James Bond Ultimate Edtions Surface in the uk (1 Viewer)

[Ryan L. Bisasky]

i wonder, are we going to have to deal with pal speed up? since i know that apparently, the leone dvd's are pitch corrected, so maybe the bond dvd's will be too?
How much is the box set in american dollars?

 

[Lyle_JP]

There will be PAL speed-up, which is actually preferable to a NTSC-to-PAL transfer which preserves runtime. Generally, the second option introduces bad ghosting artifacts. As for pitch correction, that's anyone's guess. Usually, it's not done.

Amazon.uk's price on the set is £178.71 (after VAT is subtracted), plus £3.08 for shipping. At today's exchange rate, the grand total would be $340.30.

-Lyle J.P.

 

[Malcolm Cleugh]

FRWL plus Dr No and Goldfinger are all anamorphic 1.66 so OAR its nice that they are actually enhancing these rather than letterboxing.

If you want to see the specs all the front and back sleeves are posted as a news item on DVDActive.

 

[John H Ross]

This is a bit of a dilemma to be sure. I'm no fan of PAL speedup either (I live in the UK) and the "wait or don't wait for Blu-Ray" is frustrating, but this set is just too darned tempting.

With all the talk about Licence To Kill I think I'd better bring up the subject of Die Another Day. The original R1 disc was slighly trimmed during the love scene between Bond and Jinx, can we expect the "ultimate" edition to be the same?

Also there are a number of extras on the old R2 discs that were missing from their R1 counterparts, especially on The World Is Not Enough (e.g. the full-length documentary about the boat chase on the Thames). Will these be restored to the R1 ultimates or remain R2 only?

I hope they get all the subtitles right this time. And none of those rubbish player-generated subtitles either. I'm suspecting - especially in R2 - that my pleas will fall on deaf ears :-(

www.mi6.co.uk has full details of these new discs btw.

John

 

[Dale MA]

A word to the wise, you may want to hold onto the early Bond movie DVDs as a user on the below forum has got confirmation from Sony that none of the original mono tracks will be included on these new releases:

http://www.mi6forums.com/viewtopic.p...=asc&start=330 (The last post on the page)

I was going to keep hold of my original set anyway so it's no problem for me personally. I think it may be a space issue, if you look at the amount of soundtracks they're putting on to each disc, commentaries, 5.1 and DTS, they probably don't want to sacrifice image quality.

 

[Random Hero]

That's a shame, Dale. I remember them saying that in addition to new 5.1 tracks they would include the original mono tracks. What sucks is that you could possibly end up with a spectacular image and a horrible 5.1 soundtrack.

 

[John H Ross]

Like Star Wars then!

 

[Lyle_JP]

Well, the Star Wars DVD does have a halfway decent 2.0 Surround track (which still has music level problems, though). If these 5.1 mixes are even half as good as the 5.1 mix for Thunderball, then we have nothing to worry about.

-Lyle J.P.

 

[oscar_merkx]

is it still possible to get the original Bond dvds ?

 

[Frank@N]

Not in typical retail stores. But Coconuts/FYE/SM (which sell for MSRP) still have the boxsets.

Be prepared to pay $125 per boxset. You're better off waiting for the new versions.

Or you could Ebay the boxsets for around $75 or less...

 

[John H Ross]

I'm more worried about them sounding like the 5.1 Moonraker track which I absolutely loathe because it has no depth or vibrancy whatsoever. I'm hoping the DTS tracks are gonna kick a little more ass in terms of, at the very least, strength and volume.

John

 

[Irina]

This collection will also be available in Australia on August 30th. The price on hmv.com.au is $250 US (this includes VAT deduction and shipping). That makes it $12.50 US per title.
http://www.hmv.com.au/product/dvd.asp?sku=-968011

This is a brief explanation of the Lowry restoration process:
http://www.ezydvd.com.au/g/i/s/Video...wryprocess.pdf

 

[Ryan L. Bisasky]

thanks. i am kind of new to the world of region free and the so called "pal speed up" the only pal disc i currently own is Ong Bak region 4 aussi disc, and didnt' notice any speedup.
and for bond, I'll probably get only certain titles (staying away from the moore titles. I hope these transfers are worth the upgrade, since even the newer movies don't look that great in region 1 land (lots of edge enhancement on dad for example.

 

[RichardCrowther]

That's OK, Lyle, glad to be of help.

