Let It Be has a lot of baggage that comes along with it. It's quite remarkable actually. With two different versions of the album and a movie that has been pulled and ignored by the owners/participants but in spite of that it has attained mythical cult like status. Now they dumped 55 hours of unseen footage in the hands of a fan with a history of multi-part multi-hour movies. And just what is Giles going to do with the remix for 2020? Remix Spector's or McCartney's or both? It'll be historic but will it be what the fans want. I do predict it will be huge.
If the audio from rough rehearsals isn't "tweaked" and made to sound as good as possible, then what's the point of the release from the fan's perspective? Just listen to the old bootlegs already out there.
from that article and I agree completely,... We haven’t seen half the rooftop concert yet The last ever Beatles gig is amongst the most legendary live performances ever, yet of its 42 minutes the original film included just 21. OK, so most of the remaining footage consists of another three or four runs through ‘Get Back’, but at this point, we’ll take anything we can get. Jackson’s film had better include every second of footage from when they step onto the roof to when the filth drags them off, or we’re calling the police again.
Can't wait. I'm hoping Peter Jackson has heard some of the bootlegs and has a sense of the fun that was being had during some of these sessions. This clip (audio) still makes me laugh out loud. It's the funny version (not the fast version) of Two of Us. God, I wish there was video of this.
First of all he is fan of splatter/horror, science-fiction/post-apocalyptic, war/medieval, fantasy or b-movies. His experiences with music seems to be limited to the song of the dwarves in the hobbit. Maybe a good pick to document (or choose the sequences) for the beatles disunion-stage.
There's a 3 DVD boot set called "The Get Back Chronicles" that contains just about everything from the rooftop, cobbled together from various sources and sometimes using stills or street scenes where there was no footage available. The rooftop part starts with a short discussion inside and then shows them walking onto the roof. Then you get the whole concert I believe. It includes three Get Backs (one a rehearsal) and two I've Got A Feelings, God Save The Queen and ends with John's audition comment. It's far from perfect but better than the footage from the movie.
At some point in the past I've heard him say in an interview he's a huge Beatles fan. The only evidence I can recall in one of his films is a cutout of them in Sgt Pepper gear inside a car in Bad Taste.
We saw “They Shall Not Grow Old” last night, and if Jackson brings that same level of commitment, intensive research, and attention to detail, while leveraging the best technology, to deliver the Get Back project, we are in for a real treat indeed! Oh, and re “his experiences with music seem to be limited...” - Howard Shore’s music for the LOTR series has got to be one of the more ambitious and richest movie scores out there, just full of expansive themes that work so well with the images to tell the story. He had 100 hours of BBC WWI footage to work with, and it was remarkable what his team was able to do with it. I can’t wait to see what he does with 55 hours of Get Back - er, i mean Let It Be - footage. BTW, i think as a title, “Get Back” may have even more relevance today, 50 years on.
I wonder how the structure will differ from the original documentary. For instance, will Jackson start the film with something from the rooftop, maybe "I've Got a Feeling" or "Get Back" with the police knocking on the door, and then flashback to the start of the sessions at Twickenham...Or will it all be linear? Is ONLY footage shot specifically for the TV special/film from January 1969 being used? There's probably other footage and photographs and artifacts from the Apple Corps Archives that could potentially be drawn from as well. Footage shot in the Apple offices of the Beatles or their workers coming and going, for example. Scans of recording documents, tape boxes/labels and tracking sheets, that could be spliced in as transitions between scenes or songs...
Well, I wouldn't expect any actual news about Peter Jackson's "Let It Be" project for at least a year -- he's only just gotten the job, and it's not the Apple way to give regular updates on future projects. In the meantime, I just got back from Peter Jackson's current film restoration project, the WWI documentary They Shall Not Grow Old. I had wanted to see it anyway, but my curiosity spiked after Apple tapped him to make something fun and happy out of the Get Back footage. TSNGO is indeed fantastic -- lovingly bringing 100-year-old footage to life with a meticulous digital cleanup, excellent and detail-obsessed colorization, and (most especially) a fresh soundtrack that provides accurate effects and lip-sync'ed dialogue. In a nice surprise, there was a 30-minute featurette after the movie screening that shows how they made the film. In an interesting touch that might give Beatles fans suffering from Ron Howard flashbacks hope, Jackson's WWI movie is narrated entirely by WWI vets, drawn from 600 hours of audio recordings from the real men who fought in (and survived) the Great War. He said it was important for the story to be told by the real people, not historians and talking-heads. I won't be expecting Tom Hanks or Whoopie Goldberg to pop up in his Beatles film. Anyway, we have a long way to go in 2019 before even the Abbey Road 50 set comes out, let alone whatever happens for LIB50 in 2020. In the meantime, if you want to see some old footage of British men enduring hell on earth, seek out a screening of They Shall Not Grow Old.
Peter Jackson has a colossal task because of the movie & film footage he's dealing with, because of who the movie is about, & the staggering amount of critics waiting at the gates for it's release. I am going to put my thoughts about this project aside & give "Abbey Road" my enthusiastic attention so I can celebrate it's special release when the time comes. "Let It Be" will have it's glory in the sun afterwards. Thank you Mr. Jackson for what you're doing!
Does anyone know how many months in advance of its first screening was the Eight Days A Week film first announced? Apple appear to be a creature of habit when it comes to announcements, so knowing how long the gap was from announcement to the premiere of the EDAW film might give everyone a pointer as to when the new Let It Be film will be released.