Bond 007 re-issues, 12 months and counting (1 Viewer)

[Mark Anthony]

All the previously released MGM Bond dvd's are currently unavailable - presumably to be reissued when bond 20 is released in approx a years time.
Now that they have a year to do something, perhaps MGM/UA could do right by the catalogue that has netted them several billion pounds (or dollars!) over the years...
For a start when these re-issues come out, it would be nice to have the faults of the old versions ironed out - like the missing subtitles on Octopussy and Livings Daylights - the lack of which ruins comic scenes. And also the footage that is missing from On her Majesty's Secret Service - all of this was promised to be rectified after the MGM chat in March...
But if they really wanna do something impressive, by my reckoning, the picture transfers of Dr No through to Live and Let Die could do with some serious work - maybe due to less than pristine elements, older transfer/mastering technology or whatever - but some of the films look atrocious in terms of dirt and colour shifts - OHMSS and Goldfinger particularly.
If you compare Thunderball with Dr Zhivago - both made by MGM / UA in 1965, both huge budget, both shot in 35mm Panavision and both crown jewels of the company - with Zhivago's elements currently in an apparantly terrible state - compare the DVD's of the two and which looks better....
If the titles are suffering due to poor master elements, then why is/has preservation and restoration not been done to these titles - they have netted MGM a fortune, they are worthy of better - I believe Mr Robert Harris said in a post on this site that Goldfinger's dvd looks like certain shots have come from dupe elements - this needs sorting out now, they will only be in a worse state if they are left to rot.
As for the soundtracks, the original mono, stereo and multi-track mixes should be included for purists, but given that DME elements are apparantly still available for all but the first 3 bond's, why cannot a full 5.1 remix be done and also included for You Only Live Twice, OHMSS, Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die and Man with the Golden Gun.
Comparing the remastered cd's of the soundtracks with the music scores on the dvd is quite an eye-opener, the DVD's audio pales in comparison.
And as to why Octopussy from 1983 - the only bond to have 70mm blow-up 6 track sound - is in 2.0 surround when all the other bond's from 1977 onwards are in 5.1 is anyone's guess.
Finally although Dr No through Goldfinger have only composite mono master audio elements available, chace audio could still remix these into 5.1 if they were asked - just hearing the original stereo scores integrated into the film, if not changing the effects, would bring them alive.
And as the latest three Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough had theatrical DTS tracks - perhaps they could be released on DVD that way too, the former two had laserdisc DTS releases.
And finally on the subject of supplements, all the pre-Goldeneye films have excellent supplements, with the exception of a lack of deleted scenes on the majority of them - but the last 3 bond's have no Inside... documentary's which gave great insight, instead they have merely making of fluff pieces that don't compare - perhaps we could have inside doc's for these 3 as well...
It would be great to see all this happen, but at the very least I'd like to thank MGM for putting Bond back where he belongs in Bond 20....behind the wheel of an Aston Martin

 

[Mark_TS]

I agree, THUNDERBALL, and in particular, OHMSS are in serious need of restoration-I dont know that a RM would help...but MGM doesnt have the deep pockets of TIMEWARNER...which did a wonderfull job on DZ...

 

[JohnJB]

My guess with regard to the average picture quality is that the majority would simply look a hell of a lot better with a decent bit rate i.e. their own disk with supplement's on second disk.

Have you seen how low the the bit rate's are + films like OHMSS (although for that matter just about all of them) is 2 hours 22 minutes long and in addition has three featurettes of significant length.

 

[JohnS]

I thought they fixed the problem with subtitles on Octopussy

 

[Jeff(R)]

This reminds me - doesn't MGM have
a new policy of including a P&S version on each
new disc? I wonder if the Bond DVDs will be remastered
to include that. Some of my early (circa '97) Bond
dvds have the P&S version on the second layer.
Jeff

 

[Tom-G]

And also the footage that is missing from On her Majesty's Secret Service

Mark, how much footage is missing from OHMSS? I wasn't even aware of this.

If MGM is going to remaster the films, then mix the sound properly. "Thunderball" has a very weak 5.1 mix and I would rather have it it's orginal audio presentation.

I own all of the DVDs and I'm not complaining about anything. All I'm saying is that if MGM is going to do this, do it correctly.

