Customer Reviews

The James Bond Collection, Vol. 1 (Special Edition)

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Before I even get started I want to make one thing perfectly clear; I am not writing this review based on the bond movies. In my humble opinion The James Bond series is magnificent, some movies are better than others but overall this is action and adventure at its best. 007 is my favorite super hero of all time and I hope the Bond legacy lives forever.

Now that being said; what [is going on]!. Are you kidding me? This is what we get? Seven movies? That's it? My problem is with the boxed set. There have been 21 Bond Movies to date, they took 7 of them at random and stuck them together in a cardboard box and they call this a collectors set. Has anyone seen the collectors set they have in England? Its freaking gorgeous. It has all the movies in order from Dr. No to The World is Not Enough, plus a bonus DVD about the making of die another day and it's all beautifully presented in a chrome metal collector's box complete with artwork and many extras. If you have not seen it you can take a look at it on Amazon's UK site but don't buy it because it is region 2 and won't work on American DVD players.

Why don't we have a set like that? ...

This collection includes various Bond movies from four of the actors that have played James Bond in the "official" Bond movies, which excludes "Never Say Never Again." My only complaint about the three collections is that the movies are not in order. I have all three sets because I like Bond rather than wanting all the Bond movies by one of the three actors. However, you have to take them as you can get them sometimes.

Each of the movies in this collection is a "special edition," which is a fancy name for DVDs that include extras that range in value from high to low. I have been very fascinated with some of the commentaries (those by Terence Young were very fascinating) and some of the features just seemed like filler. However, what I found interesting other may not, and vice versa. Rather than listing all the extras, a list of which is available, I will discuss the movies briefly.

"Dr. No" launched the Bond franchise. Sean Connery set the tone for Bond, suave, debonair, and terminally cool. He drove nice cars and had a penchant for dry one-liners. Ursula Andress set the tone for future Bond women, and Dr. No was coolly ruthless. Ken Adam's sets were artistic and artfully filmed by Terence Young, who also provided the stylistic role model for Connery's Bond. In the extras you learn that Connery was mentored by Young and acquired expensive tastes and hobbies in the process.

Many people consider the second movie in this collection, 1964's "Goldfinger," to be the best Bond film ever. Bond's villains continued to be ruthless and megalomaniacs, and Connery has a close encounter with a laser. Shirley Bassey belts out the title song and sets the standard for future Bond music. James Bond also quips that drinking Dom Perignon above 38 degrees Fahrenheit is "...as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs." Fortunately, Paul McCartney did not take it personally as he recorded the title track to the 1973 Bond movie "Live and Let Die." Bond also got ever more gadgets from Q, played by Desmond Llewelyn, who went on to appear in more Bond movies than any other major actor.

The third movie in the collection is Roger Moore's second outing as Bond. "The Man with the Golden Gun" from 1974 is a mixed bag. Christopher Lee as Scaramanga and Herve Villechaize are two of the most bizarre and ruthless Bond villains ever. There are fewer gadgets than in some of the surrounding Bond movies, but Moore's performance is a bit wooden and Clifton James was a bit over-the-top as comic relief. The title song by singer Lulu is pretty good, but pales in comparison to many of the other title songs in the series.

The fourth movie in this collection attempted to put Bond back on track. The 1977 movie "The Spy Who Loved Me" had a very serious undertone. The gadgets are back, but effective. We meet Jaws (Richard Kiel) and Karl Stromberg (Curt Jürgens). We also meet incredible Bond women Caroline Munro and Barbara Bach. The stunts are awesome, the plot is incredible, the locations fantastic and the title song by Carly Simon pushed Bond music back into relevancy. This movie was one of Roger Moore's best as James Bond.

Timothy Dalton's second film, 1989's "License to Kill," is the weaker of the two Dalton Bond films. However, the supporting cast is excellent, including Carey Lowell of "Law and Order" fame, Robert Davi, Talisa Soto, and David Hedison as Felix Leiter in his last appearance in a Bond film. The location shots are very good, and the stunts are among the best of any Bond film. They actually had those semi-tractor trailers up on two wheels, according to the extras. The bad guy may have been a mere drug czar, but everyone was suitably evil. Gladys Knight takes the honors for the title song and Patti LaBelle sings the pop hit "If You Asked Me To" to close the movie.

The last two movies in this collection are Pierce Brosnan's first and second Bond movies. In 1995's "Goldeneye," Bond is more dynamic and a more traditional spy. This movie raised the location stakes by filming for the first time in Russia, along with a number of other exotic locations. The gadgets are better, and the women are nearly more than Bond can handle, especially Xenia Onatopp. This movie contains more plot twists than a typical Bond movie, so be prepared to think a little as things go boom. Tina Turner does the title song reasonably well, but her performance has powerful competition in many of the other recent Bond films.

