Landing this weekend on Disney Plus, Beatles ’64 is the newest in the Apple Corps Ltd. partnership with the streamer to capitalize on the hours of footage that Apple Corps has in their vaults of the Beatles. After the phenomenal success of projects like the four part Get Back epic docuseries and the doc from Paul McCartney’s daughter Mary, If These Walls Could Sing, about Abbey Road studios, it’s hardly surprising to see another documentary. But unlike those previous documentaries, Beatles ’64 takes on a familiar subject that has been documented more than once. Despite trying to infuse new perspectives with current interviews, the film feels stale because of the use of all too familiar footage throughout.

The film starts us off by setting the scene of The Beatles’ arrival in 1964 by going over the circumstances of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Then we go through the arrival and lead-up to the now legendary Ed Sullivan Show performances and the subsequent tour of the United States that took place afterward. Sprinkled through the films are recollections from The Beatles themselves from prior stock interviews, past and present day. It also has interviews of people who were watching the Ed Sullivan performance live, either on TV or in person. Perhaps the most intriguing of those is from music producer Jack Douglas, who, along with a friend, traveled by boat to Liverpool, guitars in hand, only for British government to hold up their ship

Douglas’ escapades would have made for a better film than this documentary sadly. In Beatles ’64, editor turned director David Tedeaschi does the one thing no editor should do – he falls in love with his footage. This film’s pacing is pedestrian and the footage is all too familiar. It doesn’t even get too far into the real tour either, settling more for peripheral tales of obsessed fans trying to sneak into the hotels and calls back across the pond to keep the British people apprised of their shenanigans.

Beatles ’64 feels like a film designed and made for newer fans as opposed to the generations that have followed the Fab Four for decades. This seems like an odd choice considering none of them are likely to know who Ed Sullivan was and why this tour was so important. But those die hard, true blue fans may not find much to grab onto here with the pacing and the overfamiliarity of the story. And the payoff to Jack Douglas’ tale is quite a doozy.