Customer Reviews

James Bond Blu-ray Collection Six-Pack (Dr. No / Die Another Day / Live and Let Die / For Your Eyes Only / From Russia with Love / Thunderball) (Amazon.com Exclusive) [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I use a PS3 as my Blu-ray player. I had no problems starting these disc, using the bonus features, nor did I have any problems while viewing the video, your results may vary. If you have problems, check your manual for instructions on updating your firmware.

This is Volume 1 and 2 wrapped together, it is nothing "special" the only thing special is the lower price.

When I ordered this, I was not expecting what I got. I thought the movies were in standard blu-ray cases and put in a box, but I was wrong.

When you get your movies, you have a nice 007 plastic slipcase, when you take that off you have the box (which you see in the image) and inside is a very nice "book" that houses your discs.

Each movie is presented on 1 disc, and each volume has 3 movies.

I own the James Bond Ultimate DVD collection. I'm going to assume you may own that version as well, and want to know if the blu-ray is worth the upgrade or not (these movies are over 40-50 years old mind you).

When I got the ultimate dvd collection last year, I was shocked at the quality of Dr NO. This is a very old movie, and it looked better than some blu-rays I owned (and this was on DVD!), the same is true for these blu-rays.

Dr No Looks better than the majority of blu-rays I own. Every scene is sharp. No scene looks soft, or bad. The restoration done on these has to be seen to be believed.

When you watch the blu-rays some of the bonus features explain the process behind the remastering (which is very interesting).

I must warn you. If you're the type who likes to watch trailers (of the film you're about to watch) prior to watching the movie, do not do so here. As they are almost all full of spoilers. Think of the trailer as a recap, and rejoice in the over the top trailers of back in the day.

Now on to rating the specifics.

Video Quality
5/5 Easy. Top Notch. Each scene is so vibrant, so sharp, you will be soo furious with other blu-rays sitting on your shelf, because they wont look half as good as Dr No. (even modern movies shot last year)

Audio Quality
4/5. This is tough to rate really, some of the movies were filmed in mono (and we get the mono track, which as with the dvds, I much prefer), but here we also have a surround mix to go along with it. Obviously this is not going to be as good as any modern movie soundtrack, but it is as good as the movies have ever sounded. Also I must comment, the only part of these movies that make you aware that the movie was indeed shot back in the 60's is the audio. The gun shots and other special effects are.... weak by today's standards, but it is faithful to the source, and that's all that matters.

Supplements
5/5 When the ultimate collection was made, we got the movie, then a disc full of extras. Thanks to the power of blu-ray, we have all those extras and the movie on the same disc. All this is seamless.

Packaging
5/5. If you read some of my reviews on other "sets" I really hound studios. I have wasted 100's of dollars on "gift sets" that are rendered useless when they arrive due to scratching, broke discs, stuff falling out, luckily that is NOT the case here.

The design that houses the discs are similar to the way they are presented on Battlestar Galatica Season 1 (on HD-DVD) (only these actually work, and have none of the issues that set did). Meaning you open up the wonderful book (vibrant, and full of color, I will be posting pictures tomorrow) and the discs look as though they are floating on the case. The best way to get them off is to "twist them".

I really like the packing, its like a really fancy case, it exudes style. I personally love Volume 1 more, the blue is soo suave.

Value
4/5

Ok, I can understand a LOT of work went into making these videos. But the hardwork was already done when you remastered the video from the negatives to make the ultimate dvd sets a few years back. Those videos came with 5 movies, with the bonuses, and now you can buy 2 of those volumes for the price of one of these (which only contains 3 movies per box). Or all 4 for the price of these 2 volumes (20 movies versus 6) all of which are basically the same.

Now, I'll admit, the quality is better, and the packaging is amazing. But you have to ask yourself. Would you prefer having the whole set on DVD or 6 movies on Blu-Ray. (as it amounts to the same price)

At this rate the price for the whole set will run you around 350 dollars (with amazons VERY LOW price) not retail, retail would be 550 and that's for 18 total. I guess you can guess they will triple dip Casino Royale, and make the set a close 700 dollars. I hope they start either dropping the price, or adding a movie or 2 per set.

With all that said, would I buy this set again? Sadly, yes. They are just too good. And the packaging is something that has to be seen to be believed.

If you're choosing, should I buy the single blu-ray releases, or get the box sets. I would say buy the box sets (and save yourself some serious money and buy this "collection" on amazon) The boxes are amazing, and the quality is very high, and it is cheaper to buy 1 volume than 3 discs (though I'm sure there might be some movies you do not want, but if you want the whole collection, its cheaper to just buy them all now)

Last, but NOT least, you get another bonus, that is not advertised, free tickets to the new Bond movie (actually each box has 2 tickets, so you get 4 if you buy this set) that's 40 dollars in value there.

