Roger Moore Commentaries & John Lowry On Bond Ultimate Editions (1 Viewer)

Hey Everyone,

I don't know about you guys but news on these Ultimate Edition's have been pretty dry lately, until now.

Sir Roger Moore is currently in negotiations with MGM Home Video/Sony to record audio commentaries to his seven 007 films in the up and coming Ultimate Edition James Bond DVD series, according to reports on his official site.

His PA Gareth Owen told the site: "it is planned to record the commentaries during September for the disc's 2006 release".

John Lowry talking about film restoring:-

Describe the differences we'd see between the previous

Bond DVDs and the images you're creating now.
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.

The rest of the John Lowry article is at mi6.co.uk, same with the info on the Roger Moore Commentaries.

By the way does anyone know more information on whether The Spy Who Loved to Goldeneye, will get the 5.1 track re-done as well?

I had this piece of info on wordpad about Mi Casa that I copy and pasted from the net last year, I'll try to find the source again.

Walking into the living room (Studio A), the lights dimmed as the instantly recognizable James Bond logo appeared on the screen with the time code scroll information above the picture. The real treat began as the familiar sounds of the Paul McCartney-penned tune “Live and Let Die” began to fill the room. Biles leaned to me and whispered, “We were able to use the original, never before heard George Martin quad mix of this song for the DVD.” As the bombastic horns sound, the power of one of the most classic pop songs ever comes over me in a full sonic assault in 5.1 surround. Not only could you hear and feel the impact of this surround mix.

Can't Wait.

Now I can only hope that some more isolated scores come out, like Michael Kamen's Licence to Kill & Marvin Hamlisch's The Spy Who Loved Me, both never got a proper or complete score release on CD. The David Arnold Score on the Tomorrow Never Dies DVD with 5.1 was great!

Lastly who's producing these DVD's? John Cork?

Thanks, and Cya Everyone.

Now, Mr. Sean Connery would you please step up to the microphone.

I want to hear George Lazenby's commentary for OHMSS... he's got some stories to tell

-- J.

I'd like to see Danjaq loosen up and allow the banned Criterion commentaries to be heard again.

now these are shaping up to be must buys in my book.

hoping for a day and date blu-ray release too as that will make me go blu-ray in a second

Banned Criterion commentaries?

Could you explain more about it and the people who were recorded in it Mark?

Now I get the feeling EON may not let 'unwanted items' left hanging around. I guess tons of stuff may never see the light of day. Who Knows?

Now that new composed James Bond Theme back in 1989 by Michael Kamen, Eric Clapton, & Vic Flick. Now thats something I wanna hear!

Composed a new theme with some guitar riffs reminiscent of the original theme, complete with music video. The sound recording and the video disappeared after EON Productions turned it down as not being commercial enough.

Just great.

Will the current extras and documentaries on the current Bond discs be ported over to these new editions? If not, I doubt I'll double dip even for these "new and improved" transfers. Unlike, say, the current The Sound Of Music DVD which is near unwatchable and I will double dip because of that, the Bond films while perhaps in need of improvement are more than just "watchable" transfers.

Ron, that's exactly my thinking. I spent enough money on the VHS set, let alone the DVDs when they arrived (cherry picking the best of the R1 and R2 releases wasn't cheap), so I'm not gonna get them again until viable High-Def versions appear. I've felt this way ever since the 'Ultimate Editions' were sort-of-announced last year.

I've recently spun a few of the last batch of DVDs, and they're not nearly as shabby as I remember. They'll do me just fine while I wait.

if the blu-ray discs have the same extras i will wait to see the transfers in hd as they were intended

a case of YMMV no doubt, as i find SOM to be flawed but watchable, while the artifacting, shimmering, macroblocking, poor prints etc found on some of the Bond dvds to make them a true eye sore.
some (like Licence to Kill which is atrocious) are worse than others (Spy is ok, as is Living Daylights) but even the best of the pre-Brosnan titles are no where near the quality of something like Alien (2003 remaster) or Star Wars/ESB.
-and they could/should be.
just compare the clips of Goldfinger that are found in the documentary on its discs to the same scenes in the feature.
Thunderball is pretty waxy/dupey looking as well.

as to whether to wait for HD to upgrade- i look at it this way; will my Bd player be able to play Jaws in HD?
or Superman? or Grease? or Raiders Of The Lost Ark?
or East Of Eden?
not anytime soon is the only answer i see. why invest a lot of money into a format that has a very restricted selection?

if these Bond UEs approach the quality of Alien (2003 remaster) or SW/ESB (and there is no reason they can't with Lowry involved and with them starting with such high resolution scans) then i'll be tickled pink.
upscaled and projected on a native 720p projector should look good enough that i can put HD material out of my mind until prices on the hardware are ridiculously low and software selction is satisfyingly robust...and even if Blu ray is coming up next year, the rest is still a ways off.

