Blu-ray Review Bond 50 Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

[Radioman970]

Just wanted to ask again, did no one else get the poster book shown HERE? I'm just curious... well...and wanna feel special too.

 

[Matt Hough]

Originally Posted by Kevin EK /t/324216/bond-50-blu-ray-review#post_3987101
Matt, very nice work, and thank you for going through it all.

One question - don't the three Roger Moore Bond films now in the pile also have separate commentaries by him? That was one of the big adds for the UCE editions and the earlier Blu-rays ported those commentaries over. I have found over time that Moore's commentaries are both pleasant and extremely informative. He always starts out by saying he doesn't remember very much and before long he's telling you stuff you would never have considered - like how Curt Jurgens was actually a very nice man who sold Moore a home I believe in Switzerland...

If I get a minute tonight to go back to them, I'll check again, but I can't believe I would have overlooked them if they were there.

 

[mikeyhitchfan]

In a November 2005 article from Sound and Vision Magazine, John Lowry himself confirmed all 20 Bond films would be getting a makeover and was quizzed on what fans can expect from these brand new releases…
Q: Can you tell me what movies you’re working on at the moment?
John Lowry: We are doing work for four major studios, but I can’t talk about most of those yet. We are working on Aliens of the Deep for Jim Cameron. The other work that I can talk about is on three James Bond movies that are in various stages of restoration.
Q: Which ones?
John Lowry: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, and we’re finishing up some work on Goldfinger.
Q: The picture quality of the previous DVD releases was disappointing.
John Lowry: These are stunning – they’ll blow your socks off. We’re doing all 20 James Bond movies – nine with 4K scanning, the others in high-definition.
Q: Do the nine include all the Sean Connery ones?
John Lowry: I believe they’re all in that group, yes. They wanted the older films to be restored as well as they could be. But keep in mind that Dr. No was a relatively low-budget film, made with no concept that this would lead to the parade of films that followed. So it was shot in a hurry and has some real challenges, like hairs in the film gate. By the time we got to the third and fourth Bond movies, the quality had improved immensely – very professional by the time of, say, Thunderball.
Q: Describe the differences we’d see between the previous Bond DVDs and the images you’re creating now.
John Lowry: The major difference we get using high-definition scanning and processing is the higher resolution that migrates to the DVD. It breaks the rules, but it works. You Only Live Twice was one of the films we worked on to demonstrate the process to studio executives. We scanned and enhanced the material, and then reduced it to DVD resolution to show the folks at MGM what the DVD would look like. Comparing that with the prior results – it was like a brand-new movie. It has to do with whether you process at high-def or you process at 2K or 4K and then reduce to high-def. Certainly the best results we get – for HDTV broadcasting and future high-def DVDs – are on things we process at a higher resolution. The fine detail does migrate down to the next level, without question.
Lowry was also quizzed on a fanboy’s dream: the potential re-releasing of the Bond films in theatres. Whilst the response was not overly positive – “I haven’t heard anything, but I do know that when these are finished, we could have some stunning theatrical prints,” said Lowry, citing You Only Live Twice as one highlight – Lowry emphasised that as digital cinema becomes more of a reality, the process of re-releasing older films will become much cheaper for distributors.
To read the interview in its entirety, head on over to Sound and Vision Magazine.

 

[Bryan Tuck]

Thanks for the review, Matt! That's a tremendous amount of content to look through.
My only major disappointment is the picture quality on Goldeneye, but there are some other little things that, while minor, are just strange (like the mono track on Goldfinger fading out at the end before the last drum hit, which didn't happen on the UE DVD).

 

[SilverWook]

Much of the "Mission Control" stuff on the UE discs was redundant, but it's a pity they dropped the textless title sequences.

 

[Garysb]

Fox Connect has this back in stock for only $80. Last chance per e-mail.


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