54 replies to this topic

[W6N]

Why is everyone so down on the UE's? This is the best thing to happen to Bond films since Thunderball was shot in 'Scope. The early films were great, but were disappointing in terms of sound - mono does not really suit an action film.

And all the films now have pristine visuals.

What is there not to like.

If you have something against modern technology, why not just stick to your crappy 1996 VHS copies.

Altering the sound mix of the film is like drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa - it's wrong! The early films weren't made in stereo so why should we have to suffer a DTS mix without at least having the option of the original mono? It has nothing to do with being against modern technology - it is the fact that the films have been ed with! Mono suited many of the great action films of the 60's and 70's why change it now?

[Bon-san]

Well, having read some reviews, I am of mixed feelings about these new Ultimate Editions. It appears that some of the image transfers are not only "not better", but may in fact be worse (cropping, colour changes, etc). There also seems to be a big debate about the audio. I hear the mono tracks may be available for the R1 release.

I feel a mixture of disappointment and relief (may not have to purchase them all). I will definitely be getting OHMSS, and likely some or all of the other Connerys. From the looks of images on one of the links below, Octopussy is looking like a possibility. In fact all the Moores, for their commentaries. Oh, heck, I'll probably end up with them all.

Below are a few links to some image comparisons with R1 Special Edition, R2 Special Edition and the Ultimate Edition. There is some discussion below each set of frame captures.

Goldeneye comparison

Tomorrow Never Dies comparison

Octopussy comparison

[tigerheart]

Quick question, are the new DVDs accompanied by a booklet like the SE versions were?

Quick answer - yes. Can't make a comparison to the SE versions because I don't own any of them.

[Speedy]

I've just purchased OHMSS and Goldfinger as sample dvd's in case I want to buy the complete set after asking this forum for choices, I chose these two anyway.

I'm watching Goldfinger right now up to the part where Goldfinger's girls are spraying the gas over the city and have to say up to this point that the image quality is SUPERB when compared against the old SE's. It really does match newer film's picture qualities.

I'm watching it on DTS and am glad to say that it retains the original feeling of watching the movie because most of the mix is front orientated anyway and still largely feels like a mono soundtrack.

One gripe about the sound is that the crackling of the laser when Bond is tied down ready for the chop is died down a little to the point where you can just barely hear it. But this is only when the laser is about switched on, before you can immediately hear the crackling but in this mix, you can just barely hear it...all follow up shots of the laser's crackle is fine.

Apart from that, I can't really find a fault with it.

I'm not really big on extra features anymore, I used to be but they aren't as important as pic or sound quality which is what I personally want these discs for.

I've made my mind up and will go the whole hog.

[stamper]

Goldeneye is cropped and zoomboxed in the new UE, when compared to the SE, according to the comparisons posted above.

Just how much those Lowry guys took from EON to destroy it all ? EON should sue !!! I would fire the restoration in the minute, when watching those comparisons, I hope Babs & Michael Wilson read this...

I suggest we pull up a list of the UE that should be bought, and those who should be avoided...

Edited by stamper, 18 July 2006 - 07:53 PM.

[stamper]

More update, definetly buy, despite bad remixing of the sound

DR NO
FRWL
GOLDFINGER
OHMSS



avoid at all cost due to cropping and bad color correcting (these movies LACKS left and right image when compared to the SE)

GOLDENEYE
TND
OCTOPUSSY

I hope you guys pick up my list from there, until it complete and precise

[Speedy]

Just completed watching OHMSS. Didn't like the gun shot redub at the end when Tracy dies. But were we kidding ourselves? I mean, it was obvious they were going to redub some sound effects for such old films. Maybe I should have prepared myself for such effects but it's bothered me more than I thought.

Redubbing Jaws was blasphemous, especially as the first release contained no mono ST with it and to do it with Bond without no mono ST to back it up is a bit of a downer.

Maybe I might hold off after all but I've already listed my old SE's on ebay.

[I never miss]

They've redubbed Jaws in MR? How is it different to the original?

[LeChiffre]

I've really got the feeling that Mr Stamper has got an axe to grind here. He's obviously got something against SONY. Perhaps his Walkman broke in 1984, and he hasn't forgiven them since. Or perhaps Mr Carver's media company has been screwed over by the American/Japanese Military-Industrial Complex once too often.

[stamper]

I'm just mind blowed a movie like Goldeneye is REFRAMED with big, important missing parts left and right when it's labelled to be ULTIMATE. I don't care who puts 007 DVDs out, as long as they are not butchered. I was waiting for those and even resold most of my original SE and I find myself now like a dumbo with a REFRAMED AVTAK will less image than the previous version.

