Submarino Amarelo

I bet you're thinking, "another Beatles movie?" but that's not really what this is. A wonderfully vibrant and gorgeous cartoon, and a treat for the eye and ear. This is how vivid and bright all cartoons should be. Great soundtrack of course, and the Beatles make a real cameo at the very end. Watch if you are a Beatle fan like me, or simply if you want a fun cartoon. They did a wonderful job remastering and cleaning it up.

Next to FANTASIA, YELLOW SUBMARINE is one the best animated feature films ever made. We will always remember the sixties pop-art imagery along with some of the best dialog to grace cartoon-land ("I haven't had so much fun since Pompeii....""I'm a born lever puller.") not to mention some of the best music to come from the best set of musicians the 20th century has produced! This is a kid's film at heart (wild adventures in strange distant lands, weird monsters, loud over bearing villians....) My only criticism is in the re-mastering, in 1999. The song "Hey, bulldog..." is added toward the end (A scene where the fab four meet up with a bunch of the Blue Meanies' bulldogs, and defeat them with the power of music.) The scene looks hastily slapped together,like something out The Beatles cartoon series (which was hated by the real life Liverpool lads. That's why they were originally not too thrilled with the announcement of this animated film.) There is a reason why these scenes are deleted, to allow classics like this to flow so easily on the screen. Anyway, a great, great classic.

'Yellow Submarine' is a visual stunner and an extremely well-scripted movie. There are lots of Beatles in jokes, George's fascination with Indian music and John's fascination with scientific theories are lampooned, the Beatles' power is joked about ("Nothing's Beatle Proof!") and poor old Ringo is just plain made fun of. The movie itself is arguably the most psychedelic ever made. The Beatles' descent into Pepperland is just one psychedelic scene after the other. The animation isn't great, but everything is just done so strange and fun that it becomes absolutely irresistible. The colors, landscapes, and creatures are just really different and vivid and vibrant. The songs are fit in very, very well (although "Nowhere Man" is undoubtedly the best sequence). Overall this works great as a musical or as an animated film, and there's definitely a lot of priceless, subtle dialog. I would name it one of the top 20 animated films of all time, really. Definitely worth watching, just because there simply isn't any movie like it.

10/10

This could have been poorly done had it not been for a sense of quality that seemed to be a part of the Beatles and their people. This is the wonderful story of society that develops over time and come under threat. But it is not the usual "save the world" kind of thing but rather the creation of a world like we've never seen. There is a surreal being to it. It is colorful and engaging. Of course, what is most impressive is the integration of Beatles music into the plot. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is a great example of psychedelic visuals. But overall, it is a movie that never bores. Its images are striking and there is an array of the most wonderful characters.

I consider myself fortunate to have seen "Yellow Submarine" in London right after its world premiere in July 1968. I was a young teenager at the time, and my father had brought my sister, brother, and me to Europe for our first visit. The picture was showing at a large cinema called the London Pavilion in the heart of Piccadilly Circus, and The Beatles themselves had attended the opening just a few days before. It was great to see this movie on a big screen with a good sound system. We loved the music and vivid colors. When we saw it again in Boston a few months later, we were angry that the "Hey Bulldog" number and a few other bits had been cut to reduce viewing time. I think the "Eleanor Rigby" number is best. The animated montage shown during the "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" number was partly taken from the 1933 Hollywood musical "Dancing Lady" and in 2006 I saw this old film on Turner Classic Movies, instantly bringing back memories of "Yellow Submarine." The girl on the merry-go-round horse was none other than the leading actress Joan Crawford .... who was beautiful indeed in 1933, despite becoming a horror much later. No wonder John Lennon's character in the cartoon liked her so much in his psychedelic dream!