If you own the DVD's and want to know, should I buy the blu-rays, or just keep watching my ultimate series upconverted, that's harder to say, if the money is no problem, you will enjoy the new set. If you're buying this for your boyfriend or husband, he will love the packaging (I do) as it looks very nice.

When volume 3, and 4 come out on blu-ray will I buy them? Without hesitation. Just be sure to give me Goldeneye.

Oh, if the only versions of Bond you own, are not from the Ultimate Collection DVD sets, these blu-rays are going to be night and day for you, as they have been painstakingly remastered from the original negatives (the film that was actually used in the camera) and all flaws have been removed, making these movies as good or better than the latest big budget blockbuster.

If you're new to Bond, and not sure if you want to invest in this series, be sure to take a look at Casino Royale (Two-Disc Collector's Edition + BD Live) [Blu-ray], It is one of my favorite movies by far, and easily a favorite bond film. (also highly recommended prior to watching the new QOS movie, which you get tickets for when you buy this set)

All newly released James Bond movies are definitely worth the money. Awesome picture quality, and all sound was remixed to 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio, while making available the original mono sound also for the older James Bond.

However, on my Pioneer Elite BDP-95FD player, with Firmware 3.30 installed, only 4 out of 6 James Bond movies play okay. The ones that don't play are "Die another Day", and "Live and let die". Mostly the menu doesn't load, or if it does after you select to play the movie from the menu, it hangs. Also, the extras don't play.

Seems like the studios were messing with BD-Java and did not inform any hardware vendors out there ahead of time, which is the reason why these movies basically don't play on most players.

Good news though is there will be firmware upgrades. Pioneer already has an upgrade (supposedly) but it's not available for download yet.

Let me first state that I was completely unaware of the problems with playing these movies until I browsed through the Amazon reviews. It is disturbing to constantly hear of people who paid good money for their expensive players not being able to fully enjoy movies that are expected to play on them. However, I have not experienced any problems playing a Bluray movie ever and this review is only discussing my personal experience with this specific package.

_____________________________________________
THE GOOD:
- Incredible video quality, better than what the audience saw on release date on some of the older movies.
- Lots of extras, most of them worth watching or listening to.
- Beautiful packaging.

THE NOT SO GOOD:
- The sound restoration not as good as the video.
- Some of the 'extras' sections would benefit from a 'play all' option.
- The boxes could be a bit slimmer.
- May require upgrades on certain players.
_____________________________________________

The overall impression is of quality, inside and out. The 2 boxes could be a little smaller but the packaging is exquisite. There's a transparent plastic slide cover over a solid cardboard box holding a small binder on which the individual movie disks are pages. Each movie comes on one disk, holding the movie itself and in incredible amount of extras.

The menu interface is well organized and there's is even some humor in labeling. For example, the option that plays the movie is labeled 'The Mission' while the historic promotional material is found under 'The Propaganda'. Depending on which section you may be, menu options branch into further sub-menus.

The extras are numerous and, for the most part interesting. The Dr. No disk, for example, has a very informative HD documentary on the restoration process and we get to learn who did what, why and how. Then, we see 1962 trailers, a contemporary documentary on the making of the movie, a 1960's interview with a gun specialist discussing the various James Bond handguns, even radio commercials.

The sound options include the original sound which, in the older releases is 'mono' but all movies have surround 5.1 as the default. The sound wasn't upgraded and improved to the degree that the picture was but, it's understandable. Going from mono to 5.1 surround would be the equivalent of upgrading from black and white to full-color 3-D in the world of images. The area where some of the older installments show their age is the sound.

When it comes to the pictures, the best that I can say is that you've got to see it to believe it. The restoration of the older movies started with the actual original negative, which is the one copy that's almost never touched. Once the copy was digitized as a 4000 lines resolution digital copy (Bluray is 1080) every frame was reprocessed to eliminate any possible defects from 'dirty optics', such as the proverbial hair that we sometimes see on the older movies to scratches, bad exposure, color brilliance. The restorers' goal for the end result, and this concerns the video only, not the sound quality, was to deliver what would appear to be a contemporary movie with a 60's or 70's theme rather than a 60's or 70's movies. In my view, they succeeded.

My overall rating is a solid five-stars. Just about everything in this release is superlative: the physical packaging, the interface design, the extras, the video quality. The sound is not so good on the older movies but, given the state of sound restoration technologies, I did not feel compel to remove a star because the old movies sounded more or less like they did on release date.

Please note that and I am not factoring in player issues because, sooner or later, those are going to be addressed.

With Daniel Craig back for his second turn as 007 (currently in theaters), now's as good a time as any to rediscover the classic film franchise that has become the most successful in history. And what better way to do it than on Blu-ray Disc where the films look and sound better than ever?

