Get Back: Part 1 - thoughts and reviews

[WilliamShears]

Let’s consolidate all of our reviews for each part here.

Just finished watching part 1 in non-4K HD in 5.1 and thought it looked and sounded great. They really made an effort to bring the dialogue up front and I was happy to not have to strain to listen to most discussions.

I was glad I listened to the PJ podcast so I felt I pretty well understood what he was trying to do with the story and timeline and for a project like this on a platform like Disney it makes sense and I think he’s accomplished it so far. There were a few points where the “no LIB” footage rule kinda sucked - but AdamBound and others can fix that for us once we get a LIB reissue…

I watched with my wife who can best be described as a casual fan which was an interesting experience. The intro was solid and required for anyone other than us here. She was getting restless after about a hour on. It strikes me that this really was made for the die hards with a basic amount of context for the rest. I can’t remember anything else like this - it’s always the other way around.

Bring on part 2!!

[alphabeatles]

She was getting restless after about a hour on.

That's funny! You need to tighten the ropes! I spared my family except for one of the previews...

Agreed this edit is for The Faithful. I was pleased to see the less plastic video quality than the previews suggested. Maybe grain was even added back (you can see it going by). I feel something needed to be done besides simply color-correcting old 16mm film, so this was a nice balance and made it look almost modern.

Watching a few hours of this new footage puts the Get Back sessions in a better and fresh context.

Random thoughts:

Why they committed to this project and got it underway with so little agreement on the actual goal is a mystery to me.

I can see why George H. tired of working with Paul... Maybe John too. Paul's obviously a musical genius but speaks in annoying abstractions as he pushes the others along (as he probably had since Magical Mystery Tour, maybe even earlier). Older Paul may or may not have been easier to deal with, I don't know. He seems to have been a taskmaster for the Wings boys as well. You can see the tension of the other Beatles when Paul enters the soundstage in the morning. John, George and Ringo got their licks in later with John's early LPs.

Where was this remixed audio? It sounded mostly mono to me with headphones. I still need to watch Peter's Zoom podcast but maybe the magic is in the mix (I did not A/B any audio with the boots). And what advantage is there to the 5.1? We need to get ahold of this!

I learned it's best not to start watching this series when it goes live at midnight, too late for older folks Messed me up all day today...

Onward to part 2! Can the boys wrangle George back into the fold? What a cliffhanger...

[WilliamShears]

Yes seeing their faces during the discussions adds so much to understanding how George’s (and Paul’s) nerves were slowly but surely getting fried.

We know the story but seeing it develop is fascinating that the others were basically so apathetic that they let Paul take them on this MMT part 2 without a real plan. Most all the side conversations we now see are Paul huddled separately with the crew while the rest of the band are fiddling about and couldn’t really care.

The 5.1 I thought was pretty subtle (which is good) and I only noticed some ambient sounds and occasional instrumentation in the back, but really I spent the whole time just being blown away at the video and dialogue quality on first watch. Will be interesting if they beef up the surround mix once they switch to 8 track.

[beatlesondvd]

My first impression is that, although I loved watching part one, I doubt the general public will stick around in droves for the next two episodes. My girlfriend watched half of that episode with me, and, similar to what WilliamShears wrote above, she, too, got restless after about an hour.

The problem being, in my view, that the Twickenham rehearsals are not the most entertaining part of the 'Get Back' sessions. I wonder how many will tune in on Saturday for the really good stuff, once the Beatles settle in at Savile Row. Now that would have been a killer introduction to GB for the casual fan! (To me, it's a bit like the large percentage of unsuspecting, casual-fan customers who got turned off by the first volume of 'The Beatles Anthology' CDs because they didn't care about interview snippets and Morecambe and Wise, and so missed out on the next two volumes, featuring the 'Rubber,' 'Revolver,' 'Pepper,' 'MMT,' 'White Album,' 'Let It Be,' and 'Abbey Road' outtakes, which is, by far, the most fascinating period, music-wise, for me.)

I was also slightly annoyed by the fact that many of the shots used to bridge a missing portion, or to introduce a bit of variety in a long, uninterrupted sequence, aren't synced to audio. I doubt the casual viewer will notice that what we hear doesn't always match what we see, and that's probably down to the (relative) dearth of images as compared to the trove of Nagra reels. I felt that Peter Jackson made creative use of many a well-positioned arm or wide shot to obscure the fact that the lips of the person talking don't always move when they are speaking, etc.