The final film in this collection is 1997's "Tomorrow Never Dies." The supporting cast this time is phenomenal, with the great actor Jonathan Pryce as Elliot Carver, Teri Hatcher as his wife Paris Carver, and Michelle Yeoh as Chinese agent Wei Lin, among numerous others. Jonathan Pryce steals nearly every scene he is in, reminiscent of some other great Bond villains. The locations are ever more incredible, digital effects abound, and the stunts are even more thrilling. That motorcycle jump was really performed! Cheryl Crow does a great job on the title song, and the excellent video is included.

Because of all the extras these DVDs require hours to watch. While the value of the extras varies, watching them gives a fan much more information about the difficulties of making each movie, and how many of the stunts were performed. I consider these movies to be among the gems of my DVD collection. I recommend this set very highly as long as you plan on collecting all the Bond films.

I bought this box set as a birthday present for a friend who is hard of hearing, thinking that he could use the closed caption option.

I was shocked to find that all the DVD's in all of the James Bond boxed sets are NOT closed captioned in English!
They are only closed captioned in French and Spanish.

How can they sell these these DVDs in the USA, label them as "closed captioned" and not state on the box that they are NOT closed captioned in English?

Okay, for anyone who is confused still about the James Bond DVD set, I'll let you know what's going on. MGM is making 3 sets of dvds (7 bond movies in each). The first one is out now which does unfortunately have problems. The Man With The Golden Gun has a defect and stops play after scene 21 and quality never returns. The other movies are all fine but the revised edition of Golden Gun is coming out soon in the set. However, you can now purchase the Golden Gun dvd separately which works fine. Try to exchange the defect in the set with the individual copy. Despite this defect, the set is wonderful and a Bond classic.

Ok, this is the best set in this collection in my opinion. The movies are some of my favorites in the series. You have 2 great Sean Connery movies in Dr. No and Goldfinger; probably the best Roger Moore movie in The Spy Who Loved Me, and a great Brosnan film in Goldeneye (How can you not like Sean Bean as a bad guy) The problem I have with this collection is the quality and the price. While watching these movies I noticed, especially on the older movies, the poor picture quality. I felt like I was watching a movie on 1960's film. I also had disk problems with this set. My copy of Goldfinger would skip as the menus came up. The only other physical problem with this set is that on my copy (and most copies) of Tomorrow Never Dies there was a little camera icon at the top for like half of the movie. Now, you can usually get rid of it by pushing clear, but it is still very annoying. My biggest problem with this set is the price. It costs about $100 for Volume 1 and the other 2 sets can be upwards of $160. That means to have all the bond movies in this set could cost you around $400. I would recommend the new Ultimate Edition (UE) James Bond collection to anyone looking at this set. The picture and disk quality of the (UE) are SOOOO much better, and you can buy all 4 sets for a little over $200.00 total. So to sum up this is a good set, but the UEs are a MUCH better value and the quality is considerable better. My advice spend your money on the Ultimate Editions.

"The name is Bond, James Bond." With these words a franchise was born. In 1962 Ian Flemming launched a franchise that would forever change the action film genre. Starting with Dr. NO, one really couldn't tell that it was really a Bond film until that famous line was uttered. Now then, the Bond series has gone through no less than 5 different actors: Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, finally Pierce Brosnan. Each having their own style. In my opinion, Pierce Brosnan is about as close to the original Sean Connery Bond as you can get. He's got the same pizazz and pinache as Connery did.

This first set of a re-issue contains seven of the soon to be twenty installment franchise. The first is the 1962 release "Dr. NO". This was Connery's first, and Bond's first official appearance.

Then comes '64's "Goldfinger", the 3rd Bond film. This film had one of the cleverest lines in a Bond film that I can recall. Bond: "Do you expect me to talk?" Goldfinger: "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die."

Then comes '74's "The Man with the Golden Gun". The 9th Bond film and Roger Moore's 2nd appearance as Bond. This film stars Christopher Lee as the villian who we now know as Count Dooku from Star Wars Episode II.

Then we have '77's "The Spy Who Loved Me". The 10th Bond film and Moore's 3rd appearance. This film stared Curt Jurgens as the villian and introduced the character Jaws played by Richard Kiel.

Then let's skip way forward and stop at '89's "License to Kill". This is the 16th Bond film which was Timothy Dalton's 2nd appearance as Bond. This film also stars Robert Davi as latino drug cartel leader.

