Pierce Brosnan Movie:

		List Price: $89.98		Label: MGM Salesrank: 1159 Released: October 21, 2008
		Our Price: $39.71
		Used Price: $35.00
		MPAA Rating: Unrated Media: Blu-ray

Editorial Review:
Disc 1: Die Another Day Ultimate Edition Blu-ray WS Disc 2: Live And Let Die Ultimate Edition Blu-ray WS Disc 3: Dr. No Ultimate Edition Blu-ray WS

James Bond Blu-ray Collection Three-Pack, Vol. 1 (Dr. No / Die Another Day / Live and Let Die) [Blu-ray] Reviews:
A Showcase Blu-ray Release - and you may get 2 free movie tickets
2008-11-24 - [I do not know if everyone is going to get this promotion but my 6-pack which included Vol. 1 came with a 'free tickets' promo through Dec. 31. As you remove the wrapper, you will notice a sticker that announces the promotion. Do NOT trash the wrapper because the web site and the code you need are actually on the back of that sticker. Once you get to the site and enter the code, you will be asked for a name and email address and some other items. Then, you are presented with a page that you must print and take it to the movie theater and it is good for two free Quantum of Solace tickets. On the Six-pack I got two of these, or 4 tickets and I took the whole family to the movies and 4 of the tickets were free.]

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.

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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 boxe could be a bit slimmer.
- May require upgrades on certain players.
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The overall impression is of quality, inside and out. The box 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 3 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 compelled 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.

Classic Bond
2008-11-22 - Nice collection; Dr. No is the very first Bond film. Telephones were new!
Die another day is the one everyone forgot. It gets mysterious. Live and let die is one of the very best. Very new and very exciting.
Jay

Which Bond is Best? You Decide... in High Def!
2008-11-15 - There will always be debates on who makes the best Bond, and this trilogy gives you a sampling of three strong contenders spanning 40+ years of Bond: Sean Connery in "Dr. No" - the film that started it all, Roger Moore in his first turn as Bond, "Live and Let Die" and Pierce Brosnan as 007 in "Die Another Day" the final film before the series "re-boot."

When I put the "Dr. No" Blu-ray Disc into my player for the first time, my jaw hit the floor. The luscious detailed images that appeared on a large 1080p projection screen looked more like a movie made last year than one made in 1962. The main reason the films look so good is that all twenty of the pre-Craig Bond movies were cleaned up and restored with great care by Lowry Digital Images, using the original camera negatives. The first nine films (including "Dr. No" and "Live and Let Die" from this set) were all scanned at a whopping 4K resolution, and the other eleven were re-mastered at full HD 1920x1080 resolution - a perfect fit for Blu-ray disc. While the 12 megapixel (4000x3000 pixel) mastering of the first nine films may seem like overkill, for 1080p high definition's 2 Megapixel image, the results speak for themselves.

The sound is no slouch either, with the films re-mastered in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (the original mono or stereo track is also included on each of the older films, for the purists). The producers went back to the original master recordings, cleaned up the audio and created a truly immersive surround sound stage for each film. If you haven't seen the early Bond movies before, then you're in for a treat with these Bond classics on Blu-ray.

As to compatibility, it is important to note that some players (notably the Samsung BD-P1500 and LG BH200) do currently have playback problems on these discs. It's important to know that if you own one of these players. But this should not be a reflection on the software, just because the player manufacturers have improperly implemented the Blu-ray specifications. Also, LG and Samsung have committed to providing firmware updates to fix any playback issues with these titles. Also, most of the current generation players (including the newer Panasonic and Sony players with the latest firmware applied) have no problems playing these discs.

Full reviews of each of these Blu-ray discs are available on Big Picture Big Sound.

BE AWARE OF THE PACKAGING!
2008-11-14 - These compatability issues, though iritating, are a format liability issue that will hopefully end soon. I am not sure why continuing to update would be necessary indefinitely. What I really don't like about this set is that the packaging itself presents problems if you someday hope to have a nice, clean, uniform Bond set someday. There are no hardcases for individual disks like the old DVD Bond collections. The outer case is kinda cool with slipcase, sorta fake leather texture and a nice multi-layer look into a pipe with a bond figure. However, once you open up the booklets, the holder for the discs is very cheap with just a foam knob pasted to the cardboard itself which will undoubtedly fall off over time. What one also must understand is that there are at least one or two bond films not licenced through the same studio so you are guaranteed that you will not be able to collect all the films in a similar set. The packaging will be simple blu cases on those most likely. Depending on your preferences, you should just go with the single cases to start with. For a short time after the release, you are going to get those free movie tickets(QOS)on each box anyway as long as you buy from a reputable dealer.

Blu ray Blues
2008-10-29 - Blu ray collectors are getting just what they deserve! They wanted Blu Ray to win when we should have been fighting for compatibility instead of dominance. Now we all lose. Even my Blu ray of the Hulk does not play correctly on my older Blu ray player. What we as consumers should have been fighting for is to be able to play any disc on any player. Now our investments are blown.