{"id":158990,"date":"2025-11-29T02:15:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T02:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/158990\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T02:15:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T02:15:09","slug":"how-the-docuseries-new-episode-9-got-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/158990\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Docuseries’ New Episode 9 Got Made"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe newly refurbished version of \u201cThe Beatles<\/a> Anthology\u201d has been rolling out on Disney+ over a period of days this week, with a newly commissioned Episode 9 premiering on the service Friday night. It gives the epic 1995 docuseries more than just a new edit and a fresh set of paint: it gives it an all-new finale that feels sweeter than the way the original project faded out with the gradual breakup of the most popular band of all time. And fans aren\u2019t likely to mind the extra hour\u2019s worth of either added context or additional sentiment.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith the new episode about to premiere, its director, Oliver Murray, told Variety about his intentions for this fresh finale. He\u2019s the same man whom Apple Corps<\/a> drafted to a short movie about the \u201cfinal Beatles single,\u201d \u201cNow and Then,\u201d when that was unveiled two years ago. Even though he was not yet a teenager when the original \u201cBeatles Anthology\u201d first aired in prime time 30 years ago, Murray was considered the right candidate to draw together footage that was shot at the time with Paul McCartney<\/a>, George Harrison<\/a> and Ringo Starr<\/a>. The three ex-Beatles became active Beatles once again at that point in drafting old John Lennon home demos to expand upon for \u201cFree as a Bird\u201d and \u201cReal Love,\u201d songs that were added to the \u201cAnthology\u201d albums also being released in \u201995. And they even attempted, briefly, \u201cNow and Then,\u201d although it took till 2023 for that third number to come to fruition, but it at least gets foreshadowed in the new Ep9. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe British filmmaker says he gave himself the mission to humanize the three musicians as they reassessed their legacy in the \u201990s, while also recognizing that their story is \u201cmodern, 20th century folklore (that) doesn\u2019t age, in the same way that something like \u2018The Lord of the Rings\u2019 doesn\u2019t age.\u201d (The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Apple people were clearly pleased with your work on the \u201cNow and Then\u201d film, to assign you this\u2026 assuming that it indeed came after you\u2019d finished that, and you weren\u2019t working on them simultaneously.<\/p>\n

\n\tI was in L.A. doing press for the \u201cNow and Then\u201d short film with Jonathan Clyde [the director of production for Apple Corps], and the last day of us being there, I was asked to come and see him in an office in Santa Monica, and he said, \u201cWe\u2019re doing the \u2018Anthology\u2019 \u2014 redoing it, re-releasing it \u2014 and it would be great if there was an extra episode. Would you take time over Christmas to have a think about what that might look like? Look at the materials, talk to the film archivist and photo archivist at Apple and watch material and come back with a treatment.\u201d So in-between my Christmas dinners and trips to see family, I was scribbling all sorts of ideas, with a loose brief that it would be great if we could keep going through the \u201890s sessions we used for \u201cNow and Then.\u201d In making that, we\u2019d only scratched the surface of the \u201cFree as a Bird\u201d and \u201cReal Love\u201d material, so I knew that we would be able to get that in. But I really wanted to kind of go above and beyond and use episode 9 as an opportunity to work untethered from the chronology of 1-8.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe had 1-8 sorted, and I knew what that looks like .because they\u2019re doing a faithful reconstruction of it. So the gift of 9 was that then we get to go back with a more contemporary sensibility and discuss how the band felt. How it felt to be a Beatle was the north star of episode 9.<\/p>\n

