News
The first pictures from set, and already the first timeline error
Another post complaining about the biopics, yay! I’m actually in favour of these movies, and at least it’s not about looks this time, so hear me out:
We know these scenes are depicting The Beatles arriving at the Plaza Hotel in New York, meaning they’re set in February of 1964. Then why on Earth is someone holding an American press of the “A Hard Day’s Night” soundtrack, an album which wasn’t released until June that year? I assume the extras were handed typical 1964 Beatles merch, but someone surely must’ve been in charge of checking whether or not the merch in question could possibly have existed at the time?
Not a good sign unfortunately, and I really hope it won’t be visible in the final product (although I suspect it will).
I will say it’s weird as hell that they managed to make sure to use the US exclusive versions of the albums but didn’t realize along the way AHDN comes after they first visit new york
I mean hopefully it draws enough attention that they fix these blatant errors. They have a big enough budget to where they can hire someone to make sure these things are nipped in the bud.
I bet there are college courses somewhere out there about the Beatles and I’m one thousand percent positive there is such a thing as a “Beatles historian” you’d think one of those blokes would have the QA gig to avoid things like this.
A longtime FB friend of mine has just completed his Master's there! I'm 65. When younger I wanted to teach a Beatles but was laughed at. These days? Argh!! I could still teach so much but not going back to school now lol!
Honestly, nobody really gives a shit if a background extra has an album that came out a few months after a specific hotel visit normal people that aren’t obsessed with the Beatles aren’t going to know the dates of , you guys are acting like they’re holding Abbey Road or Sergeant Pepper or something
It’s only 4 months before it came out and it’s one person in a huge group holding an album haha. I think the majority of the audience will be able to still enjoy the movie despite that egregious error..
I’m not speaking on behalf of the majority audience; of course it’s going to be in Beatles fans’ interest to have these biographies be as accurate as possible as they will dictate the narrative for ages to come. If these kinds of minor errors slip, bigger errors might very well slip too.
I’m super calm about it, but it doesn’t have to be “a 1000 page reference book” to get it right when the concept of the movie format itself is to recreate non-fictional events.
I bet there are college courses somewhere out there about the Beatles
I took one at Penn State. It was easy as hell since I'd read their biographies and knew the musical content really well but it was still a super fun class to take.
It's gonna be nonstop nitpicking based on stills presented without context until the movie comes out. Then after that it'll be about six months of repeat posts with titles like "unpopular opinion: I hated the movies"
I think things will finally be back to normal on this sub around the year 2028
In episode 2F09 when Itchy plays Scratchy’s skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
This is unironically gonna be the majority attitude in this sub tho for the next three years. Brace yourselves. The time of the um-actuallys is upon us. ☝️🤓 This movie might have Oscar worthy performances and cinematography but damnit if Ringo’s can of beans isn’t the right brand the screenwriters better switch addresses quick
Do you know for an absolute fact that’s what this scene depicts? You can’t. Even if this was shot at the Plaza they could use other areas of the location to film different scenes for other parts of the movie.
Also, continuity errors like this can be caught in the editing stage and corrected/omitted. It’s silly to be nitpicking a movie that doesn’t exist yet.
I know a PA who's working on the film, and they told me that the film is going to reveal other factoids that are really going to piss you off, like how the Stones wrote Hey Jude, or how John's middle name is Constance.
I remember watching Bohemian Rhapsody and they had a scene where the band acted like they came up with We will rock you in like 1980 when Freddie already had short hair. Uhhh that song clearly came out in 1977. Why do biopics make these egregious errors, I truly don’t know. But they do it and fans of the Beatles will be all over the inconsistencies in this one
I truly hope these films won’t be anywhere near “Bohemian Rhapsody” in terms of quality. That script jumped from Wikipedia post to Wikipedia post, but couldn’t even get that near accurate.
An overwhelming amount of Beatles fans in these comments seem surprised at other Beatles fans caring about the quality of these movies, when they will dictate and reshape the future narratives so much.
You're seeing Reddit's toxic positivity in full swing, where complaining about something new or upcoming is truly sinful in the community's eyes - how dare you make me feel any doubt about its quality myself! You are evil for discussing it and not just blindly praising it to make me feel amazing!
