Customer Reviews

James Bond Blu-ray Collection: Volume One (Dr. No / Die Another Day / Live and Let Die) [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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.

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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 boxe could be a bit slimmer.
- May require upgrades on certain players.
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The overall impression is of quality, inside and out. The box 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 3 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 compelled 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.

There will always be debates on who makes the best Bond, and this trilogy gives you a sampling of three strong contenders spanning 40+ years of Bond: Sean Connery in "Dr. No" - the film that started it all, Roger Moore in his first turn as Bond, "Live and Let Die" and Pierce Brosnan as 007 in "Die Another Day" the final film before the series "re-boot."

When I put the "Dr. No" Blu-ray Disc into my player for the first time, my jaw hit the floor. The luscious detailed images that appeared on a large 1080p projection screen looked more like a movie made last year than one made in 1962. The main reason the films look so good is that all twenty of the pre-Craig Bond movies were cleaned up and restored with great care by Lowry Digital Images, using the original camera negatives. The first nine films (including "Dr. No" and "Live and Let Die" from this set) were all scanned 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). The producers went back to the original master recordings, cleaned up the audio and created a truly immersive surround sound stage for each film. If you haven't seen the early Bond movies before, then you're in for a treat with these Bond classics on Blu-ray.

As to compatibility, it is important to note that some players (notably the Samsung BD-P1500 and LG BH200) do currently have playback problems on these discs. It's important to know that if you own one of these players. But this should not be a reflection on the software, just because the player manufacturers have improperly implemented the Blu-ray specifications. Also, LG and Samsung have committed to providing firmware updates to fix any playback issues with these titles. Also, most of the current generation players (including the newer Panasonic and Sony players with the latest firmware applied) have no problems playing these discs.

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

I was hesitant to purchase this set because of the complaints about poor packaging. However, I just received Vol 1-3 and the packaging is completely professional, with each disc in an individual, hard-plastic case. No `foam' packaging here - I guess MGM responded to the quality complaints.

You've read (or are about to read) about the ridiculous foam holder for the discs and the high quality of the movies. I just tried two of the three movies on two different Blu-ray players in my house that play every Blu-ray I throw at them, except for the two Bond movies from this collection. One is a high-end Panasonic and the other a PS3. The PS3 at least got to the menu. But when I selected "Mission" to start the movie, the PS3 tried to play the movie but returned to the top-level menu. I then installed the latest update on the PS3 (V. 3.01) that was just released and now the two movies play. It seems it takes the latest firmware update to ensure that ALL (some do play, others don't) will play in a PS3 player. I don't know if once I update the Panasonic the movie will play. Clearly there is an encoding error. It takes smart enough firmware to decode the faultily encoded discs. A total pain in the butt and should have been unnecessary.

You cant do any better than this. If you are a Jemes Bond fan, you will really enjoy the quality of this set. Each of the movies in this set have been remastered and are super clean. There are no artifacts or dirt of any kind. The films themselves have been cleaned from top to bottom. The sound really rocks also. Although the films in this set range from Connery, Moore and Brosnan some 40 years apart, they all look awesome. Of course the older Bond movies are dated, but they look great. Very sharp and clean. The colors are nice and bright. The fleshtones are right on the spot. There are amazing details that you may have never noticed in the past. The blacks are nice and deep, the daytime scenes are vivid and sharp. Alway's in focus even on closeups. Great facial details as well as background shots. The audio on all of these disks are remastered also. They really rock your sound system. Some are better than others, but they all do a great job. These 3 titles are a great example of how Blu-Ray can show off it's stuff on a 1080P monitor.

There are a ton of extras on these titles. You will spend hours going through them all. The menus are very cool looking and easy to navigate through. I had no problems whatsoever.

As for the movies themselves. Everyone has their own opinions on that one. I love Dr. No and Live And Let Die. These classics have never looked better. Worth every penny for the 007 fan out there. The restoration job is second to none. A+ to MGM! Now lets see volumes 3 and 4 please!

This collection is a continuation pack of my favorite James Bond movies, on CD, plus they play great on my Blu-ray.

I love all the Bond flicks,but I'm puzzled as to where the other movies are. I've been waiting several years now for them on Blu-Ray. Has anyone else? What's the hold up and who needs to be contacted?

Yet another MGM Blu-Ray three pack, this collection is almost worth buying separately...

For you get the first- and one of the best 007 adventures 'Dr No'- and also Roger Moore's first and best outing, 'Live and Let Die'. Unfortunately Pierce Brosnan's last film, 'Die Another Day' comes with it.

Well, as MeatLoaf once sang, 'Two out of three ain't bad'.

'Dr No' is a terrific transfer; despite it's low budget the restoration, lovingly done, is pitch perfect. Not much in the way of supplemental, though. Moore's opus 'Live and Let Die' is also superbly restored, it is also one of the most entertaining films in the series. Poor Pierce Brosnan; history will not be kind to most- if not all of his efforts.

Not his fault; he hands in a solid performance done in by Halle Berry's godawful one and some really silly effects shots. But it is cringeworthy in more than one instance, and it underscores just how much the series improved with the Dan Craig efforts.

But seeing that all of the adventures are NOT available- yet- in Hi-Def, then it makes the lesser efforts still marginally worth owning...

One of the better collections I've seen of the 007 series. I particularly like the fact each 3 set includes one each of the more popular Bond actors, Sean Connery, Roger Moore & Pierce Brosnan. 007 is always enjoyable to watch on a lazy afternoon and these packages make up a good assortment to view. They've done an excellent job of remastering the old movies into excellent blu-ray content! Moving them to wide screen with improved audio and video make these movies a great purchase!

I'm old enough to remember Goldfinger and the other early Bond movies in the theatre. And let me tell you, they are better on this Blu-Ray release than they were on the big screen! Amazing video clarity and decent sound (at least for Dr. No). We had many of the bond films on DVD, but we will be buying all of them on BD as they come out, if they are this good.