This six-pack provides a sampling of Bond throughout the years - a 40+ year span in fact - from the classic "Dr. No," where Sean Connery set the bar high for Bond, to Pierce Brosnan's final turn as the debonair spy in "Die Another Day."

Popping "Dr. No" into my player for the first time, my jaw practically hit the floor when I saw the luscious detailed images on a 92-inch 1080p projection screen. A 46 year old film has no right to look this good!

The main reason the films look and sound so good is that all twenty of the pre-Craig Bond films were painstakingly cleaned up and restored by Lowry Digital Images, each from the original camera negatives. The first nine films (including four of the films in this set) were all scanned in at a whopping 4K resolution, and the other eleven were re-mastered at full HD 1920x1080 resolution - a perfect fit for Blu-ray disc. While the 12 megapixel (4000x3000 pixel) mastering of the first nine films may seem like overkill, for 1080p high definition's 2 Megapixel image, the results speak for themselves.

The sound is no slouch either, with the films re-mastered in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (the original mono or stereo track is also included on each of the older films, for the purists among us). And make no mistake, this is no cheesy pseudo-surround effect. The producers went back to the original master sound reels, cleaned up the audio and re-created a truly immersive surround sound stage for each film. If you haven't seen the early Bonds before, then you're in for a treat with these Bond classic on Blu-ray.

As to compatibility, yes it is *very* important to note that some players (notably the LG BH200 and Samsung BD-P1500) currently have playback problems on some of these discs. But it's not fair to blame the Blu-ray Disc producers for the flaws of the machine manufacturers in meeting Blu-ray specifications. LG and Samsung have committed to providing firmware updates to fix any playback issues. But most of the current generation players (including the newer Panasonic and Sony players with the latest firmware applied) have no problems playing these discs. The fact is that Blu-ray is still an early adopter technology and is going to have some growing pains. But the ultimate reward to any possible frustration is the outstanding pictures and sound of which the format is capable, and nowhere is that truer than in this Blu-ray Disc set.

Full reviews of each of these discs are available on Big Picture Big Sound.

Works great on PS3, both video and sound quality are great. Though others are complaining about lack of compatibility with newer BluRay discs, PS3 plays all BR discs and firmware upgrade is easy too.

I've purchased so many versions of the BOND series(LaserDisc, VHS, DVD) and it keeps getting better! The new transfers to Blu-ray look amazing, sound incredible, and feel brand new. It's like I'm seeing these movies again for the first time. So much detail comes thru, it's eyepopping. Any BOND fan with a Blu-ray MUST own these. The Blu-ray titles are the same as the 'Ultimate' version that came out in 2006. It has the same menus and extras but that's where the similarity ends. BUY THEM!!

As stated in another post, these discs do not seem to play at all on some stand alone Blu-ray players even with the latest updates. Maybe future firmware will fix this. Fortunately I have a PS3 and they seem to play just fine on it. Honestly I don't know why I bother with the stand alone unit as the PS3 loads and handles the java soo much better.

On the actual disc quality, they offer clean, clear video and great sound! The Blu-Ray version is a big improvement over the standard DVD version. If you have a PS3 to watch them with I highly recommend.

THE FIVE STARS AERE FOR THE BOND FILMS ONLY!!! Why keep screwing us Bond fans over and over.I mean,they release just 6(random!) older films,in no sort of order,get me wrong,I love James Bond films,I love Blu Ray,but this just does not take the cake,the right thing to do for the fans is release them in proper sets as follows,A Sean Connery collection,Roger Moore,Dalton,Brosnan,etc,most fans I know would like this idea MUCH better,and also release the movies seprately for those who only want certain titles!!! Heck they even did the same thing for the DVD's which were 5 random Bonds in 4 differnt collections for a total of 20,I do admit they did a great job w/ the remastering,and extras but still? And I heard that the Blu's have playback isuues w/ certain players,a Royale mess!!! I'll keep my DVD's and money until these are released properly!!! The five stars are for the films.not the way they are packaged.

I had the same problems most people seem to have with regards to the discs not playing. After a few tries I decided to access the movie through the scene selection and it worked just fine, although if I want to watch features after the movie I have to reload the disc. Once the movie loads it works fine. The picture and sound is superb compared to the Ultimate DVD's and overwhelming compared to the original special edition DVD's. Sony has promised a firmware upgrade within the week to solve this compatibility problem and when that comes out we'll see if it fixes this. My model is the BD-S300 and with a few minor detours I can get the movies playing. Don't give up just yet, the repairs are coming. As for other models, I can only hope firmware upgrades will be coming shortly.

I just updated the software for my Sharp Blu-ray player, and these discs have all played flawlessly. They are stunning. The picture is clear and the sound is well mastered. If you are a Bond fan, you will love these, I do. But be sure that you have updated the firmware of your player (and that the firmware update includes updates for the Bond discs.)