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Thriller 40th Anniversary

Whatever said:
this shi wont let me put in either of my credit cards, saying the month and year are invalid for both smh
nah im straight up pirating this shit i tried! 😂
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that happened to me too!!!!!! that why i couldnt watch it
 
I didn't even like them speaking at length on the Pepsi Burn tbh. It was another downer moment that wasn't entirely relevant, though obviously it is. It's just another sad tiding. But it would Garner sympathy obviously.

Just a further reminder it's about the broader MJ story.

And yeah, I can see why people would dislike the end credits, though it doesn't exactly bother me. They need to make the other documentaries accessible first though.
 
Zack44 said:
-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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OMG yeah I thought that was so weird how during the part of the credits they played this promo video for the other Estate projects off to the side. It was so WTF.
 
dam2040 said:
If your expectations are in check this was quite good indeed.

Plenty of new footage & a good focus on MJ for the general public to be aware of his contributions and not the “it’s all Quincy!” bull.
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I agree. It was pretty good in giving Michael his credits for his composing and writing on Thriller. It showed the general public that Michael brought in the demos Billie Jean, WBSS and Beat It and what worlk-ethics Michael had. I liked the talk about Motown 25-show. It gives a young audience a glimpse how special it was. I also find nothing wrong with showing how influenced Michael other artists. I think it is impressing how much BTS does include Michael`s move in their preformances. So it is kind of important to show it comes from Michael.
 
MJbr2 said:
I'm pretty damn sure the Motown 25 footage is one of the zillion AI remasters on YouTube with washed out, blue-ish colors.
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Yeah I think you’re right, I mean a one year delay and you still use youtube footage. Unbelievable.
 
dam2040 said:
Plenty of new footage & a good focus on MJ for the general public to be aware of his contributions and not the “it’s all Quincy!” bull.
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Honestly, this kinda went over my head as I’ve already internalized it, but you’re right. The emphasis on MJ’s creative genius and his contributions to the album was awesome and long overdue.
 
K so I have not seen the doc yet but I keep seeing BTS popping up. BTS like the k-pop band or does BTS stand for something else that I'm not aware of? Can someone please tell me? Thanks in advance : )
 
@mjfanatic777 said:
K so I have not seen the doc yet but I keep seeing BTS popping up. BTS like the k-pop band or does BTS stand for something else that I'm not aware of? Can someone please tell me? Thanks in advance : )
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BTS has also been used in this thread as an abbreviation for “Behind the scenes” so it’s both that and BTS (the K-pop group)
 
My thoughts:

THE GOOD:
- the studio footage was for me the highlight of the doc. We never really see Michael in the studio creating or recording (aside from the childhood clip, and if you wanna count the footage they shot for Just Good Friends and IJCSLY); but we never see him create these songs and that was mind-blowing to see
- the Victory tour footage in HQ was fantastic, that goes without saying, it's use was great although I believe they could have given us more on the tour itself, and what effect it had afterwards but, oh well.
- the way we got to really feel the impact of the album was great as well, you really begin to understand the magnitude of the record, although I'm not certain it was ever mentioned the fact that it's sold over 100 million - which, you'd think they would
- giving Michael his credit for the songwriting and composing was awesome, I feel like that's been thrown aside in the grander scheme of his career, so it was nice to see them focus on his ingenuity as a composer
- also highlighting his genius vision for the album, and especially the Thriller video. All moments that vastly helped the viewer really understand how much of a visionary he was
- to keep going off that last point, you really leave the film with a greater respect for Michael as an artist that I didn't get from the Bad and OTW docs
- I wanted to listen to the album after watching this, they really make the hype around not only MJ himself, but his music

THE BAD:
- The scenes felt mashed together, and very out of order:
- the BTS and TikTok stuff shoulda been at the end to highlight the albums lasting impact. Also, IDK maybe mention all the mainstream artists that reference and pay tribute to MJ such as: Drake, the Weeknd, Bruno Mars, Beyonce, Rhianna, Kanye (hot topic I know), Jay-Z
- scenes felt like they were shuffled around, at one point we're talking about Billie Jean then we jump right back to WBSS,
- you can tell scenes were cut because; it was definitely a longer doc than what was released
- outside of the film footage for the thriller video/making of, victory tour, and the studio footage, just about EVERYTHING ELSE looked like it got downloaded off "youtube to mp4", I know for a fact there is a 4k scan of the pepsi commercial, theres a high quality tape of the Motown show, the ET tonight interview has been out in great quality for some time -- and they ALL got that AI upscale-cartoony look to them
- unpopular opinion: the lack of perspective from Quincy Jones kinda hampered it a little bit. I know they woulda had to ask for his permission to a) interview him (which he'd probably shoot down) or b) use archival footage (which he'd probably also shoot down) so I can't fault the director there but some more about what he did for the album might have been nice, regardless of how we feel about him now.
- it didn't go enough into the song production, as someone else said, the PYT demo being almost an entirely different song, Starlight to Thriller, talking about Billie Jean, or the other Paul McCartney tracks they did together; that would've been nice
- the hair-fire scene was really sad but they kinda moved on really fast; they made a passing mention but a little more on the event that started his drug addiction, which ultimately killed him would've been better, IMO
- the last 20 minutes felt rushed, like they had a time limit. This would have been great as a limited series with like 2-4 episodes:
1. his anger and determination after off the wall/ quick backstory/beginning production of the album
2. production of the album/ initial release/ beat it and billie jean films/motown 25
3. motown 25 aftermath/ thriller/ awards/ pepsi contract and incident
4. victory tour/ what happened after this era (what else he accomplished in his career)
- there should've been a passing mention of Thriller 25 in 2007, the song hitting top 10 in 2022
- Why weren't any Jackson family members interviewed? I feel like even if you want to use the "MJ wanted to separate himself from the Jacksons" narrative, that you should still interview them. They lived with him during his apex as an artist, surely one of them would have something interesting to say?

It sounds like I have a lot of complaints but I did enjoy it for the most part. It was created with the intent to capture Michael's visionary talent that nobody will ever be able to re-capture - it did just that, and I enjoyed it. However, some missing interviews, lack of discussion of "post-thriller success" and some washy editing bring it down a bit.
 
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