It Was Fifty Years Ago Today! The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper & Beyond (2017) User Reviews

very strange without a note...

[antoniotierno · 5/10 · 1 June 2017]

Why making a doc regarding a music album (one of the best known in music history) without having the music? This film about The Fab Four must cope with this lack and the outcome is disappointing, totally. With no access to songs and films of them in the studio, the result isn't pretty, given that the stories have been told, written and explained million of times. Things thus standing a much shorter footage might have been enough. On the other hand that's the 50th anniversary and another movie had to be expected after the Ron Howard's one but this one is only for Beatlemaniacs.. overlong also the finale devoted to Brian Epstein's death.

Listening to the album 10 times in a row is a better use of your time

[soroshi · 5/10 · 9 September 2019]

I was looking forward to this documentary as Netflix doesn't seem to have many in this series for musicians/artists. Such a disappointment to watch a story about one of the greatest albums WITHOUT any of the songs! Snooze fest..

Cash-in talking heads

[neil-476 · 5/10 · 21 October 2017]

The 50th anniversary of the Sgt Pepper album sees this lengthy documentary appear. It centres on the album but gives background, dating back to the Jesus controversy, and follows on as far as the Maharishi and Epstein's death.

There is newsreel footage, mostly familiar, talking heads telling stories (stories mostly familiar, some of the talking heads less frequently exposed), and no Beatles music whatsoever. This is usually the case with projects not sanctioned by Apple, but it really diminishes them.

As a long term Beatles fan, I watch this sort of thing in the hope of picking up the odd titbit (Barbara Donnell's story of having to step over Derek Taylor mid-coitus on the floor of one of the Apple offices was new to me), or otherwise hearing the familiar stories told be fresh voices - Julia Baird, Andy Peebles, Jenny Boyd, Philip Norman etc.).

From that angle, there is some value to this. Otherwise there is little new here.

ZZZZzzz

[franka_van_loon · 11 June 2017]

I bought this B-R for my mothers birthday and I forced myself to watch this almost 2 hours 50th anniversary B-R, together with my mother who's a big Beatles fan. After 15 minutes my first thought was, this is boring,,, a bunch of old people who seen or met the Beatles once or maybe twice. A lot of talking but nothing new is said, after an hour I got restless and thinking what a lot of meaningless bullshit, and no music. When the lead-out text appeared at 1:47 my first thought was; okay in 25 years when the 75th anniversary B-R is out, we have to listen to the children and grandchildren of these people, how they experienced their childhood with parents and grandparents who maybe once or twice met the Beatles.

Horrible

[arfdawg-1 · 1/10 · 30 October 2019]

This is one of those phony docs that cant get the rights to the music so they fill the time with news clips and interviews with old geezers you never heard of who now try to take the credit for making a classic album.

It's dismal and boring.

Music documentary with no music

[maccas-56367 · 5/10 · 30 September 2019]

You can split this documentary into 3 parts (not necessarily of equal length):

1) "Why we don't want to tour anymore"

2) Sgt Pepper's

3) Brian Epstein and the Indian meditation guy

Don't expect to hear a single Beatles song in this film. Don't expect to hear a song of any kind in this film - this is a somewhat strange element to a music documentary and it suffers as a result. In saying that, I'm such a Beatles fan that I instantly hear each song in my head without having it actually played to me.

There are a lot of obscure people featured with interviews and anecdotes here - even poor Pete Best is briefly dragged out. At one point, some guy says unironically that "The Beatles had a lot of hangers-on" . That is probably an apt description of this documentary.

A lot of the people are so obscure that I did hear some things for the first time. Highlights included:

John changing the lyrics of 'Twist and Shout' when performing live to "I'm pissed with gout" (no one could hear him above the crowd screaming anyway).

And; Ringo frantically wanting someone to pack his entire suitcase full of baked beans and anti-diarrhea medication for their trip to India.

Overall, it was overlong, yet didn't delve into the making of the album (its actual subject) nearly enough. Far too much on Brian Epstein and random anecdote filler. The whole thing had the vibe of a 1 hour TV special. Just go listen to the album instead.

Doesn't even make it to Sgt. Pepper

[tonyaaron67 · 1/10 · 19 July 2022]

I consider myself a Beatles fan and I like to watch Beatles documentaries. This wasn't one of them. It should have been a documentary about The Quarrymen. The whole documentary was about tracing all the people in one iconic group photograph containing John Lennon.

I watched all the boring talking head interviews just waiting to arrive at the Sgt. Pepper sessions, that never arrives.

Then it's the end credits.

What an anti-climax.

Just listen to the LP/CD

[bettycjung · 13 October 2017]

10/13/17. We are talking about one of Rock's greatest LP of all time, and this documentary doesn't even play any of it? Fifty years ago today? The legacy is in the music itself, not all this gibberish! A discussion of the inspiration for the songs that were on the LP would have been a lot more interesting to listen to and add to the enjoyment of the music than the reminiscing of - who are these people??? Don't even bother with this one, just listen to the LP - really.