Disney plus... pretty much everything...

[Androgeus]

Im confused as to this criticism. You’re saying it would make more sense for one of the main characters to go on vacation with his girlfriend instead of trying to stop the bad guy? How the **** would that make any sense in the movie?

I think Hat’s issue here is that Stark didn’t seem to take any steps to protect Potts from Ultron.

[comicshorse]

To quote Ultimate Reed Richards to his SO "Well if I save the world I am logically saving you as well "

[Narkis]

To quote Ultimate Reed Richards to his SO "Well if I save the world I am logically saving you as well "

The Maker isn't what I would call a good role model though.

[Psyren]

If this was an MCU film the reference would be Plankton and a Krabby Patty because the MCU can't strive into classic literature because some people might not get the reference.

The MCU is chock-full of references to classic literature actually. You'd know that if you weren't expending so much energy on this crusade of hate.

I for one am super glad you'll never have a seat on a director's chair. The movie would he ten hours long and insufferable on top of that. We don't see Tony taking a dump so how do we know he does that?

Indeed

I think Hat’s issue here is that Stark didn’t seem to take any steps to protect Potts from Ultron.

Isolating himself and the other targets Ultron was actually after WAS a step.

[Magic_Hat]

The MCU is chock-full of references to classic literature actually. You'd know that if you weren't expending so much energy on this crusade of hate.

Go ahead and list some then.

I think Hat’s issue here is that Stark didn’t seem to take any steps to protect Potts from Ultron.

Bingo. Can someone explain the romantic chemistry between these two characters?

He went and saved the guy’s village as his first act as Iron Man. I’d say that counts. Maybe there was a memorial or something but its not something you’d waste time showing in a film.

Actually yes it is something you show in film. You have to establish these things and not just leave it up to speculation. Did they ever show a memorial in ANY MCU film? They they even mention a memorial? Any film at all? You want to make the argument they can't waste time in the first film, fine, but look at how many MCU films there have been. And speaking of wasting time, what do you classify the lego Deathstar in Spider-Man: Home Coming as if not waste of time?

[Ramza00]

Bingo. Can someone explain the romantic chemistry between these two characters?

I find this question kind of offensive, for we [channels My Hero's Academia] "we can not help it, what our heart yearns for." [I think that is the Hitsoshi Shinso quote it may be a little off I am doing this from memory.]

So trying to attack why someone is attracted to another is extremely bad taste in my mind.

-----

But lets pretend Pepper Potts is not a fictional living breathing human being, let's pretend she is a machine and is as manipulative as Tony is. [I am granting you the premise of your question even if I find it offensive.] Well being his assistant gives her a huge amount of control to Tony's wealth. Something she does care about for this wealth gives her the ability to do good in the world. This is actually a major plot point in Iron Man 2. Pepper Potts may not have the resources of a 21st nation, but she has access the opulent wealth that the Louis 14th of France, the "Sun King" would have surpassed his dreams in the late 1600s and early 1700s.

And Iron Man 1 demonstrated that Pepper Potts is not a machine, she cares for Tony Stark as an individual and when she thinks Tony is in pain she flinches and reacts demonstrating basic empathy.

Once you demonstrated a person can feel empathy and sympathy for another, is it any surprising that it is possible that same person may also feel love for the same human being, even if that human being is a complete and utter [censored] that Tony Stark is?

[JadedDM]

Did they ever show a memorial in ANY MCU film? They they even mention a memorial? Any film at all?

Just off the top of my head, there's the memorial built to honor those who were lost in the Snap in Endgame.

[Psyren]

Go ahead and list some then.

I already know I'm wasting my time, but here's a partial list anyway:

- The primary struggle of the first three phases stems from the heroes' Kantian ethics (as embodied by Steve and to a lesser extent Tony) vs. Thanos' extreme utilitarian ethics.
- Winter Soldier's Project Oversight is inspired pretty directly by George Orwell's 1984.
- Marinettian Futurism as espoused in similar yet very contrasting ways by both Thanos and Tony.
- Stan Lee's bus cameo in Doctor Strange has him reading from Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception.
- Multiple biblical references that I won't elaborate on here, especially from Ultron and Vision.
- In Infinity War, Thanos brilliantly inverts the standard Hero's Journey as codified by Joseph Campbell.
- The struggle between T'challa and Killmonger is built on Aristotelean ideas of moderation between two extremes (namely, isolationism vs. colonialism.)