Don't you think movies should be respected ? That if the director wanted to show us a certain frame, it should be that way on DVD ? Do you think having Bond pointing his gun, but us don't seeing the end of the gun (see here http://www.bulletsnb...pic.php?t=2183) is what the director intended ? OK, I'm going to draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa next week at the museum. That will be the ultimate edition. I will crop it a bit too, so that we can see more details on screen

[stamper]

More update, definetly buy

DR NO
FRWL
GOLDFINGER
OHMSS
WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (more frame shown than previous edition better colors)
OHMSS (different edit of the movie, closer to original)
LTK (different edit of the movie, closer to original extra scenes and bonus scenes)

You must decide on

OCTOPUSSY (more frame shown, but strange choices of color corrections blues are now green)
YOLT (image too dark)


avoid at all costs due to cropping and bad color correcting (these movies LACKS left and right image when compared to the SE)

GOLDENEYE
TND
AVTAK

Edited by stamper, 19 July 2006 - 12:13 PM.

[Speedy]

The cropping issues are not that bad, IMO. But maybe I'm saying that because I'm never one to remember how much picture I saw in a previous release to notice.

[stamper]

A frame is a frame. Imagine the Ian Fleming novels reissued, with chapters missing, or sentences missing left and right : it would send the fandom in up arms ! I think the same is applying to DVDs : just put in there the frame as originally intended (and published on previous DVD) don't zoombox so that we can see more faces and less action. It's butchering. I agree some of those DVDs are too dark also...

[David Schofield]

A frame is a frame. Imagine the Ian Fleming novels reissued, with chapters missing, or sentences missing left and right : it would send the fandom in up arms ! I think the same is applying to DVDs : just put in there the frame as originally intended (and published on previous DVD) don't zoombox so that we can see more faces and less action. It's butchering. I agree some of those DVDs are too dark also...

Thanks for the guide, Stamper.

Agree 100% with all your comments on reframing: it just shouldn't be done, not when its been done correctly before (what's the point?) and PARTICULARLY because ITS NOT SHOWING WHAT THE DIRECTOR INTENDED.

I have already got Goldeneye: I will not be watching it with the same enthusiasm and may ask for a refund. Over reaction? I think not.

[doublenoughtspy]

They've redubbed Jaws in MR? How is it different to the original?

He should have clarified.

He isn't talking about Jaws from MR, he is talking about Jaws the movie. For the most recent DVD release the climax (smile you sonafa...) was altered.

[I never miss]

Thanks for the explanation - thought they'd done something with the "Well, here's to us" line in MR.
Didn't know they'd changed the ending to Jaws for the 30th anniversary DVD. What a joke! Has Spielberg been picking up bad habits from his King-Tinkerer pal George Lucas?!
Why can't movies just be left how they originally were....

[doublenoughtspy]

Thanks for the explanation - thought they'd done something with the "Well, here's to us" line in MR.
Didn't know they'd changed the ending to Jaws for the 30th anniversary DVD. What a joke! Has Spielberg been picking up bad habits from his King-Tinkerer pal George Lucas?!
Why can't movies just be left how they originally were....

I agree. And I hate the fact that when Turner was colorizing old movies, Lucas and Spielberg were leading the charge, saying it wasn't the original film.

Do as I say, not as I do must be their philosophy.

[I never miss]

Yes, thank God they're not involved with the Bond series. George Lucas would be getting to work on all those back-projection scenes in the 60s and 70s and no doubt arguing the case for Jabba the Hutt to replace Stromberg in TSWLM....

Pleased to see that nobody seems to be selling the UE DVDs for the rrp. Tesco are selling them in store for

[Aces High]

I'm sorry Le Chiffre but 'modern technology' has not made OHMSS better...yes I'll agree getting the pic complete & crystal clear is a stop forward ..but the DTS soundtract is crap..the scene where Bunt fires off at Bond in the phonebox in the original soundtrack with the Barry orchestra in the background ALWAYS makes upi perk up & gets the blood rushing.The DTS 'Diet Coke'machine gun now hardly even makes you notice.Picked up 'The Spy Who Loved Me' today will let ya know how this one rates.Now this one ALWAYS had a duff soundtrack so fingers crossed.

[stamper]

Two more comparisons have been posted

LICENCE TO KILL
http://www.bulletsnb...opic.php?t=2199

Confirmation of all the blue color going green on the remasters, with colder image, less color, less elegance and more of a modern movie look

A VIEW TO A KILL

http://www.bulletsnb...opic.php?t=2200

Apart from the cropping, (missing major part of the top and bottom of the screen, and some on the left), they also go for lesser color)

Edited by stamper, 20 July 2006 - 10:03 AM.

[Bonita]

A few notes on the UEs...

