![[box cover]](../reviewimgs/y/yellowsubmarine.jpg)
Yellow Submarine
When the benevolent citizens of Pepperland find themselves threatened with impending invasion by the Blue Meanies, a force determined to destroy all joy and music, they send the bumbling Captain Fred (voiced by Lance Percival) away in a magical submarine to find help. Fred, a kindly but incompetent soul, manages to convince Britain's greatest band, The Beatles, to come to Pepperland and help save his beloved utopia from extinction. Along the way, lots of groanably bad puns will be spoken, much silliness will ensue, and some of pop music's loveliest melodies will tumble forth from your speakers. Yellow Submarine owes much of its charm to the screenplay's sparkling wit and self-deprecating sense of humor, and the combination of traditional animation and clip-art montage pioneered a new visual style, one which animators -- most notably Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame -- would take to the next level in the years that followed. Long unavailable on home video due to a snafu over the soundtrack rights, the film has been reissued in a glorious new DVD edition, boasting digitally remastered picture and sound and enough special-edition content to keep fans of the Fab Four occupied for hours. True Beatlephiles will probably be most excited about the first ever stereo mix of the film's score and the inclusion of the rare "Hey Bulldog" sequence. Other DVD features include the theatrical trailer, an extensive documentary on the making of the film, new interviews with many of the voice actors, storyboards, a fascinating audio commentary track from the movie's production supervisor, and many other goodies.
—Joe Barlow
