Bond 50: The Complete 22 Film Collection [Blu-ray]

What a fun box set to own. The case is high quality and comes with 2 books divided by the years of the movies. All of my discs work perfectly fine without any issues. A lot of fun to sit down and go through all of the 007 movies in order. My set even came with an extra disc for Skyfall, which was not in the original order. The only reason I didnt give it 5 stars is because I wish it would come with some bonus features. Otherwise, a great buy.

(10-3 UPDATE / expansion starting at paragraph 6) I havent watched Bond movies since the mid-90s, and the last recent one I watched was The World Is Not Enough. (1999) By the time deluxe boxed DVD sets of the films came out, I was pretty much maxed out on DVD collecting, and rather disillusioned with the limitations of the fragile medium, and the 007 franchise was in a slump anyway. When I got news of this release, I wish listed it, and here we are, only a few weeks after his pop cultural offspring, Indiana Jones, hit Blu-Ray. Keep in mind this is from the PoV of one who hasnt watched a single Bond DVD, and therefore skipping straight to Blu-Ray. Oct 5, 1962 -- Ian Flemings 007 spy novels had been best sellers for a decade; Kennedy and Khruschev were about to play nuclear tightrope over Cuba; and Dr. No debuted, and a film franchise, iconic characters and images, and a variety of Bond traditions were born. The set includes all 22 official Bond films in nicely designed and colorful packaging -- although Im still uncomfortable with the studios using tight paper packaging yet again....twill be investigating. And, yes, how cute, there is a slot for the newest Bond movie, Skyfall, too. The Blu-Rays come in two books, for pre- and post-Never Say Never Again Bond movies. I mention Never Say, because it is not included, despite starring Sean Connery, for four reasonable reasons: A) its a re-make (of Thunderball); B) its not from the same production co.; C) its not very good anyway; and D) if you must, then you can probably get it very cheaply by itself. (Then again, I just checked the prices.....uh-oh). There is also no 1967 Casino Royale. Since it is a parody; complaining about its absence is analogous to moaning about the Star Wars set not having Spaceballs in it. Here at Amazon, the set comes with a book about 007 posters.....at least the Exclusive Excerpted Edition. But hey, dont worry, the Blu-Rays have plenty more poster images on them. The presentation quality is shockingly stunning, looks fabulous. Cute menu screens with character shots and backlit chicks on wobbly discs waving pistols around-- how very title sequency. The commentaries are, I suspect, carried over from the DVD releases. For the older films, they are loose compilations of observations and reflections of a variety of people involved in the production: designers, editors, composers, ad campaign designers, and many of the actors. Each film has at least one commentary, and a few even have three. When a commentary goes quiet or into an undesirable topic or monologue, its good to be able to switch over to another commentary for a little while. Some of the 60s films commentaries go into now lets hear what Bond sounds like in x language for about five minutes or so at a time; again, good to switch and keep the info. flowing. During slow spots, you can also play with the other extras, arranged along the following pattern: Top Level Access ( a rare category): In the case of the Dr No disk, its a 12-minute look at the Lowry Digitals efforts and processes of restoring and cleaning the prints of older Bond movies to give it the immaculate presentation that it has on these Blu-Rays. A) Declassified MI6 Vault: Little vignettes about topics across all the Bond movies -- here on Dr. No, its a look at the UK, US, and a few world premieres of all of the pre-Craig 007 movies, and another that looks at Guns. Lots of behind-the-scenes stuff (which is under category A or C or both) varies wildly, including material from the time of the making of the film in question: featurettes, different angles, on set, on location, effects, storyboards, press conferences, interviews from the time, deleted scenes. Many 60s films have Ford / car co. promo films ranging from mildly informative to weirdly whimsical. (Childs Guide to Blowing Up a Motor Car, from Thunderball comes to mind.) There are a few screen tests, including those for the Bond That Never Was, Josh Brolin, for Octopussy. That films extras also include the ultimate reminder of the series Cold War origins and milieu with location footage of the Berlin Wall. B) 007 Mission Control (on half the films): Movie-specific looks at 007, Women, Allies, Villains, Mission Combat Manual, Q Branch, and Exotic Locations The 007 Mission Control sets are on half of the films. The problem is, all they are are just random snippets straight from the films.....isnt that what chapter selection is for? More of the films have the Exotic Locations feature, which, unlike the other Mission Control features, actually has some substance. They are nice 3-min. tour guides (narrated by Maud Adams, no less) of the various places where the Bond movies were filmed. C) Mission Dossier: Various BTS doc.s: for Dr. No, a strange scratchy vintage 1963 featurette narrated by a funny little man with an enormous nose; an 18min. look at director Terence Young; and a main doc called Inside Dr No Starting in 1981, you have music videos. (Except for DADs Madonna song in 2002) D) Ministry of Propaganda: Trailers, TV spots, radio ads (Goldfinger had over a dozen!), n such; starting w/Moonraker, some of the films have only theatrical trailer(s) here. E) Image Database: Photos of the Filmmakers, Portraits of the Cast, BTS photos fm. Jamaica and Pinewood, and some of Ian Fleming fm both places, a small set of pics of the strange Lost Scene (Ursula vs. crabs), and Around the World w/007, a collection of posters and the like. There are tons of image galleries for each movie. (And somewhat fewer for the 21st century Bonds, but still plenty.) Most of them are tiny sets, more average about 2 min.s to sit through, and once in a while there are epic sets of photos that run up to 8 minutes. My favorite category here is 007 Around the World (as in, posters) and Merchandising, although, alas, these arent included with every movie. This categorization essentially stops with the post-Brosnan movies, w/somewhat fewer extras for the newer movies as a result. And these are all just the minor-sounding extras! Im saving the various main documentaries (on each film, or on major players) and the bonus disc for later. While the extras may not be consistent nor complete, they are still pretty comprehensive. For obvious reasons, its going to take me a while to go through the whole set, but I suspect this initial run-through gives a great idea of what to expect. Except for the iffy packaging (I use disposable gloves for removing and replacing each disk), I suspect that this set is near perfect, one of the best of the decade so far.

