James Bond on BD - Page 3

 

 

 

Good point, although as a stubborn and closed-minded Bond purist, I consider a complete collection to be the films from Dr. No through to Licence to Kill. 

I was going to say the exact same thing, but then I reconsidered. Truth is, after many ups and downs, the Bond films reached the point of diminishing returns, from a creative point of view, and ended in 1989 with the problematic Licence to Kill.



With the death of screen writer Richard Maibaum, the freeze-out of Timothy Dalton and director Peter Hunt, there was no place for the franchise to go but down.
Edited by Richard--W - 1/9/12 at 11:16pm

Do you mean director John Glen? Peter Hunt only did one film - OHMSS - twenty years before Licence. 

 

Here's hoping the individual films will be available in addition to the box set. 

 

 

 

 

That's my hope and fear as well.  

 

I just can't see Fox/MGM screwing the fans like myself who have bought

every Bond title to date and have been patiently waiting to finish their collection.

 

....then again, maybe I am being too naive about this.  Wouldn't be the first

time a studio forced consumers to buy an entirely new set.

 

...which brings me back to a concern that many of you didn't seem to find

that concerning.....

 

The artwork.  I took a look at the uniformity of all the Bond Blu-ray releases

sitting on my shelf.  The last thing I want to see is the studio forego the style

and colors of the box and go with something totally new, so that when placed

with the older titles, it looks totally out of place.   I want the new Bond releases

to match the old releases.  Otherwise, some may be looking to unload those

old releases to get the uniformity of the new -- something which the studio may

already be looking to benefit from.

 

All I can say is I will NOT rebuy any Bond Blu-rays that I now own. If the only way to get the unreleased ones is in a box set with Bond Blus I already have, I'll have to be content with the Ultimate Edition DVDs I have (or the Special Editions in some cases) until they go on sale separately. They eventually will.

Agreed, Matt.

 

Either immediately, or eventually, those remaining titles

will be sold solo.

 

We should know the absolute details in a few hours when

the news comes out of CES.  

The UE DVDs released in '04 were as definitive as they're gonna get for me and those were fine. I'm not re-buying yet another "Ultimate" collection unless they are truly ultimate. I define that as having ALL Bond actors record commentaries for their respective films, having all "glitches" fixed and having the studio use the original poster artwork on individual cases. As much as I like box sets (mostly for convenience) I think the Bond films deserve and need to be released individually.

Oh, and License To Kill is a terrific Bond film and one of my favorites in the series. It may not feel like a Bond film but it's definitely a ton of fun.

Maybe there will be one box set but there's no way that they don't also have some other type of release (singles or smaller multi-movie sets) too. 22 or 23 movies in one box is going to cost at least $200 after the usual discounts (and $200 is being really optimistic because it would more likely be $300 or more for that many popular movies). Even if there were lots of people who didn't mind being forced to rebuy the same movies yet again so they can finally get the ones that didn't release the last time around, they'd price themselves out of the reach of most people at $200 or more.

I stop at A VIEW TO A KILL and sometimes I feel I went one Bond too many with that title also.

 

I was thinking the same thing when I first heard about the new plans, I was sitting on the couch and looked over and said to my wife, "Damn, I bet they are gonna go with different packaging, and that's gonna look weird on the shelf.  Why can't for once, a company complete a series before starting over with a different packaging design."  So I totally understand your fear about that, although it would be a pleasant surprise if it were at least somewhat consistent.

 

Revisited LICENCE TO KILL recently via the current Blu-ray and thoroughly enjoyed it. Very ahead of its time, I thought, and refreshingly hard-edged. Dalton was a fine Bond, Lowell a great Bond girl, and Davi, Del Toro, Stroud, and Zerbe made for some good villains. I admired the writers' idea to re-work the YOJIMBO storyline into a Bond narrative. Found it to be much stronger than the last couple Moore entries, particularly the atrocious A VIEW TO A KILL, and all of the Brosnan films. I did quite enjoy the first Craig outing as well, of which LTK seems an antecedent.

LICENCE TO KILL is a slovenly mess. Emphasis falls in all the wrong places and on the wrong faces at the wrong time. It has no finesse. But at the center of the mess is a lean, driven, hardboiled and well-structured story by Richard Maibaum which weaves together unused elements from the earliest novels. Last minute changes to the script and the bizarre addition of Wayne Newton's character do not totally undermine Maibaum's accomplishment. And yet it is entertaining, and it has a seriously good Bond in Timothy Dalton. Dalton is a memorable Bond.

I'm content with the Ultimate Collector's Edition DVD.

All films to be released in one massive collection:

 

http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/mgm-and-fox-to-package-all-22-james-bond-films-on-blu-ray/

 

Full collection for the first time

 

 

 

 

Not impressed and my first thought is pass.  I have purchased Bond on VHS, Laser, DVD and some Blu and will not, absolutely will not re-buy the Blu I have.  I don't have to have it that much.  Fox did this to me on the Elia Kazan Collection two years ago, by placing a few new to DVD titles in with a bunch I already had and they never released them individually.  Passed on that set and I am still alive. 
 

 

Glad to see that worked and you're still alive because I'll be following that example here.  I, too, am happy with the complete Ultimate on DVD along with the existing BDs I considered essential.  If they ever release You Only Live Twice, Diamonds are Forever and On Her Majesty's Secret Service separately on Blu, I'll buy 'em.  Otherwise, I'm a happy enough camper, and am free to continue working my way down toward poverty with the many other fine catalog titles coming out right and left this year.