It's the lack of an "uncut" label which is making me a bit dubious, to be honest. The reason for the hope of an uncut LTK is two-fold. Firstly, the BBFC website states that LTK was resubmitted last year and was passed fully uncut with "all previous cuts waived". Go to www.bbfc.co.uk for more information on that score. Do a search under Licence To Kill, and you'll get a record of every version submitted to them, including the most recent. (Which is this one - http://www.bbfc.co.uk/website/Classi...B?OpenDocument )

The running time on this latest submitted cut is, indeed, several seconds longer than the last submitted version, which was the PG-13 rated cut. All this leads me to believe that, at the very least, the fully uncut version was given to the BBFC to check over. Whether it is this version that will finally end up on the disc, or whether Sony will bottle it and go with the far less impressive PG-13 rated cut, we'll only find when reviews start to filter through.

Secondly, certain "suggestions" have been made over on the www.mi6.co.uk website that this time LTK would be uncut. This could prove to be nothing more than rumour, but with such assertions being made, combined with the information from the BBFC, I did, until I saw the cover, have high hopes that that would be the case. Time will tell.

For a quick run-down of what the current UK and US Licence To Kill DVDs are missing, check out my somewhat long-winded posts here:

http://www.zetaminor.com/roobarb/sho...7&postcount=58

and especially here:

http://www.zetaminor.com/roobarb/sho...7&postcount=73

These should give you a good idea of how the R1 and R2 discs for all the films have been handled up to now, and details on what exactly is currently AWOL from Licence To Kill.

Hope all this helps.

 

[stephen^wilson]

I read somewhere that the uncut Licence To Kill was actually classified by the BBFC when the last bond dvds were released and MGM accidently released the cut version! This was before the BBFC's new policy of different versions of films on dvd with higher classifications and that the higher rated/uncut versions had to clearly state that it was a different version.So in theory they wouldn't have to plaster UNCUT of the cover since the cut/uncut versions of Licence To Kil were both rated 15 in the UK ( I think the uncut Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies have been upgraded from 12 to 15) and as such,the packaging has to state that they are different versions.

 

[Ryan L. Bisasky]

as i have always understood it, the so called "uncut" versions of the brosnon bonds are the PG13 versions right?

 

[stephen^wilson]

Goldeneye was cut by the MPAA to obtain a PG-13 in the states and the UK version suffered further cuts.No idea if the new ultimate edition will be the PG-13 version or completely uncut. cuts made to the U.S. version include:

In the scene when 006 is shot, you originally clearly saw the impact of the bullet to the head.
When Xenia shoots the workers at the Severnya station, there were originally several more shots of the people being killed.
Xenia's death was trimmed. The shot of her choking was longer.
The rabbit punch by Bond on Xenia is missing, but this was because of the BBFC, not the MPAA. The BBFC objected to it and Martin Campbell saw no need in making two versions of the scene for the US and UK, so it was cut from both.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Ironic. I recall that when LTK was first release, the local papers made a big hoo-ha over the fact that it was passed "uncut" here, whereas in the UK it was "censored". Usually it's the censorship board here that makes all sorts of cuts, so they were trumpeting the fact that for once censorship elsewhere was more stringent.

Ryan, count yourself "lucky" that you don't notice PAL speed-up. I live in a PAL broadcast country so never noticed it before (since you typically only watch a movie once in the cinema), but since DVDs came out, and I get plenty of NTSC discs, I now notice the PAL speed up in voices during any TV broadcasts. It is starting to bug me -- most recently Michael J Fox on Boston Legal, I was surprised that his voice was so squeaky; I know it's high, but that high? And of course music -- having heard "Who Are You" on CD, the opening of CSI is now too fast; I've listened to the Dune soundtrack a lot, and the other day when I popped the R2 DVD in, the opening sequence (Irulan's exposition) sounded all wrong.

 

[RichardCrowther]

You are, of course, quite correct, and this would indeed explain why Goldeneye and TND "have to" carry an "uncut" banner, and not LTK. So, in theory, an uncut LTK is still on the cards! Brilliant!


As an aside, it is worth noting that a gentleman on Roobarb's DVD Forum (to which I link above) has stated that it would appear the new releases will have burnt-in captions and subtitles, as they should, and not those awful player-generated ones we were fpoisted with last time. This is also good news. So, other than the lack of the original sound mixes, it looks like things may finally be going right for Bond fans.

 

[stephen^wilson]

Good news indeed.I really hated the player generated subtitles on the region 2 Die Another Day dvd,especialy since one of the subtitles giving a location was supposed to be typed on the screen with and electronic sound in the background as each letter appeared.it didn't really have the same effect when player generated subs were used but the sound of each letter appearing was left in! Although the region 1 disc left this as burned in subtitles but relaced the rest with player generated subs!