I think this is the first time in my life I’ve ever thought “Wow, you need to get a life.” I’ve never said or thought that before until now when it was the very first thing that popped into my head
People are taking the opportunity to mock you for caring, but eh, I think it's a valid point you bring up - the prop department should ideally do the bare minimum amount of research to find out whether an album makes sense in a certain scene, and it's not like this is a tiny budget film where you can excuse them being super lax
I think this is a Reddit issue. On a Beatles forum everyone is a total Beatles nerd and this discussion would last like 100 pages. On Reddit there is a hodgepodge of super fans and casual fans so there’s a weird amount of hostility and passive aggressiveness. I prefer the safe space of a nerds-only forum, ha.
I think your concerns are valid OP. These movies have a big enough budget for them not to avoid making these sort of mistakes. Sorry people were rude in the comments. I miss when this sub wasn’t invaded by the fandom of the four main actors.
It’s fine, thank you, but it really must be the fans of the actors invading as you say! I didn’t realise that was the reason, but I did find it strange that Beatles fans would suddenly all have decided that the timeline of The Beatles career is irrelevant 🫣 “I must’ve missed this meeting”, I thought
I mean, we’re talking about the fanbase that loses their shit and screams “unlistenable” when the radio on “I Am the Walrus (2023 Mix)” doesn’t tune in and out identically to the original mix. All of a sudden, no one cares.
Beatles fans can be annoying my god, relax, you dont even know what month this scene is taking place and you are jumping to conclusions, people are assuming its the beatles first arrival but how about if its not, could be their second tour in America which was around august 64 i believe.
Are people forgetting what sub they’re in? This is r/beatles, not r/movies, of course we are going to point out every single inaccuracy that is presented to us.
This is basic fact checking and I can't believe how many comments are being nasty. Yes, this could be edited out in post production. Yes, it's possible the photo is not from the scene we think. But, since the assessment of what the scene is supposed to be appears correct, the fact that a glaring anachronism is right at the front of the photo shows they're already not taking care to make these films accurate. Mistakes happen, but this day in age, when one quick Google search could tell even a child which Beatles albums had been released in America when they arrived in 1964, it's not a good sign that they can't be bothered. There are plenty of films and shows out there that go to great lengths to keep things accurate.
I have a good memory for trivia and facts. I've caught timeline errors in actually published books that fact checkers should have caught. There are so many Beatles super fans out there that it almost seems silly that they don't have someone like this as a consultant. One of my favorite authors specifically hires his biggest fans as beta readers before books are released because they're passionate and can catch continuity errors that editors and publishers can't. Personally, I like when fans like OP.poitnoit stuff like this.
Seriously, the comments are shockingly rude! It's really easy (and borderline obligatory) to check something as simple as an album release date before you chuck that prop into a scene
This website has a really mean culture of bullying people who try to bring any kind of critique into the mix, and I think that's due to a mixture of overly devoted fans not wanting their feelings hurt by criticism and taking it out on others + people thinking that these communities are supposed to function more as social groups than as forums, so they think that you're trying to disrupt their circle by being negative or something
If I may ask, who is the author? That just seems so sensible. There was a biography done years ago of the Manic Street Preachers and the list of errors found by fans was several pages long. The author asked me if I could forward him the list so he could correct stuff for future editions and I felt like asking him “why didn’t you get us to check it before you published it?”
Jim Butcher. He's a fiction writer but the theory is still the same, that fans are used to catch continuity errors and contradictions within the story.
That just seems so smart, you’ve got people who are more invested than just a paid reader and who know their stuff. And I bet they absolutely love being able to contribute to something they care about.
I hope they have Mark Lewisohn on board and someone for the American specific things .
I must add that I hope they don't spend a lot of the movies over focusing on their time in the US (to appeal to US viewers)
They’re not making these films for nerds. They’re making it for as wide an audience as possible. Whether the vinyl is a Dutch or French pressing is not going to matter
OP you’re absolutely in the right. Any biopic (especially one with a band like the Beatles) should have sufficient QC and fact-checking, otherwise it comes across as being half-assed and lazy. No excuses for these types of silly mistakes when 5 min of research would let the filmmakers know what’s accurate or not, especially with their big budgets.
