I have had it up to here waiting for the Beatles catalogue to be remastered

lol whoops included a couple of sentences twice there somehow

speaking of poor editing!

CUT!

But yes it’s pretty sloppy in the editing department but it makes up for it in glorious faux-verité presentation of demi-gods at work. All the little details are wonderful: from the background tape ops to the plates of toast and mugs of “proper brew” and the pimples, beer bloat and greasy hair. Really dug this.

i loved Last Dance too so maybe my wheelhouse is just long documentary series’ of archival footage

ambient is the vibe for sure - was a rainy saturday here and this worked perfectly with a mid-morning coffee - i did feel that towards the end of the first ep i kind of leaned into the boredom - thinking of it as an interminable mid-century art film kind of helped with getting into the mood

but i also wholly agree that it is scrappily edited in the ways already described - and cheap looking - my particular grrr was that terrible pic of ringo’s house that you sort of forgave the first time but then they reuse it 5 mins later - also the episode of Out of the Unknown George and Ringo discuss exists in the archive - would’ve been great to show a couple of clips instead of some generic publicity material

right sorry in amongst my b-roll there i was trying to make the point that last dance had the benefit of contemporary recollections of these legendary moments that both contextualised and enriched what you're seeing as well as giving the filmmakers something to work with in terms of a story, and i would have loved that here. i mean it is what it is, but i would have liked a higher ambition from the filmmakers. instead of dropping a potted history of the beatles at the beginning, you weave it in. the snippy shit between george and paul becomes the peg for people talking about that relationship etc so you end up with a story and an understanding of them

thinking of it as an interminable mid-century art film kind of helped with getting into the mood

yes, warhol wouldn't hate it imo

it was cool seeing the actual photos linda was shooting that day. it's too bad she didn't know how to focus that nice camera!

I like the fly on the wall/no commentary aspect of it. I wouldn’t want it to be interrupted by contributors, voiceovers or analysis.

Commentators in particular are the curse of of the music documentary for me. You’d get the wisdom of Noel Gallagher or Paul Weller - shudder. Or journalists hoping to make a mark with their hyperbolic nonsense about the Beatles being like aliens from the future.

Exactly that. You can get your own perspective on all the interactions.

I’ve avoided the ‘bit by bit’ threads that watch the show ‘alongside’ not least to avoid spoilers. I mean, I know what happens to a greater extent..

Takeaways…
That George ‘I’ll play anything you want” bit wasn’t right before he walked.
Paul ‘forming’ “Get Back” was great, and the ‘no Pakistanis’ stuff (just about where I paused) wasn’t it’s origin.
The verses for “Carry that weight” would have made it a great Ringo song
Mal suggesting better words for “Long and winding” was lovely
And all the dumb ideas about amphitheatres, ships, orphanages etc were all from that director, not the Beatles (or Yoko). Hope he shuts up.

luna you’ve just described a very bad version that i wouldn’t want either. but that’s not what i’m suggesting. maybe you haven’t seen last dance. if you have though, what would it have been like without any of the interviews with pippen, jordan, jackson etc? interesting in its own way but more of a curio for the superfan rather than, you know, one of the best and most disscussed docs of the last 20 years. again i’m not saying there’s nothing interesting here, there is. but in order to get this running time and sticking almost entirely to this verité style they’ve had to create a frankenstein’s monster of footage and sound and it really shows.

I'm not a sports fan and the Last Dance isn't for me. The problem with interviews on the Beatles is that I know all of the stories already exhaustively. This incudes the differing versions ranging from the inner circle to the flakiest hanger on, the canonical account told in Anthology, Paul's 'Many Years from Now' etc. I couldn't face the extensive recycling it would involve!

I feel like the Last Dance is a weird comparison since, so far at least, this is pretty much just the footage shown (obv editing anything imposes an order and agenda but still) where Last Dance was clearly Jordan settling old scores, distorting the truth of what happened whenever it served him, plus him sitting there in the preset day downing whiskey and running down every perceived slight he'd ever experienced in his life...it was as much propaganda as anything....I loved every minute though

I loved The Last Dance, but I was in/near Chicago during most of those years, so it was however many hours of, “Hey, I remember that!” and I didn’t even follow sports in the least. (Best bits for me were Jordan’s first year or so with the Bulls and the city’s — soon the country’s — sudden collective realization that he’s an all-timer; Chicago sports hadn’t had many of those.) I don’t think it’s comparable to Get Back for reasons others have stated above. The revisionism in McCartney 3 2 1 is closer (Jordan’s score-settling replaced with McCartney’s gee-whiz cheery mythmaking).

