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Thriller 40th Anniversary

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Mister_Jay_Tee said:
I'm watching the film now; I think I'm gonna go live feedback, disect it a bit at a time:

Why do we need a J5 highlight? Everybody knows this part of the story. Idk, I feel like we can skip this, even as a context thing. It's like watching Peter Parker's uncle die.

An OTW Era montage is cool, but, again, we have a whole, documentary for it. I like seeing Young MJ and Teen MJ.

Brooke Shields appearing bothers me more than Branca. Who invited her back?

I kinda hear @Victorious now. OTW winning only an R&B Award is pretty bombastic. I understand MJ outgrowing all of this.

I'm hearing MJ talking right now, these soundbites are pretty perfect. Is this all from the 80s, some of it sounds like the 90s?

A Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' Immortal Remix Sample? Lol.

The cinematography is pretty good. Solid for a documentary.

Jam & Lewis, appreciate hearing from them actually.

Bruce Swedien shout out, that's nice.

Greg Phillinganes looks great. Reminds me of my IT teacher though.

BABY BE MINE SYNTHESIZER.

Synclavier is a cool instrument.

P.Y.T. Guitar Riff from Paul Jackson Jr.

This is super technical to my perspective. They're spending a lotta time talking about this behind the scenes work, but in the way MJ talked about. He didn't like to give a seminar. It feels, magical.

The Girl is Mine has an amazing bass sample. I love it.

Vintage footage of TGIM. Let's go.

First Profanity, let's go!!
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Paul McCartney would have been a big deal. That's funny. I was just thinking the other day how MJ got with Paul, not George or John. He wanted pop and that's what he did.

The Behind the Scenes footage, let's GO!!!!!

The bridge is the best part of TGIM.

What is that song MJ is riffing to in the studio while they talk about MJ being a pop artist or R&B artist? Sounds like Stevie Wonder. Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

MJ With a Beatles will always be a stroke of creative genius, doesn't matter if you like the song or not.

The Beat It Acapella Demo. Still good.

I was also thinking the other day, the album, Thriller 40, should've done a better job of letting you HEAR the behind the scenes creative process. That way this film can focus on the impact and MJs essence. That's one way to do it.

WBSS Demo.

Mark Ronson talking about it's OTW DNA, great point.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
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Paul McCartney would have been a big deal. That's funny. I was just thinking the other day how MJ got with Paul, not George or John. He wanted pop and that's what he did.

The Behind the Scenes footage, let's GO!!!!!

The bridge is the best part of TGIM.

What is that song MJ is riffing to in the studio while they talk about MJ being a pop artist or R&B artist? Sounds like Stevie Wonder. Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

MJ With a Beatles will always be a stroke of creative genius, doesn't matter if you like the song or not.

The Beat It Acapella Demo. Still good.

I was also thinking the other day, the album, Thriller 40, should've done a better job of letting you HEAR the behind the scenes creative process. That way this film can focus on the impact and MJs essence. That's one way to do it.

WBSS Demo.

Mark Ronson talking about it's OTW DNA, great point.
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Vintage Studio Footage. Honestly this could be it's own Ongoing Series. Just start posting it on YouTube.

DJ WBSS Riff, good point. You can do the same with DSTYGE, Billie Jean, tons of MJ's Grooves.

I just thought of that, before Invincible, WBSS was a song where MJ didn't sing his own background vocals, not counting the Jacksons. And it doesn't take away at all.

Mary J Blige, alright, that's enough.

I think I'll stop now and just keep watching. I'll do a follow up review at the end.

Grainy BJ footage, no HD, blast it.
 
AlwaysThere said:
Nothing against Ronson, but I had no interest in hearing why a random musician likes the percussion in “Startin’ Somethin’.” If you wanna show me Paulinho da Costa chatting about how he and MJ arranged it, that would be extraordinary. But just throwing on a superstar producer to say “hey I really dig how this was done,” to me, is the definition of superfluous. Same with every single other current celebrity that appeared.

