James Bond on Blu-ray Disc

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Rating: PG and PG-13 (Die Another Day)

Starring:

Dr. No (1962)

Sean Connery as James Bond

Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder

Joseph Wiseman as Dr. No

Jack Lord as Felix Leiter

Bernard Lee as M.

Anthony Dawson as Professor R. J. Dent

Zena Marshall as Miss Taro

John Kitzmiller as Quarrel

Eunice Gayson as Sylvia Trench

Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny

Peter Burton as Maj. Boothroyd

Yvonne Shima as Sister Lily

Michel Mok as Sister Rose

From Russia With Love (1963)

Sean Connery as James Bond

Daniela Bianchi as Tatiana Romanova

Pedro Armendáriz as Ali Kerim Bey

Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb

Robert Shaw as Red Grant

Bernard Lee as M

Eunice Gayson as Sylvia Trench

Walter Gotell as Morzeny

Francis De Wolff as Vavra – Gypsy Leader

George Pastell as Train Conductor

Nadja Regin as Kerim’s Girl

Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny

Aliza Gur as Vida

Martine Beswick as Zora

Vladek Sheybal as Kronsteen

Thunderball (1965)

Sean Connery as James Bond

Claudine Auger as Dominique ‘Domino’ Derval

Adolfo Celi as Emilio Largo – SPECTRE #2

Luciana Paluzzi as Fiona Volpe

Rik Van Nutter as Felix Leiter

Guy Doleman as Count Lippe

Molly Peters as Patricia Fearing

Martine Beswick as Paula Caplan

Bernard Lee as M

Desmond Llewelyn as Q

Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny

Roland Culver as Foreign Secretary

Earl Cameron as Pinder

Paul Stassino as Major Francois Derval / Angelo Palazzi

Rose Alba as Madame Boitier

Live and Let Die (1973)

Roger Moore as James Bond

Yaphet Kotto as Kananga / Mr. Big

Jane Seymour as Solitaire

Clifton James as Sheriff J.W. Pepper

Julius Harris as Tee Hee

Geoffrey Holder as Baron Samedi

David Hedison as Felix Leiter

Gloria Hendry as Rosie Carver

Bernard Lee as M

Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny

Tommy Lane as Adam

Earl Jolly Brown as Whisper

Roy Stewart as Quarrel Jr.

Lon Satton as Harold Strutter

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Roger Moore as James Bond

Carole Bouquet as Melina Havelock

Topol as Milos Columbo

Lynn-Holly Johnson as Bibi Dahl

Julian Glover as Aristotle Kristatos

Cassandra Harris as Countess Lisl von Schlaf

Jill Bennett as Jacoba Brink

Michael Gothard as Emile Leopold Locque

John Wyman as Erich Kriegler

Jack Hedley as Sir Timothy Havelock

Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny

Desmond Llewelyn as Q

Geoffrey Keen as Minister of Defence

Walter Gotell as General Anatol Gogol

James Villiers as Bill Tanner

Die Another Day (2002)

Pierce Brosnan as James Bond

Halle Berry as Jinx

Toby Stephens as Gustav Graves

Rosamund Pike as Miranda Frost

Rick Yune as Zao

Judi Dench as M

John Cleese as Q

Michael Madsen as Damian Falco

Will Yun Lee as Colonel Moon

Kenneth Tsang as General Moon

Emilio Echevarría as Raoul

Mikhail Gorevoy as Vlad

Lawrence Makoare as Mr. Kil

Colin Salmon as Charles Robinson

Samantha Bond as Miss Moneypenny

Special Features:

Dr. No (1962)

Audio commentary featuring Director Terrence Young and members of the cast and crew

Featurettes including: 007 License to Restore, Dr No 1963, The Guns of James Bond Premiere Bond: Opening Nights, Misison Control: Exotic locations

Inside Dr. No, Terence Young: Bond Vivant

Ministry of Propaganda: Theatrical trailers, TV Broadcast and Radio Communication

