It’s great that director Peter Jackson has restored “Let it Be,” Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary chronicling the recording of the Beatles album of the same name, but is anyone going to watch it?
Not that “Let it Be” is bad. I saw it many decades ago — on a VHS cassette — and recall liking it. But it’s irrelevant, isn’t it? Jackson’s own extraordinary eight-hour series, “The Beatles: Get Back,” released in 2021, covers the same ground, but better and more completely.
Culled from nearly 60 hours of footage — a bunch of it never-before-seen — shot by Lindsay-Hogg, “Get Back” feels definitive, while “Let it Be,” with a running time of 81 minutes, was just a snapshot of the January 1969 sessions when John, Paul, George, and Ringo gathered, first at Twickenham Studios and then at Apple, to record the batch of songs that would become the “Let it Be” album.
Lindsay-Hogg’s documentary came out shortly after the Beatles officially broke up. The band never fancied it — they skipped the premiere — and fans mostly viewed it as a bummer, too focused on band members’ bad moods and bickering in their waning days together. (For a long time, McCartney said he couldn’t bear to watch “Let it Be,” and Harrison didn’t like that it included all the acrimony.)
As a result, “Let it Be” has not been available in any Beatles-sanctioned form for decades. But in his statement announcing the newly restored version, which begins streaming on Disney+ next month, Jackson said he considers his “Get Back” to be of a piece with “Let it Be.”
“I’ve always thought that ‘Let It Be’ is needed to complete the ‘Get Back’ story,” he said. “Michael Lindsay-Hogg was unfailingly helpful and gracious while I made ‘Get Back.’ It’s only right that his original movie has the last word … looking and sounding far better than it did in 1970.”
In addition to the re-release of “Let it Be,” there’s more Beatles news — yes, more than a half-century after their legendary appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the Fab Four still make headlines. Beatles obsessives are very excited, for example, about “Primrose Hill,” a new song by James McCartney and Sean Ono Lennon — sons of Paul McCartney and John Lennon — which sounds like the lads may have spun their fathers’ records a time or two. Also, Ringo Starr has a new single, “February Sky,” which he’s likely to play when he and his All-Starr Band play at the Chevalier Theater — the Shea Stadium of Medford — in September. And did you read, “Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans,” Ken Womack’s worthy 2023 biography of the Beatles’ longtime roadie/assistant? Most self-respecting Beatles fans have it on their nightstand.
One person who will definitely be watching the restored “Let it Be” is Cha-Chi Loprete, whose Beatles bona fides are unassailable. The longtime host of the “Breakfast with the Beatles” show on WUMB (91.9 FM), Loprete has interviewed Paul, George, and Ringo and other notables in the band’s orbit, including Lindsay-Hogg, George Martin, Yoko Ono, Julian Lennon, Cynthia Lennon, Patti Boyd-Harrison, and Pete Best.
Loprete was 13 when he saw “Let it Be” at the Fresh Pond Cinema on Alewife Parkway and he doesn’t recall the experience fondly.
“It was a grainy print — very dark and very sad,” he said. “Before that, whenever the four of them were together, they were funny, laughing, smiling. Then you go see the film, and there was so much negativity, which eclipsed the moments when they were having fun and playing.”
Still, Loprete is excited to see Jackson’s version of “Let it Be.”
“I’m interested to see how I feel about it today as opposed to 1970,” he said.
Of course he is. Loprete is a completist when it comes to the Beatles. His collection of books, records, and other ephemera related to the band is impressive: He has three copies of the “Yesterday and Today” LP with the so-called “butcher cover,” featuring the band in white lab coats, strewn with decapitated baby dolls and meat; a copy of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” signed by McCartney; a copy of “Help” signed by Harrison; and a couple of copies of the Feb. 24, 1964, issue of Newsweek magazine with mop-topped John, Paul, George, and Ringo on the cover — one of which is signed (“Cheers to Chachi”) by both Paul and Ringo.
“My mother bought me two copies — one was to read and one was to put away,” Loprete said. “It’s one of my greatest collectible pieces.”
So, yes, he’ll be watching “Let it Be” when it starts streaming May 8.
Mark Shanahan can be reached at mark.shanahan@globe.com.