To be frank, Disney Plus' history of new movies and shows gives audiences reasons to question their monthly payments, as it's not really delivering quantity. Hopefully, though, subscribers looking at the biggest titles hitting in August 2023 makes them believe The House of the Mouse is at least focusing on quality instead.
This month's big new title is Star Wars: Ahsoka, its latest live-action series that ties into The Mandalorian's world. Except this show is also going to be big for fans of two of the Star Wars animated shows: Clone Wars and Rebels.
But that's not the only new title hitting Disney Plus. It's also getting the second season of an ABC sitcom, a 4K restoration of a Disney classic and the finale of one of Disney Plus' launch shows.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (August 2)
You can finally watch Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 on Disney Plus, as the most-recent Marvel movie finally hit the streaming service. James Gunn's final run with his heroes finds Rocket (Bradley Cooper) in need of some serious medical help following a run-in with Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), who was teased in the post-credits scene of Guardians Vol. 2, which came out back in 2017.
To save Rocket, Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and his crew must find a mad scientist known as The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). He's the tinkerer whose want to "improve" pushes him to capture and modify all sorts of beings. As if the above didn't make it obvious enough, this movie will be hard to watch if you're sensitive to animal cruelty.
That said, Vol. 3 is an excellent movie that will erase the taste of Quantumania from your mouth.
High School Musical: The Musical: The Series season 4 (August 9)
One of Disney Plus' original shows is back for its final run with High School Musical: The Musical: The Series season 4 (Aug. 9).
The big topic of the season (all eight episodes drop at once) is especially meta, with a stage production of High School Musical 3: Senior Year planned to take place. Except Disney (in the show) is going to film High School Musical 4: The Reunion at their school. Alumnae Corbin Bleu, Lucas Grabeel, Monique Coleman, Bart Johnson, Alyson Reed and Kaycee Stroh are all set to appear.
As for what's happening with the actual cast, Ricky (Joshua Bassett) and Gina (Sofia Wylie) will be living their first semester as a couple.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (August 11)
Slowly, but surely, Spider-Man movies swing their way to Disney Plus. The next addition is the second Andrew Garfield Spidey-flick, 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Aug. 11), which features his Peter Parker dealing with Electro (Jamie Foxx). But handling this new villain and dating Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) aren't Parker's only issues: Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) is back and dealing with a genetic illness that will lead him to a dark path.
Foxx and DeHaan arguably got the short end of the stick here, with each of their villain origin stories being a tad under-cooked. If you saw Spider-Man: No Way Home without seeing The Amazing Spider-Man 2, catching up now may help you better understand Garfield's Spider-Man.
Wonder Years season 2 (August 17)
ABC's Wonder Years reboot comes to Disney Plus this month, with all 10 episodes of season 2 dropping on August 17th (a day after the season wraps on linear TV).
This version of the series switches locations and families, and tracks the Williams family through the 1960s, giving a Black family's point of view of the same era the original took place in. Elisha "EJ" Williams stars as Dean Williams, though Don Cheadle provides voice-over narration as an older version of the same character — just as Daniel Stern was the voice-over version of Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage).
Critics gave The Wonder Years positive marks for combining nostalgia with topics of actual substance, and a strong cast.
LEGO Disney Princess: The Castle Quest (August 18)
LEGO Disney Princess: The Castle Quest (Aug. 18) is a new special that features the bric-made versions of icons Tiana, Moana, Snow White, Rapunzel and Ariel uniting after being mysteriously sent to a castle. Shockingly, it's all that smug weirdo Gaston's fault.
Looks to be a solid team-building adventure that sees the walls broken down in the Disney universe. Here's to hoping nobody takes an L like Gaston in this one.
Star Wars: Ahsoka (August 23)
Jedi and Sith trained from the animated era rejoice: Star Wars: Ahsoka (Aug. 23) is finally almost upon us. This series finds Anakin Skywalker's former Padawan returning after last being seen involved with Grogu's training in The Book of Boba Fett, with a big problem on the horizon: Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) is aiming for a return.
This series appears to be all about the bonds of mentor and trainee with the relationships of Ashoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Anakin (Hayden Christiansen) and Ahsoka and Sabine (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) being examined in the most-recent trailers. Hayden Christiansen is returning as Anakin, following his appearance in the Obi-Wan series.
Cinderella 4K remaster (August 25)
A dream come true. ✨ A stunning new restoration of the animated classic, Cinderella, is coming to #DisneyPlus on August 25 during #WorldPrincessWeek! #Disney100 pic.twitter.com/LJZYF6SmB7July 12, 2023
The classic tale of a downtrodden step-sister will look better than ever this month with the Cinderella 4K remaster (Aug. 25). This year, World Princess Week (one of Disney's lesser-known marketing events) features the arrival of the 4K remastered version of its timeless classic Cinderella. Recently released on optical media (available at Amazon for $22.99 at the time of publication), this version actually had a film festival premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year.
To make this version, director of Restoration Kevin Schaeffer said that the team took the "original nitrate negative from the Library of Congress" for "scanning the successive exposure color records in 4K" before "a cleaning pass to remove dirt and as many artifacts as possible. The current available restoration tools allowed us to produce a sharper and higher quality image than previous efforts."
