Jay G.

They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) was 99 minutes theatrical, 129 minutes extended cut:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Shall_Not_Grow_Old

Jay G.

To be even more pedantic, LD started off fully analog, both video and audio. PCM audio was added to LDs after the release of the CD.
https://www.lddb.com/help/sound/

The Let it Be LD only has an analog track:
https://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/31192...les:-Let-It-Be

dhmac

Message me and I can help you out

cultshock

Damn, that's right. So I guess that Decker's statement was pretty much correct after all.

Spiderbite

Ugh. I don't have Disney+ and wasn't planning on getting it anytime soon. I really hope there is a physical release of this and the original version (which I also have never seen).

I was really looking forward to seeing this in a theater (even if it was a shortened version).

Decker

This is 100% how I feel about this one :

Peter Jackson‘s The Beatles: Get Back “is — or was — a movie I dreamed of seeing in theaters. Today, most music documentaries are streaming only, but the Beatles remain larger-than-life. They turned the entire world into a community, and still have the power to turn an audience into a congregation. If the Beatles aren’t worthy of the big screen, I don’t know who is.

“But that’s no longer going to happen. Now we’ll all sit at home, watching the Beatles separately, on three separate nights. Beyond that, I’m compelled to ask: Six hours? It’s clear that Jackson fell in love with this material and was eager to give us more of it, which sounds like a generous impulse. But six hours of Get Back is a lot of Get Back.

“In general, Jackson tends to be dominated by his go-big-or-go-home side, which first showed itself in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (which I think of, in my snarkier moments, as nine hours of folks riding through the woods), then in the bloat of King Kong, and then in the jaw-dropping grandiosity with which he inflated The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien’s slenderest Middle-earth novel, into three damn epic movies. Do you sense a trend here?

“I’m not prejudging The Beatles: Get Back, but I do have a trepidation, one that I feel justified in saying out loud. My fear is that Jackson, in chopping the Get Back footage down to a gargantuan six hours, hasn’t done the disciplined and demanding work of editing, of shaping, of putting an exquisitely honed movie together. My fear is that he’ll be giving us not a Beatles documentary but a Beatles document dump.” — from Owen Gleiberman‘s “The Beatles: Get Back Is Now a Six-Hour Mini-Series. So Why Does It Feel Like More Might Be Less?

Jay G.

I don't think I can trust the opinion of someone who thinks of LOTR as "nine hours of folks riding through the woods." LOTR, even in the extended editions, is significantly trimmed down from the novel. Also people seem to keep forgetting that PJ's last project was the 99 minute documentary They Shall Not Grow Old.

I think part of the trepidation seems to be from the impression that this change is "inflating" a 2-hour film that never existed, instead of trimming 210 hours of footage (60 hours film + 150 hours audio) down to 6 hours, i.e. only 3% of the original footage. If this had been announced as a miniseries from the beginning, I doubt there'd be as much trepidation.

There's also the question of whether this documentary is meant to be a replacement for, or a supplement to, the 1970 film Let it Be. There likely was some wrestling with the idea of how much of footage used in the original film to use in the new documentary. If the new documentary had done near 2 hours of all-new footage, many people would then have been watching both this and the original 80 minute film for the "complete" experience, for nearly 3 1/2 hours of watching. Expanding Get Back to 6 hours means that they can, if they choose to, incorporate the complete original film into this series, recontextualizing it with new footage.

I also think there's a significant chance that there will still be a "Fantom Event" theatrical screening of this series, for those who want to see it in a theater. It's going to be a bit more of a but-numbing experience, but it will be there. But even with the original 2-hour theatrical release plan, I doubt this would've played very wide and brought in significant box office; the theatrical release was more likely to make it Oscar eligible.

Finally, I found this tidbit while looking into the original announcements for this project:
https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stori...k-documentary/
A 42 minute live performance would've cut significantly into a 2 hour film's running time, leaving only 78 minutes for other footage. The full set likely fits better into a 6 hour series.

DeFan

As a fan of the recent Plastic Ono Band box set and Dylan's big blue box set I say the more the better. If you want a 2 hour experience use the fast forward and let the rest of us enjoy all we can get.

dhmac

This is the Beatles, so the more, the better. I rewatched the original "Let It Be" and nearly the entire first hour seems too sullen and humourless with the movie only picking up during the music performances, which are all great (especially the rooftop concert). I'm not sure why it was edited that way but I think it clearly could be better edited and seems that way just from the teaser trailer.

johnnysd

I am not sure I agree. The LOTR movies even in the extended versions don't feel bloated. On the other hand, the Hobbit was bloated more than many any other movie I have seen but I am sure the studios had a play in that as well. I rewatched the LOTR movies recently and while I still enjoy them they have not aged perfectly. I could see the LOTR being remade at some point and being better than the movies were. The Amazon series will be interesting to see and how much influence the Jackson movies have on it.

