Am I the only one who finds it a slog? I’m sure I’ll make it through eventually but it’s been a rough go so far.
Overall it is giving me a better appreciation for the group as musicians. I’ve always felt they were some of the best songwriters in history but I never felt they were particularly good musicians until now.
No you’re not the only one.
But it DOES pick up considerably during Part 2, and even more in Part 3.
It’s too bad they couldn’t have done a proper goodbye concert. It could have been for a good cause. It may be heretical, but I always thought the rooftop concert was a little self-indulgent/ obnoxious. It must have sounded terrible on the street, plus probably none of the onlookers knew any of the songs, so it would be for them a headscratcher. I like the studio footage.
Vimeo
The more I think about it, the more I think John was still the leader of the band. Despite his tardiness and laid back attitude, he seems to be the only one who really understood the mission; a live rock ‘n’ roll album. This kind of explains his rather cruel rejection of “I Me Mine”. He was essentially saying “don’t bring a waltz to a rock fight.”. Certainly George was offended, but it spurred him to bring rockers like “Old Brown Shoe” next time. Pleasing John was still very important to all of the Beatles, especially when George Martin stepped away. And pleasing John was a much easier task than pleasing a control freak like Paul. John was also the first one to realize they didn’t have enough musicians to accomplish a “live” album. He also seemed to be the only one to realize that they needed a real manager. The obnoxious noodling and oldies are probably the same method they used to develop new material in the Hamburg days. They were trying to “get back” to 1962, not 1966.
John was a more natural and intuitive leader than Paul, even when he appeared to be “checked out”.
I was kind of fascinated by the conversation between John and Paul after George left (the one that was secretly captured by the hidden microphone in the potted plant), in which John at least somewhat admitted that their egos were responsible for George’s feelings (“It’s a wound we’ve allowed to fester,” or something like that). John also seemed to suggest that he felt some of the same resentment toward Paul’s controlling nature.
I think that George was the first one to bring up the subject of paying Billy Preston for playing on the album. I hope they did pay him–his contribution to those songs was immense.
Edited to add, based on Jas09’s comment: Was it just the waltz tempo that they didn’t like about “I Me Mine”? The Beatles did plenty of slow songs over the years.
Maybe somebody mentioned it already, but what do we think about how many scenes (particularly in Part 1) seemed to be about George or Paul (largely George) trying to get John to figure out what notes to play? Just an effect of the drugs?
One part was the descending line at the end of the Let It Be chorus. John pretty notoriously hated that song, so perhaps he was just protesting in a super passive-aggressive way?
And speaking of them slagging off George bringing a waltz to a rock concert why was Let It Be given a pass? That certainly isn’t a rocker. As John once said - that should have been a Wings song.
They both made it on to the album, but neither made it to the roof.
Good assessment of all four. Ringo looks the professional, like a session musician who does his job better than anyone else could, but is ego-free. The others are artists; extremely creative but subject to the whims of their muses.
Whenever I’ve heard Ringo asked about the situation of replacing Pete Best, his response has always been some fairly matter-of-fact variation on “He had the gig for awhile, then I got the gig.”
It is, but it’s worth slogging through. There’s little gemstones of insight scattered throughout, so you can’t half-watch while doing something else or you’ll miss interesting stuff.
And John didn’t seem to have a problem with a rock band playing a waltz when he wrote “Baby’s in Black.”
But I already have a full time job.
What’s more important: gainful employment, moderating the SDMB, or watching dead geniuses noodle about? 
Are you sure those audio moments are from the video we’re seeing? The mouths not matching the audio seems a clear indication that they aren’t.
There were moments when I figured Jackson was just playing audio over some random video footage, but then someone on-camera would visibly join in on what was obviously the same conversation. So I think for the most part the video and audio were in synch.
The video/audio mismatch is partly due to raw material that Peter Jackson had to work with. The audio (“Nagra”) tapes were running the whole time but the cameras were starting and stopping at various times. There were around 150 hours of of audio and 60 hours of video. Jackson had to do his best to sync up the two and often times there simply wasn’t any video that matched up with the audio that he wanted to use.
Looking forward to getting around to seeing this. A lot of interesting comments, some almost like spoilers (but interesting ones!)
Like the old t-shirt says: “I’m only here for the harsh John and Yoko home movies!”
If there are any.
I noticed a smoking warning in the opening. You don’t see that very often.
I loved the way their faces lit up when they played with Billy the first time. You could see them glance at each other thinking “this sounds good!” The presence of a new face really seemed to invigorate them.