Yellow Submarine

An icon of psychedelic pop culture, Yellow Submarine is a colorful musical spectacle and an exhilaratingly joyful cinematic experience for all ages – filled with visual invention, optical illusions, word play, and glorious, glorious music.

Once upon a time….or maybe twice….there was an unearthly paradise called Pepperland. Eighty thousand leagues under the sea it lay, a place where beauty, happiness, and music reigned supreme.

But this peaceful harmony was shattered when the Blue Meanies invaded with their army of storm bloopers, apple bonkers, snapping turtle turks, and the menacing flying glove in an attempt to stop the music and drain Pepperland of all color and hope. So it’s the Beatles to the rescue, as our animated heroes team up with Young Fred and the Nowhere Man and journey across seven seas to free Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, make peace with the Meanies, and restore music, color, and love to the world.

Beyond all the wonderful music, Yellow Submarine is a landmark in animation, with Heinz Edelmann’s inspired art direction conjuring up a nonstop parade of wildly different styles and techniques. From the paper-doll residents of Pepperland, to the tinted photography of the soot-covered roofs and smokestacks Liverpool, the menagerie of fanciful characters in the Sea of Monsters, the kaleidoscopic color-splashed rotoscoping of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, the vertigo inducing op-art of the Sea of Holes, and the triumphant euphony of the It’s All Too Much finale, the film is simply a joy.

Yellow Submarine, based upon a song by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, is a fantastic tale brimming with peace, love, and hope, propelled by Beatles songs, including “Eleanor Rigby,” “When I’m Sixty-Four,” “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” “All You Need Is Love,” and “It’s All Too Much.” When the film debuted in 1968, it was instantly recognized as a landmark achievement, revolutionizing a genre by integrating the freestyle approach of the era with innovative animation techniques.

Inspired by the generation’s new trends in art, the film resides with the dazzling Pop Art styles of Andy Warhol, Martin Sharp, Alan Aldridge and Peter Blake. With art direction and production design by Heinz Edelmann, Yellow Submarine is a classic of animated cinema, featuring the creative work of animation directors Robert Balser and Jack Stokes with a team of animators and technical artists.

Yellow Submarine was restored in 4K digital resolution by Paul Rutan Jr. and his team of specialists at Triage Motion Picture Services and Eque Inc. The film’s songs and score were remixed in 5.1 stereo surround sound at UMG’s Abbey Road Studios by music mix engineer Peter Cobbin. Due to the delicate nature of the hand-drawn original artwork, no automated software was used in the digital clean-up of the film’s restored photochemical elements. This was all done by hand, frame by frame.

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Yellow Submarine with us!

Presented in 2K.