Becoming Queen: Unauthorized

 

Picture: B-     Sound: C     Extras: D     Documentary: B

 

 

Many people have their own ideas of the greatest rock bands of all time.  People argue for The Beatles, or The Rolling Stones, or Led Zeppelin, or any other group that rightfully deserves its place in history as a great rock band.  And one band that is always in that group of discussion is Queen.  Often times, great bands are only remembered for one or two members of the group, but with Queen, all four are remembered for their revolutionary contributions to the rock world.  In fact, one of the most interesting facts about Queen is that Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon (the four members of the band) are all responsible for writing at least one of their all time greatest hits.  Becoming Queen: Unauthorized is a documentary that tells the story of the lives of the band members before, during, and after Queen.  If Queen 101 was a college course, surely this would be the first thing shown to the students.  The documentary itself is a very basic retelling of the history of Queen.  It is told from the memories of friends, members of pre-Queen bands, band members from Smile and Ibex/Wreckage, and of course, members from the band Queen themselves.

 

Unfortunately, though, it’s almost too basic of a documentary to encompass all that was Queen.  Running at just 70 minutes, it is simply not enough time to cram in the vast twenty-year history of one of rock’s greatest bands.  The documentary, though insightful and highly informative, is simply a broad spectrum of the band’s history.  The first 30 minutes are spent covering the backgrounds of Freddie, Brian, and Roger—from when they were children to their college years.  They barely even touch on John’s background.  The remaining 40 minutes are a rather quick overview of Queen from it’s beginning to its tragic end that came with Freddie Mercury’s untimely death.  But perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the documentary is the fact that the first time any of the band members are seen in actual interviews are 40 minutes into the documentary.  That’s simply way too long to wait to bring them in when this is the story of their lives!  They do use archival audio recordings within the first 40 minutes, but it is not until the timer hits 00:40:00 that we finally see an in-person interview.  The other aspect that mars the documentary is the absence of any of Queen’s greatest hits.  However, this is most likely due to the fact that this documentary is “unauthorized” and the makers simply could not get the music rights to the songs.

 

The video is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio.  The interviews were shot on video, so for the most part, the image is clear and bright with only light hints of dust and grain.  The archival footage, however, wasn’t so nice as there was lots of grain and fuzziness to the image.  The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono.  For the most part, the audio was free of static and audio levels were well-maintained throughout, however, in some instances, most notably from the archival audio recordings of the band members, it was full of static and occasionally it was hard to hear what was being said.

 

There are two extras that accompany this documentary.  The first is a photo gallery that runs about four minutes and shows various photos from concerts Queen played at throughout their time as a band.  The second is a look at the Brian May Signature Series Guitar, which is a reproduction of Brian May’s self-made guitar, the “Red Special.”  It details all the fine points of the guitar, as well as highlights some other classic guitars made by Burns.

 

It is the pacing of the documentary that is perhaps why it doesn’t seem to work.  They spend so much time going over the band member’s childhoods that when they get to the band itself, they speed along quickly over the band’s history.  They make it sound like the band was perfect and that everything was grand until tragedy struck with Freddie Mercury’s death.  No band has it perfect, and it would have been nice for the documentary to cover the trials and tribulations that the band endured over the years, instead of making them seem immaculate.  But all in all, the documentary is a good starting point for beginners who are just learning about Queen and want to know the bare necessities about them.  After all, education has to start somewhere.  You don’t dive into mathematics by having Advanced Calculus as your first math book.  Kudos to Becoming Queen: Unauthorized for giving fans a place to start.

 

 

- Antonio Lopez