In terms of this I view it this way: I saw Let it Be and I thought that was bloated and mostly uninteresting save for the concert on the rooftop. So I suspect there will largely be two camps, one that will not watch, and then another that is really interested in this and for the second group 6 hours is largely better than 2 hours even if bloated.

Decker

Serious question : How many times have you watched The Beatles Anthology? How many times have you seen Hard Day's Night or Help! ​​​​​​? There is something more special about a two hour official Beatles movie than there is about a series on a streaming service. I would have much preferred a movie I could see in a huge theater with booming sound and packed with fellow eager Beatles fans than a show I watch at home over three nights. I've seen the Cirque show LOVE four times and it's always special because of the music being presented in a way that you just can't hear it at home.
Yes more content is nice - but I would prefer seeing that extra content in the Bonus Features of a UHD set than as the meat of content I have to watch on a subscription streaming service every single time I want to revisit it.

I do agree with you guys that the writer of that editorial did themselves no favors by talking about the Lord of the Rings Trilogy as an example of Peter Jackson bloat. The Hobbit and King Kong, on the other hand are exhibits A and B as to why it's a legitimate concern.

johnnysd

Zero for me but I have seen The Song Remains the Same like 20 times.

Nesbit

Anthology: 3 times
The films: 10 times each I'd guess

Plan to rewatch all of those with my kid before Get Back.

Perfect world would be a 2 - 2.5 hour theatrical cut followed by a however long they can make it mini series with a 4k release.

dex14

johnnysd

I thought I had zero interest in this but that actually looks pretty interesting. I think the Beatles were great but I would not really say I am a fan. Never mind hearing their music and some is brilliant but don't go seeking it out.

dex14

Part 1 (157 mins) is up now, with the following two parts dropping over the next two days.
Part 2 is 173 minutes. Part 3 is 138 minutes.

Michael Corvin

Holy shit. Jackson totally LOTRinged this thing.

dex14

There was 60 hours of footage. That’s only like 13% of it.

Reviews are great: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/th...s_get_back/s01

TomOpus

Good stuff. Halfway through part one. Interesting to watch them rehearse All Things Must Pass.

GoldenJCJ

I’m going to try to watch some of this this weekend. My kids will probably want to watch Christmas movies all weekend though see we’ll see it goes.

cultshock

Yeah, I'm gonna save this for the weekend, really excited to watch it though.

Bronkster

Watched the first 30-40 minutes (will be doing it in chunks) and was blown away by the quality! I read that Jackson spent a lot of time to make the original grainy footage look good - and he did an incredible job! So far, really enjoying it! I knew that Yoko was around all the time, but didn't realize she was right there with them as they wrote/rehearsed. Daang!

Eddie W

I can't decide whether this is tedious or fascinating. Kind of both. And I'm amazed at Yoko's ability to sit in silence reading a newspaper & still manage to be annoying as hell.

rocket1312

I watched the first episode in one shot. I somehow found the footage both endlessly fascinating and at times kind of boring. I think the questions about whether or not Jackson should have edited this down a bit more are completely valid.

While watching the band engage in the creative process is kind of mind-blowing, and it's lovely to see their personalities come out in a less controlled setting, there are long passages here of them just futzing about that go nowhere. In a vacuum it might be interesting, but I don't think it always works as a tv show. I get that Jackson is a Beatlemaniac and it probably crushed him to even leave out as much as he did, but it just feels like the video version of listening to hours of Get Back session bootlegs. It's a shame. So much of the footage is amazing, but it just becomes too much at once. Hardcore fans will lap up every second of it , but I have to wonder how much mass appeal this will have. I'm somewhere inbetween hardcore and casual listener and I got restless multiple times. Breaking it into smaller episodes would have probably helped, but I guess streaming allows you to do that on your own if you so desire.

All that said, I can't wait to watch the rest. Even if it doesn't totally work for me (so far) as a piece of cinema, as a historical artifact it's completely indispensable. I'm so glad we're finally getting to see this stuff.

Decker

Great post rocket!
I agree and that was my fear all along. While it's a treasure trove of footage, it's too much. After 90 minutes of watching the Beatles fart around and goof off, I am not sure if I am up for another 6-7 hours of this. It would have made an amazing three hour movie in theaters with incredible surround sound. But in this format, at this length it's just a long, very special curiosity that will have lots of importance for music scholars going forth but not something fans will want to return to again and again.