The Beatles "Help!" (1965) 2-disc DVD + Deluxe Edition - Nov. 6, 2007
 

From: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/articl...-to-deluxe-dvd

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The release date has been delayed to November 6, 2007, however:

From: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/...l?200710150740

Regular Edition:

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Deluxe Edition:

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Amazon.com lists the aspect ratio at 1.75:1. We must presume "anamorphic". The previous editions were 1.33:1 uncropped.

Official un-updated trailer: http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permali...314820-8127105

There will be a steep $ 80 price difference between the Standard edition (around $20) and the Deluxe Edition (around $100).

This is one of my all-time favorite movies and actually what got me hooked on the Beatles. So, I'm hoping to be able to shell out for the deluxe set.

1.75:1 is correct for Help!

I thought the MPI DVD was unmatted, but it does crop a lot of image off the sides compared to this new transfer while opening up some of the top and bottom.

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How did you do that?

Anywho, the other available version (although out of print) - besides a Korean one, is this one:

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which is still a very good deal since it contains the "uncropped" Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, You Can't Do That (the making of A Hard Day's Night documentary never included with any DVD version of AHDN) and The Beatles' First U.S. Visit by the Maysles Brothers, some rearranged footage of which found its way into The Beatles Anthology and which is partly responsible for the semi-documentary style Richard Lester adopted in A Hard Day's Night.

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The deluxe edition is way overpriced for me. I'm getting the regular edition.

Hell, I'm a Beatles fan but I don't see how a $80 price difference can be justified by a photo book and a script. You'd have to be a pretty avid collector/completist to get the Deluxe edition, unless you compare that price to the one presently asked for the used Beatles DVD Collector's Set on Amazon ($150.99) or the 16 min documentary The Beatles: The Making of Help! (a reel to reel 16 mm silent movie, $79.99).

Just overlaid the DVD trailer over the MPI DVD (not directly, but the mp4 conversion I saved before I sold it). It's really easy to do by just using layers and transparency.


By the way, I got $150 for the MPI 4-disc set a few years ago. Originally got it as a freebie when I bought the Anthology CDs. I'm hoping that Magical Mystery Tour eventually gets a new DVD... MPI's disc is terrible. Interlaced, grainy, lifeless color, and very dirty. The clips in "The Beatles Anthology" look fantastic, though.

If you find a sale, $95 isn't terribly overpriced for the deluxe set, but it's not exactly justified. If they included the soundtrack (both the album and the complete Ken Thorne score), maybe.

Either way, the discs look like the end up in a crappy cardboard digipack. Yeeech!

I have the Korean DVD of this, I assume taken from the earlier release. It doesn't look bad. This is the movie that got me interested in the Beatles, after seeing it on TV as a kid. But my interest has waned over the years (I just unloaded "Anthology" on Half the other day). I'll wait for the reviews to see if it's worth buying or renting.

I've been reading about plans to release "Let It Be" for a couple of years now, but that hasn't happened. I'm not sure why Apple and the remaining people in the Beatles/spouses take such a haphazard approach to releasing their material.

Let It Be reaaaaaaly needs some new edit. As-is, it's boring and unorganized. It's like they just edited a bunch of random stuff together, then spliced an awesome "short" film of the rooftop concert at the end. It works so much better as part of Anthology. The Beatles didn't like the released version, either, as the version they were happy with was more around 2 1/2 hours long rather than the 81 min. final cut. I think it's a lot of bunk about it being withheld over depictions of Paul and George, but rather concern over it needed a much-needed new edit that reflects what they originally wanted.

The old MPI DVD for Help! is surprisingly good. While it doesn't have the best black levels and there's some dot crawl at points, it's progressive and has really nice image quality. A lot of it is owed to Paul Rutan's restoration, which was further improved for the newer restoration (which uses pristine interpositive instead of duplicate negative for unusable shots on the negative).

Do any of you other Beatlemaniacs know if & when the Beatles cartoons will be released to R1??

Let It Be was created to fulfill their contract for feature films. They had hoped Yellow Submarine would be their last film but they were informed that a cartoon did not qualify according to the contract. Michael Lindsay-Hogg did a good job directing considering the state the band was in during filming(both Harrison and Starr had quit and returned). The use of Twickenham Film Studios only made matters worse. In the end they wanted to wash their hands of the whole ordeal. Tragically it was not released prior to Abbey Road.

