Thursday, January 9, 2014

Yellow Submarine

Yellow Submarine is an animated Beatles feature where John, Paul, Ringo, and George set out on their title vessel to liberate Pepperland following a takeover by the irksome, musically averse Blue Meanies. The film was made without the Fab Four's cooperation until they decided to hop aboard after being taken aback after viewing the inventive final product and agreeing to appear in real form in the tacked on final sequence. The film is trippy, often irritating, and still very imaginative while coming to life during many of its musical sequences, whose numbers are pulled from the eponymous album and other of the group's records (the Eleanor Rigby segment was my personal favorite). The restricted animation style employed by the film also seems to have extended great influence over the art form, with Terry Gilliam's Flying Circus cartoons being the foremost example to spring to mind while watching the picture.