Next comes '95's "GoldenEye". The 17th Bond film and also Pierce Brosnan, the modern Bond's first film. This film spawned one of the most popular N64 video games ever. Stared Sean Bean as 006 who turns traitor.

And finally '97's "Tomorrow Never Dies". The 18th Bond film and Brosnan's 2nd film. Stars Teri Hatcher, TV's Lois Lane from The New Superman Adventures.

And so completes the first Volume of DVD reissues. Hopefully Volume 2 will come out sometime early next year.

If you're new to the Bond films, here's a good place to start as you basically have four of the five Bonds (Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan) in one collection to get you acquainted with the James Bond films. Or if you're lazy like me and don't want to buy each DVD separately and have some cash to fork up, then the 7-DVD sets are the way to go. If you have all the Bonds on VHS like I do and are satisfied with the audio/video quality, then you might not want to buy this set. Otherwise if you crave for the digital edge, aside from a few kinks here and there, I highly recommend it. Anyway, here's a rundown of the movies in the collection, starting in chronological order of theatrical release:

1. Dr. No (1962). As most die-hard Bond fans and maybe even the casual fans know, this is the very first Bond film. If you're new to Bond, this is nothing like the recent Brosnan films in that Dr. No is more of a straightforward detective flick. Bond (Sean Connery) is sent out to Jamaica to investigate the murder of a double agent and his secretary. Putting the pieces in the puzzle together, Bond is led to Dr. No, a Chinese scientist who works for an international terrorist organization, SPECTRE and is responsible for the disappearance of American rockets. Connery scored with a decent debut, but he didn't carry that very same charisma he had in his later Bond outings. All in all, it is a decent film with its memorable moments (i.e. Honey Rider/Ursula Andress emerging from the water in a white bikini). 3/5

2. Goldfinger (1964). Arguably Connery's best-known Bond flick and one of the greatest Bond films in the series (a close second to From Russia with Love in my opinion). Much like Dr. No, a rather mundane, simple problem emerges as Bond is attempting to bring Goldfinger to justice, for suffocating one of his employees, Jill Masterson, in gold paint. It turns out Bond must thwart Goldfinger's "Operation Grand Slam", an infamous plot to launch an atomic bomb in Fort Knox, the United States Gold Depository, to render the nation's gold radioactive and therefore useless. In essence, Goldfinger would dominate the world's gold supply. All cylinders clicked in this film with the non-stop action, the memorable characters and scenes. But what really made this film work was that Bond met an adversary that outwitted him for most of the film in Goldfinger, played nicely by Gert Frobe. 5/5

3. The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). This was Roger Moore's sophomore outing as 007. This flick is a nice change of pace from the world domination schemes as this one is more of a cat-and-mouse chase. A highly skilled assassin and a rather obsessive one at that, Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee of LOTR fame) is out to kill Bond, while our hero is in pursuit of a Solex Agitator, a device that produces solar energy to cure the world's energy crisis. The climax is an unforgettable duel between Bond and Scaramanga with his patented Golden Gun. A highly enjoyable Bond flick, but this outing seemed to lack the passion required of the Bond role. 4/5

4. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Classic Roger Moore on display here. Bond is forced to tag up with a Russian agent, Anya Amasova, played by the radiant Barbara Bach, in the pursuit of a wealthy industrialist, Karl Stromberg, who hijacked two submarines, one from the British and one from the Russians. Stromberg's aim is to ignite World War 3, so that he could build his underwater utopia. Excellent plot, so excellent it is cloned later on in the series (i.e. Moonraker, Tomorrow Never Dies). You can think of it as the Roger Moore equivalent to Connery's Goldfinger. 5/5

5. Licence to Kill (1989). This is Timothy Dalton's second and last appearance as Bond and it was an emotional undertaking. When Bond and his friend, Felix Leiter take down a drug lord, Franz Sanchez, who in turn bribes a CIA agent into releasing him, Sanchez is out for revenge as he kills Leiter's newlywed wife and almost murders Leiter himself. 007 turns rogue to avenge Leiter. This Bond flick starts off with a bang, but it fizzles when Bond attempts to befriend Sanchez and work on from there. However, the riveting climax does in part, make up for its shortcomings. 3.5/5

6. Goldeneye (1995). After a six-year hiatus, Bond is back, only with Pierce Brosnan at the helm. Bond is in pursuit of henchmen of the Janus Syndicate, which hijacked the Tiger Helicopter and in essence, stolen Goldeneye, a top-secret Soviet space satellite that releases electromagnetic pulses. It turns out Bond gets more for what he bargained for when he encounters the mastermind behind the scheme, Alec Treveleyan, A.K.A. 006, Bond's best friend of whom he believed was murdered nine years ago. Arguably, Brosnan's best performance as Bond, as he balances the consummate professional of Connery and the charming wit of Moore well. Sean Bean plays Treveleyan masterfully. Great storyline without becoming stale. 5/5

7. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Brosnan's sophomore outing. Bond is after a madman media mogul who is attempting to escalate a war between the British and Chinese, by not only breaking the news but making the news as well. Nothing really special in this flick and without a shadow of a doubt, the worst Bond in Brosnan's tenure. If you thought Christopher Walken was a mediocre villain, Jonathan Pryce as Eliot Carver takes the cake. 2/5

All in all, it's a nifty DVD collection with superb Bond films (i.e. Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Goldeneye), some average Bonds (i.e. Dr. No, The Man with the Golden Gun, Licence To Kill) and a big flop in Tomorrow Never Dies.

I am a die-hard Bond fan so of course I like every movie in this set! I'll tell you what I think of each individual film:

1. Dr. No (1962) Starring: Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman. This is the film that started it all and even though it's not as fast-paced as the other Bond flicks, the storyline is great, taken directly from Ian Fleming's original novel!: ***1/2

2. Goldfinger (1964) Starring: Sean Connery, Honor Blackman, Gert Frobe. This is the most critically-acclaimed Bond film and is the one that most people have seen. I enjoy this film just as much as I did the first time every time I watch it!: ****1/2

3. The Man With the Golden Gun (1974) Starring: Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland. This is the most underrated Bond film in my opinion. Scaramanga is by far the greatest villain in the series and the cat and mouse game between him and Bond is just superb!: ****1/2

4. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) Starring: Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, Curt Jurgens. This is by far my favorite Bond film! The characters and plot are both amazing! Everytime I see this film I get this emotion that I don't get from any other Bond film; it's just that good!: *****

5. Licence to Kill (1989) Starring: Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell, Robert Davi. Not too many people like Dalton's approach to Bond, but as a big fan of Ian Fleming's novels, I think he plays the part of Bond the closest to the way the character was originally intended. This is probably the most unique film in the series, since Bond is not working for England in this one!: ***

6. Goldeneye (1995) Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Isabella Scorupco. By far Brosnan's best! When I first saw this movie, I was in awe, since I couldn't believe how great this film was! Brosnan is in top form as Bond and Trevelyan is one of the greatest Bond villains, since he was once one of his closest allies!: *****

7. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Jonathon Pryce, Michelle Yeoh. This is the first Bond film I saw back on New Year's Day 1998, and after watching this incredible film,I became into the world of Bond! A great movie for first time Bond viewers to watch!: ***1/2

This is a re-release of the same box-set from a couple of years ago (late 1999). So, if you already bought all three volumes last time, there is no need to get this re-release. BUT, if you missed out last time, this DVD Special Edition collection of 007 films is a must have for your film collection.

In addition to the original films in Widescreen anamorphic, you will find some incredible extra features on these DVDs. There is one making-of documentary per film in the set. These are roughly 30 minute documentaries containing real in-depth interviews with cast, crew, writers, producers, directors and people who work behind the scenes of these films that people just don't know about. The documentaries were put together by acclaimed James Bond historian, John Cork. He is also the founder of the Ian Fleming Foundation.

There are additional "featurettes" on Bond-related subjects, such as the stuntwork, music, production design, visual effects. Also found are audio commentaries, original trailers, TV spots and music videos.

I need to note that it is unfortunate that the early films such as DR. NO, GOLDFINGER and THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN are not encoded in Dolby Digital 5.1. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, LICENCE TO KILL, GOLDENEYE and TOMORROW NEVER DIES are encoded in Dolby Digital 5.1 and sound incredible on a 5.1 home theater setup.

You will get a good insight into the incredible amount of work and dedication that goes into creating a James Bond film.

These DVDs are just about the best put together DVDs on the market. They are loaded with a good amount of extra features and goodies and have some very slick interactive graphics and menus. I highly recommend this DVD collection.

I've ordered two of these sets, and apparently MGM has some mass-production problems. In both copies of TOMOROW NEVER DIES I've viewed, the "1 of 2" chapter designation keeps popping up in the upper right hand corner of the screen, which is very annoying and distracting. And in both copies of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN I've viewed, the picture deteriorates entirely at about scene 21 and never recovers! The exact same problem with separate copies of the same DVDs! Anyone else experiencing these problems? So far, DR. NO, LICENCE TO KILL and GOLDFINGER were fine. I've yet to get around to viewing GOLDENEYE and THE SPY WHO LOVED ME.