The footage was shot for the Let It Be documentary, which was released in 1970. Some of the outtakes were bootlegged over the years. A lot of it is boring footage of the Beatles running through old 50's standards for a few seconds before playing something else, or jamming -- badly -- for what feels like an eternity. So it's not all gold, far from it.
It was never forgotten, but the Let It Be movie was always thought of as sort of boring, plus it showed the band not getting along so the solo Beatles were not overly keen on releasing it again or doing anything new with it.
Yup, this is all very much on point.
Even as a huge Beatles fan -- and I do think they're the greatest pop rock band of all time, it's not even close -- I acknowledge that it's very much of a "greater than the sum of its parts" situation.
Get Back is fantastic in that it shows both their greatness but also a shit ton of their shortcomings:
- As
K
Kreen101
said, they were not a jamming band. They sucked in that regard. Partially because...
- .... they were not the greatest instrumentalists. None of them were anywhere close to virtuosic on their instruments. One possible exception was Paul being a FANTASTIC bass player.
- John and Paul had fantastic songwriting ability. But it was raw, and George Martin did an exceptional job shaping their songwriting into something that could be put on a record. Martin is not involved in Get Back -- and it definitely shows.
- They were not a great live band. They might have had some decent concerts during their Beatlemania years, but becoming a studio band during their prime output shows. They're not terrible, but they're far from, say, The Who, who I consider to be *the* standard/god-tier of live rock and roll acts.