There's a ton more but again, why should I bother?

Bingo.

Ultron didn't care about Pepper, she had nothing to do with making him and she wasn't an Avenger.

[Ramza00]

Ultron didn't care about Pepper, she had nothing to do with making him and she wasn't an Avenger.

Sidenote I was so disappointed with Age of Ultron for they had such great Frankenstein, Paradise Lost, Pinocchio, etc source material and they did not use it. Especially since this movie did do several monologue but many of the monologues were just bad, or they were not bad but they could have been better.

That said I adore the one Vision and Ultron had at the very end.



They hired James Spader as Ultron for pete sake, the perfect actor to play that part, they could have given a little better dialogue to work with.

[Magic_Hat]

I already know I'm wasting my time, but here's a partial list anyway:

- The primary struggle of the first three phases stems from the heroes' Kantian ethics (as embodied by Steve and to a lesser extent Tony) vs. Thanos' extreme utilitarian ethics.
- Winter Soldier's Project Oversight is inspired pretty directly by George Orwell's 1984.
- Marinettian Futurism as espoused in similar yet very contrasting ways by both Thanos and Tony.
- Stan Lee's bus cameo in Doctor Strange has him reading from Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception.
- Multiple biblical references that I won't elaborate on here, especially from Ultron and Vision.
- In Infinity War, Thanos brilliantly inverts the standard Hero's Journey as codified by Joseph Campbell.
- The struggle between T'challa and Killmonger is built on Aristotelean ideas of moderation between two extremes (namely, isolationism vs. colonialism.)

Ever hear the phrase "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."? Yeah, with the exception of the one I listed these are all just speculation it's possible your seeing something that isn't there and these are just coincidences. I took a class in college that basically said the Great Gatsby (and any piece of literature or art) can be interpreted any number of ways. Heck, South Park had an whole episode about it. A rorschach test can look like a lot of things to a lot of people but the only objective truth is it's an amorphous form quickly and solelessly created on a piece of paper: you can see and interpret it any way you want but in this case there's still nothing there.

Yeah, when I say reference I mean an actual reference: mention the thing you're referencing so it's objective and intentional you're doing it. Archer has reference Animal Farm and Bartleby the Scrivener. Archer has also referenced history like how Elisha Otis invented the elevator. You know, referencing stuff that isn't just pop culture that popcorn munching mouth breathers will understand.

There's a ton more but again, why should I bother?

Because I've debunked every argument you people have given and so to try and establish an argument you create a straw-man and attack me personally as being closed minded. But before you proceed can you address the issue of why Marvel feels the need to lie in all their trailers and include scenes not actually in the film the trailer is for? I mean if you guys want to label be as having a closed mind because I don't like these films can I not do the same and say you're just mindless followers if you're okay with people lying to you to sell a product?

Go ahead and explain why it's okay Marvel and Disney get away with lying and conning its fan base? Or if I may quote you "why should I bother" asking?

Ultron didn't care about Pepper, she had nothing to do with making him and she wasn't an Avenger.

How about leverage to get rid of Stark? Use her as a hostage? Or how about the fact this could be Tony's final days on earth and wouldn't he want to spend it with the woman he supposedly loves?

[Ramza00]

I disagree Magic Hat, you see with references there are different types of presenting references in our culture.

For example there are diegetic references where in text there is a specific narrator "referencing" something and is flat out telling the reader that X occurs. You mentioned Archer and how Archer is always referencing things to communicate with language. Since you mentioned Southpark I will just leave a similar thing which is wisecrack which deals with the philosophy of Archer on FX / FXX. (Links to the video here.

Diegetic is "telling" with the references.

But Mimetic is another type of storytelling and it is actually way more frequent with our culture. Mimetic is "showing" but to be more literal it would be to act or imitate what came before. With visual storytelling mimetic references are everywhere for we use "images" and those images act and imitate the images that occur before. The MCU and pretty much every movie is going to use far more mimetic references, for movies are a visual medium even though they are also an audio medium and an aural (aka music) medium.

Let look at this from a theory standpoint with with a mimetic reference, when did Death we get Death as a shadowy feature covered in shrouds in our culture? Well it is mostly due to John Milton's Paradise Lost though there are also other inspirations. While the scythe aspect of Death comes from several other cultures and these images blend together. When you present Death in a story often you do not recreate the wheel but instead you take a mimetic reference, an already formed visual image in another person's mind and you use it without trying to change it, or just change it a little so the user is not trying to reject the existing image when you use it. This is a visual shorthand recreating what occured before even while you are adding to it.