Again, I feel they should’ve been saved for an epilogue that covered the album’s ongoing importance and influence.
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I get that, but it’s about Thriller. Why do I care about TikTok or Brooke Shields or BTS or the Victory tour? Mark’s comments were about the music and music only.
 
This documentary really made me appreciate Beat It, it’s always been top 10 for me but it really is that song that crosses over genre and generation. I’ve met countless people who don’t like Michael Jackson but no one who dislikes that song. He knew what he was doing with that one.
 
Really, every moment where MJs music isn't playing, or some footage isn't on screen, is just not as compelling. But especially, the music, drives the narrative. It needs that IT Factor, otherwise, it's a dry seminar. It worked for This Is It. This Is It is still the best documentary.
 
Idk, Motown 25 and Victory have both 'overshadowed/augmented' Thriller. It'd be like if Bad took a long time to talk about Moonwalker and Captain EO. Kinda is.

But yeah, watching Motown 25 as a whole showed how BJ took over. He was so efficient in that routine.

And it was another Marvin Gaye serenade right after he performed lol.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
Idk, Motown 25 and Victory have both 'overshadowed/augmented' Thriller. It'd be like if Bad took a long time to talk about Moonwalker and Captain EO. Kinda is.

But yeah, watching Motown 25 as a whole showed how BJ took over. He was so efficient in that routine.

And it was another Marvin Gaye serenade right after he performed lol.
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What’s going on on Motown 25 gives me goosebumps, what a voice, effortless. I adore MG.

I personally think Michael never did dance better on billie jean than at Motown 25 (bar his tour dance off outros of course).
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
The whole focus is explaining MJ to people who've never heard of MJ. Which might matter more in 20 years.

MJs dancing could be it's own documentary. It's not Thriller but itbis interesting. Playing a BTS song in an MJ documentary is super ballsy though.
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The way they played that side by side was so shady but also so accurate.Kpop owes everything to MJ.
 
I think different people wanted different things for this documentary but what I think it does achieve is a snap shot of Michael Jackson at the absolute pinnacle of his powers. As huge as Thriller was not enough has been said on exactly how and why it got to be that way, and Thriller 40 at least achieves some of that. Thriller really was the result of a man who dared to dream and think bigger. Someone who saw past musical genres and racial restraints, the concept of dance and entertainment and said, "no... I can do something better". It was the ultimate one-up ofn the entire music industry and it elevated pop music, the music video, dance, black culture and everything around it. To say Thriller was phenomenal is an understatement. It is the highest selling album of all time because it was the most revolutionary moment of any recording artist ever.

I think Michael doesn't get enough credit for how he evolved past Thriller. You'd think after dropping Thriller he'd keep trying to recreate that sound. But with every album he revolutionized himself and his approach. BAD was so different to Thriller that it's a surprise it's even the same artist. Dangerous is so different to BAD that the same can be said. Michael's career was that of constant evolution and boundary pushing. And as great as his later albums was I am not sure he ever recaptured that lightning in a bottle quite the same way. But Thriller can only happen once. It's an album people will be talking about forever. It's like Mozart of Beethoven of modern music.
 
Yeah. Whatever people think, whether that MJ was just lucky at this one period and lost his way, was a young genius who couldn't maintain the ghost, was a decent pop star with loads of good and loads of bad all at the same time no matter when, or that he was a genius from birth to death, everyone recognizes, MJ was special. And his drive, itself, is why.
 
Just finished watching it. I liked it! Would have been nice for them to cover each track in more detail, but I get that this was meant to be about the impact the album, its short films and Michael himself had on the world.

I will admit I cringed a bit at the TikTok part, but I get it. Despite how an old fart like myself feels about TikTok and social media in general, it's part of the culture and does reach a wide audience. Michael being part of the content on these platforms and the large numbers any posts with his songs/videos in it is pretty noteworthy.
dethorro said:
My biggest problem is the fact that they mixed footage which is in pristine quality with YouTube footage, some with the logo of the YouTube channel on it. This I will never understand. When you have the resources and the footage available to you, how can you be so lazy and use footage found online which is in poor quality? Unbelievable.
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Was there that much footage with a Youtube channel watermark? I only remember one and it was right at the start, and that was kind of cringe too. Though I guess if they had blurred/cropped it it wouldn't have looked great, either.