That George ‘I’ll play anything you want” bit wasn’t right before he walked.

i mean it wa s literally days before he left, no? it’s true tho that the moment seemed far less contentious than it was portrayed in the let it be film. in this context, it just seemed like another moment of creative tension among many

it was also funny how casually everyone treated the whole moment of george leaving.

“i guess george isn’t in the band anymore, too bad. ok everyone, ‘don’t let me down,’ take 150...”

The bad ADR/editing vibe (I haven't had a chance to watch yet) may stem from the fact that there was much, much more audio available than film, so I imagine the doc is trying its best to stretch and max out the usable film it has.

Brit stiff upper lips, you know xpost

I'm with VegGrrl in having enjoyed this pretty much unreservedly. I don't play an instrument and I still find the process of arranging a song with bandmates to be magic or alchemy, even more than coming up with the initial germ of the song. The interminable goofing around seems an important part of the process to me, if the band members are paying enough attention to grab good ideas as they fly past. It makes "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" a bit more interesting, for one thing. I'm glad there wasn't any more work on "Maxwell's" after that bit in part 1.

Jackson didn't want victims' lawyers accusing him of manslaugher.

i'm starting to imagine an alternate world where Paul decided early on that "Maxwell's" was precious enough to reserve as the glittering centerpiece of some future solo album, or just gave it away to Badfinger again, and the Beatles stayed together another year or two as a direct result.

you guys saying “uh this isn’t like last dance” have clearly not read my posts very closely but i’m going to take that as my fault for not being clear enough i guess

I mean, I can sort of see it in a comprehensively-documented-last-hurrah sense.

right, but then the fundamental artistic choices are wildly different

i don’t know what kind of internal analytics disney use but i’d be pretty surprised if even half the people who start part 1 ever end up seeing the climactic concert

it’s a remarkable document in any case. not just of a band but of a very specific milieu. thank god it was cold, otherwise we’d have never seen all those magnificent coats!

Both documentaries feature Alan Parsons.

you guys saying “uh this isn’t like last dance” have clearly not read my posts very closely but i’m going to take that as my fault for not being clear enough i guess

Tbf, first couple of times it was mentioned, I thought you all were talking about The Last Waltz.

Just found this out, but in this extremely long interview from last week, Jackson says that Disney has actually nixed releasing the 12-hour cut on Blu-ray as they don't believe there’s a sufficient market for a 12-hour cut, so out of sheer spite Jackson expanded the standard cut to nearly eight hours without telling anyone, and no one at Disney seems to have cared or noticed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSLb7cpHy00

I don't t know where he says this, but it's pretty deep into the interview, like two hours in.

Maybe nine hours is enough

So it seems like streaming gods should, at least in appropriately godlike cases, get past all precedents of TV, Film, incl. on DVD and Blu-Ray capabilities, technically and financially, and put The Complete Footage behind whatever kind of paywall (or even free, because we're Apple and also because it will get you to finally buy that $XXXXX new iPhone), knowing that enough people will watch enough of it, incl. but not only junkies mainlining alll, that streaminf will surely recoup.
(Also w audio, Complete Smile Sessions etc.)

streamin*g*, that is, sorry

you guys saying “uh this isn’t like last dance” have clearly not read my posts very closely but i’m going to take that as my fault for not being clear enough i guess

Just too tactful to say what we really thought: “Run along son…We’ll see you later. We’re a rock’n’roll band you know ?”

xpost And of course there would be some figuring out a way to copy it all, and make their own cuts or whatever you call it.

Disney wants to save all the footage for an immersive VR ride debuting at Disneyland in 2024.

many xposts to dr casino

i find the song formation process fascinating!. even at the very beginning of part 1, just watching paul sitting on his own working out a tune on guitar with some half formed lines & a riff that fall away to reveal the kernel of what becomes get back ~as you are watching~. it’s crazy.

sort of like watching clay being sculpted on a pottery wheel, with the added benefit of knowing what the end result looks like

like, these are 4 genuinely talented artists creating legit great songs, like songs unspooling out of their heads seemingly nonstop (esp Paul who just seems to be endlessly creating). it’s fuckin sorcery. (i am also aware that this same scenario would be nigh on unwatchable with a band of mere mortals lol)

i mean, even down to having ringo almost always right there on the beat, picking up whatever they put down, you really see clearly how his sheer talent gives them so much freedom to create on the fly.