One of the interesting things is that only the arguments between McCartney and Harrison made it into the film. Issues between Lennon and Harrison either were not captured on film or were omitted. The compact disc Let It Be ... Naked clearly shows that McCartney has issues with the original album and film.

Personally I would like to see the film released on DVD in its original form, if they want to create an extended version in addition that would be great. If McCartney and Starr want to make a disclaimer before the film explaining the circumstances, so be it. Sugar coating the truth is never going to work due to the attacks made on solo records towards each other.

As in the Yellow Submarine, the Beatles cartoon used voice actors which makes it more of a curiosity than a must release.

A DVD of the Beatles Promotional films is something that truly needs addressing. The partial clips in the Anthology set leads me to believe that they will be released at some time.

Sadly their original fans are getting older, it would be nice to see the Beatles entire film works be released before too many of these fans are dead.

Geez...imagine what "Let It Be" is gonna cost if it ever gets a release? :scratch2:

I remember the general feeling of depression that Let It Be (the film) caused in fans when it first came out. Not that it was a bad film or badly put together. Quite the contrary, it was well made but was far from being a feel-good film. It made the fans realize that the Beatles were starting to split at the seams, just from the tidbits of the quarrel that were apparent and the general feeling of anomie on the "set". I think the film was truthful in that sense. As we soon learned from the media that the album itself was a major bone of contention between Paul and John (John resenting the takeover of Apple business by Paul's in-laws and Paul resenting the overproduction of the "Let It Be" album by John's external business manager - Thank God I forgot the name of that galoot*), the album itself became sort of "tainted" in the eyes of the fans, like the unhappy child in a messy divorce. Why do you think the Beatles bootlegs business started to boom at that time? Because fans wanted to recapture the joyous "raw" experience of the music itself, untrammelled by lawyers and producers.

As an unconditional fan, I of course prefer the way the episode is treated in the Anthology (both the TV series - which is brutally honest as well as balanced** - and the CDs, which were a kind of official answer to the bootlegs) and I think the Naked album is also a valid statement in its own way.

If footage exists documenting even more of the tensions, tamper tantrums, false starts, sulking bouts, resentment, slow burns, walk-outs, isolation, nose-twiddling and boredom of those recording sessions, frankly, I don't want to see it either. There are far more interesting - and happier - nuggets in the Beatles' closets.

If a new, improved, longer, exhaustive Let It Be (the film) is ever put together, it won't be for the fans, it will be for the historians, completists and for young people who want to document an era they never knew.

* Allen Klein (hiss! boo!), who brought in Phil Spector, with John's accord, to "finish" the album. The "Let It Be" album production job may be a fond memory for Phil Spector (see: http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/...is_to_love_him ) but not for the fans.

** When you consider that we live in an imperfect world, you come to realize that the Anthology is a wonderful work of art in itself and an incredibly honest piece of work, and that it carries a lot of truth, every statement in it having been filtered and approved - or at at least tolerated - by both Yoko and Paul, not to mention George, Ringo and George Martin. Peace out!

DVD Empire has the back cover uploaded...

It's confirmed to be 16x9 and the sound options are PCM stereo and DTS 5.1!

The Beatles sure don't take advantage on the money they could be making .

Like they need the money?

You obviously don't live in Vegas.

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I can second those specs - it's very near 1.75:1 anamorphic widescreen and the DTS track is phenomenal ... not to mention the visual restoration -- it's flat-out amazing. This, for me, is on a par with the James Bond spruce-ups from last year. Great looking (and sounding) set.

Oh, please don't say that.... According to DVD Savant, those James Bond restorations had the colours all wrong!!!

And didn't one of them have the wrong aspect ratio?

Heather the Gold Digger could change that question.

Dude, why do you care so much when they mess with the colors? I like seeing films with the colours changed. It lets you enjoy the film all over again, almost like it's a new movie.

According to DVD Savant, the Bond restorations have completly messed up the look and feel of the sunsets, sunrises and time of day in general and interiors have been made to shine like some toilet bowl commercial.

According to me, the New Dracula transfer has lost all shadow detail. The trademark colours blue and orange of the film have been obscured. Lucy's orange dress, which made its designer so proud in the extras, is now China red. A lot of superimposed in-camera special effects are now invisible.

And you know what happened to Peter Pan... Compared to those abominations, the colourization of B&W films is a very minor misdemeanour.

Let's all hope "they" (i.e. the know-nothing computer nerds) didn't alter Help! too much...

If you think that the "computer nerds" are making these decisions, then you are wrong about who the real "know-nothing" is.