ON THE DVD: Film:
Yellow Submarine is a psychedelic animated musical featuring The Beatles and their songs. Even though a lot of the film is either disjointed or draggy it has gained wide acceptance both commercially and critically. The highly colorful visuals are just incomparable as the music it features. Many of this films musical sequences showed up as music videos for the songs some decades later.

Video:
The letterboxed 1.68:1 image suffers from edge enhancement and lack of resolution throughout, some of which might be attributed to the way it was originally animated. The image is also not anamorphic, thus further reducing the sharpness and detail.

There have been several complaints about the framing of the feature which sometimes does indeed appear a little tight on the top and bottom. I suspect the opening credits, framed at around 1.45:1 are presented in full animation ratio. I have the opinion that animated films are best served in full animation ratio, but others prefer them matted to replicate the theatrical exhibition which I suspect this edition does.

On the bright side, the video image is quite vibrant in color which suits the film well, and yet there is very little visible chroma noise or pixelation in the stark red or blue areas this film contains. Grain shows up occasionally but never distracts.

When MGM re-master this title sometime in the future it should: a) be presented anamorphic and/or in full animation aspect ratio, b) contain less edge enhancement and c) be mastered in higher resolution. Up to then this disc will do, but it could have been better.

Audio:
For the 1999 international re-release of the film the original mono soundtrack was completely remixed to a full bodied surround soundtrack. This DVD has a 5.1 option as well as a 2 channel mono option, but there's a flaw: The mono soundtrack abruptly shifts to stereo at 24:43 and stays that way until 40:38 (although the first sound effect to confirm this does not come until 41:12). That's not all the trouble with the mono track. It has been mastered quite high and tends to distort. In any event the 5.1 soundtrack is quite entertaining but quite heavy on the bass unfortunately rendering some of it a little muddy. The songs have all been remastered too, and while some of the re-masters have odd EQ (Like "It's All Too Much"), some of the songs (Like "All You Need is Love") have never sounded as good!

Supplements:
For an MGM special edition this package is quite generous. The featurette, Mod Odyssey has some historical value but is otherwise a little thin. The interviews offer some insight on the production but are also a little short. I figure the commentary track has the most interesting information on offer. The theatrical trailer is also here in rather poor shape. For this film, having a music only option is important and it is in good quality as well. Overall very nice, if not extensive.

Packaging:
Ordinary looking packaging apart from the fact that the keep case is yellow, a nice gimmick.

The standard stuff:
The menus are animated and easy to follow. There are dubs in German and Italian, presented in 5.1 presumably prepared for the 1999 reissue. The subtitles included cover western and northern Europe, but for a region 2 release it should also have included subtitles for eastern Europe which has been ignored. I would not draw any marks off, however, for it.

 - Finnur E.