And that is the problem with mimetic references, references based on image or some form of presentation. They become their own things and one person can not control it once people can create their own images and thus they are far more fluid. Who created the original image, and the answer is no one did, for each prior image was inspired by a previous visual image. When Milton made Death shrouded and shadow he too was inspired by things that came before hand, and Milton references dozens of things in his Epic borrowing from many other poems and epics.

------

So let me get this straight Magic_Hat you are frustrated there is not enough diegetic references. The type of references where people in story or via narration are referencing the arts of the past, yet you simultaneously discount the mimetic storytelling references that does the same thing but via a different presentation?

My answer is why?

Often diegetic references is just a whole lot of showing off, it is an arrogant way of doing stuff to make one haughty and above others when one flaunts it. In fact I been doing that in this very reply (not all my replies but this specific one) to demonstrate how off putting it is. Use greek words with their significance of history thousands of years of philosophy and writting, but also make it inaccessible unless you spend some time looking them up in the present, or you looked up those words in the past.

Why would the MCU who wants to be popular by being as mainstreamed as possible and accessible to all the people in all the countries of the world want to be haughty? To self-sabotage like that would take a form of vainful pride that would discount the possibility of actual financial success by choosing to be off putting on purpose.

[Knaight]

There's also the matter of how this sort of direct, unambiguous reference is the easiest and to some extent the dumbest way to reference something (not that it isn't fun in some cases). You don't need to understand a work to name drop it, you don't even need to have read/watched/whatever it - you need to know a title, and to have maybe skimmed a summary at some point.

[Psyren]

Because I've debunked every argument you people have given

Called it - ignore list it is, there's only so much of the brick wall I can be bothered with.

[Kitten Champion]

There's also the matter of how this sort of direct, unambiguous reference is the easiest and to some extent the dumbest way to reference something (not that it isn't fun in some cases). You don't need to understand a work to name drop it, you don't even need to have read/watched/whatever it - you need to know a title, and to have maybe skimmed a summary at some point.

Yeah. Putting the MCU aside for a moment, take a look at early TNG. The first season of TNG is rife with straight references to classic literature creating rather grandiose dialogue at points - like the Shakespearean back-and-forth in "Hide and Q" - but the actual content of the episodes were fairly insipid despite this lofty rhetoric. Compare this to, say, "Darmok" in season 5 where Picard references the Epic of Gilgamesh to effectively break through the language barrier with an alien who communicates largely through allusion and allegorical language, using the oldest written work of our species to build a basis for common frame of reference with another.

"Hide and Q" showed that the writer had an English degree and really wanted you to know it. Whereas "Darmok" did what references ought to do, convey a broad concept more concisely and artfully in a way that made perfect sense within the narrative.

[uncool]

To be fair, a direct reference has its place. In Darmok, the writers had Picard reference Gilgamesh, rather than tell a simple story, for a reason. It says something - both about Picard's tendencies, and his thoughts in the moment. Picard was trying to tap into a universal because he thought it was the best story to communicate - and this says that to Picard, the universal is in mythology.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kitten Champion
Compare this to, say, "Darmok" in season 5 where Picard references the Epic of Gilgamesh to effectively break through the language barrier with an alien who communicates largely through allusion and allegorical language, using the oldest written work of our species to build a basis for common frame of reference with another.

And for this reason, Darmok is my single favorite stand-alone TNG episode. It’s absolutely brilliant, and for me it showcases Trek at its best.

Originally Posted by Magic Hat
Because I've debunked every argument you people have given….

I’ve been checking this thread occasionally and haven’t seen any debunking. Just a rather extreme personal bias against some major media companies. Like others have mentioned, not worth bothering with.

.

[Chen]

Actually yes it is something you show in film. You have to establish these things and not just leave it up to speculation. Did they ever show a memorial in ANY MCU film? They they even mention a memorial? Any film at all? You want to make the argument they can't waste time in the first film, fine, but look at how many MCU films there have been. And speaking of wasting time, what do you classify the lego Deathstar in Spider-Man: Home Coming as if not waste of time?