Amen, Ron! With a new format looming, I ABSOLUTELY agree with you -- I'll be holding off until I get the most mileage out of the the new transfers.

I'm actually holding off now on "remastered titles" if I've already purchased them for that very reason, because they'll be asking us all to do it AGAIN in the very near future.

And unless hell freezes over -- given Eon's informative but certainly PR-conscious supplements and commentaries in the past -- we'll never hear the juiciest stories because they'll edit them out!

The only thing that would interest me enough to re-buy would be Sean Connery doing a commentary. That would make it the ULTIMATE EDITION.

I think that Connery would have some things to say. This was
the height of Bondmania. While the Bond films are still popular, no actor has gone through what Connery went through. This does show how much of a mark he made on the role, one that his succesors have failed to reach.

Has anyone seen the widescreen Bond movies on AMC this month? I keep forgetting about them every night, but in all the ads (and on the website) they claim it's the "World television premiere of the restored widescreen film." Are these really the new transfers we've been hearing about or just some misinformed advertising?

Quote:
By the way does anyone know more information on whether The Spy Who Loved to Goldeneye, will get the 5.1 track re-done as well?

I would imagine so as these were all stereo mixes (the first few had mono surrounds)and therefore compatible with the 5.1 format. "Dr.No" through "Golden Gun" were all mono mixes, and would prefer them to stay that way.

I'd like to see/hear some modern Diana Rigg involvement in the new OHMSS supplements (she was absent from the previous DVD's bonus materials, except for a very brief vintage interview film clip and the vintage radio promotional interview), ands a Lazenby commentary would be most welcome, too.

I wonder if Connery's recent backing-out of his big biographical book deal (apparently, the author he was working with wanted to broach some "hot button" personal subjects that Connery didn't want to cover), as well as his voice-work participation in the upcoming FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE video game, may actually increase the chances that he might participate in a Bond commentary track or two.

I'm very looking forward to these.

The only Bond DVD I purchased was Goldfinger and because of the near-Madacy quality of the presentation, I've avoided the rest of the Bonds... except Casino Royale (terrific remaster).

In 1991, Criterion had released Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger on laserdisc with their usual SE treatment that no one else had done yet. They were original aspect ratio (British AR of 1.75) and remastered and were the best home video versions at the time. And they indeed had audio commentaries,

Dr. No had an audio commentary hosted by Bruce Eder while FRWL and Goldfinger was hosted by Steven Jay Rubin. The commentaries were taken from interviews over the years with director Terence Young, director Guy Hamilton, writer Richard Maibaum, editor Peter Hunt, and production designer Ken Adam. They were most insightful and candid. I have not listened to them in a long time since the DVD's were released.

When these LD's first came out, EON asked that the commentaries be removed from subsequent releases. So Criterion released the commentaries separately on audio CD at the time and the later LD's had the commentaries removed. The story I heard at the time was that EON did not like certain comments as they could have reflected badly on the production. But I felt they were quite insightful and straight forrward for the most part. It's a shame because the commetaries on the DVD's are missing some great stuff. Peter Hunt on a new editing style, and Ken Adam on his really cool use of design and materials on a very tight budgeted Dr. No. Definitely a very good set of commentaries, edited very well and contain some very good information. I think the offending comment was just one short one, that's my guess.

There are also what has become standard stuff that is expected, photos of the production and trailers and isolated music and effects tracks. Also included are TV commercials that spoof Bond. Great stuff if you have it.

Nelson

^^^ Yes, I still have mine and prefer watching these discs to the DVDs since they are framed correctly. Those audio commentaries rank up there as the best I've ever heard. Fortunately, none of these discs have been affected by rot.