Gents,

 

Always funny to see information leaked out.  I think the studio was

doing their best to get it out at CES first.

 

In any event, I am waiting on a press release shortly after the CES

announcement which I will probably start a new thread/conversation on.

 

I am hoping there will be additional details regarding titles being sold

solo of the boxed set.

 

 

How about completing the SteelBook Blu-ray set they left hanging? It may sound silly to get hung up over a box design, but my James Bond Blu-rays are enshrined in my hollowed-out volcano lair and I will not rest, ever, until I have completed that set. Even if I have to destroy the world!

They'll be released individually at some point for certain. It took about a year for MGM to offer individual releases of titles like Manhunter, A Fistful of Dollars and The Magnificent Seven, which had previously only been available in box sets.

Very curious to see what the alleged 'new' extras are - surely they're can't be much we haven't already seen?! (Unless it refers to new extras on Quantum of Solace).

 

Also looking forward to see expanded shots of the packaging. So far, it looks like it might be designed like a bigger version of the Planet of the Apes Collection set from 2008.

 

More details please MGM!

Where are you seeing this? I haven't seen ANY pictures of the packaging. 

 

Here's the press release and a view of the box exterior:

 

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/collecting_bond50_bluray_set_announced.php3?t=&s=&id=03055

 

Underwhelmed by the details.

Sam,

 

Late to the party.  We already posted the press release and art here

more than an hour ago:

 

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/317593/mgm-press-release-bond-50-blu-ray

 

Thanks, however!

Amazon UK reporting that the set contains a bonus disc of never-before-seen content which runs 1 hour.

 

They also report an October 1st release date.

 

Still no word on whether or not the UE faults have been corrected.

There have been some great Bond tv specials, usually released when a new Bond film premiered. I don't know if those have ever been released.

Hummmmmm - 50 years of Bond and only an hour of never-before-seen content. 
 

 

A few of them were on the ultimate edition dvds, but hopefully they find other archive programs.

double post

I hope that hour isn't a reel of spoofs like another film franchise had.

I suspect once more details are confirmed the new documentary EON are working on will run for more than an hour, after all there are 50 years and 23 films to cover and a ton of cast and crew to interview. Michael Wilson has also expressed a desire to get all 6 Bonds together which would be amazing but as usual I think it will be tough to get Connery to play ball and I’m not sure how Lazenby feels about Brosnan, who’s repeatedly slagged off his effort. Connery has been more prevalent in recent years- featuring in a video game of From Russia With Love, so you never know.

From past history its almost certain the films will be released individually- even though the box set is very well priced at the moment. It probably won’t happen immediately though. As well as the artwork, no doubt the menus will be revamped for Bond 50 so being able to make a complete matching set to the previous blu releases will never happen now. Fox could be smart here and do what Warner did in the UK with the first VHS release of Licence To Kill – they made a reversible sleeve to match the then current 25th anniversary releases.

My concerns for this set are once again the transfers. It’s now quite telling that some of the titles held back from a blu release were the most problematic on UE DVD and not just because of that formats limitations. It is encouraging that they went back and fixed some of the problems such as the overly bright start to Live and Let Die’s title sequence so I would expect OHMSS, YOLT, TSWLM, AVTAK and GoldenEye to be re-visited. Some of those squeezed title sequences also need a look at. The old thread that questioned the UE DVD’s must of helped Lowry a lot by the time the blu’s were up for release- it’s worth kicking up a fuss.

Presumably the titles that have already been released will just be the same versions in the new box set. The initial restorations starting in 2004 and you would think Lowry’s software has improved several times since then. Maybe if they could wind it back a few steps they could reintroduce the grain structure a bit more accurately? Even Universal are revisiting Out of Africa - only 2 years after the first release but I suspect this will be too costly and timely. Presumably also down to cost was the reason that the earlier films were scanned at 4K and The Spy Who Loved Me onwards (bar Moonraker, randomly) are at 2K. That’s too low nowadays for a digital master, this should really be revisited but I think their gonna get by on these as long as they can.

I would also like to think they would check over the remastered 5.1 mixes and remove some of the SFX library sounds they slapped over the top- see Thunderball. This was worse for UE Region 2 as we didn’t have the option of the original mono track. The indication is that once again, the track gets omitted for Region B blu as they have done with releases so far- why? There’s enough space on the disc surely!

So there is a lot that should be done and the awareness should be focused on the film preservation, they are not just for home viewing- the work done since 2004 becomes the negative of the film. If they get re-released in cinemas (which has been spoken about as a possibility) that is version that’s presented.

In terms of supplemental material, the first 3 Brosnan Bonds badly need a retrospective documentary as they are generally packed with the cheap promo ETK’s. You can’t really better the original documentaries done by John Cork which were done as those films started to appear on DVD so they got missed. They could do with revisiting Goldfinger and Thunderball as those docs were the early laserdisc efforts and a bit on the short side.

Hopefully the deleted scenes for Die Another Day that were pulled from the UE DVD at the last second will make an appearance and I’m sure there are a few other scenes tucked away in EON’s vaults as well.

As for new commentaries, realistically I think they would be able to coax Timothy Dalton into it if they actually bothered to ask him. He would offer a great insight into what he was trying to achieve with his interpretation. A sad as it is to say, commentaries by Connery would be a complete bore- have you seen him in interviews? They usually sit the actors alone- even Moore’s were a struggle at times. Lazenby’s would be instantly banned, much like the Criterion ones….now that’s an idea, bring back those 3 Criterion commentaries, far better than anything that’s been recorded since.