 

[bill lopez]

I agree with GOLDFINGER that it needs fixing, but I remember reading online reviews that the dvd looked great.

 

[Mark Anthony]

There's about two minute's-ish of footage missing from OHMSS, can't rememeber exactly where, I'm sure dvd reviews will mention it - as will the transcript of the mgm chat.
As far as I'm aware MGM never did fix the subtitle problem's on Octopussy and The L D - they were going to but didn't.
As for goldfinger looking great, it probably did when that transfer was first used for the first dvd issue in 1997, now it looks poor...
Oh and whilst I'm here, above all else if it would be possible to utilise the original theatrical artwork on the covers, rather than vhs re-issue art, they would look so much better - and to sort out the compression problems of squeezing all these new things onto the discs - let's make them each a 2 disc set - film on one, supplements on the other

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is missing a shot of a cable car. You can hear the sound effect of it in one shot, where Bond's companion is scaling the mountain, just before being captured by Blofeld's men.

Also, the demolition derby has different editing compared to the LD. Shots are missing, but the scene still works.

I also think one of Blofeld's lines is missing just before the attack on Piz Gloria. Keep in mind that none of these edits really affect the movie.

Neil

 

[Lawrence]

The Living Daylights and Octopussy were corrected and MGM sent free replacements postage paid. The corrected versions had *'s on either side of the title on the top label. I recall seeing numerous copies on store shelves.

 

[Britton]

MGM/UA did release corrected versions of Octopussy and The Living Daylights containing player generated subtitles. If I recall correctly, I sent an email to [email protected] and they sent me a UPS shipping label. It cost me nothing to get the discs replaced.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

They also sent out a corrected copy of Never Say Never Again. That movie was encoded worng, and five minutes was missing at the layer change.
Neil - who got all of his corrected discs from MGM

 

[William Miller]

Thunderball and Dr. Zhivago were not made by the same company.

Thunderball was made by United Artists amd Dr. Zhivago was made by MGM. In 1965, there was not a company called MGM/UA. That merger happened much later.

 

[Tim Glover]

I passed on Octopussy for two reasons: 1. The horrible cover art on this disc, and 2. the 2.0 soundtrack...Hopefully this will be corrected.

 

[Mark Anthony]

I'm glad that the subtitle errors were corrected, I was not made aware of this by an e-retailer who promised me they'd let me know when it happened....

I put MGM / UA with the space between the slash because I was well aware they were 2 different companies back in 1965 but the fact that they were made by 2 different companies, really doesn't affect the age, technical and archival storage details which are more relevent to their current dvd presentation...

As for the other prob's including the missing footage on OHMSS, a few shots or not, this speaks for itself and they have not done right by their golden goose

And to clarify I would rebuy all 19 films, if my original suggestions were adhered to

A pre-emptive happy new year to all

MA

 

[Dharmesh C]

How about we compile a list in feedback forum?

As for the Octopussy sound, I found the 2.0 sound exceptable, didn't spoil the film for me, glad to have it in my collection.

I've avoided all the Connery Bonds (not sure about the picture quality), OHMSS (cos of the cuts) and the Brosnan films (don't like them but a DTS track might sway me).

 

[Tom-G]

I passed on Octopussy for two reasons: 1. The horrible cover art on this disc

Tim, are you serious?

If you are, I just wanted to let you know that you print out new covers. If you want, I can give you a link.

 

[Mark Anthony]

Just shamelessly bumping this in the hope an MGM rep may see it...
Hope none of you have the mother of all hangover's which I've still got ....
MA

 

[Mark Anthony]

One final bump, just in-case anybody else wants to give their 2pennies worth on MGM's most succesful franchise...

 

[Dan Hitchman]

I will only rebuy if and only if the classic Bonds (up to Dalton) have FULLY restored negatives and soundtracks with all the missing European theatrical release-only footage added back in.

Then they need high quality 1080p telecine transfers.

The picture/sound/compression quality on a lot of these so called Bond SE's are atrocious!

Add a stellar DTS 5.1 (for all of them) or DTS-ES Discrete 6.1 (for the last Bond flick) track while you're at it! The DTS LD of GoldenEye was phenomenal!

Dan