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Thriller 40th Anniversary

Mister_Jay_Tee said:
It just occured to me they probably can't even talk about Rod Temperton's songs, or Quincy Jones. That or they just prefer not to.
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Thriller is Temperton’s so it’s not that they cannot talk about it. They chose to skimp over those “other” tracks
 
Lightbringer said:
Someone played Baby Be Mine for a few seconds on some kind of keyboard or something and was pure fire. The song is so crazy underrated, the bass is magic!
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That doc was a real SAD ass attempt. So much wasted potential. It should've been a docuseries instead of whatever tf that was that we have. I've said this all once before...they (The estate) don't care about us!
 
wonderouzmj said:
That doc was a real SAD ass attempt. So much wasted potential. It should've been a docuseries instead of whatever tf that was that we have. I've said this all once before...they (The estate) don't care about us!
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but they care about MJ






joke
 
I totally shut down for so long after he passed away that I couldn't interact with anything about him until recently. So I guess none of the stuff that folks are upset about really bothered me - I was happy to see the doc and I enjoyed learning about how the newer generation interacts with his music. A docuseries would have been great of course - then there would have been room for all of the things everyone has mentioned.

I actually loved that they included the BTS bit and the TikTok piece because I don't really use TikTok and thus had no idea he was being celebrated there.

It did feel a little rushed how they wrapped everything up. But I couldn't tell if that was just because I wasn't to let Michael go again or not 🥺. If it were up to me, none of the documentaries would ever end. So I guess I just felt grateful to be able to celebrate him for a little while.
 
Only just noticed during victory tour Michael uses both a wired mic and then switches to a wireless mic for Beat It and Billie Jean.

Wonder why not use the wireless mic for all songs? I do think he was so used to a wired mic after all the years with performing with one that maybe he was comfortable with it and even corporates dancing with it?
 
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SkyWalk said:
Only just noticed during victory tour Michael uses both a wired mic and then switches to a wireless mic for Beat It and Billie Jean.

Wonder why not use the wireless mic for all songs? I do think he was so used to a wired mic after all the years with performing with one that maybe he was comfortable with it and even corporates dancing with it?
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I highly doubt that. These are questions needed for Victory 40 lol
 
The T40 doc will be available on Apple TV to buy February 6th

I just pre-ordered so I have it. There will not be danish subtitles, but I don't use that anyway, so it's fine. No extra material what so ever.
I had hoped for some iTunes Extras, but no...
 
Hess said:
The T40 doc will be available on Apple TV to buy February 6th

I just pre-ordered so I have it. There will not be danish subtitles, but I don't use that anyway, so it's fine. No extra material what so ever.
I had hoped for some iTunes Extras, but no...
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I wouldn't even waste my money....its hard to watch that when they cut every 5seconds to something else. Poorly directed!
 
It would actually be great if they published this on Netflix so that it would reach the masses, why Apple TV which only a few people have, I don't understand the point?
 
Simijacksonfan said:
It would actually be great if they published this on Netflix so that it would reach the masses, why Apple TV which only a few people have, I don't understand the point?
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It'd actually be great if they do the entire thing over with spike lee!
 
At this point, whoever says this goddamn documentary is cohesive needs to be left alone for good.
 
I finally watched it in full and was rather disappointed.......one part that bothered me was when the credits rolled, they showed clips of This Is It as well at the musical and Immortal.......why? If the focus is on Thriller, they should've been using Thriller era clips
 
BlackAnon said:
I finally watched it in full and was rather disappointed.......one part that bothered me was when the credits rolled, they showed clips of This Is It as well at the musical and Immortal.......why? If the focus is on Thriller, they should've been using Thriller era clips
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The estate can't talk about MJ without making it about themselves somehow
 
BlackAnon said:
But why? The fact that they made it about them is sad
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Money of course.

In spite of everything, the estate does not really have an ego. They're a heartless and straight business. We have the passion, and some of the people they hire too.
 
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Mister_Jay_Tee said:
People begging for Spike Lee to come back, truly you don't know what you've got til it's gone. Can't please no matter what.
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Oh no...I wanted for spike to finish his trilogy from jump. Honestly they couldve gave George otw & gave spike thriller. It's not to late for spike to do it. Like...I wouldn't mind lol
 
BlackAnon said:
But why? The fact that they made it about them is sad
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Like I said in a previous post the fact that they put that there is sooooo WTF. That's like going to see a Star Wars movie and then during the credits they push the credit text scroll to the side and show a promo trailer for the Star Wars rides at the Disney theme parks and/or all the Star Wars shows/movies you can stream on Disney+. Like... time and place, guys.
 
