Customer Reviews

James Bond Blu-ray Collection: Volume Two (For Your Eyes Only / From Russia with Love / Thunderball) [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

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 box 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 From Russia with Love disk, for example, has 3 fascinating interviews with Ian Fleming, including one where Fleming and Chandler discuss their work and their heroes, the Propaganda sections show contemporary trailers, 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.

It was very disappointing to receive this excellent James Bond Blu-ray collection with 2 of the discs damaged during shipment because of the extremely poor packaging. Each disc is secured to a page with a small piece of foam, which easily breaks loose during shipment.

If you are going to buy this, then I would suggest you contact the seller and request that they add some additional protection for each disc.

This review is not based on the movie itself or the quality of the Blu Ray disk. Rather it is a warning to those considering buying this multipack of the absolutely horrible packaging of this expensive set. My three pack arrived today and I just open the box and was horrified at the package. I have purchased many multi packs of movies/TV shows and every other time the disks were held on a separate page in a plastic reinforced page with a plastic spindle in the middle. This set came in a "book style "package with a foam rubber type spindle to hold the disk in place. Well on disk two "From Russia With love" the foam spindle was missing!! The disk had bounced around so much it was scratched and looked like an old scratched disk !!!! Regarding disks one and three the foam spindles were half torn off and surely after one play the foam spindle will certainly fall off. Disgraceful - A pox on MGM.

As some others have written, I'm giving this collectors edition 1 star simply because of the packaging. Video quality: 5 stars; Packaging quality: -5 stars.

Foam spindles holding the discs in? Really? It is unbelievable that people make money to think this stuff up. The first time you take a disc out, you'll likely rip the foam right off (if the foam hasn't been ripped off in shipping already, and the disc is floating around free in the package). Solution: superglue the ripped foam back to the cardboard; just make sure you let the stuff dry before you put the disc back in.

The quality of the older bond movies is amazing on blu-ray, so on that note they did a good job. Still, I can't get past the complete invalidation of the entire experience of a collectors package by using these ridiculous foam disc holders.

Remember kids, plastic makes it possible. Foam is used to wrap pipes and cushion objects, not hold blu-rays to a cardboard container. So, if you're willing to try the superglue method, or you're okay with tossing the package, go for it. Otherwise, you might want to look at the individuals.

On a side note, as I was writing the same review for each of the two volumes, I noticed some writing of incompatibility issues. For what it's worth, I've had none and am playing these on a PS3.

I agree wholeheartedly with the poor marks for packaging. It's odd really, they probably spent an incredible amount of money on the clean up and archiving to HD, yet the packaging is the cheapest I've ever seen for movies. Those foam tabs are really the worst - half of them were broken or came unglued. When I opened up the first volume, two disks just fell to the floor. Quality. Not to mention that the package detail on the inside covers is minimal. They might as well have saved an extra dollar on packaging and just put them in shrink-wrapped jewel cases.

The one saving grace here for you readers who are considering buying these volumes, is that the price on Amazon is way lower than buying at stores. Had I not made an impulse buy and got these for $45 instead of $75, I'd feel better. Then again, I did use gift cards. ;-P

Otherwise, the actual movies are incredible... the clean up really brings the older Bond films to life and the color and detail really pop. On my 46" 1080p they look fantastic! Audio is of course likewise excellent. commentary and extras are pretty informative as well.

Packaging drops this from a 5 to 4 star rating IMO. All in all though, the movies are the product and they are excellent.

I will skip the content reviews as we all know what is to be seen, that just leaves how it looks and sounds. The quality of the Blu transfers are very well done, the colors, content lines, and saturations all were transcribed eloquently. There were no blurs, no grain, no artifcats - all in all a pleasure to watch all these years later.

The sound was brought across ok (and I love anything DTS), but the limitations of the time seem to filter through in a variety of scenes. The music overwhelms some scenes and the mix was obviously dubbed wrong at certain moments but that once again was original mixing issues.

The special features are endless and can give any Bond fan hours of enjoyment that have not been on other sets before. The menu navigation was actually flawless and can be up to 7 selections deep with some of the special features.

The detractor though - an incredible list of flubs on the case. They used a cheap cardboard book sleeved in a flimsy plastic/glued outer paper...with - prepare yourself - moronic chair leg fobs glued to the cardboard pages to hold each disc. That designer needs to be FIRED. Each of my customers' sets (including mine for the store) had loose discs. Each set has lasted only one to two uses before the remaining glued fobs just fall apart or stay attached to the disc. Essentially - the cases are totally useless; I would highly recommend using your own storage system.

Overall - the movies look great but the packaging is a laundry list of problems, I went to the local Costco and listened to all 40 sets they had on the floor and each one had loose discs (mind you I gently listened). The quality of the pics have impressed customers to where they are even noticing the vibrant color of the actor's eyes; but also one little problem came up I was not expecting - nudity. The clarity is so crisp that you notice a naked breast before the pool scene that could not be seen before and in the bedroom scene with the blonde girl...a customer complained because they noticed it as I was playing it in the store. Oh well...

I bought the first two sets of James Bond on Blu-ray, but for some reason one movie,
"For Your Eyes Only", doesn't play on my Blu-ray machine even though I do have the latest software updates. I had no problems playing any of these though on my friend's PS3.

I do have one small beef also with the packaging. I like the book format inside, and the design of the aperture box, but the use of foam centers to hold the discs seems a bit lame, and I wonder how long it will be before these centers pull off.

All of the other movies that do play are fine and enjoyable to watch in Blu-ray.

I am happy to say I own these three films on Blu-Ray. The picture and sound quality are AMAZING and proof that the back cover's claim is true (Blu-Ray was Made for Bond!). However, the packaging is HORRID. It feels very cheaply made, and very cardboard. One slight bend and -boom-. Also, I couldn't get FYEO off the spindle without ripping the foam holder off. Really, Fox? this is what you can come up with best? I know it may be cheaper and eco-friendly, but still. It's bad packaging. And although it may be more expensive, just buy the discs seperately. At least you aren't fighting to get the disc off the cardboard.

When it works, the picture quality is great. However, I have experienced issues getting the movie to play at all. I have now tried the discs on three different blu-ray players. They worked great with one player (unfortunately not mine) but could not get past the menu on the other two. This issue has been raised in other comments and I wish I had paid more attention before purchasing.

These compatability issues, though iritating, are a format liability issue that will hopefully end soon. I am not sure why continuing to update would be necessary indefinitely. What I really don't like about this set is that the packaging itself presents problems if you someday hope to have a nice, clean, uniform Bond set someday. There are no hardcases for individual disks like the old DVD Bond collections. The outer case is kinda cool with slipcase, sorta fake leather texture and a nice multi-layer look into a pipe with a bond figure. However, once you open up the booklets, the holder for the discs is very cheap with just a foam knob pasted to the cardboard itself which will undoubtedly fall off over time. What one also must understand is that there are at least one or two bond films not licenced through the same studio so you are guaranteed that you will not be able to collect all the films in a similar set. The packaging will be simple blu cases on those most likely. Depending on your preferences, you should just go with the single cases to start with. For a short time after the release, you are going to get those free movie tickets(QOS)on each box anyway as long as you buy from a reputable dealer.