James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

Just bought this morning Goldeneye (uncut) and Dr No
upon taking a few grabs to see if they have renewed the goldeneye transfer i noticed that they have reframed the film:

new


old












Living Daylights this transfer is stunning the difference in encoding is amazing also the old was awash with artifacts the new is smooth and stable

old


new















Licence to kill
Again lowrey have done a fantastic job notice the print damage on the second shot now gone, even tho it will be lost in over scan













Grabs from the now worldwide reinstated whipping scene :






EDIT got a grab from one of Dr No's second disc doc's to compare to the new transfer (the old pic os non anamorphic)

old


new


Upon watching the restoration doc lowery say that the visable camera crew gaffe in The man with the golden gun may have been fixed but you must buy it too see !
EDIT the teases they left the camera crew in the shot lol

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

No Bond expert here, but it actually seems fairly common for films to be opened up a little more or slightly cropped when they receive a new transfer. I recall hearing that Dr. No has a new aspect ratio as it appears in the screenshots, but I don't really know the specifics of that.

Of the Goldeneye shots, only that top one looks dramatically different.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

Watching Dr No now and there is some slight EE but the transfer is stunning, and the dts is well used and not in the way at all.
Looking at the Goldeneye title in the first picture Lowrey have brought out a drop shadow from the image they say in the documentary that the opticals were there hardest task.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

are these out now. in the US?i thought that these were coming at the end of the year.looks good although i do think the blacks are a little too dark.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

Uk now US end of the year going to buy a few more in a min

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

Ugh, I see they're still using the crappy player-generated subtitles for location descriptions.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

hey thanks for the info.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

Yhey have reframed Dr No , From Russia With Love and Goldfinger to it's Original Aspect ratio of 1.66. Could the Goldeneye thing be overscan

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

All pics are taken on my pc so there is no overscan
popped out and got three more :

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

Correct. This was the aspect ratio released by Criterion when they issued the LDs.

Pity about Goldeneye, though.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

Those screencaps in no way do these transfers justice. The blacks are spot-on, the colour is gorgeous. Decades of dirt, scratches, tears, hairs in the gate and apparently conspicuous camera crews have all been removed. The grainy, dirty opticals have also been processed and look amazingly good; I never thought that it was possible to clean up old-school opticals so well. Lowry should work on Star Trek: OS.

A shame that U.S. customers will have to wait. Man, you guys still don't have the Sergio Leone SEs, either. Bummer.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

How does the "uncut" version differ from the previous release?

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

Gordon McMurphy this you can see straight away.
They are fantastic transfers and i only hold out from buying them all due to the (hopefully non mpeg2) blu-ray versions


For info on the cuts made to the Movies (from melon farmers .com) :


Goldeneye :

Cut for cinema in 1995 during film editing. The same cuts were required to all 12 rated video versions

The BBFC commented on the cuts to the 2001 release: Company was asked to make seven compulsory cuts to scenes of violence as per the previously released 1996 12-rated version

A head butt was cut at Xenia's "wait your turn" line to Natalya
Three head butts were deleted during the cradle fight between Bond and Trevelyan.
Bond's rabbit punch on Xenia was cut from both US and UK theatrical releases.
The DVD commentary suggests that the following cuts were made at the editing statge:

At the beginning of the film, when 006 is shot, originally one clearly saw the impact to the head.
Towards the end of the film, when Onatop is dragged to her death, originally the dragging and death struggle were a bit longer/more explicit.

licence to kill :

Same cut version for cinema and early Warner Home Video version from 1989
Some blood splashes from the guy in the decompression chamber have been cut
In the scene where Talisa Soto gets whipped by Sanchez (Robert Davi ); we see him pick up the whip and then the film cuts to the outside of the building, the sounds of her screams were edited out
a slight cut to Bond's (Timothy Dalton's) climatic fight with Sanchez.
There may also be cuts to Felix's (David Hedison's) torture



Tomorrow Never Dies :

Same cuts for all Warner & MGM 12 rated video versions

According to the BBFC: Tomorrow Never Dies followed the pattern of the recent Bonds of being slightly too violent for its intended audience. When it opened in the cinema, the Board considered that, on grounds of violence, the film had just scraped through as a 12, yet to our surprise, the British public, for all their reported concern about screen violence, lapped it up, content to treat James Bond as fantasy violence. The producers were alerted to the probability that, if 12 were to remain the target category on video, the film might need further cuts in violence, since the Video Recordings Act laid down the need to assess the likelihood of underage viewing, which in this case was a virtual certainty.