Very rarely in a theater do you see the "full frame". The image is projected and in the old days SEMPTE used to have guides for what was acceptable overflow for the picture for the black mattes around the screen. That has now been automated, and, while I don't know the process, in big first run theaters, this spill of the picture (the part you don't see) is minimal. When the film is shot, through the viewfinder, there are two sets of crop marks that the camera operator looks at:
1. The Picture Safe Area - this shows what MAY be seen in the image. What is outside this image should not be seen (like a boom microphone)
2. The television safe area - everything inside these crop marks should be seen on television (or a movie screen).

This has all changed with 16X9 DVD and the advent of watching a DVD on computers (where the entire image is always shown and there is no "spill".

What this means is that when someone says that the cropping of an image in a widescreen presentation is destroying the director's vision, they probably don't know that there is about a 10% play in what the director thinks will be seen at the edges of the frame. In short, the director can't ever be certain what the true "edge of frame" is. He can be close, but not certain.

The color correction from film to video is always subject to major fluctuations. It is the nature of the process.

I don't know if these were properly color corrected or not, but I have seen TB and OHMSS look vastly different in prints at revival houses in the 70s and 80s, and on Home Video ... whoah!

Every release of a film on a different format is different: 70mm is different than 35mm. Is the IMAX Superman Returns the same as the 35mm theatrical? Is the digital presentation of Cars the same as the film? We know that NTSC and PAL television have vastly different color-space limits compared to film. My surround sound system at home is different to our local (or sometimes loco) cinema.

I look forward to seeing these new editions. But I loved the remixed soundtracks EMI released, and lord knows the music sounded very different from the US and UK soundtrack albums (which sounded different from each other)!

keep dancing...

[Loomis]

LICENCE TO KILL

...

Confirmation of all the blue color going green on the remasters

Not to my eyes. With respect, I think you exaggerate a little. At the most, "green-ish", surely, or "greeny-blue", and even then this is just the occasional thing, not the norm. IMO, at least.

with colder image

What do you mean? I'd say it's much warmer, with brighter and more vibrant colours. The UE brings LTK "to life" much more than the SE does.

less color

Here I strongly disagree, having watched the UE the other night and had a brief look at the SE for comparison (the SE, BTW, doesn't appear to me to have been tailored for a 16x9 TV ["anamorphic", if that's the right word], which chalks up another point to the UE). The colours seemed rich to me, nay, eye-popping in parts, and a definite improvement over the rather drab colours of the UE.

less elegance

Elegant enough for me.

more of a modern movie look

Agreed, at least insofar as it doesn't look so old and soft and washed-out any more. Obviously, something like DR. NO also looks more "modern" on UE, so if you're looking for the nostalgia value of an old classic with more than a few endearing scars then you're obviously better off with the SE. Anyway, what's wrong with LTK looking "modern"? After all, it's one of the more recent Bond outings (in spite of being more than 15 years old).

As you've told us, stamper, you do have a professional background in this, so I know that you know what you're talking about, but just to give my own two cents as a layman.

[stamper]

A dress going from blue to green is not questioning on my part, sorry if I don't express myself well, english is not my first language, especially when it comes to technicals.

To sums it up, new HD remasters tend to go towards the way current movies are color timed, colder images, less of a Hammer / Technicolor look, which many think is dated. Hence, the movies looking more modern.

As to the post above regarding the frame, you fix it up at the telecine stage. That people see more or less on their different screens is irrelevant, you just get it right in the telecine. A cinemascope movie like AVTAK should be framed right at the up and bottom border and left and right : it's the intended frame. I can't see why the frame is now different (unless it was filmed in super 35).

Edited by stamper, 21 July 2006 - 09:19 PM.

[Aces High]

At last something good to post..'The Spy Who Loved Me' 100% perfect..never looked ..or sounded since I saw this on its 1st time out in the summer of 1977 on the big screen.The soundtract clear & perfect..the picture shardp & good colour..one happy Bond fan on this title.
As for the Sir Roger More Comentary ..thank you for sharing Sir Roger..the man is a SAINT!!
So maybe Live And Let Die or For Your Eyes Only for me next..just a tip You can get the 007 U.E from Tesco for

[Loomis]

At last something good to post..'The Spy Who Loved Me' 100% perfect..never looked ..or sounded since I saw this on its 1st time out in the summer of 1977 on the big screen.The soundtract clear & perfect..the picture shardp & good colour..one happy Bond fan on this title.

Really? Good. Haven't looked at my TSWLM yet, but MOONRAKER is a gem - absolutely brilliant picture and sound, the leap from SE to UE being in my book akin to the leap from VHS to DVD.

Unfortunately, I'm very disappointed by AVTAK and YOLT, chiefly on the image front - don't see them as any better than the SEs, and AVTAK actually strikes me as inferior.

Seems to me that the UEs are something of a mixed bag - when they're good, though, they're very, very good indeed.