Indeed, hurt feelings are the harshest emotion to turn up, and those tearful moments are quickly remedied by the spirit of camaraderie offered in the Beatles’ tunes and through their animated alter egos (with voices provided by talent soundalikes). Sometimes the animation is strikingly daring and artistic – the dehumanizing routines of urban life in “Eleanor Rigby,” the pop art circus of dancing girls and acrobatic equines in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” – and sometimes the artwork is just pure playfulness, especially in the sing-along joy of “All Together Now” and “When I’m 64.”įor a film rooted in the concept of violence – the aggressive conquest of pacifist Pepperland by the gun-toting, bomb-throwing Blue Meanies – “Yellow Submarine” has very little in the way of actual pain and suffering. The Beatles’ classic songs are also provided with appropriately innovative interpretations. (The beast vacuums its tail and, in quick order, devours itself out of existence!) The underwater kingdoms visited by the Fab Four in their lemon-colored craft includes a fish with human arms that swims the breast stroke, a octopus colony that spews multicolored ink in joyful geyser-worthy bursts, and an omnivorous beast whose vacuum snout captures everything – including the rear scenery of the sequence, leaving the screen with stark white emptiness. If the film’s mod trappings seem locked in a specific (and increasingly distant) era, its playful wit remains timeless. In this new offering, the film’s vibrant colors take on a remarkably bold freshness that was absent in previous home entertainment releases and television broadcasts. But, actually, this new latest viewing is the closest that I’ve come to seeing it for the first time – this version was digitally restored in 4K by hand, going frame by frame to clean up the 1968 imagery. After watching “Yellow Submarine” for that first time, I never looked at films the same way again – and my love of exploring the filmmaking process was born.įast-forward to today and I’ve seen “Yellow Submarine” for what might be the thousandth time in a new DVD release. output – and the shock of the psychedelic imagery in “Yellow Submarine” accompanying the imaginative Beatles soundtrack opened my mind to the endless creative possibilities of the cinematic medium. Up until that time, I only knew of animation from the Disney and Warner Bros. “Yellow Submarine” (Capitol, Blu-ray, $34.98 DVD, $21.No film has made a more significant impact on my life than “Yellow Submarine.” I first saw this animated classic in a television broadcast when I was 10 year old. The feature is accompanied by an audio commentary from producer John Coates that is, at best, moderately interesting unfortunately it is at a level several decibels quieter than the regular soundtracks, which makes switching back and forth difficult. These include “Mod Odyssey” (7:40), a “making of” short from 1968 the theatrical trailer (3:45) three very crude storyboard sequences (21:13), the first of which runs in tandem with the finished scene behind-the-scenes photos (2:45) from November 1967, during a Beatles’ visit to the animation studio original pencil drawings (8:33) and six brief interviews with voice actors and key crew members. All the extras on the disc itself are ported directly from the 1999 DVD. The case includes photos and other physical gewgaws, plus a booklet with an essay by John Lasseter. Now there is a new DVD and Blu-ray release, transferred from a more thorough restoration, and unlike the earlier DVD, anamorphically enhanced (i.e., maximized for widescreen TVs). The wide-ranging, “Mod”-ish animation invokes illustrator Peter Max, Tex Avery’s “Porky in Wackyland” and Richard Lester’s earlier Beatle films its influence was quickly felt in the work of Ralph Bakshi and Terry Gilliam. The script, credited to Lee Minoff, Al Brodax, Erich Segal (in his pre-“Love Story” days) and Jack Mendelsohn, has a good number of wonderful groaner puns in the Lennon style. Comparing this new version to the old DVD release - ASIN:B00004CZER The Beatles: Yellow Submarine DVD 1968 (which I bought in 2002) - the improvements are amazing. Outside of the musical numbers and a brief appearance at the end, the four jolly lads themselves didn’t have much to do with the film, which was designed to fulfill their contractual obligation to United Artists for a third film their speaking voices are provided by John Clive, Geoffrey Hughes, Peter Batten, and Paul Angelis. Back in 1999 (31 years after its 1968 debut), a restored version of this animated Beatles film was shown in theaters and issued on DVD, with a stereo remix and the “Hey, Bulldog!” scene (deleted in the original American version) reinstated.
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