Ten years ago, I used the DVD release of Yellow Submarine to test the limits of video compression algorithms, not only because of the sticking colours and the stroboscopic effects, but also because the film material was, well, pretty bad. And so it was a delight to see on Blu-ray the restoration by hand of the movie.
Yellow Submarine could have been a cynical money grab, based on the popularity of The Beatles and of the short animations for TV starring Beatles characters. And yet it wasn't. Animated in London in the middle of the psychedelic era, the movie was made by people genuinely inspired by The Beatles' music and the psychedelic movement. The result is timeless, with great originality in the characters' adventures, great musical orchestrations, a script filled with word-plays and rhymes, and maybe the best "videoclips" made out of The Beatles' songs.
If your only previous experience with Yellow Submarine was with its original VHS release, be prepared for a shock. Inherited from its previous DVD release, the music was expertly remixed in surround 5.1 and the orchestrations re-recorded. (For the purists, the original Mono track is available, though it's original film aspect ratio remains 1.33:1 unlike the original.)
The visual restoration deserves special mention. Each frame was manually corrected by hand, and it shows. Gone are all the artifacts of the original film transfer. (And before purists panic, yes, the original animation and colouring errors remain.) Better, the restoration is so amazing that it looks like it was originally made on computers if it weren't from the little shadows between the cells that remain in the image. Take a look at the trailer in HD to see for yourself.
So, while Yellow Submarine may be from such a distant past that it may not be to our modern taste, this new version is a worthy restoration of this timeless and beautiful animation classic. If you've never seen it before, I'd highly recommend you see it, at least for the craftsmanship and one of the best summary of the "peace and love" era.
Published on June 5, 2012 at 21:50 EDT
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