Cut for cinema release and suffered an additional 6s of cuts for video. In addition, there have been further sound pre-cuts throughout the video.

Reduced impact sounds in fight at Carver's (Jonathon Price's) studio party
Bond gets hit by a baseball bat twice instead of four times
Reduced impact sounds in Chakra torture scene
Reduced impact sounds in fight in bike shop
Reduced impact sounds of Wai Lin's (Michelle Yeoh's) kung-fu kicks
Reduced sound of man being scalded by steam
Reduced sound of Carver being hit by an engine and then his death scream
Reduced impact sounds of Bond's (Pierce Brosnan's) climatic fight scene
Cuts to scene where Michelle Yeoh dispatches one of the bad guys by means of a throwing star.
Removed scene of Michelle Yeoh taking throwing star from a hidden compartment in her shoe
Cuts to scene where Bond stamps on a man's face



For other info : http://www.deadkenny.co.uk/bondcuts.htm

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

Mods please can the title of the thread be changed to Ultimate ed comparison pictures

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

the last couple of days i have been going to imdb.com and looking at their alt.versions section and some bond titles have change over the years. like golden gun didn't have music towards the end of the movie for some reason. there was some talk of a scene cut from on her magistery secret service on the old dvd. is it on the new dvd.and was it cut on the british dvd?

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

On Her Majesty's Secret Service [1969]

Cut by mistake. Wrong print used by MGM and all regions are missing material. I've confirmed this by comparison to the previous widescreen VHS version. None of the cuts are for censorship reasons and the film itself is passed uncut in it's full length version.

More info on these cuts at The DVD File Cut List

However, they report the following "Finally, after the stock car race, when Tracy says "We didn't even stop for the prize," Bond's line "I told you that crowd would discourage them" has also been cut.", and yet I'm sure that line is present on the UK R2. The other cuts apply though.

Update: IMDB says the following which sounds more accurate... "When Bond speaks the line "I told you the crowd would discourage them" after the stock car race, he was previously shown saying so in close up, now the line is only heard as Bond and Tracy speeds away"

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

"12 rated video version"? "BBFC"? Are you talking about the Region 2 release? Do these cuts affect the domestic version?

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

No the films bar ohmss and licence to kill were uncut on U.S. dvd
EDIT Gordon McMurphy the camera crew they mention in golden gun is left in the new transfer just watched it

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

They left the crew in, did they? The way it is talked about on the restoration featurette on Dr. No makes it seem that it may have been erased. I only bought the first three Bonds and I don't intend to buy more. I might buy The Spy Who Loved Me, as I love the opening sequence!

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

I recieved the briefcase this morning, the set looks absolutely stunning, the cover art looks a LOT better with the shiny slip covers, here's a shot of my briefcase:



I've spent all day comparing the new Ultimate Editions to the old Special Editions and I have to say that it's the set is WELL worth the money IMO, especially when you consider:

- The new transfers are stunning, I noticed an improvements to even the newer Bond movies such as Goldeneye.
- The deleted scenes that are now included on a lot of the discs.
- There's a ton of special features including vintage documentaries & new documentaries.
- The very cool briefcase and nice cover art.
- The uncut movies are worth the cost of the set alone IMO!
- I have sampled a number of the DTS tracks and I have to say I'm very impressed.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

These new Ultimate Editions are a massive disapointment. Not only did Lowry manage to mess up the Star Wars DVD clean up, they seem to have bodged most if not all of the Bond films also. All the films look like they are framed incorrectly, and have dubious colour timing.

Not a happy bunny.

I hope these issues are corrected for the R1 release, but im sure they wont.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

I know a lot of people don't like to have this question asked here in the SD forum, but has Sony announced these for Blu-Ray? I don't have a Blu-Ray player now (and probably won't buy one for some time), but it'd be nice to know if these are coming out on BD so I don't buy them on SD first.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

Anyone know if Die Another Day got a new transfer? Just curious since it's a fairly recent release, though there was room for improvement in its transfer.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

WOW! That briefcase is really cool!