I watched this documentary as soon as it became available, which was actually a day earlier than advertised at around 8:30pm.
I had been anticipating this more than any other release..

my heart sank only seconds into it when the first (of a few) profanities was uttered 😩 what makes it worse is that this documentary was made through michael’s own optimum productions. a production company he created to release the original ‘making of thriller’, which didn’t contain any swearing despite its 15 certificate, and director john landis being heavily featured. it’s disrespectful and ironic considering that the overarching theme of ‘thriller 40’ was michael wanting his work to appeal to all audiences. this further limits michael’s reach, which had already been reduced due to the profanity of the previous posthumous spike lee documentaries, which caused it to air post watershed. those documentaries also benefited from more promotion such as film premieres and tv interviews. ‘thriller 40’ wasn’t broadcast on mainstream television, but on a streaming app that not everybody had. it was already at a disadvantage by comparison.
I felt that ‘thriller 40’ should have continued from where ‘journey from motown to off the wall’ left off. rather than rehashing the jackson 5 story, it could have begun with michael’s disappointment with the lack of grammy acknowledgment that ‘off the wall’ received, and his vow that it would never happen again..
as someone whose favourite era is ‘thriller’ (particularly 1983), and who is on a daily lookout for content from that time, I didn’t really come away learning anything new. the two takeaways were how michael was given his masters and him originally wanting to do a solo tour for ‘thriller’ instead of the ‘victory’ tour. the latter was revealed during the trailer..

there are so many interesting stories that could have made the final edit. I think 90 minutes is plenty of time. it all depends on how it’s managed. the more footage I saw of ‘the girl is mine’ only furthered my belief that it was one of the weakest songs on the album. it benefited from having two big names attached to it. I personally think that ‘thriller’ would’ve initially sold even faster had ‘billie jean’ been the lead single.

the documentary wasn’t off to a good start. I was already bored🙁
I still maintain that there was a healthy balance of contributors; people who originally worked on the project, and peers inspired by it. it’s always good to hear from the walters family, who sang background on my favourite song ‘wanna be startin’ somethin’. I appreciated seeing steve barron who directed my favourite video ‘billie jean’ (I think it was archive footage?). it wouldn’t be complete without keyboardist greg phillinganes and engineer anthony marinelli, who has his own podcast series on the ‘thriller’ album called ‘stories in the room’. I appreciated his recreations of sections of the songs, but I felt that it was best kept to a minimum. his podcast is better suited to the more technical aspects of things. I thought that mark ronson had an interesting perspective on michael’s more angry/aggressive approach to some of the songs. I always love when michael’s dancing is analysed 💜 the two dancers (I forgot their names, and they’re not credited on imdb) did a great job of that👍🏽

the glaring disappointments were the comments from usher and mary j blige. ‘toxic r&b’? ‘we all love a bad boy’? it’s one thing to interpret the meaning of a song, it’s another to distort it to fit your own values. michael already made it clear what ‘billie jean’ was about. they could have even used audio reference from him. he didn’t impregnate anyone. it was disrespectful to imply otherwise. I was also offended by usher equating gang culture with black culture in regards to ‘beat it’. the short film didn’t reflect that at all. there were literally gang members of different ethnicities depicted. he also ignored michael’s crucial role as the peacemaker ☮️ this would have been the perfect opportunity to cut to his interview with tom joyner on the set of the short film, where he explains the concept of it.

at this point it’s not known which footage the estate had the rights to. or who was unavailable, or refused to take part in the documentary . I personally would have traded brooke shields for ola ray..

as predicted, the highlight was hearing michael tell his own story. it’s interesting how candid he was off camera versus on camera. he came across as fiercely driven, yet soft spoken and playful at the same time.

it was actually troubling to see him performing ‘human nature’ on the ‘victory’ tour with so much anger🙁 it only showed that he never wanted to do that tour on the first place. there wasn’t one moment where he looked happy. he was vex the entire time. I understand its inclusion due to the songs from ‘thriller’ being performed, but I honestly could have done without it. the same goes for the mention of the pepsi accident. I would have focused solely on 1983, between the release of ‘billie jean’ and ‘thriller’. it would’ve been better to combine the outtakes from ‘the making of thriller’ and rerelease that in higher quality on the updated formats.

what’s amazing is that there was never a definitive plan for making ‘thriller’ the biggest selling album, beyond recording it. vital factors such as motown 25 and the title short film, happened organically.

the album is still the biggest selling worldwide, yet this documentary focused exclusively on its impact in america (granted michael was american). couldn’t they have shown the scene that michael caused when he came to the uk to see his waxwork, in which he climbed on top the car surrounded by fans? there was also a documentary created by michael in the mid eighties, that showed fans from countries like; japan, australia, france, etc holding up copies of the ‘thriller’ album, and professing their love for him.

more could have been done to maintain a sense of excitement. I think I watched this documentary once more before deleting the app. this was far from the be all and end all of ‘thriller that I hoped it would be..
 
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