling the nostalgia of my childhood. Movies I haven’t seen in 20 years like “The Love Bug” and “Snowball Express”, both with the late actor Dean Jones, and they transported me to when I had a little 12-inch CRT T.V. in my bedroom. Unfortunately, I’ve had hiccups watching all of the classics shows and movies. When I tried watching “Blackbeard’s Ghost,” another Dean Jones movie, it constantly buffered. The movie would stop, but the sound would continue. After a minute or two the movie would attempt to catch up to the sound, rapidly moving towards the spot in the movie. This happened throughout the entire film.

I should mention that the primary device I use for streaming Disney+ is my PlayStation 4. I don’t have these issues with any other streaming service. Not Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, YouTube or even streaming Rifftrax movies through the system’s web browser. It’s an issue that has plagued me since the launch of Disney+ and hope the issue gets fixed very quickly. This issue has also occurred with new movies and even “The Mandalorian.”

Another issue I have with the streaming service is that many of the films are missing due to prior contracts. Now, I can’t fault Disney for this necessarily, but it’s still bothersome that some movies I’d really love to watch are currently unwatchable as a result of these prior contractual obligations. An example would be “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”. There are also movies missing entirely. One of my absolute favorite Disney movies is actually a T.V. Disney movie called “My Date with the President’s Daughter”. It’s missing for some reason and that reason is unknown. It’s likely they’ll add it at a later time, but for now I’ll have to continue to watch a low-resolution version on YouTube. “Under Wraps” is another movie I noticed is oddly missing from Disney+. The movie is available for purchase on Amazon Prime streaming. Again, hopefully another movie that Disney will eventually add.

One thing I do agree that Disney did is adding a disclaimer to many of their older movies. Some of the older movies have misogynist or racist tendencies and if someone hasn’t seen the movie “Dumbo” in a very long time, it’s possible they forgot about the racist crows near the end of the film or the fact that little Dumbo, a child, gets drunk. There were rumors that Disney would remove the crows from the film, but they did not. I agree with Disney not changing the original film as it preserves film history, but the disclaimer is absolutely needed as a young child in 2019 will not understand the portrayal of the crows. In the same breath though, Disney has left out “Song of the South.”

“Song of the South” released in 1946 and is famous for the song “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”. If you’re unfamiliar with the film, it follows Uncle Remus, an African American, and Br’er Rabbit. If you’ve ever been to Disney World or Disney Land, you’ll recognize Br-er Rabbit on the famous ride Splash Mountain. The movie depicts African Americans with an extremely racist caricature. It’s very unlikely we’ll ever see this film come to Disney+ even though it’s the inspiration for the famous Disney water ride. I haven’t seen the film in so long, likely because Disney wants us to forget the film ever existed in the first place. For preservation and film history sake I believe the film should be on Disney+ with a heavy warning, but I doubt this will ever happen.

Overall, I think Disney+ plus is a good platform for watching movies and shows that I loved when I was younger and love now for that matter. Disney needs to fix the buffering issues though as they’ve plagued me as I’ve tried to watch on the platform. Disney also should add the movies and shows that are missing from the platform, but I’m guessing this is already in the works and as time goes by we will eventually see everything Disney produced, except “Song of the South”, on the platform. I give Disney+ three Dean Jones movies out of five.