I mean if that character were brought up or thought of again sure. Hell Im not even saying there is a memorial somewhere. Tony saved his village perhaps he felt that was enough. I mean the guy’s family is already dead who would it even be a memorial for? The point is obscure enough that even using it as a reference doesn’t really have much value. As far as I can remember theres no fond flashbacks or anything of this guy. So having a memorial wouldn’t follow any of the narrative OR humor they put into the films.

If you want to look for deeper meaning, Tony was still a massive self-centered jerk then and only gets marginally better by end. Maybe he just didnt want to bother with a memorial. Realistically though its a callback that the writers/directors felt was unneeded and unnecessary in already long movies so nothing came of it.

[Psyren]

Sidenote I was so disappointed with Age of Ultron for they had such great Frankenstein, Paradise Lost, Pinocchio, etc source material and they did not use it. Especially since this movie did do several monologue but many of the monologues were just bad, or they were not bad but they could have been better.

That said I adore the one Vision and Ultron had at the very end.



They hired James Spader as Ultron for pete sake, the perfect actor to play that part, they could have given a little better dialogue to work with.

The major problem I had with Ultron's dialogue in that movie, is that they tried to make him another quippy foe à la Loki since that proved to be a winning formula last time - regardless of whether that would've made sense for the character. I think Ultron needed a different take; he should have been a lot more menacing - utterly cold, logical, and convinced that he's calculated the perfect solution to the problem he was created to solve. We sort of got that approach later with Ego (and Thanos) and both proved to be stronger villains than Ultron as a result. It would have been a great contrast.

And I agree, that's one of my favorite scenes. There's a great analysis of it here as part of the "One Marvelous Scene" metaproject.

[137beth]

Some disappointing news (a couple weeks old by I haven't seen it posted here): Disney+ will be the only streaming subscription that can't be watched legally on Linux. I can only reiterate my hope that Disney+ follows Hulu's lead and sells their original content on Amazon/Google Play/iTunes without a subscription.

[Psyren]

It's out! And thankfully Amazon and Disney settled their marital dispute in time for launch, so it is streaming proudly on my Firestick. I haven't had any of the connectivity issues some outlets were reporting, it's working great for me.

Disney apparently got 10 million sign-ups in one day, handily beating expectations.


The starting lineup is quite impressive. As near as I can tell, all of Phase 1 Marvel is on there (yes, including Iron Man 1-2 and Incredible Hulk), so anyone who wants to begin bingeing the entire MCU should have a good start. Phase 2 is where things start getting choppy - e.g. I see Age of Ultron and even the start of Phase 3 (Civil War), but no Winter Soldier. whoops, I just missed it, WS is there. So it looks like... all of Phase 1 and 2, sweet!

After some debate yesterday we started with Gargoyles, which was something of an... awakening for us in our pubescent years. And man, I forgot how dark that show was for something that was ostensibly kid-oriented, and I don't just mean the Gotham City aesthetic. (There's like, a gun safety episode where Broadway is playing with the detective lady's sidearm and ends up accidentally shooting her, putting her in a coma and she even flatlines at one point - it's ridiculous!)

Haven't watched Mandalorian yet but folks appear to be reacting favorably - I'll discuss that in its dedicated thread though.

[Rodin]

Sadly, I'm stuck without Disney+ until the UK finally sorts out its rights issues. The date I'm hearing is March 31 2020, which is a pretty ridiculous delay in the era of worldwide releases. I would have expected them to release a partial service instead with press announcements about what won't be available and why instead of delaying the entire service launch nearly 6 months.

[tomandtish]

When you asked, "will these movies be on the streaming service" I assumed you meant "on launch day."

Captain Marvel will be available on launch day. Endgame won't be available until December. If there are any plans to put Far From Home on there, I have no idea when that will be at all.

It's out! And thankfully Amazon and Disney settled their marital dispute in time for launch, so it is streaming proudly on my Firestick. I haven't had any of the connectivity issues some outlets were reporting, it's working great for me.

Disney apparently got 10 million sign-ups in one day, handily beating expectations.


The starting lineup is quite impressive. As near as I can tell, all of Phase 1 Marvel is on there (yes, including Iron Man 1-2 and Incredible Hulk), so anyone who wants to begin bingeing the entire MCU should have a good start. Phase 2 is where things start getting choppy - e.g. I see Age of Ultron and even the start of Phase 3 (Civil War), but no Winter Soldier. whoops, I just missed it, WS is there. So it looks like... all of Phase 1 and 2, sweet!

