James Bond Blu-ray Collection: Volume One (Dr. No / Die Another Day / Live and Let Die) [Blu-ray]

I'm sure they were fine and the price wasn't bad, but I ended up having a couple of the "Complete Collections" be recommended to me based on my browsing history and one of them was just too good a deal to pass up making these unnecessary. I tried to cancel the order (I'd JUST made it!), but was told it was too late, so I just requested a return when they got here. It was accepted back no problems.

Let me first state that I was completely unaware of the problems with playing these movies until I browsed through the Amazon reviews. It is disturbing to constantly hear of people who paid good money for their expensive players not being able to fully enjoy movies that are expected to play on them. However, I have not experienced any problems playing a Bluray movie ever and this review is only discussing my personal experience with this specific package._____________________________________________THE GOOD:- Incredible video quality, better than what the audience saw on release date on some of the older movies.- Lots of extras, most of them worth watching or listening to.- Beautiful packaging.THE NOT SO GOOD:- The sound restoration not as good as the video.- Some of the 'extras' sections would benefit from a 'play all' option.- The boxes could be a bit slimmer.- May require upgrades on certain players._____________________________________________The overall impression is of quality, inside and out. The 2 boxes could be a little smaller but the packaging is exquisite. There's a transparent plastic slide cover over a solid cardboard box holding a small binder on which the individual movie disks are pages. Each movie comes on one disk, holding the movie itself and in incredible amount of extras.The menu interface is well organized and there's is even some humor in labeling. For example, the option that plays the movie is labeled 'The Mission' while the historic promotional material is found under 'The Propaganda'. Depending on which section you may be, menu options branch into further sub-menus.The extras are numerous and, for the most part interesting. The Dr. No disk, for example, has a very informative HD documentary on the restoration process and we get to learn who did what, why and how. Then, we see 1962 trailers, a contemporary documentary on the making of the movie, a 1960's interview with a gun specialist discussing the various James Bond handguns, even radio commercials.The sound options include the original sound which, in the older releases is 'mono' but all movies have surround 5.1 as the default. The sound wasn't upgraded and improved to the degree that the picture was but, it's understandable. Going from mono to 5.1 surround would be the equivalent of upgrading from black and white to full-color 3-D in the world of images. The area where some of the older installments show their age is the sound.When it comes to the pictures, the best that I can say is that you've got to see it to believe it. The restoration of the older movies started with the actual original negative, which is the one copy that's almost never touched. Once the copy was digitized as a 4000 lines resolution digital copy (Bluray is 1080) every frame was reprocessed to eliminate any possible defects from 'dirty optics', such as the proverbial hair that we sometimes see on the older movies to scratches, bad exposure, color brilliance. The restorers' goal for the end result, and this concerns the video only, not the sound quality, was to deliver what would appear to be a contemporary movie with a 60's or 70's theme rather than a 60's or 70's movies. In my view, they succeeded.My overall rating is a solid five-stars. Just about everything in this release is superlative: the physical packaging, the interface design, the extras, the video quality. The sound is not so good on the older movies but, given the state of sound restoration technologies, I did not feel compel to remove a star because the old movies sounded more or less like they did on release date.Please note that and I am not factoring in player issues because, sooner or later, those are going to be addressed.

Unless you have lived a cloistered existence you are undoubtedly aware of the three 007 adventures contained within this set, so we'll just give a primer...Starting with 1963's 'From Russia With Love', easily one of Connery's best outings. Excellent restoration and Hi-Def transfer; so good it shows the budgetary limitations of the original product. Later films fare somewhat better at this; such is the case with 1965's 'Thunderball', a personal favorite.The superior production values and photography come out in this stellar Blu Ray, a 'must' own for any collection. Much is made of the film's shortcomings- but in the end this IS the 'big budget Bond blockbuster'that has spawned countless imitations and still holds up well; the Bahama locations literally jump off the screen.Which brings us to 1981's 'For Your Eyes Only', Roger Moore's fifth outing, and a 'return to earth' after the effects laden 'Moonraker'. This film serves as an interesting companion piece to 'From Russia With Love' for it tries- mightily- to tap the same vein. While nowhere near as good, it still has it's pleasures and is great to look at as well.All told, a nice package for fans and the casual observer as well...

I'm an audiophile and videophile and my review is based on watching this collection on an ISF calibrated Pioneer Kuro. I'm not old enough to have seen many of these in the theater but this collection sure does give you the feeling that this is what it might have been like to see them when they were new. The video quality is impressive on all, with Live and Let Die being the worst in the set and Die Another Day the best. The color on the older films is ever so slightly over done (a bit too much red) but again this reminds me of what it might have been like to see these in a theater in the 1960s.The only disappointment is the soundtrack on ALL of them (compressed DTS as I can't currently decode uncompressed). The sound quality is excellent (again Live and Let Die the worst). My issue with the soundtrack is the fault of whomever remastered the audio. The effects are unbelievably loud (on a properly calibrated home theater) and the voices are quiet. You cannot solve the issue by turning up the center channel since much of the effect sounds are also present in the center channel information. I noticed the same sound issues when watching the HD broadcast of Die Another Day on SpikeTV today.Gripes aside. I love this collection and hope the rest of the Bond films are released on Blu-Ray in the near future.

Well wanted these for a while as I’ve always loved the James Bond films.On arrival today I was gutted to find the disc really scratched and Dr No feature film was missing leaving only bonus features disc in the case.Contacted seller and hopefully will replace the film.I’ll ypdate this review once I’ve had contact from the seller

I am one of those people that bought all of the Bond films individually on DVD when they were released back in 2002. They are good discs in themselves and sat proudly on my shelf. Then I read about this collection and the work that had been done by Lowry Digital in restoring the films and got excited. After much soul searching I decided to bite the bullet and buy this new set and sell my old copies on eBay. Boy am I glad I did! The quality of these new releases is nothing short of stunning. Starting with Dr No, the remastered image is simply sublime with not a speck of dirt and colours vibrant and lush. You really could believe that this is a movie which was made only yesterday. The first 9 Bond movies have benefited the most from the restoration process due to their age, so once you reach 'The Spy Who Loved Me', whilst still showing an improvement in picture, there isn't the same remarkable difference in quality. I was happy to see that my personal favourite, 'The Living Daylights', still looks considerably better/sharper than the older version and the inclusion of a DTS soundtrack on all the films really makes a difference when watching with a good sound system. It is true that all of the extras from the previous discs are included here, but there are additional new features for each of the films. In some cases these are minor extras, in others they are more considerable (Roger Moore has recorded individual commentaries for each of his 7 films and they are a joy to listen too). So.. is this worth £200? Yes I think it is. The case the DVD's come in is very nice and not in the least bit 'tatty'; buying them as a set is certainly cheaper than getting them all individually; and to think this is the best these movies will ever look, to watch them in any other way is just a crime.

Son happy

Good film, as I have said I think it is good to get films like this if u enjoy them instead of downloading them from the telly and then overloading your planner and it going down as these things do.

Very good condition. 3 good films and good value. Thanks.