UHD James Bond films in Ultra HD blu Ray? (1 Viewer)

[Mike Boone]

It's unfortunate that Lowery's efforts were so variable in quality. They really seem to depend on the technician who was assigned to the specific film, and there was no one apparently supervising the overall quality of the series. This would explain why several films including Thunderball and You only live twice we're such poor reflections of the original prints. I don't know how many more times the studio will bother to do a full the bottom up restoration of these films, given the collapse of the physical media market. There is also now the complication that all the work done on remastering them 10 years ago is being stored digitally on hard drives. I don't even know if Fox has a way to extract the information from these hard drives and build (and correct where necessary) upon The Lowrey masters, or if they need to start from scratch by pulling the negatives again.

I share your doubts about the studio again being willing to do full restorations of the films you mentioned. With the exception of 1965's The Sound of Music, the market for movies from the 1960s is almost non-existent, as a quick glance at sales charts for Blu-rays and DVDs, easily confirms. That's why, with disc sales dropping, I've ordered a lot of 1960s and 70s films on Blu-ray in the last 6 months, because I'm concerned they won't be available for too much longer.


I mentioned on another thread that the 1966 Best Picture Oscar winner, A Man For All Seasons, a landmark film, and one of the proudest jewels in the crown of Columbia Pictures, couldn't even sell 3 thousand BDs in the 6 months following it's long awaited (awaited by a few people, anyway) Blu-ray debut this past May. Yet, 2012's The Avengers achieved most of its sales of 5.5 million BD copies in it's 1st month on BD. That means that The Avengers, in a shorter period of time, managed to sell almost 2 thousand times as many discs as AMFAS was able to move in a half year.


Recent movies released on disc routinely manage to sell at least 300 to 500 times as many discs as the vast majority of 1960s, or even 1970s, films are able to do. In view of this, I'm actually thrilled that studio executives are even still devoting any attention, at all, to those older films.


BTW, last week, I bought the Thunderball Blu-ray at Walmart, and had already acquired the You Only Live Twice BD last spring. I'd already read that Thunderball's Blu-ray video quality isn't so hot, but at a price of $7.99, I figured, what the hell.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Unfortunately, it also seems that the titles that were done in 4K originally have not been remastered.

That matches my experience as well. Last time I saw any of them theatrically would have been 2012 or 2013, and they were quite obviously DCPs based on the same masters used for home video, right down to the main titles on "Thunderball" being squeezed like on the Ultimate Edition DVD and Blu-ray.

 

[Osato]

No. They're available to cinemas.

Thank you for clarifying.

So at the very least these transfers will show up in the future as well for home use.

?

 

[Osato]

Would this also include the goldfinger 4K screening that kicked off this thread?

 

[Worth]

The most recent 4K screening of Goldfinger I saw used the Lowry master.

 

[Osato]

The most recent 4K screening of Goldfinger I saw used the Lowry master.

Again thank you for clarifying.

So at this point, golden gun - ? Have new transfers?
Moonraker was 4K scanned.

Zero chance of a Spectre uhd bd coming this year? Just wondering if I should cancel my preorder.
The Spectre blu Ray is the lightest extras 007 disc that we have seen in a long time?

 

[Worth]

Again thank you for clarifying.

So at this point, golden gun - ? Have new transfers?
Moonraker was 4K scanned.

It looks like everything from The Man with the Golden Gun up to the DI era (minus Moonraker) have received new 4K scans, though again, I can't confirm that, as I haven't seen all of them.

 

[Osato]

It looks like everything from The Man with the Golden Gun up to the DI era (minus Moonraker) have received new 4K scans, though again, I can't confirm that, as I haven't seen all of them.

Got it. It's a shame all of the Films were not treated equally but I'm sure cost wise in their eyes they all are at 4K now.

 

[Osato]

I'd like to see the moonraker teaser included on the next release:

Moonraker only contains 1 trailer. No tv or radio spots...

 

[Osato]

I wonder if the older films have the new rumored prints for 4K?

http://thecolonialtheatre.com/programs/bonding-with-dad/

 

[Keith Cobby]

If the Bond films don't receive good treatment for UHD there is no chance of anything earlier being released.

 

[Worth]

I wonder if the older films have the new rumored prints for 4K?

http://thecolonialtheatre.com/programs/bonding-with-dad/

I saw a bunch of them in 4K last year. The ones that already had existing 4K scans looked to be the same as the blu-ray masters. The ones that only had 2K scans previously had great, new 4K transfers.

 

[Osato]

I saw a bunch of them in 4K last year. The ones that already had existing 4K scans looked to be the same as the blu-ray masters. The ones that only had 2K scans previously had great, new 4K transfers.

Understood. I know there won't be any news on uhd releases of the film's until bond 25 as well.

 

[Sam Favate]

The early Bond movies are still some of the best-looking blu-rays I have ever seen. I almost can't imagine how 4k would make them better, but I'm thrilled at the thought.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The early Bond movies are still some of the best-looking blu-rays I have ever seen. I almost can't imagine how 4k would make them better, but I'm thrilled at the thought.

When they're good, they're good, but the problem I have with some of them is that they're just not accurate to what the movies are supposed to look like. On Her Majesty's Secret Service looks pristine, but the colors are horrendously wrong in the pre-credit sequence. And most of the scope movies have titles that aren't just windowboxed but actually squished, a leftover from the older masters made when overscan was still an issue on certain TVs. The thing is, they could be perfect with not much more effort.

It's not so much that I want a new 4K scan, I just want the errors fixed, and it seems that hoping for a 4K release is the best chance of that. But this is also MGM, and they just don't care. They think what they have is "good enough" so that's that.

 

[Sam Favate]

I was referring primarily to the first three or four films, which look as good as anything I have ever seen.

 

[Osato]

The bond films will definitely pull me into uhd....

 

[Osato]

Looks like fox and MGM will continue their home video partnership through 2020.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=19315

 

[Osato]

Food for thought for uhd blu Ray:

http://www.the007dossier.com/007dossier/post/2016/07/01/James-Bond-in-Glorious-Technicolor

 

[Osato]

I'd like to see the moonraker teaser included on the next release:

Moonraker only contains 1 trailer. No tv or radio spots...

Here's a couple more radio spots from London that would be great to have included on the next release:

http://www.the007dossier.com/007dossier/post/2016/07/08/New-Moonraker-radio-spots