The Beatles Anthology

It's extraordinarily familiar territory, as well-trod as any moment of pop cultural history. And yet "The Beatles Anthology" still feels as fresh and as relevant as ever today in the way it presents the dizzying whirlwind of this sort of fame from the front lines.

For those who wore out their original Beatles Anthology tapes because they watched them so many times (again, me), you will be very pleased with how good this remastered version looks and sounds, and especially if you never checked out the 2003 DVD release (also me). Beyond that, there is an additional episode's worth of newish material which serves as a very nice coda to the whole project. The Beatles Anthology was already a deep retrospective worthy of the iconic band, but this impressive restoration has turned the documentary into a real treasure.

The new episode is a retrospective of a retrospective, which could feel inessential, but it’s the episode that finds McCartney, Harrison and Starr most directly dealing with Lennon’s death. His tragic absence still looms large over the whole project, and it’s very moving to see his bandmates work out their feelings about his loss the best way they know how — through music.

The series is (as it always was) an absolute joy, the intimate inside story of the still astounding rise, triumphant reign and bittersweet dissolution of the greatest and most influential musical force of our times. .... The new episode nine has essentially been assembled from DVD extras released in 2003. Nevertheless, the edit is artful enough to carry real emotional weight, with judicious archival shots of Lennon offsetting his absence from the reunion.

If you saw the original series on television in 1995, or on YouTube at any point since, you’ll know what you’re in for. It is almost the exact same thing, only the images are sharper and the sound is better. If you’re coming to it fresh, however, it remains utterly authoritative. .... Almost all the footage from the [new] episode has been online for years, so the thrill of the new isn’t quite as pronounced as you would have hoped.

What really emerges, from the new episode and the reworked originals, is a portrait of ordinary men who experienced something extraordinary. .... The lack of women’s voices is glaring — to hear what it was like for Jane Asher, Pattie Boyd, Linda McCartney, Cynthia Lennon and Yoko Ono would have been fascinating — but beyond that omission Anthology stands up as the ultimate capturing of the Beatles story.

STREAM IT, obviously, if you’re a Beatles fanatic and are looking for something to nap to after Thanksgiving dinner. Anthology has lived a few lives by now, but this updated streaming version feels clean and presentable, just like the young and scrubbed Beatles in 1964.