Very Disappointing...
If you are a fan, there is very little in this.
I guess it's pretty much what you would expect of a Disney+ documentary...
It was billed as if it would provide significant new videos and materials but I was previously familiar with about 95% of the interviews, vignettes and anecdotes. This documentary is for the casual fan who is unfamiliar with the history.
It was interesting to see Mike Love become so emotional at being completely estranged from Brian Wilson the last few years. I guess Wilson’s daughters have terminated that relationship now that he’s under a conservatorship. It was also disconcerting to see Wilson capable of articulating only two or three sentences to contribute to the documentary. He also looked incredibly frail and incapacitated in the final scene where the group reunited at the beach where they shot their first album cover. And by the way, that reunion ending was a complete non-event compared with how Disney marketed it. It turned out to be a 15 second clip of them toasting champagne glasses with zero dialogue.
I was also disappointed at how fleeting the coverage was of so many of their fantastic post-heyday albums like Holland and Friends and Sunflower. The 50th reunion concert and the That’s Why God Made the Radio album are completely omitted which is a crazy oversight.
Yeah, I agree with pretty much everything you said there.
I've got a DVD documentary, Endless Harmony, from about twenty years ago now and this seemed to add nothing new to that. In fact I think it was less as they didn't even bother covering the deaths of Dennis and Carl.
And like you, virtually nothing on the brilliant post Smile albums. I paused it and saw there was eighteen minutes left of the entire run time when they flashed through the album covers of some of those that I'd liked to have heard a bit more about.
Would loved to have seen some stuff on Brian's work on Beach Boys Love You as well but nothing...
And again re Dennis and Carl, it's crazy that they could make a Beach Boys documentary and only actually passingly note that they'd died at the end!
As you said, for a very casual fan who hadn't bothered watching any of the previous documentary stuff about them.
Until you said it, I didn’t even realize how nonexistent the coverage was re the deaths of Carl and Dennis. And I’ve seen some great vids on YouTube about Carl’s final performance that could have been used here.
I’ve recently started to come around to the crazy Love You album. There are some great and creative songs there. It would have been fantastic to hear Mike Love talk about the making of that album and his willingness to support Brian’s efforts there after Love has taken so much criticism for not being on board for some of the avant-garde Pet Sounds and Surf’s Up things Brian was trying.
Love You is right up there for me.
Not sure how much is nostalgia, as I'm pretty sure Mona is the first Beach Boys song I ever heard (imprinted on me from a kids Christmas party at my old man's work) and from playing Honkin' Down The Highway, Solar System and Airplane to FootOfDavros Jnr when they were little!
But there's something about it - I just love Brian's knackered voice combining with the synths and the brilliant baselines. It's raw, impassioned and somehow seems true of his spirit. And I genuinely think I Bet He's Nice is one of their all time greats...
And you're right, they had Mike Love (and Al and Bruce) they could have been asking about this era. It would have been interesting but I guess into the Eugene Landy stuff - again something else they just completely ignored!
I agree with all of this. I try to watch these in the viewpoint of someone not familiar with their story. I thought they might have touched on Sunflower and how it brought back some of the Pet Sounds magic. And there was really nothing about their reunion 10 or 12 years ago. The show was winding down and I thought "Did I miss something? Nothing on Dennis drowning or the loss of Carl or the movies that were made about the BB and Brian?
Well it's Disney. There were some good moments like when Mike got choked up talking about Brian.
Yeah, I initially thought that was quite a moving moment as well. But then it then just instantly showed them all reunited! Ruined the moment and made me question if it was just fake.
The guy said something like - If you could see Brian what would you tell him? And Mike tearfully replies - I'd just tell him I love him.
And then (I think it may have literally been the next scene) it shows them reuniting on the beach!
Agreed re Sunflower. They should definitely have covered more around the Surfs Up, Sunflower and Holland albums. I get that time is limited but really what was in this for the documentary makers? Aren't you supposed to try and make something that hasn't been done before rather than just treading over the same stuff?
I get that moving on past the 60s wasn't so commercially successful but for some fans, these albums are still revered decades later. But they didn't even really touch on that.
Ridiculously I read something where the director was quoted saying something about how excited he was to include stuff about Bruce Johnston playing Pet Sounds to Lennon and McCartney because "no one knows that story"...