Yellow Submarine
1968 Directed by George Dunning
Synopsis
Nothing Is Real.
The Blue Meanies take over Pepperland, draining it of all its color and music, firing anti-music missiles, bonking people with green apples, and turning the inhabitants to stone by way of the pointed finger of a giant white glove. As the only survivor, the Lord Admiral escapes in the yellow submarine and goes to London to enlist the help of the Beatles.
Genres
Popular reviews
More-
I am the ego man, goo goo ga choo.
-JohnIf you're going to watch an animated musical featuring The Beatles it would probably help if you're a fan of their music. That's nothing unique to this film though, whether or not you like the music in any musical is going to effect your viewing experience.
The movie's characters and character designs are extremely charming and The Beatles themselves are constantly poking fun at themselves. There's a scene where Ringo ends up ejected from the Yellow Submarine and the group's first instinct is to figure out how to go on without him (Learn to sing trios) before Paul finally interjects with "Naw, let's save the poor devil".
The animation borrows…
-
A ramped-up version of a Saturday morning cartoon featuring animated likenesses of The Beatles and their music? How good could it be?
It could be quite fantastic, actually.
Yellow Submarine was like a present we gave ourselves at the end of the Sixties, preserving as it does the things that were right about the period - optimism, idealism, irreverence, and an innocent faith that Art could make all things right - and none of the negatives. Even past such philosophical frippery, Yellow Submarine was also important historically, proving as it did that an animated film did not have to slavishly ape Disney movies to be successful.
This is all-ages entertainment at it's finest - bright colors and exciting story for the kiddies, and bright colors and Joycean wordplay for the adults. A classic win-win.
-
I judge people by what they say about The Beatles.
-
The plot for YELLOW SUBMARINE could be written on the back of a stamp but that doesn't matter. This film is all about the imagery, a psychedelic torrent of colour, ideas and visual puns. Just let yourself go with the flow and you'll realise that THIS - not 2001 - is really The Ultimate Trip.
-
Watching yellow submarine now is a peculiar experience for me. It has probably been about 10 years since I last saw it, and despite this being the first time I have seen it as an 'adult' it was a film that was on a good rotation for me as a child, so I am very familiar with it... or so I though.
The film itself is in no way suitable for children, what on earth were my parents thinking?! Near the start of the film you have Ringo making a joke about jumping in the river because he is miserable, preceded by a bleak outlook in Liverpool at the time. When we get on the Yellow submarine we have surreal…
-
My brain hurts!
I want to love this but I've never loved the Pythony psychedelic animation style, even in such a creative pioneering form as it is here, and in the remastered version all the bright colours and busyness set my information-overload short-circuit warning lights flashing.
As a kid, whilst I never found much of it pretty, it didn't have the same effect: there were boring bits, and fascinating bits that reminded my of the cover of my mum's copy of Days of Future Passed by The Moody Blues and of Edward Lear drawings.
It has a stronger script than the two previous full-length Beatles films, subtle puns, references to Einstein and quite probably aspects of contemporary culture I haven't…
Recent reviews
More-
I judge people by what they say about The Beatles.
-
Another of my favorite movies.
-
way to go, Ringo.
-
Well, that was a trip fest, was expected more songs thou, but the animation. WTF?
-
First time I viewed this movie it made me violently sick.
-
Its complete Beatlesness is overwhelming, even without the actual voices of the Beatles.
Extremely beautiful in most places, this most psychedelic of animations is an experimental rocky ride.
You can tell the animators lay around listening to Beatles tunes to get in the mood. -
I found this excruciating to sit through and let myself drift in and out of sleep to protect my eyes from its ugliness.
Next time I'll take a megaton of drugs first.
-
personally i'm pretty allergic to this, except for the Beatles songs.
-
Delightful.