Mission Control Search Function: 007 Allies, Villians & Combat Manual, Original Theatrical Trailer

Image Database

From Russia With Love (1963)

Audio Commentary featuring Director Terence Young and members of the Cast and Crew

Featurettes: Inside From Russia With Love, Harry Saltzman: Showman, Ian Fleming & Raymond Chandler

Ian Fleming on Desert Island Discs, Animated storyboard sequence, Ian Fleming: The CBC Interview

Mission Control Search Function: 007, Allies, Villians & Combat Manual

Ministry of Propaganda: Theatrical Trailers, TV Broadcast & Radio Communiction

Orginal Theatrical Trailer

Image Database

Thunderball (1965)

Audio Commentary featuring Director Terence Young and others

Audio Commentary featuring editor Peter Hunt, screenwriter John Hopkins and others

Declassified MI6 Vault: The Incredible world of James Bond, A Child’s Guide to Blowing Up a Motor Car, On Location with Ken Adam, Bill Suitor the RocketMan Movies, Thunderball Boat Show Reel, Selling Bonds

Original 1965 Television Commercials, MI6 Credits

Mission Control: Exotic Locations

Declassified: Mission Dossier: The Making of Thunderball, The Thunderball Phenomenon, The Secret History of Thunderball

Mission Control: Search Content Feature: 007, Allies, Villains

Ministry of Propaganda: Theatrical Trailers, TV Broadcast and Radio Communiction

Image Database

Live and Let Die (1973)

Audio commentaries featuring Sir Roger Moore, Director Guy Hamilton and Tom Mankiewicz

Declassified MI6 Vault: Roger Moore as James Bond, Circa 1964, Bond 1973: The Lost Documentary, Live and Let Die Conceptual Art

Mission Dossier: On set with Roger Moore – The Funeral Parade & Hang Gliding Lessons, Inside Live and Let Die

Ministry of Propaganda: Trailers, TV Broadcasts and Radio Communications

Mission Control: Exotic Locations

Mission Control Search Function: 007, Allies, Villains & Mission Combat Manual

Image Database

MI6 Credits

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Audio Commentaries featuring Sir Roger Moore, Director John Glen and members of the cast, Michael G. Wilson and crew

Declassified: MI6 Vault – Deleted Scenes, Expanded Angles, MI6 Credits, Bond in Greece, Bond in Croatia, Neptune’s Journey

Mission Dossier: Sheena Easton Video, Animated Story Board Sequences

Ministry of Propaganda: Theatrical Trailer, TV Broadcasts and Radio Communications

Mission Control: Exotic Locations and Opening titles

Mission Control Search Function: 007, Allies, Villains & Mission Combat Manual

Image Database

Die Another Day (2002)

Audio Commentary featuring actors Pierce Brosnan and Rosamund Pike

Audio Commentary featuring Director Lee Tamahori and Producer Michael G. Wilson

MI6 Datastream: Factoid Trivia Track

Declassified MI6 Vault: From Script to Screen, Shaken and Stirred on Ice, Just Another Day, The British Touch: Bond Arrives in London, Location scouting with Peter Lamot, MI6 Credits

Mission Control: Exotic Locations and Opening Titles

Mission Control: Search Content: 007, Villains, Mission Combat Manual

Image Database

Other Info:

Widescreen

DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio

Spanish and French Language

Spanish Subtitles

Synopsis:

Dr. No (1962)

His name is Bond. James Bond. And here, in his explosive film debut, Ian Fleming’s immortal action hero blazes through one of his most spectacular adventures. Sean Connery embodies the suave yet lethal cool of James Bond as he battles the mysterious Dr. No, a scientific genius bent on destroying the U.S Space Programme.

From Russia With Love (1963)

Sean Connery returns as James Bond in this thrill-a-minute adventure featuring remarkable villains, beautiful women and exotic locales!