When did the set come out and what is the price?

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

The rumor (and it makes sense since they're new HD transfers) is that they're going to be released on a high def format. I guess the question is can you wait two months or six months or two years?

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

Briefcase is definitely cool. Wonder though if it's only available in the U.K.,....and if there's a throwing dagger that slides out the side.

Yes, the HD question comes to my mind too so soon now with the release of this Ultimate set, this set will eventually appear on one of the HD formats. Is it definite it will Blu-Ray since it's a Sony owned Franchise now?

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

The new versions really ruined Goldeneye by zooming in so much. That's unforgivable. How could they make such a gross mistake?

Looks like they botched the opening sequence of License to Kill too.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

OK - let's have a look at these (please note all this information ONLY applies to the R2 releases):


SUBTITLES/CAPTIONS:


For those wanting to know which films suffer from player-generated subtitles, the list seems to be as follows:

1)Goldeneye

2)Tomorrow Never Dies (though, as with the last release, the "HMS Devonshire" caption has been left burnt-in).


3)The captions in The World Is Not Enough are now burnt-in, but the translation subtitles during the sequence in which Elektra vows to the priest to send the pipeline around the shrine and not through it, are player-generated.


( NOTE - I would greatly appreciate it if someone with an R1 copy of this film could check their Special Edition and see if that version also had player-generated subtitles during that particular sequence.)



4)Die Another Day


The original r1 release of Goldeneye had burnt-in captions, therefore I would think the same will apply with the Ultimate Edition.




Films with burnt-in captions are as follows:

1)Live And Let Die

2)Licence To Kill





Films with missing captions:

1)Octopussy

2)The Living Daylights

Both these suffer the problems the initial R1 pressings suffered. Oddly, the original R2 releases never had this problem.





EDITS/PREVIOUSLY MISSING FOOTAGE:


A lot of misinformation seems to be circulating about what has and has not been reinstated. However, the ONLY films that R1 customers need to be concerned about are:

1)OHMSS, which now has the footage previously missing (because an incomplete print was used in all regions, not because of censorship) reinserted. The forthcoming R1 will doubtless be equally unexpurgated.

2)Licence To Kill - all regions were previously palmed off with American PG-13 rated cut, which was missing ten seconds worth of footage (Leiter's bloody stump flailing about in the water, the head explosion, a single shot of Dario being minced, and a shot during Sanchez's firey demise). All these shots have now been included in the R2 ultimate Edition, making this release first time the film has been released fully uncut in its original ratio anywhere in the world, to my knowledge. Certainly on disc. Again, I would imagine that those same shots will find their way on to the Ultimate R1 come November.

3)Die Another Day. The R2 has always had an uncut version of the love sequence between Jinx and Bond. The R1 is, apparently, edited (whether actual footage is removed, or just the sound of Jinx panting like crazy I don't know). Whether this edit stays on the r1 come November remains to be seen.


The, supposedly new, "uncut" status of Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies applies ONLY to the UK (though the initial R4 release of TND also utilized the old UK edit, presumably to save money). The R1 releases of these two films have always been uncut.


Despite now carrying a "12" certificate, A View To A Kill is the same cut as before - the higher certificate applies solely to one of the extras, which apparently warranted a "12".


Hope all of this helps.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

Good work Richard.

Re: James Bond Ultimate Ed Framing Issues

Richard, I'm confused. I thought that these scenes were already included in the previous R1 special edition of "Licence To Kill" (and, indeed, the Fox laserdisc). The DVD I have certainly contains more footage than the UK videotape release that I used to own...

About the subtitles/captains... BLAH!!! The player-generated ones look HORRIFIC and the fact that they're missing entirely from Octopussy and The Living Daylights in INEXCUSABLE.

Ok. Right. Let's not hang about for these mistakes to be repeated in R1 (and, make no mistake, they WILL be) followed by weeks of worry and possible recalls. What can we do NOW to bring this lot (missing/crappy captions, incorrect framing issues, missing mono tracks, etc) to MGM/Sony's attention before a) the discs are mass-produced and b) the same errors are transferred over to the inevitable Blu-Ray releases!

Can the HTF staff take something forward on members behalves please?

John