Beatles '64 - New to Disney+ (11/29/24)

Anybody watched this new doc yet? If so, thoughts? Here's the trailer:



I finished it up yesterday. While I enjoyed it, it seems fairly useless overall. Outside of the old footage being restored, there really isn't anything new in it at all and a LOT of it is just filler. I mean, one of the first things in the doc is Paul talking about his dad's suggestion of "She loves you, yes yes yes" for the thousandth time.

That being said, the digitally restored video looks pretty incredible. Some of the footage looks like it could've been shot yesterday in black and white. Also, some of the concert pieces (with the restored audio) are pretty great as well.

But there was just so much in it that was random and not particularly interesting to me. For example, there are a lot of interviews with normal Beatle fans. Now, some of them were there at certain events in 1964, so that is the connection, but all in all that's irrelevant to me. I guess I don't particularly care to see random people talk about how obsessed they are with the Beatles. I mean at one point we see some dude (a writer I believe) talking about his abusive dad and how the Beatles were an escape for him. Who cares about that?

Give me more interviews with some of the music producers, or Smokey Robinson...people like that. There was a great story by that one music producer (Jack Douglas) near the end of the doc about his chance meeting of John Lennon and how it led to him working on his Imagine album. I'm good with stuff like that. But random Beatle fangirls talking about how much she screamed when she saw George should've been left on the cutting room floor IMO (or not even interviewed at all really).

All in all, it's worth a watch to see the behind the scenes footage and to see how well the digital restoration is...both the audio and the (supposed) 4K video sound and look great. But I doubt I will ever care to watch this a second time. But I will say that I'm all for them continuing to restore old video and audio with Peter Jackson's new software...it's pretty incredible what they can do with it, so I'll consume content they put out using that (not just Beatles, but any old footage of interest).

Also, seeing footage like this, what stands out to me is how douchey the boys come off in their interviews. I get that it was their British sense of humor and all that, but it stands out that they were basically smartasses in most of the interviews they did. I can see why some of the older people back then didn't care for them.