(I'm thinking, for instance, of a sequence where Michael Lindsay-Hogg is seated beneath Ringo's drums and someone's arm -- I think, can't remember precisely -- is obscuring his mouth. There are also times when one of the Beatles is singing and we see him with his mouth shut, but these are very short shots and it doesn't really detract from the viewing experience.)

I also appreciate that Jackson used demixing technology so that bits of dialogue could be heard more clearly, which is nice, but (and again, that's just me being nitpicky) the resulting lines of speech sound very harsh and metallic to my ears.

On the subject of dialogue, and although I know my Twickenham stuff virtually inside-out, it seemed to me that there were bits I hadn't heard before. Is that even possible? Don't we have all the Nagra A- and B-rolls for the first four days at Twick'? If there are indeed some previously unheard portions, it could be (as Jackson explained in his fascinating interview on the 'Things We Said Today' podcast) that he traced Michael Lindsay-Hogg's working dupe, or whatever it's called, which contains some -- but not all -- of the material from the missing Nagra rolls. Around 40 of those rolls are still missing and presumed lost, some ten (!) hours' worth of material, out of the 560 or so that were recorded over the course of January 1969.

Also, having watched the first episode on a very big (120") screen, I noticed that some of the shots are out of focus (not Jackson's fault, but the original camera operator's), e.g. parts of the Paul and George argument from 6 January. It was nice to have a bit more context on that particular argument, by the way.

I realize I sound like I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth, so let me stress that I really, really enjoyed watching that first part, but these are just some of the things that bothered me ever so-slightly. Can't wait for the rest, especially the Apple Studio stuff.

[CooperCat]

Took a break after the first 45 minutes or so. Started getting a bit tedious. The career retrospective opening was unnecessary and chronologically incorrect. It was nice to finally SEE them mucking about with the early Lennon/McCartney material, and the conversations were intriguing, but felt it was going nowhere. Took a break at 45 minutes as I said, and commented about the monotony to a couple of friends. Picked up from there and the pace started to pick up. Paul and George getting into it a bit with the Hey Jude guitar bit, and the conversations about the live gig starting to pick up. So it's starting to gain a little form and become a story, as to the first 45 minutes which was a history rehash and monotonous rehearsals. Still got a ways to go on the first part, but hopefully the pace keeps going. Definitely not for the casual fan. I think I would have preferred a doc style with current dialogue embellishing the footage and telling a story instead of just straight up footage. The XTC doc a few years back was really well done for example.

Watching Paul pluck Get Back out of thin air was fascinating.

[AdamBound]

There is indeed new audio. I haven't done too much heavy analysis, only really delving into the 9th, but "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" 9.57 is much longer than on bootleg, where it cuts off after about 20 seconds.

[beatlesondvd]

Here's the Guardian's review of the whole thing, and the writer seems to think, as I do, that it is definitely not for the casual fan. (Seems I've enjoyed what I've seen so far much more than he has, however.)

I hope the series doesn't bomb, because that would likely mark the end of similarly ambitious archival endeavours.

[alphabeatles]

Paul and George getting into it a bit with the Hey Jude guitar bit

I believe that's what we always assumed but 1) that was an entirely separate session and 2) in this larger context it seems they were having issues about how to play one of John's songs.

[alphabeatles]

The career retrospective opening was unnecessary and chronologically incorrect.

I agree, I mentioned this last night. And some of the historical clips he used we have in better quality ourselves! That sort of recap would be aimed at casual viewers needing to be brought up to speed, while the rest of this was definitely not for them! So this edit was a bit in conflict with itself.

So what other intro would have worked, assuming we needed one? Perhaps a quick recap of the White Album and whatever they were doing immediately after its release and right before going to Twickenham (a one-month period, basically December 1968).

It would be nice if those putting together such projects (Jackson, Howard, etc.) consulted with the serious fans first, or at least let us be beta testers Could save them some bad press and improve their work.

Now we're going to have to re-edit everything as usual....

[Fun 4 None]

I enjoyed this quite a lot, and it was a great experience. However, as a big Beatleg enthusiast, the false syncs in the film got so distracting. Pretty much everytime I new segment came up I was just asking myself "Is this the actual audio or is it another false dub?"

I understand Jackson wants this to be more cinematic, but sometimes the editing is so manic and awkward. Couldn't he have just made a shorter film but with correct syncs?