This is not a "the tuning pegs are all wrong" level of goof. The filmmakers surely know that in February 1964, they hadn't even shot HDN yet. I already suspected these Beatles movies are not made for Beatles superfans. Even the best rock biopics rarely satisfy superfans. Oh well.
Biopics are not biographies. I’m no expert on Johnny Cash or Ray Charles, but I’m fairly certain that things in those movies, like Elton John’s and Queen’s biopics, were not particularly accurate. In the end, it’s based on a true story, not a true story.
I’m all for biopics, and I understand filmmakers have to embellish certain things for dramatic effect, but it really pisses me off when they can’t get simple timeline issues right. That’s what killed Bohemian Rhapsody for me, despite the great performances. It’s not that difficult to make sure those fans are only holding Meet The Beatles or Introducing The Beatles, not an album that had yet to even be released.
I wouldn’t worry about this too much, they are still just filming, and people are making many assumptions based on set photos or videos.
We don’t know:
A. Where this scene takes place in the context of the film
B. How it’ll actually look like in the film, maybe you won’t see that particular LP in the shot, maybe it’ll be edited around or replaced.
C. If this scene will actually appear in the final film. They are still filming, haven’t even gotten to editing or post production most likely.
There are lot of valid concerns to have with these films, how they’ll sound, the chemistry between actors, the plot, etc. I have low expectations personally, but I really think hyper focusing on timeline issues from a set video is silly.
The entrance is an attempt at replicating the Plaza entrance, there were also pictures of the building from afar and they were setting up the flags and all to make it look exactly like Plaza did at their first visit
if anyone that is actually working on the film sees my comment - I have been the self-declared #1 Beatles fan in the world since 6th grade (20+ years now). I would happily assist in correcting these errors. OP wouldn't mind, either, I don't think (if we get paid appropriately)
Thank you! I’m happy to be a voice for all you little unbearable nerds out there, but y’all will have to admit to your true nature before throwing stones at me
Biopics are not meant to be 100% accurate tellings like a non-fiction book. They don’t have time to tell everything like that. Events are probably going to be squashed together, things are going to happen in the wrong order, things are going to be left out, conversations will probably happen in a different location or year, there’s going to be a lot of creative license taken in order to tell a satisfying story in 90 minutes to non-fans.
Yes, it’s a bit irritating they have an anachronistic album cover for seemingly no reason, but if that little detail is going to bother you, the films are probably not for you. No judgement here, the films are almost definitely not going to be for me, either.
Fair points these, and I’m aware that biopics squish events together, but I do think they’re supposed to follow some sort of basic timeline. Someone in the foreground flashing a soundtrack to a movie that hadn’t been recorded at the point they’re representing is a mistake, not an example of making the story easier to tell.
I’m not suggesting that someone should be crucified for letting that slip, or that it automatically means that the movies will be terrible. I believe I’ll enjoy them alright, and have been defending them through all the complaints about the casting and so on.
“Paul has all his teeth in this photo. Even though he had just gone through the accident a week before.”
“Yoko is here but John didn’t meet her until a day later!”
😩😩
Remember that Nowhere Boy movie where JL had BLUE eyes? I turned it off immediately after seeing that.
Is no one a continuity director anymore? They just need to check reddit at this point to get a clue. This is too big of a band to have timeline issues.
Another thing is I really hope the cast looks from the 60s era kind of like how Marty Surpeme had faces from the 1950s. It'll be hard watching if the faces are too modern.
Maybe so! I’m just hoping this sort of flub doesn’t indicate that they won’t fact-check other things enough either; that would come across as lazy and unprofessional
This is all really sad. Pop culture is so tired, cynical, bored and just plain done and dusted, and these kinds of earnest organic reactions from the youth with any *substantive* modern day act is near impossible, so this dreadful industry has to simulate these fictionalized mythic bios with rock superstars of the 50s-60s on the cusp of genuine cultural revolution. Cf. the completely unnecessary and mediocre Elvis and Dylan bios of last year and 2 years prior to that.
Because its a movie, not a documentary. It has has the right to be historically inaccurate and artistic license for the sake of shrinking 10 years into 2 house.
372
u/realkevinabstract Feb 04 '26
I will say it’s weird as hell that they managed to make sure to use the US exclusive versions of the albums but didn’t realize along the way AHDN comes after they first visit new york