I love the set, but I just got a new dell tower win 11. So far, 4 out of 8 dont play on my new computer, Dell assistant checked all my stuff. It is in order. So either their player is not so good, or some of the dvds have trouble being read. As anyone had this problem and solved it? A play alone dvd player?

It has been great fun to own the entire collection and watch the progression of James Bond movies in sequential order. The video quality is excellent, especially for films that were made starting in 1962. The original film (not a copy) was scanned frame-by-frame in 4K resolution, then restored by hand and the painstaking effort shows. Im watching the movies using an Oppo BPD-103 Blu-ray player and a Panasonic TC-P55ST60 plasma screen. There are various extras on each disc, that range from pretty basic to excellent. The packaging is beautifully done and is as impressive as the quality of the movies. They had the foresight to include a slot for Skyfall, which had not been completed when this collection was released. I have also purchased Skyfall to complete the collection. Overall, I am very pleased with this purchase and have already enjoyed hours of entertainment.

The Blu-ray set arrived about a week ago and I have watched one disk each day since. No point in my re-telling the stories, please read other reviews for that. Rather, I want to address the quality and features of this specific set. The quality of the images (watched on an LG 47 Led tv via a Sony 3D/Blu-ray player and Sony sound bar) is absolutely fabulous! Each film has been meticulously converted from the ORIGINAL NEGATIVES to digital resulting in exceptional clarity with brilliant color. WOW! Great job! So far Ive watched all of the disks starring Sean Connery as Bond (Never Say Never Again is not included in the set as it was produced by another company). I first saw these films when they were originally released at the famous old grand theatres in downtown Chicago, and have watched them many times since on tv, VHS, and DVD. Short of viewing these films on a big theatre screen, this Blu-ray set is the next best thing - or possibly better - as I can watch in my jammies and the set includes hours and hours of bonus features. One fun thing I notice about the early movies is how current and stylish everything looks. As is said everything old becomes new again, since Mad Men has become so popular, mid-century modern decor is now considered chic as is the clothing of the 60s and 70s. Except for the cars and Bonds swim trunks, the films look as if they could have been filmed today! I like the album-style packaging and have no problem removing or returning disks to their slots. Plastic clamshells would have been an improvement, though they probably would have raised the cost of the set. I appreciate that a slot is reserved for Skyfall, due for November theatre release. Each of the disks Ive watched contain plenty of extras, some way more than others. All contain at least one or two optional commentary versions. So far they all appear to have been produced in the 80s or 90s. One disk contains a documentary on the process of converting the original negatives to Blu-ray format, each film taking hours and hours to convert. The results are stunning and the results even amazed the technicians. The sharpness and crispness at times made it seem almost like I was watching Dr. No and From Russia With Love in 3D. (Feel free to disagree, but thats how I saw them!) The bonus features include an incredible amount of additional content such as premier openings, deleted scenes, screen tests, documentaries on filming, special effects, martial arts training, casting, props, location scouting, as well as brief bios of Ian Fleming, Sean Connery and other cast members, original commercials and tv specials about the films (60s and 70s vintage so of poor quality), toys, collectibles and other Bond merchandise promoting the movies. Whew! I said it was hours and hours! One day I watched over six hours straight and still hadnt seen everything on the disk. The complete set includes 22 Blu-ray disks, one disk of bonus material (besides what is on each movie disk), stored in two albums that fit it into a slick slipcase and the 70 page hardcover book, James Bond 50 Years of Movie Posters. I was glad I pre-ordered this set months go. Amazon lowered the price after shipping my set so they refunded the $30 difference, plus as an Amazon Prime member, shipping was free. I initially hesitated pre-ordering the set when originally offered at almost $200.00. But after seeing the quality and all the features the set contains I now think it is definitely worth it, after all its less than $10 per disk. Once these sets are gone, it may probably be years or decades, before a new set is issued (or maybe never if everything actually goes to owning by downloading the file or watching via instant streaming!) As the Bond culture lives on, all items Bond go up in price on the secondary market. Every time a new film is released new Bond fans are created. I recently introduced my 14 year old granddaughter to Sean Connery as James Bond in Dr. No and she loved it so much she took home eight of the extra Flemming novels I had! The 14 Flemming Bond books have also been reissued for the anniversary, priced individually, not as a set. The last time a set was issued was in 2002 and I was fortunate to obtain a complete set via Amazons secondary market some months ago for about $150.00. If you are a Bond fan I think you will love this set as much as I do. Every fan has their favorite Bond movie, villian, woman and favorite Bond. Not every film is great, not every Bond actor acclaimed. But there surely is much great (and timeless) entertainment here for Bond to be alive and kicking for over 50 years! From this fan of 50 years: Thank you, Mr. Fleming - Ian Fleming!