also shoutouts:

mal stewart, no wonder he worked with them all this time, what a stalwart standup bloke and what a WILD amount of tasks ge performs! get george a string tie, record the lyrics, stall the cops (his death is tragically awful tho)

keith the roadie fetching endless rounds of tea & marmalade toast & champers & beers & becoming a human lectern during the rooftop concert to hold lyrics for john to read

glyn’s interactions with the band are great, love the creative relationship there. also have always enjoyed that john called him glynis

this era i am alway struck by how young george martin looks <3

(er in prev post i mean xpost to wmc sorry)

never realized Glyn Jones was a prototype Gallagher until this week

also when glyn is like, allen klein is a bit weird isn’t he and johns like lala allen is amazing 😬

There's no doubt now, I should think, that Ringo was the best drummer in The Beatles

Kevin Harrington is a little less ginger nowadays, a nice interview too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuzSk4ZKQRA

haven't watched yet but if it's 8 hours of this i'm completely down

watching paul just pull get back out of the ether is still blowing my mind lol
pic.twitter.com/m5LWqCEqJR

— not the guy (@notnotnuanced) November 28, 2021

yes!! cracked my head completely open

never realized Glyn Jones was a prototype Gallagher until this week

Yeah, crazy to see Glyn smash a watermelon with a huge hammer when his frustration at Paul boiled over.

get back and dig it were the only songs made up "out of thin air" at the twickenham sessions, according to paul and john, i believe

george came up with for you blue and i me mine during but not at the sessions. if i recall correctly, in the get back documentary, he says the idea of i me mine came to him in a dream a night before during their first week there

Did Paul invent the word “fuckface” at these sessions? I had no idea the expression was so venerable.

sorry, just expanding on what i just posted:

beatlesbook.com is pretty good for this kind of stuff

http://www.beatlesebooks.com/get-back

Not too many Beatles songs can be pointed to as a complete fabrication in the studio “out of thin air,” as McCartney described, and surely no #1 hit single by the group could be described with those words. The composer or composers of most Beatles songs would always bring in at least a half-finished idea that the others would form into a complete arrangement, producer George Martin also being instrumental in piecing things together. This was not the case with “Get Back.”

http://www.beatlesebooks.com/dig-it

Since what we recognize as the Beatles' track “Dig It” is actually a small section of an ad-libbed “jam” led by John Lennon, its writing can be pin-pointed to the first two days that the song was performed at Apple Studios on Savile Row in London. As detailed below, they fooled around with this song idea four times on January 24th, 1969, elements of which were remembered when they returned to it two days later on January 26th, 1969. It is a segment of the taped rendition from this second day that we will consider to be the completed composition of “Dig It” since it ended up appearing on the “Let It Be” album. Therefore, “Dig It,” as we know it, was composed entirely on January 24th and 26th, 1969.

http://www.beatlesebooks.com/for-you-blue

Since “For You Blue,” yet untitled, was first played instrumentally by George to his band-mates on January 6th, 1969 at Twickenham Studios while rehearsing for what became the “Let It Be” project, it can be said with some confidence that the song started to be written on this date. It followed a more-than-familiar 12-bar-blues pattern which developed into what George introduced to The Beatles as his “folk/blues” song on January 9th, it now containing some of the lyrics that we've become familiar with.

http://www.beatlesebooks.com/i-me-mine

“I Me Mine” was written by George on January 7th, 1969, at his 'Kinfauns' home in Esher, Surrey. The Beatles had just begun rehearsals at Twickenham Film Studios on January 2nd for what would eventually become the “Let It Be” project and, with a need for new material, George came up with a new contender.

i know it's churlish and misses the point entirely but i wish any of their previous eight albums had gotten this treatment instead of this one

for a big portion of my life I was the biggest Beatles obsessive I knew, then the internet happened and I learned I was far from it. I've had downloads of the Nagra reels for a while but have never had the patience to listen to all of them so a lot of the conversation in this is still unfamiliar to me and i'm not sure what has leaked and what hasn't; but there are some conversations in this that I find completely revelatory and amazing, particularly around George's exit. that flowerpot conversation is something else, you never ever hear the beatles speak so candidly about themselves, their egos, their future. Likewise, Paul is really pretty complimentary to Yoko in this (I'm only about 1/2 way through episode 2) and understanding.

it's been ages since I've bothered to watch LIB but is the footage of Paul on the chain new? That's another thing you never see: Beatles doing something dangerous and stupid with their bodies.

i wish any of their previous eight albums had gotten this treatment instead of this one

i wish there was footage of Abby Road sessions personally

also: who knew that the 'around the beatles' TV special was such a pivotal memory for them, they bring it up a million times