Yellow Submarine[Blu-ray]

Surreal

Although I own both the 1988 Yellow Submarine [VHS] and the 1999 DVD version of Yellow Submarine, I finally saw the film on the big screen in Fairfax, VA, for the first time today, and it was fantastic! The print was the best I have ever seen, and it is brand-new, not a reissue of the 1999 version. The soundtrack was excellent as well; though some of The Beatles' songs had strange-sounding mixes, that was probably the fault of the theater sound system. I am really looking forward to receiving the new DVD in June. I will add to this review after I have a chance to watch the new DVD. Stay tuned...UPDATE: I have now watched all of the new DVD, and the picture quality on the new version is much sharper and less grainy than the 1999 release; the soundtrack is much improved as well. There are some differences between the two versions, which I will discuss now.AUDIO OPTIONS:1999: English 5.1 Surround (non-DTS); English Mono, 5.1 Surround (non-DTS) Music-Only Track (not on 2012 version, unfortunately).2012: English Dolby Stereo, English Mono, English DTS 5.1 Surround, German 5.1 Surround (non-DTS), Italian 5.1 Surround (non-DTS).The commentary track, featuring John Coates and Heinz Edelmann, is the same on both versions.SUBTITLES:1999: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese (Only English and French are listed on the packaging).2012: English, German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish (no Japanese - sorry, Yoko), and "Hard-of-Hearing" (HOH) English and German. I wasn't sure what the difference was at first, but the HOH versions have parenthetical onscreen mentions of sound effects (e.g., (Laughter), (Giggling), (Explosion)), whereas the standard English and German subtitles do not.SPECIAL FEATURES:"Mod Odyssey" Featurette - same content on both versions; transferred "as is" on the 1999 version, but newly restored on the 2012 version.Original theatrical trailer - same content on both versions; transferred "as is" on the 1999 version, but newly restored on the 2012 version. Also, the Apple Corps logo replaces the United Artists logo at the end of the trailer.Interviews - same on both versions.Storyboard sequences - appear to be the same content, but are presented in full-screen mode on the 1999 version, whereas they are in small boxes on the 2012 version. For example, the "Sea of Monsters" storyboard sequence from 1999 has the storyboard sequence running at the top, with the film clip at the bottom. On the 2012 edition, the two segments run side-by-side in little boxes, which are hard to see.Pencil drawings: The 1999 version has 29 drawings, the 2012 version has only 26 (the three Hey Bulldog cels are missing). Has the same presentation problems as the storyboard sequence (full-size in 1999, smaller in 2012).Behind-the-scenes photos - There are 30 full-screen photos in the 1999 version, but only 29 in the 2012 version. Once again, the 2012 photos are smaller.Also, the 1999 version has a counter at the bottom center of the screen for the storyboards, photos, and pencil drawings. The 2012 version does not, and it is very tedious to count them manually.Booklet: The 2012 booklet has a new essay by John Lasseter of Walt Disney Studios, and reproduces all of the mini-essays from the 1999 version. The booklet also has more artwork. The package also comes with four mini-cels of the cartoon John, Paul, George, and Ringo, a sticker sheet of both the individual and collective cartoon Beatles, a Blue Meanie, the Flying Glove ("It's not polite to point!"), Jeremy Hillary Boob, the LOVE logo, and the Yellow Submarine itself. There is also a promotional flyer for the Yellow Submarine: Midi Edition picture book and the LOVE Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas (this is Apple, so what do you expect?).Look for the 1999 version if you want the original non-DTS English 5.1 soundtrack, the "music-only" non-DTS 5.1 soundtrack, the Japanese subtitles, and a full-screen presentation of the storyboards, pencil drawings, and behind-the-scenes photos. Otherwise, get the 2012 version. Of course, serious Beatles collectors will want both versions, as well as the 1988 VHS (which has the original 1968 U.S. edit of the film without the "Hey Bulldog" sequence - the original U.K. film had "Bulldog," at least in some early prints), if they don't already have them.

This is a review of the 2012 Blu-Ray release of Yellow Submarine, not a movie review (you can find those elsewhere all over the web). This is the complete movie, as was the 1999 release. Just to compare; this release was visually at least as much of an improvement over the 1999 release as that release was over all of it's predecessors, if not more. Not surprising since the entire film was cleaned and repaired manually cell by cell.MOVIE VIDEO: The picture is so nice it is hard to believe. Having only seen the movie on the various home video releases over the last 25 or so years, I have never seen this movie look this good. I know how bright the colors in various stills and even the 1968 comic book were, but I had no idea that the movie colors actually matched or even surpassed that vividness. All of the animation looked perfect. The only flaws I could find (specifically looking for flaws, that is) were a very few occasional wobbles in some standing images and the only light pixilation on the entire disk was during the gradient fade up from black during sunrise in Liverpool leading into Eleanor Rigby. To me, that is absolutely acceptable. The actual Beatle footage at he end was still a bit grainy, but I consider that to be very acceptable as well. There is only so much that can be done with poor quality filmstock of live action, at least at this time, and this portion still looks just fantastic compared to any other release of Yellow Submarine.MOVIE AUDIO: The 5.1 and mono mixes themselves sound exactly the same as the 1999 release, but both are now lossless audio. I don't know if they did any new tweaking or reworking for this release or not, but it sounds as grand as you would expect a Beatles product to sound, and both sound very clean and crisp. I have not listened to the running movie commentary at all yet.BONUS FEATURES: All of the 1999 release features are here. The interview footage looks pretty poor, having been recorded on video in the pre-HD days. However; all of the bonus feature animation footage, including the entire original trailer and all the animation in the "Mod Odyssey" documentary, has been cleaned so the quality matches that of the movie. As for new features; as listed on the packaging there are three storyboard sequences, two of which are alternate scenes from very early pre-production. This is especially nice because we can finally see the story around The Beatles riding the birds dropped clip that was in the above mentioned Mod Odyssey documentary. Sadly, that the snippet in Mod Odyssey seems to be the only existing footage of this, as no more was included here. There are also some original pencil drawings and behind the scenes photos which are interesting to fanatics like me.PACKAGING: Cardboard - digipack style packaging. I am not a fan of this style because it is so hard to keep these in good shape over time with normal handling and shelf-ware, but overall it does look very nice. Glad to have almost the original poster design back as the cover, but in person it looks a bit dark (not as clean and bright looking as the picture here on Amazon). Not a big deal to me, only making an observation, but it is very noticeable. The booklet is very nice with additional photos and artwork and some international poster art shown. There are also some reproduction cells of each of The Beatles and a small page of stickers. Very nice little extras for a standard edition.OVERALL: if you are a fan of this movie, this is an unquestionable must for your collection. Unlike most re-releases, this is worth every cent of re-purchase.