\n\tI also liked the idea of making the \u201cAnthology\u201d feel a bit more cyclical. The themes of the brotherhood and the way that the band find each other in episode 1 is reflected in how they sort of rebuild their friendship in episode 9. So it comes full circle. Rather than episode 8 being the finishing point, where they break up, it was an opportunity to lift the kind of heavy fog of what was going on at the very end in 1970 and finish it in a much more positive light.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s interesting that your episode, episode 9, ends in the mid-\u201890s, with the footage of making \u201cFree as a Bird\u201d and \u201cReal Love\u201d and the promotional interviews for the original \u201cAnthology.\u201d There are no contemporary interviews or references to what came after, and it stops in time there just as surely as the original series stopped in 1970. It almost feels as if your episode could have been cut together as a final episode 9 in 1995, if there\u2019d been time or willingness to consider that.<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah. Every time I shut the door in the edit suite, I sort of imagined myself saying, \u201cRight, OK, it\u2019s 1995.\u201d And I could have gone and spoken to Ringo or Paul. But I didn\u2019t really like the idea of Ringo in 2025 talking about an interview that he gave in 1995 about something that happened in 1965. It was all too nebulous to do that. \u00a0Given that the \u201cAnthology\u201d is sort of this artifact that you have to put white gloves on to mess with, I wanted to take the gloves off and make something that had more modern rhythms or feel. But I still wanted it to feel that it was tethered to something that was ultimately made 30 years ago \u2026 I wanted to approach it thematically, where we could go anywhere we liked, when we\u2019re talking about memory or brotherhood or that kind of tumbler jar existence they lived in. But I also did want to stick to that old mantra of \u201carrive late, leave early\u201d in the story.<\/p>\n

\n\tObviously I didn\u2019t know it was gonna play out like this, but to do \u201cNow and Then\u201d first was kind of interesting. Because you could almost put \u201cNow and Then,\u201d the short film, on the end as episode 9.5m in a way, because it all tethers together. I really loved getting Paul in there in episode 9 saying, \u201cYou know, \u2018Now and Then\u2019 maybe hasn\u2019t gone away [as a possibility to complete someday]. It\u2019s the Beatles \u2014 you never know.\u201d You actually also see George say, \u201cI think we should leave it, and we\u2019ll come back to it,\u201d and knowing what happens to George, that\u2019s a very sad moment.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPaul McCartney being interviewed for \u201cThe Beatles Anthology\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple Corps Ltd.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut yeah, it was important to me that the pool of material we were working from had a time and a place. It was made in 2025, but the world that we\u2019re absorbed in is from anywhere between \u201891 and \u201895.<\/p>\n

\n\tI was excited by as well by the fact that they\u2019re interviewed in Studio Two [at Abbey Road]. everyone wants to see new Beatles stuff. Unseen stuff is always the holy grail. I couldn\u2019t believe that there was the interview of the three of them at Studio Two that was unseen. Because it\u2019s great from 1 to 8 to see them talking individually, where it was then montaged together, curated by a team of producers. But in 9, you see the three of them talk about the things that they want to talk about together \u2014 also having seen each other\u2019s interviews by then, which is kind of cool, because they start to understand that each of them saw the story differently.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRingo Starr at Studio 2 at Abbey Road Studios for \u201cThe Beatles Anthology\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple Corps Ltd.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd Ringo says as much. He says, \u201cLook, this isn\u2019t my \u2018Anthology.\u2019 It\u2019s our \u2018Anthology.\u2019\u201d He\u2019s just saying that it\u2019s all of our stories and even the individual Beatles themselves can\u2019t get their arms around their own legacy. It\u2019s this big, sprawling, modern folklore, almost, that morphs and adapts. And another reason to stick to material no newer than \u201895 was because their story does adapt. It\u2019s almost like the Beatles are bigger than ever. It\u2019s been kind of lifted out of the vinyl records and tape cassettes into pixels and streams, and it\u2019s in the feed, if you like. It\u2019s morphing again. It\u2019s not just nostalgia. It seems to be able to evolve into a very sort of immediate and resonant music for young people.<\/p>\n

