Since it debuted, Disney Plus has been wowing fans with its impressive catalog of titles and earning critical acclaim for its groundbreaking new shows like The Mandalorian and WandaVision. But despite its many successes, Disney has also made its fair share of missteps over the years, and now they’re finally providing a peek behind the curtain with their newest streaming service: Disney Minus.
The platform functions mainly as an online repository for the second-rate sequels that didn’t get released, the original content that got axed before airing, and all the old racist stuff they couldn’t in good conscience put on Disney Plus. Still, there are some hidden gems that never quite made it out of the Disney Vault, so here are a few of the top titles to check out, available only on Disney Minus:
Cars 4: Big Victorian Bicycles
After the success of Planes and Planes: Fire and Rescue, Disney branched out even further into the talking race vehicle genre with Big Victorian Bicycles, a story about an 1860s bi-pedal speedster named “Reid Velocipede,” who races around London on a quest to get both of his wheels to just be the same size. It was focus tested for Disney execs, after which Disney Chairman Bob Iger reportedly declared to the room, “If we release this movie, I will have to start selling my plasma for money, because we will all be out of jobs and Disney will be dead.” It was immediately shelved, but the animation is gorgeous and Zach Braff does a surprisingly passable Cockney accent that’s quite charming. Three stars.
A live-action reboot of High School Musical
Wasn’t the original trilogy live-action, you ask? No, not fully—Zac Efron is actually an incredibly life-like animatronic. For a dead giveaway, look closely at Efron’s little chicken legs when he runs onto the basketball court in HSM3 and you can briefly see that they’re actually just bendable metal spikes. Zac Efron may be 100% dreamy, but legally he’s 0% human. Long story short, this reboot mostly just reunites the original cast and replaces the Zac Efron robo-puppet with Jaden Smith, who really sizzles onscreen. Three and a half stars.
A never-before-seen Thor movie
Titled Thor: The Dark Room, this film is just 139 minutes of Thor deciding which of two Crate & Barrel lamps goes best with the otherworldly splendor of his Asgardian billiards room. It’s a real shame this one didn’t come out—it features a star turn by Sandra Oh as Thor’s bodyguard turned interior designer, and we were hoping she’d get her own spin-off. Four stars.
Cars 5: Hot Air Balloons
Convinced that the solution to the debacle of Big Victorian Bicycles was to “do more sky stuff,” Disney commissioned a tale about rival hot air balloons who get stranded over British Columbia when a sudden wind gust blows their Yellowstone sightseeing tour way off course.
Unfortunately, Bob Iger, dazed by depleted blood plasma levels, took a big swing and hired David Lynch to pen the script, and that’s where this thing really went off the rails: at one point, the first hot air balloon (Bella Basketfire) transforms into Marlene Dietrich and sings “The Boys in the Backroom” on an empty Broadway stage while the second hot air balloon (Laura Palmer, Jr) rotates slowly over the orchestra buffeted by an invisible breeze. One star.
A TV show called Ryland Rhode Island
Few people know this, but at the height of Hannah Montana’s popularity, Disney began working on a spin-off series about a seemingly-normal seventh grade boy who moonlights as the world’s youngest chess grandmaster. Originally titled “Bronson Wisconsin,” the show focused on the dual struggles of going through adolescence and trying to earn sponsorship deals to supplement the anemic income Ryland earns from his chess victories. Ultimately, the show gets too bogged down trying to explain the injustices of the international chess circuit’s byzantine payout structure, but there are some quality plotlines, including a fun cameo from Dwayne Johnson as Ryland’s card-game-fanatic uncle from Alaska, Uncle Bruno Juneau who loves Uno. Three stars.
Cars 6: Oops, All Tugboats!
Desperate to revitalize its struggling Cars franchise, Disney had the idea to focus on ocean vessels after a meeting in which Bob Iger screamed, “WE HAVE TO RIGHT THIS SHIP OR I’M GONNA RUN OUT OF PLASMA TO SELL!” and one of the execs stopped listening after the word “ship.” The result was Cars 6: Oops, All Tugboats!, a heart-wrenching coming-of-age tale in which a young tugboat must tug an older tugboat all the way to TugTug Island, the final resting place of all tugboats. This story is actually moving and gorgeous and Disney will release it theatrically in July 2021. Five tugs.