This time, Bond squares off against the evil spectre organisation in a race to seize a Soviet decoding machine, thrusting him into a thrilling boat chase, a brutal helicopter attack and a deadly brawl aboard the Orient Express.

Thunderball (1965)

The thrills never let up as James Bond dives in to this riveting adventure filled with explosive confrontations and amazing underwater action!

Sean Connery brings his characteristic style and magnetism to Agent 007 as he travels to Nassau to track down a villainous criminal who is threatening to plunge the world into a nuclear holocaust

Live and Let Die (1973)

James Bond battles the forces of Black Magic in this high octane adventure that hurtles him from the streets of New York City to Louisiana’s Bayou country.

With Charm, wit and deadly assurance, Roger Moore steps in as Agent 007 and takes on a powerful Drug Lord (Yaphet Kotto) with a diabolical scheme to conquer the world.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

James Bond is thrust in to one of his most riveting adventures in this jam-packed free-for-all of outrageous stunts, passionate encounters and exciting confrontations.

Roger Moore portrays Agent 007 with lethal determination in a plot that finds him infiltrating the Greek Underworld to locate a stolen device capable of controlling a fleet of nuclear submarines!

Die Another Day (2002)

James Bond (pierce Brosnan) pulls out all the stops to take you on an unforgettable, adrenaline,-pumping ride across the globe in this action-filled adventure!

From a dark cell in a North Korean prison to the beautiful beaches of Cuba, 007 (Pierce Brosnan) is on the trail of a diabolical genius who’s hellbent on slicing up the earth…Literally.

Mini-Review:

Besides “Casino Royale,” this is the first time the James Bond movies have been released on Blu-ray Disc, and just in time for “Quantum of Solace”! I was really curious to see what they would look like in HD. Some movies look better than others. So I figured I’d check out “Dr. No” first. I assumed if they could make one of the oldest Bond movies look good, the others would look great, too.

I was really impressed with how good “Dr. No” looked. The outdoor scenes looked fantastic. It was like they were filmed yesterday. The color and sharpness in this 46-year-old movie look amazing. The indoor scenes are just as sharp, but they seem a little more dated from the simple fact that many of them were filmed on a set. I had forgotten how beautiful a Bond girl Ursula Andress was (despite the fact that she has little impact on the story as Honey Rider). The Blu-ray treatment just emphasizes that. What’s a bit more amusing is the ‘yellowface’ treatment they gave Caucasian actors in Asian roles. It comes across as quite silly and even more glaring in the stark clarity of HD.

I then decided to move on to “Live and Let Die.” It was required viewing because it was the first appearance of Roger Moore as James Bond… and because my distant relative, Joie Chitwood, did some of the stunts in the film. The action sequences were fantastic and my kids loved watching the boat chase in the Louisiana bayous. Again, I was impressed with Jane Seymour as a Bond girl. And in HD you can actually see she has one blue eye and one green eye.

If you’re a Blu-ray enthusiast, you’re going to want to add these movies to your collection. The restoration is stunning. And if you buy just one, I have a feeling you’re going to want to pick up the others once you see how good they look.

Many of the bonus features on these DVDs appear to have been on previous Bond releases. However, if you’ve never seen them before, they’re a great extra. I watched the 45 minute featurette on the making of “Dr. No.” Many of the other featurettes aren’t quite this long, but they’re still interesting. (They seem to contain a lot of interviews from the 1980s rather than more recent ones.) There are a few new bonus features, though. “Dr. No” contains one covering the meticulous restoration of the picture of the movies. However, it’s only on this disc though it covers the restoration of all the movies. There are also some image galleries, interactive menus, a featurette on Bond’s guns, and other fun new stuff.

I’ll add that each of these Blu-ray discs has a free ticket to “Quantum of Solace” on it. However, it’s not a paper ticket in the case like you frequently see. It’s a code on the back of a sticker that you have to enter online. And when you peel off the sticker to get the code, practically all of the text telling you how to redeem it comes off and stays bonded (no pun intended) to the DVD cover. It’s pretty awful.

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