\n\tSome of this material was seen on the extras that were on the extras on the 2003 DVD boxed set. Some of us either never watched those extras or have forgotten them. But in this episode 9, when I saw that charming moment where the three guys were singing and \u201cThinking of Linking,\u201d one of the first original songs the Beatles ever started dreaming up, I searched and realized that had first appeared to the hardcore fans among the DVD extras. But even the stuff that has previously been issued in some fashion was never edited together to really tell a linear story people would sit down and watch, so there\u2019s been a need for that, for decades. For those of us who aren\u2019t hardcore enough to keep track of these things, is most of the material you used for this episode stuff that\u2019s already been out there as extras, or did you actually dig up stuff that hadn\u2019t been seen in any form?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think it\u2019s about 50\/50. So, 50% unseen. But I think it cannot be understated how much work has gone into the restoration, and the work that Park Road Post [Peter Jackson\u2019s company] have done. Yeah, sure, there\u2019s a whole load of DVD rips and that kind of thing, which is fine. But the fact that this thing has been scrubbed up the way it has makes all the difference. And I got to go back to the rushes of that kind of stuff. So for the 50% of the stuff [that has been seen in some form], we\u2019re seeing familiar material in a different context. And your example, \u201cThinking of Linking,\u201d that has been properly put up. You know, it deserves to be on a premium streamer like Disney because of all the work that\u2019s gone into properly finishing off that material. It\u2019s not ideal when this stuff sort of gets leaked onto YouTube, because yeah, people have seen some of it, but they were seeing a proxy version of what it should be.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the three of them are there in the \u201890s singing quasi-Beatles versions of \u201cBlue Moon of Kentucky\u201d or \u201cAin\u2019t She Sweet,\u201d those are wonderful moments that kind of hark back to the more casual moments of the \u201cLet It Be\u201d\/\u201dGet Back\u201d sessions where they were messing around with oldies, except here, 25 years later, it\u2019s more relaxed. We don\u2019t have to be looking for clues as to what kind of a mood they\u2019re really in.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the one hand, I wanted to make sure there was plenty of stuff in there for the lifelong Beatle fans that want things they haven\u2019t seen or heard. But I also wanted to think about a younger audience coming to this. Because 9 sits outside of the chronology. So if you wanted to go straight to 9 as a kind of intro to the Beatles, there\u2019s an element of it that I think serves that purpose. And the stories about the haircuts and the boots, and an overview of just how great they were live and how inventive they were in the studio\u2026 I was trying to make sure it was accessible for someone that\u2019s coming to the Beatles\u2019 story for the first time, but yp also have loads and loads of nice bits with all sorts of meaningful story depths. The trick was not to land in the middle, where it didn\u2019t really do either of those things.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso, the north star of the piece being about how they felt being a Beatle means that sometimes that they have those great moments of pride in what they did. And there\u2019s also a lot of melancholy in it. Because I think being a Beatle, especially beyond the operational years, was probably, it\u2019s fair to say, something that especially George kind of fell in and out of love with \u2014 you know, constantly being branded with a badge you can\u2019t take off, which is \u201cGeorge Harrison: Beatle.\u201d So that all plays into it, all the different colors of their personalities and the way that they wore that their Beatle tag.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGeorge Harrison being interviewed for \u201cThe Beatles Anthology\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple Corps Ltd.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe think of Paul and Ringo as the happiest or most enthusiastic Beatles, historically. John\u2019s no longer around at that point this is being filmed, so in his absence, we think of George as the most skeptical one. Watching it, I think we\u2019re kind of looking at George and thinking, \u201cAre you really happy to be here? Have you reconciled yourself with this?\u201d And it seems like it\u2019s the George we know and love who\u2019s kind of taking almost an outsider view of things at times, but he does happy to be there and a willing participant. So that kind of reconciliation feels good to watch, I think, especially for people who\u2019ve watched \u201cGet Back\u201d or \u201cLet It Be\u201d and aren\u2019t sure how to think about the Beatles\u2019 latter days. Ultimately, it\u2019s just funny that 50-plus years later, we\u2019re still thinking about these relational dynamics between these guys, and how each one related to the other three.