All Things Geek – Is Disney Plus worth the price of admission?

KINGSPORT — The Walt Disney Company recently announced more than 50 new original series were coming to its Disney Plus streaming service in the coming years.The originals include a slew of new and spinoff shows set in the Star Wars and Marvel universes, including ones we've already known about (shows about Obi-Wan Kenobi, Cassian Andor, Moon Knight and She-Hulk) plus some we're hearing about for the first time (Ahsoka, The Rangers of the New Republic, Secret Invasion and Armor Wars).It's about time for some new and original content from Disney, because The Mandalorian — as outstanding as it is — simply isn't enough to justify a subscription to the company's streaming service.You heard me.I've had Disney Plus since it launched a year ago, and if I had paid for the service, I would not have been a happy camper these past 12 months. I, like many others, got it free for a year through Verizon, which may have something to do with the company boasting more than 86 million subscribers.It's easy to get subscriptions when you're giving the service away through one of the nation's largest cellular providers.At any rate, the shows we were expected to receive in 2020 didn't happen. COVID-19 of course. Promised series like WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki were all supposed to debut earlier this year, but the pandemic obviously delayed production, and now the new release dates are as follows:WandaVision: Jan. 15, 2021Falcon and the Winter Soldier: March 19, 2021Loki: May 2021All three series are just six episodes and appear to be bridges between the aftermath of Avengers: End Game and Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. WandaVision leads directly into the next Doctor Strange movie, Sam and Bucky face off against the Flag-Smashers (well-known villains in the Captain America comics), while the God of Mischief goes on an interdimensional adventure after he reacquires the Tesseract and escapes the Avengers.When you couple these shows with what was recently announced, Disney Plus is starting to look pretty good. And since you can bundle it with Hulu and ESPN, the upstart streaming service is finally starting to look like, well, an actual streaming service.One word of warning though: Disney better not be planning to go the Warner Bros. route and release all of its blockbuster movies on its streaming service the same day as they're released in the theaters.As much as I'll enjoy watching Wonder Woman 1984 from the comfort of my own living room, I really wish this doesn't become a thing in the movie industry. It was a horrible decision by Warner Bros. to release its full slate of 2021 films on its HBO Max streaming platform the same day as they're released in theaters.The move caught many by surprise and the full repercussions won't be known until later next year. I expect many theaters around the world were none too happy with the Warner Bros. announcement as well.You simply cannot sign up enough people to HBO Max to recoup the enormous costs of big budget blockbuster movies like Wonder Woman, The Matrix and Godzilla Versus Kong. Without worldwide ticket sales, your production values will be less Industrial Light and Magic and more SyFy Channel quality.FINAL THOUGHTSI could not find a way to work this information into the column, so I thought I'd tack it on at the end. Here's what Disney recently announced. Over the next few years, the House of Mouse is bringing the fans "roughly" 10 Marvel series; 10 Star Wars series; 15 Disney live-action, Disney Animation, and Pixar series; and 15 all-new Disney live-action, Disney Animation, and Pixar features.Previously announced and new Marvel series include What If?, Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Secret Invasion, Ironheart, Armor Wars, and I am Groot. In a galaxy far, far away, Disney announced The Mandalorian would get a season three, along with two spinoffs (Ahsoka and The Rangers of the New Republic). Other Star Wars series include shows starring Obi-Wan Kenobi, Cassian Andor, and Lando, and an animated The Bad Batch spinoff from The Clone Wars series.On the Marvel movie front, the Phase Four release date is Black Widow (May 7, 2021), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (July 9, 2021), Eternals (Nov. 5, 2021), Doctor Strange and the Madness of the Multiverse (March 25, 2022), Thor: Love and Thunder (May 6, 2022), Black Panther 2 (July 8, 2022), the Blade reboot, Captain Marvel 2 (Nov. 11, 2022), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (2023) and Fantastic Four.