The product is exactly as described and has left a space to complete the collection with Skyfall (which isnt included in the case). Each page comes with a photo or photos of the 2 movies that are on the right-page sleeve. A photo of the corresponding Bond girl is next to each movie. It is quite well made and worth the money, especially considering the extremely high resolution you get when you buy a blu-ray disc instead of a conventional dvd (I was watching one of the movies and in a close-up shot you could actually see a few stray hairs on Pierce Brosnans face that were probably missed when he was shaved - THAT is how clear the image is). And, the case looks a lot more expensive than it is, making it the perfect gift for a true Bond fan. And delivery was outstanding: ordered on Friday and paid to get it on Sunday but received it on Saturday.

Its quite a feat to have any property be around for 50 years, especially one thats been riddled with financial woes like Bond has. Nevertheless, this set contains some of my favorite action movies and is something any action, spy, or Bond fond would be happy to own. I wont take up any space reviewing the individual movies that come in the set (as that would take up way too much space) but the actual set itself. Within the set, the movies are housed in two separate booklets, labeled 1962-1981 and 1983-2012. The 22-disc set is built out of a glossy cardboard, and each disc is housed in a sleeve that contains artwork and images from the film it belongs to. Its a treat to flip through the pages and see each movies represented. Theres even an empty slot at the back of the second booklet to house Skyfall when it comes out. The set isnt totally complete, as it doesnt include the movies from the Eon production line, including the original Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again. The movies themselves look terrific with the Bluray treatment. As you can imagine, images and sounds are much clearer and its been a lot of fun to go back and rewatch the movies in high definition. Each movie has various special features, culminating in literally hundreds of hours of extras. As I said, this set will be sure to please action, spy, or Bond fans. The price tag can be a little daunting, but Ive seen Amazons promotional prices range anywhere from $100 to $200. Trust me, you wont be disappointed with your purchase.

I bought this set for $177.00 the day it was released on Amazon, and now its a sale price of $238.00 ???? LOL.Merry Christmas sucker. Love amazon. The set is nice but I dont feel they really did that great of a lob on the transfer and because of the packaging there is no way to get the disc out with out touching it. Ive had a couple freeze up and had to clean them to get them to play. They were actually kind of stuck to the packaging slot they store in. Maybe to keep them from slidding around during shipping??? The packaging does suck but is very nice looking. Storing it with your other videos presents another issue if you like to be organized. Very awkward design. Pretty sure Q didnt design this set. Hope I dont have any other problems with the rest that I havent watched. This product deserved to be presented in a more fitting fashion for 50 years of bond. I had a couple of the single discs and these are the exact same as those. They did nothing to make them any better (and they could have used some improvement). In all I had all 22 movies in the latest dvd upgrade and these really are not that much of an improvement but they are better. The special features??? really dont feature anything new. Unless you just gotta have it in blueray then buy it but wait for the price to go back down after the holidays. Personally I could have lived with the latest digital upgraded dvd set and been wiser for it and $177.00 richer. but Im a bond nut what can I say.

I wont bother to review the Bond movies as a category; I think they are great but by this point everyone should be familiar with them. In general, the quality of the movies in HD seems to be quite good and the price for a collection of 22 films of this quality cant be beat. The only thing that I was a little disappointed with was the bonus material, which seems a bit thin for a film series of this caliber (hence the four-star rating). I was hoping for some more in-depth interviews or behind the scenes types of footage. While some of this material is offered, most of the bonus disk is taken up with intro sequences, songs, and short bits. Still, a great value for anyone who doesnt own the films already or who wants to upgrade to Bluray.

I believe that the original movies were the best. I don’t think that the woke culture should change a thing. I know they want to change the world but it’s not perfect