After some debate yesterday we started with Gargoyles, which was something of an... awakening for us in our pubescent years. And man, I forgot how dark that show was for something that was ostensibly kid-oriented, and I don't just mean the Gotham City aesthetic. (There's like, a gun safety episode where Broadway is playing with the detective lady's sidearm and ends up accidentally shooting her, putting her in a coma and she even flatlines at one point - it's ridiculous!)

Haven't watched Mandalorian yet but folks appear to be reacting favorably - I'll discuss that in its dedicated thread though.

Endgame is there as well, as is Captain Marvel. The two Spider-mans aren't and 2008 Hulk isn't.

So the only movies not there are ones Disney doesn't have full rights to.

Note: Not all of them show in the scroll bars. You have to actually search for some of them.

[137beth]

Sadly, I'm stuck without Disney+ until the UK finally sorts out its rights issues. The date I'm hearing is March 31 2020, which is a pretty ridiculous delay in the era of worldwide releases. I would have expected them to release a partial service instead with press announcements about what won't be available and why instead of delaying the entire service launch nearly 6 months.

The international rollout is, I think, evidence that Disney hasn't really adapted to the 21st century. The idea that you need seperate distribution deals for each country is an anacronism in the internet age. It made sense when "distributing" a film meant driving a truck full of 35 mm copies of the film to each movie theater. For a website, though, being available in every country at the same time is the default. It actually requires programmers to do more work to make a website available in some countries but not others.

In the old days, one of the advantages big publishers had over small publishers was their ability to release media internationally. Without internet, it was hard for a small publisher to ship their product to other countries. That is still the case for physical products like print books. The print OOTS books, for example, are a lot more expensive internationally than they are in the U.S. But for digital media, the opposite is true. Big publishers like Disney and Random House release region-locked, deivice-locked media only in a few countries. On the other hand, OOTS didn't need to roll out to one country at a time: Rich Burlew uploaded the PDFs to Gumroad and made them instantly available to most of the world.

Big companies like Disney take a long time to change direction. Maybe Disney has a bunch of distribution contracts that made sense pre-steaming that they are still trying to get out of.

One piece of good news is that Apple appears to be trying to change things. On November 1, Apple launched Apple TV+ in more than 100 countries on the same day. On the other hand, Apple TV+ currently has a much smaller library than DIsney+, since they don't have decades of old content the way Disney does, and they aren't licensing third-party content the way Amazon and Netflix due.

[Rodin]

The international rollout is, I think, evidence that Disney hasn't really adapted to the 21st century. The idea that you need seperate distribution deals for each country is an anacronism in the internet age. It made sense when "distributing" a film meant driving a truck full of 35 mm copies of the film to each movie theater. For a website, though, being available in every country at the same time is the default. It actually requires programmers to do more work to make a website available in some countries but not others.

In the old days, one of the advantages big publishers had over small publishers was their ability to release media internationally. Without internet, it was hard for a small publisher to ship their product to other countries. That is still the case for physical products like print books. The print OOTS books, for example, are a lot more expensive internationally than they are in the U.S. But for digital media, the opposite is true. Big publishers like Disney and Random House release region-locked, deivice-locked media only in a few countries. On the other hand, OOTS didn't need to roll out to one country at a time: Rich Burlew uploaded the PDFs to Gumroad and made them instantly available to most of the world.

Big companies like Disney take a long time to change direction. Maybe Disney has a bunch of distribution contracts that made sense pre-steaming that they are still trying to get out of.

One piece of good news is that Apple appears to be trying to change things. On November 1, Apple launched Apple TV+ in more than 100 countries on the same day. On the other hand, Apple TV+ currently has a much smaller library than DIsney+, since they don't have decades of old content the way Disney does, and they aren't licensing third-party content the way Amazon and Netflix due.

From what I understand, Apple TV's lineup is entirely original content. There's no distribution problems because they own all the content, and it's all new stuff intended to be streamed right from the start.

Having different distribution deals still makes sense for any company without their own streaming platform (or for any company that wants to put stuff out on old-style cable at the same time). The speculation I've heard says that this is what happened with Disney+ in the UK - some of the content was given exclusively to Sky to be played on cable, and that deal doesn't run out until the end of Q1 2020. Hence the March 31st launch date.

I don't like distribution issues, but I understand them. The deals were made before Disney+ was going to be a thing, and we have to let them run out before Disney can put that content up on their own service. It sucks, but I can't blame anyone for it happening. My irritation comes from two directions here.

