The Beatles’ latest release ‘Let It Be’ has been restored on Disney+

It’s a great time to be a Beatles fan and have a Disney+ subscription. The premiere of Peter Jackson’s documentary series “The Beatles: Get Back” in 2021 was the beginning of a relationship that has been flourishing and paying off ever since.

In 2022, the documentary “If These Walls Could Sing” aired on Disney+, giving viewers an insight into the history of Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Recording Studios), including celebrity interviews and behind-the-scenes access. Directed by Mary McCartney (Paul’s daughter), there were, of course, plenty of Beatles moments, featuring the London Symphony Orchestra, Jimmy Page, Kate Bush, Elton John and Shiley Bassey.

Then in 2023, with the release of the Beatles’ final single, “Now and Then,” a mini-documentary chronicling the song’s history and recording process premiered on Disney+, re-using some of the techniques from the Jackson documentary.

And now we’ve come full circle. The 1970 documentary Let It Be, featuring the 1969 recordings that spawned the album of the same name, has been remastered, restored and re-released for the first time after not being officially available on the market since the 1980s home videos.

Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s original film is the perfect companion to Jackson’s new documentary, which included 55 hours of footage shot for Let It Be, which has been restored and re-edited. As Peter Jackson recently told Rolling Stone: “Let It Be” is the highlight of “Get Back,” while “Get Back” provides important missing context for “Let It Be.”

The film follows John, Paul, George and Ringo Starr from a fly-on-the-wall perspective, without narration, scene titles or interviews with the main characters. The first part of the film shows the band rehearsing on the sound stage at Twickenham Film Studios, before moving to Apple Corps headquarters and ending with a rooftop concert.

In the years following its release, “Let It Be” received mixed and even disappointing reviews, with many linking it to the band’s breakup just a month earlier. The album had been released a week earlier, but several of the Beatles had already released solo songs, and the lead singles “Get Back” and “Let It Be” were also released and heard by everyone and their mothers.

The thing is that the content of the film itself is quite cheerful and carefree. Yes, there are a few heady moments, but the overall atmosphere is that of four guys goofing around for a few weeks. If the film had had a holiday release in 1969 as originally planned, well before the band officially broke up and as the place where people first heard many of these songs, I bet it would have been much better received.

However, after a nearly eight-hour documentary about Peter Jackson, this 81-minute original feels more like an extended preview or “greatest hits” version of a much more interesting story that falls short of being complete. Still, it’s fascinating to watch the greatest band of all time at work and behind the scenes.

The incredibly quick edit – cut from the original two-hour-plus version – leads to many great moments, such as when the Fab Four rehearse the song for the first time, then immediately cuts to it a few days later, with the song sounding almost exactly like the final album version .

Unfortunately, such a short running time means that the montage loses much of the story explained in “Get Back.” Here, George doesn’t leave the band for a few days before the other three convince him to come back. There is no reason why they are leaving Twickenham after a week – they suddenly find themselves on an Apple trial. And suddenly Billy Preston appears, playing keyboards, without any “hello, how are you?” and suddenly they are on the roof and playing their concert. It’s fun to watch, but it leaves the viewer with a lot of questions.

Peter Jackson’s remaster is excellent, both in terms of photography and sound, retaining some of the period look and feel – like the restored 4:3 fullscreen ratio instead of the cropped widescreen version – but cleaned up to work on today’s 4K TVs. You can tell it’s 1969, but it doesn’t look like it’s a bootleg VHS copy you bought on eBay, and it’s about damn time.