If you were looking for more information on Disney Plus Hotstar Malaysia, be sure to check out our incredibly comprehensive FAQ. (Which is also available in Bahasa Malaysia.)
It’s here! Disney Plus Hotstar is now officially live in Malaysia. We’ve been up most of the night trawling through the service and here we are, 15 hours later, with some quick and dirty first impressions.
The Good
Disney! Marvel! Star Wars!
Geeks of all walks rejoice. We now have access to all of this delicious content. Brand new shows will drop at the same time as the U.S. Now we’ll get to watch The Mandalorian with the rest of the world. No longer will we be left behind with regards to what’s going on in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Hoorah!
Classic Content
We were thrilled to be able to find all seasons of shows like 24, The X-Files, The Walking Dead, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Homeland – among others – on the service. Malaysians haven’t really had a kosher way to watch many of these shows in the past and it’s definitely a welcome addition to the growing streaming catalogue that’s available to us.
The Price
RM54.90 for three months (~RM18.30 a month) is a pretty decent price for all of this content. Heck, a lot of you might pay that for the Star Wars and Marvel stuff alone.
The Bad
The Actual Service
It’s fine. It does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s not quite as slick as the actual Disney Plus that’s available in the United States, but it’s perfectly functional.
Aesthetics aside, it would be nice if we had the option to log in using a username and password instead of just our phone numbers. Multiple user profiles would also be incredibly useful – especially with regards to managing our watch lists, as well as making a kids profile for greater parental control.
But mostly, Disney Plus Hotstar needs to take a leaf out of Netflix’s playbook and give consumers options. Why not implement a tiered pricing system that allows us to pay for what we need? If you only want to watch it on your mobile devices, there’s a plan for that. If you need multiple users and full 4K Ultra HD content, there’s a plan for that.
Right now, it feels like we’re getting the stripped down version of an American streaming service. It’s Disney Plus Lite. Or, if we’re being derisive, the “third world” version of Disney Plus.
A Limited Back Catalogue
We know that the availability of movies and TV shows on any given streaming service is subject to all sorts of rights issues, and licenses, and syndication agreements. That said, it is surprising that so much of Disney’s own back catalogue is unavailable. Many of the Disney animated classics that are available in the United States seem to be missing from Disney Plus Malaysia.
Here’s a quick and dirty list of some glaring omissions: Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Fun and Fancy Free, The Adventures Ichabod and Mr Toad, Melody Time, The Aristocats, all The Rescuers movies, The Black Cauldron, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Oliver and Company, and Enchanted. Atlantis: The Lost Empire is missing, but Atlantis: Milo’s Return is available. The Fox and the Hound isn’t available but it’s direct to video sequel is. There is no Fantasia, but Fantasia 2000 is there.
The classic X-Men animated series from the 1990s is also not available. Neither is Disney’s Gargoyles.
As for Star Wars, we seem to be missing the Star Wars Vintage category that’s available in the United States. So we’re not getting those Ewoks movies or their animated series. Or even the animated short that first introduced Boba Fett.
All you Lizzie McGuire fans are also going to be disappointed.
Check out our recommendations on what to watch on Disney Plus Hotstar Malaysia here!
Device Options
The inability to download the app on your Smart TV and/or gaming consoles is a massive oversight in 2021, during yet another lockdown. And we have no idea when they will be made available on these platforms. (Note: Disney Plus Hotstar has been in Indonesia since September of 2020 and they still don’t have these options.)
Yes, you can connect your laptop to your television, but it adds yet another step, and an extra cost (you’ll need a cable, you might need a dongle, etc.) to the whole experience. And yes, you can watch it on an Apple TV or Android Box, but again, it’s another thing to buy just to be able to watch Star Wars on the big(ger) screen.
The Ugly
Censorship
Yes. Disney Plus Hotstar is censored in Malaysia. Needless to say we were quite excited to see both Deadpool movies on the service. It was, however, very short lived as we discovered that the movies were subject to some amount of censorship. Much like it is in Malaysian cinemas, violence and gore is okay, but sex and nudity is a hard “no.”
Show Descriptions
How is it that every Malaysian show on the service has the worst descriptors? The English is broken. The grammar is all over the place. Punctuation is non-existent. Is it too much to ask that a multibillion dollar corporation spend some time and effort looking at these minor details? Where’s the attention to detail? This is just embarrassing. And to be honest, quite pathetic.
The Launch
The actual Disney Plus Hotstar launch was an absolute mess, with very little actual information about the service for consumers – besides the constant reminder of how much it costs. We had no idea what time the service would actually go live. We weren’t given a rundown of all the content that would be available on launch. And to make matters worse, there were mixed messages from both Disney Plus Hotstar and Astro, further confusing consumers on how the service would actually work for them.
Their social media game was also amateurish at best. Their Twitter account providing canned, cut and paste, responses to questions without actually answering them. Heck, their Instagram account seemed completely oblivious to the fact that the service was live for almost 12 hours.
During the Disney Plus Hotstar roll out in Indonesia, people were given free access to some titles, allowing users to take the service for a spin, to find out what is (or isn’t) on there. In Malaysia, however, we were treated to a very cold and uninviting release.
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