1) Disney should be more forthcoming about why there's a delay. They didn't announce a release date for the UK when they announced release dates for the other countries, and it took them until Disney+ had actually launched in the US before they came out with the date. I find it hard to believe that they didn't already know the date. Public relations is everything here, and it's hard not to feel neglected by the lack of communication.

2) Some of the content being blocked doesn't explain why the ENTIRE service is being blocked. Content being region-locked by country has been a thing since streaming came into being. The UK Netflix library looks very different from the UK one, and the France Netflix service is different again. Disney has a TON of content that they own outright. They have original content coming like Apple TV does. Make Disney+ available with the more limited library, then make a big push in March to announce all the extra content when the rights become available.

I don't think Disney is being clumsy here. I think it's a numbers calculation. They've decided that without the flagship movies that are tied up by rights issues (namely the MCU), they will get less subscribers. Therefore, it's worth pissing off a significant portion of their customer base because most of them will still sign up anyway. They figure that this loses them fewer customers.

The galling thing is they're probably right.

[Knaight]

The international rollout is, I think, evidence that Disney hasn't really adapted to the 21st century. The idea that you need seperate distribution deals for each country is an anacronism in the internet age. It made sense when "distributing" a film meant driving a truck full of 35 mm copies of the film to each movie theater. For a website, though, being available in every country at the same time is the default. It actually requires programmers to do more work to make a website available in some countries but not others.

From a technical perspective international is easy - but from a legal one? All of those deals are made under different legal systems, and that impacts the terms of the deals. Copyright is the big one here; that's not a unified international system by any stretch of the imagination, which feeds into the deal making in a big way, especially given teams that only worked on certain parts of a film (translation/localization teams). Then we get into questions of protected speech and how that varies - if there's a lese majeste law somewhere, you're going to have to do extra work for certain films that insult the local royalty (or just royalty generally). If you've got a film full of swastikas you might want to take extra care with how it gets released in Germany. So on and so forth.

[Psyren]

Endgame is there as well, as is Captain Marvel. The two Spider-mans aren't and 2008 Hulk isn't.

So the only movies not there are ones Disney doesn't have full rights to.

Note: Not all of them show in the scroll bars. You have to actually search for some of them.

Not quite - some show up when you search, but aren't actually there because of existing licensing agreements, like Ant-Man and the Wasp. They'll have an icon when you search for them, but selecting them gives you a message providing the expected date for them to be available on the service.

One piece of good news is that Apple appears to be trying to change things. On November 1, Apple launched Apple TV+ in more than 100 countries on the same day. On the other hand, Apple TV+ currently has a much smaller library than DIsney+, since they don't have decades of old content the way Disney does, and they aren't licensing third-party content the way Amazon and Netflix due.

I didn't even know ATV was out. Anything interesting?

I don't think Disney is being clumsy here. I think it's a numbers calculation. They've decided that without the flagship movies that are tied up by rights issues (namely the MCU), they will get less subscribers. Therefore, it's worth pissing off a significant portion of their customer base because most of them will still sign up anyway. They figure that this loses them fewer customers.

The galling thing is they're probably right.

I'd say it's more weighing one form of pissing them off vs. another. The calculation as I see it is they can launch the service now, have people go to the trouble of signing up and checking out a few titles, only for them to run into a pile of "sorry, not available until 2020" messages like the one I described above, end up disappointed and cancel. When the licensing troubles end, most of those people won't revisit their accounts and it won't even be news (a bunch of contracts running out is rarely "sexy" enough for a headline), and D+ will simply have been a failure in all those markets. And if you don't believe a bunch of those customers won't clog up the customer service line with complaints over it even when the error message clearly states what's happening, I have a lovely bridge to sell you.

Compare to what they did instead - they simply withhold the entire service. Now in the European market, people are full of anticipation for D+ to launch in 2020 instead of being full of disappointment that it launched mostly empty. "Disney+ launches today!!" and "Top 5 titles you should check out now that D+ is here!!" are actual headlines people will see that will remind them to go sign up. Some European company might even work something out similar to the Verizon deal here.

TL;DR delaying the launch in Europe will cause the same amount, or possibly even fewer complaints as if they had launched it full of holes, but the launch later will be more like an event/party than a bunch of contract issues running out would ever be - they win on both ends.