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s amazing to me as well that even though there\u2019s such a long amount of time \u2014 a couple of decades \u2014 where they really didn\u2019t spend time together at all, that when they get back into a room, when they go to Abbey Road and the three of them sit there, those dynamics that we identify from the interviews are alive and well and have just been lying dormant for two decades. Because when they\u2019re back sitting there, Paul is still the one racing ahead, full of ideas, full of exuberance to create. And then I think George, through those \u201890s sessions, is kind of occupying a Lennon-esque position as well, or at least filling some of that void, energy-wise. And Ringo sits there and says very little, and then he suddenly comes out with the absolute cherry on the cake they\u2019re making, which is either funny or particularly poignant. And those dynamics clearly were kind of forged in the hours and hours that they spent together through teenage years and into the Beatles.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRingo Starr, Paul McCartney and George Harrison relax on the grounds of George\u2019s house at Friar Park filming material for \u201cThe Beatles Anthology,\u201d as seen in the new episode 9. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple Corps Ltd.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s why I think it\u2019s this kind of full circle moment, that music brought them together when they were kids and music brought them back together in the \u201890s. When you see them sitting there on the grass at George\u2019s estate just playing a tune, it kind of makes me think that that\u2019s such a lovely way to end the definitive Beatles story \u2014 much more in keeping, I think, with their legacy than for it to just sort of slowly drift away in 1970.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe\u2019re 30 years out from that footage now \u2014 which, it\u2019s hard to fathom, is further out than \u201cAnthology\u201d was out from 1970 in 1995. For those of us of a certain age, it\u2019s sort of a time warp. Because in \u201895, we thought of the Beatles as being really old and far along. But they look really comparatively youthful in this footage, even as we also register that they are middle-aged men.<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, I agree. Well, I mean, it resonates for me. I was 10 when the \u201cAnthology\u201d came out the first time around. I remember watching it because my family had just moved house and it was just a sea of boxes everywhere, and they got the TV and made a makeshift TV stand out of boxes. And it was one of those moments where my parents just said, \u201cRight, this is what we\u2019re watching,\u201d and in those days, there was no TV anywhere else; that was the house TV, and it went on for everyone to watch. And I was just as skeptical as you imagine a 10-year-old would be to watch whatever your parents want to watch. But then this story of these young working-class kids who were your classic, almost cliched kids with a dream that went on to conquer the world\u2026 it grabbed me, in a timeless way. Because certainly in Britain, and I think probably all over the world, it\u2019s modern, 20th century folklore. It doesn\u2019t age in the same way that something like \u201cThe Lord of the Rings\u201d doesn\u2019t age. The techniques it was made with may age, but I think it\u2019s got the same sort of lasting quality.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tOliver Murray, director of the new episode 9 of \u201cThe Beatles Anthology\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChris Lopez<\/p>\n

\n\tSo I wanted to try and humanize them as much as possible, because that\u2019s what I think that I was most drawn to about the sessions that they record in Paul\u2019s studio for \u201cFree as a Bird\u201d and \u201cReal Love.\u201d I think they feel youthful because they\u2019re doing something that they were doing together as teenagers. So they\u2019re having a lot of fun and kind of almost reverting back to 20 years ago. They don\u2019t seem like men in their fifties, curmudgeons regurgitating old stories. It\u2019s a whole new chapter for something that they left behind when they were still in their twenties. It blows my mind that George says he was 24 when he made \u201cSgt. Pepper.\u201d At that age I was probably trying to impress a girl by making a bong from a potato or something stupid like that.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt now exists like a cultural language that\u2019s passed down from one generation to the next. And for those of us that weren\u2019t there first time round, it doesn\u2019t get old, like good literature or something doesn\u2019t age. It\u2019s kind of Shakespearean in its longevity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The newly refurbished version of \u201cThe Beatles Anthology\u201d has been rolling out on Disney+ over a period of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[104801,156,57605,157,111,139,69,466,43482,469],"class_list":{"0":"post-158990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-apple-corps","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-george-harrison","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-paul-mccartney","16":"tag-ringo-starr","17":"tag-the-beatles"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}