With some of the footage I can't help but wonder if maybe they somehow don't have access to some footage? Like if it's from someone's private home movie collection or got smuggled out of the vaults somehow?
 
I think my main criticism of the documentary is how much it circled back on itself, it felt like we were hearing the same songs on repeat a lot, and maybe each song and its impact should have been explored in separate segments and then all brought together at the end. I also felt the pacing was a bit slow. I'd give the documentary a B-. It managed to explain the importance of the album without giving devoted fans any real depth into the recording process outside of things we aleady know.
 
I just realized after watching again that it's so many outtakes yet they mentioned only Carousel...smh this was done so poorly but we never get shit so we gotta appreciate whatever they throw at us
 
Just finished the doc, here are some quick thoughts I have:

- I love that they properly acknowledged the contributions from Quincy, Rod Temperton, Bruce Swedien, and Walter Yetnikoff. They were all extremely crucial to the success of the album. To compare, I think the Off The Wall doc briefly mentions Rod ONCE. They even used audio snippets taken directly from Walter Yetnikoff's book "Howling At The Moon" (which is a great book, IMO).

- Surprised that they talked about "The Girl Is Mine" while completely ignored "Say Say Say" and "The Man" from Paul's Pipes Of Peace album. I can understand WHY they weren't talked about (to stay focused on the Thriller album itself), but they were also an integral part of MJ's success, especially since Say Say Say actually hit #1.

-I'm glad they talked about the ET storybook.

-I was expecting them to bring up the urban myth of Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo causing the studio's amps to go on fire, but that was not included. Also, I wish they included at least a little footage of Eddie's surprise appearance at the Dallas show in the Victory Tour. Oh well.....

-I love that they included an audio excerpt of Michael's 2001 Rolling Stone interview where he explains the songwriting process. However, I think they also missed out by NOT including bits from his interview with MTV in 1999 about the Thriller short film. In it, he explained that he and Michael Peters tried to find a way for the zombies to dance without it being unintentionally comical. Those insights would have been appreciated.

-The never before seen studio footage and 4K footage is great, but that doesn't really need to be said.

-PYT is surprisingly snubbed. I was expecting for them to elaborate on how it started off as Michael & Greg's demo, and completely changed into a different song thanks to Quincy and James Ingram.

-They should have elaborated more on the Victory Tour. They only scratched the surface of that iceberg. Not one mention of Chuck Sullivan/Patriots aftermath, Jackie's injury, or the ongoing tensions between the brothers that led to Mike announcing "this is our final tour" on the last night. Also, a quick sentence about the Victory album would have been nice (e.g. "It was quickly thrown together as an excuse to go on tour. Michael sang a duet with Mick Jagger, but it was originally meant to be with Freddie Mercury", something like that.

-The credits irked me the most. It's just a patronizing, self-congratulatory sizzle reel of everything the Estate has done since Michael passed away (e.g., the This Is It movie, the Cirque shows, the MJ Musical, etc). They don't bother acknowledging any of Michael's accomplishments AFTER Thriller. I'm not usually the kind of fan that automatically criticizes everything the Estate does, but GIMME A FREAKING BREAK BRANCA!!
 
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I think the lack of a constant voice is the problem with these documentaries. Most of the times they have one defining speaker stating things, that keeps a narrative thread going. A bunch of talking heads is pretty distracting.

Also, I'll never see MJ at the white house the same again, knowing my friends aunt was there too.
 
I always found it so cool that it was the Thriller video that pushed the album even further. It was done after the album cycle was already finished and nobody wanted him to do it. You don't really hear stories like that often. Usually once an album cycle is done that's it. I like that they highlighted that in the doc.
 
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