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The Beatles' 'Yellow Submarine' remastered for re-release

Animated film and album to be re-released in May

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The Beatles' 1968 animated move and accompanying album, Yellow Submarine, has been restored to be re-released on May 28.

The team behind the new release decided against the usual practice of using automated software to digitally clean up the film. Instead, due to the "delicate nature of the hand-drawn original artwork", the team up-dated the film frame-by-frame.

Yellow Submarine, based on the song by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, follows the Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, as they travel to a city under the sea to confront the music hating Blue Meanies.

The re-packaged film will also feature a short making-of documentary, audio commentaries, behind-the-scene photographs and a 16-page booklet that includes an essay by Pixar and Walt Disney chief, John Lasseter.

In the sleeve-notes, Lasseter writes: "As a fan of animation and as a filmmaker, I tip my hat to the artists of Yellow Submarine, whose revolutionary work helped pave the way for the fantastically diverse world of animation that we all enjoy today."

Ahead of the Yellow Submarine DVD and Blu-Ray and the repackaged soundtrack, Candlewick Press will publish a book of the screenplay from the movie on April 26. The publishers promise the book will showcase "the light-hearted wit of the film's script".