The President was speaking on behalf of the world.

Eric Paddon wrote:LOL, I didn't know that about Die Another Day which I already tossed out! I needed the two disc case for something else anyway.

Selling stuff off I don't do unless there's something unique about them (the X-Files stuff having bonus discs not in the current releases), and these items would only attract a tiny pittance on e-bay not worth going through the hassle of shipment for.

Scratch that about DIE ANOTHER DAY...I looked up my old review and don't see a note about the deleted scenes...which means I either overlooked them or whoever wrote that complaint was wrong in the first place!

Ebay is a fickle fellow. If you had sold the old discs off before the new ones came out, you would've done well (my friend Pete said he nabbed $400 for his entire lot of older MGM Special Editions). Now, obviously not so much...it's so time sensitive.

Maybe so, but I honestly wasn't sure I was going to commit to the new stuff anyway, so I don't have much in the way of regrets over it.

The best I ever did was auctioning off an extra set of the original SW trilogy on LD for about $120.

I sold off my old 007 DVDs (I kept about 12 of them and sold off the crappy entires) about a week or so before the first two new sets came out, and got roughly $75-$80 for the lot of them. Almost paid for the first two sets, so I guess I did okay. Incidentally, I kept the cases those old discs came in and put the new discs in them. Now I have room for the eventual Casino Royale DVD when it comes out.

Man, the transfers on the 60's Connery films are absolutely unreal. Dr. No looks like it was shot yesterday.

Sorry, Eric but the worst Bond film still is MOONRAKER. When they used the CE3K tones as a security code, I literally threw my popcorn box at the screen. Didn't hit anyone-theater was only 1/3 full. And making Jaws a good guy? Puhleeeze!!

Actually I feel LICENCE TO KILL is the only one of the Dalton's to recommend, because this Bond was one mean bastard and showed some real feelings of anger over what happened to his friend. Having Wayne Newton in it added the "Oh, c'mon!" factor that seems to have permeated the series ever since Connery left, but I felt (and still do) that if Connery had been this film rather than Dalton, it would rank up there with some of the best of the series.

Andy, you are so right about the image quality on these boxes. GOLDFINGER is so beautiful! I wonder why Sony didn't decide to go all out and do a Blu-Ray box set for these? That might have been risky financially, but it would also signal to both the supporters of that format and to those still hesitating about getting a player that they really are in this for the long haul and here is how to really show off your system.

I have yet to hear from one of my closest friends-a HUGE Bond afficiando-and his opinion. This guy was so into Bond in high school that he actually made his own Bond films-feature length-in Super 8 Sound with himself in the title role. I'll let you form your own opinion about whether they were any good, but his dedication was just as strong as those guys who took years to do their own remake of RAIDERS.

Someone mentioned film collecting earlier, and especially 2001 and STAR WARS in Super 8 Sound. I remember seeing a demo of both films in Super 8 Sound CinemaScope at Cinevent in Columbus, Ohio back in the early 80's. The prints were nice and sharp, and I did have an Elmo St-1200 (for one-hour reels of film), but I decided not to take the plunge because I was happy with my 16mm projector and its wonderfully sharp B&L 'Scope lens and felt that was a bit for Super 8 for me. I had feature prints of ROBIN HOOD, YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, SCARFACE, RICHARD PRYOR and a number of Laurel & Hardy films along with tons of cartoons in that format, along with prints of FANTASIA, 1941, MODERN TIMES and others in 16mm. Man, those were the days.

Moonraker is indeed *silly* but it's still *fun* and entertaining to sit through, which IMO is what the Bond films should be all about. By contrast, "Licence To Kill" is sheer agony and tedium to sit through with dull locales and no sense of fun whatsoever, and more jarringly is how its one moment for a laugh is for Cary Lowell to go into a shrewish snit and utter a "Bullxxxx!" expletive that just doesn't belong in a Bond film.

Heck, I'd rather sit through "Man With The Golden Gun" again, which at least had great locales and beautiful women. Of the Moore films, I think "View To A Kill" was the only real disgrace of the series, and had he gone out after "Octopussy", the best of his Bond films IMO, he would have been going out on top.

Eric Paddon wrote:Moonraker is indeed *silly* but it's still *fun* and entertaining to sit through, which IMO is what the Bond films should be all about. By contrast, "Licence To Kill" is sheer agony and tedium to sit through with dull locales and no sense of fun whatsoever, and more jarringly is how its one moment for a laugh is for Cary Lowell to go into a shrewish snit and utter a "Bullxxxx!" expletive that just doesn't belong in a Bond film.

Heck, I'd rather sit through "Man With The Golden Gun" again, which at least had great locales and beautiful women. Of the Moore films, I think "View To A Kill" was the only real disgrace of the series, and had he gone out after "Octopussy", the best of his Bond films IMO, he would have been going out on top.

I like LICENCE TO KILL but I understand why any "die hard" Bond fan doesn't. (On the same hand, I find it interesting so many of those who adhere to Fleming love CASINO ROYALE, which is more violent and sadistic than LICENCE TO KILL, yet hate the latter).

Eric I loved OCTOPUSSY as well (yep, it's silly, but great fun) but MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is as bad as it gets. Even A VIEW TO A KILL is better, and that doesn't say much.

Well, I can plead ignorance on "Casino Royale" at this point but if it is like "Licence To Kill" more so, that will mean I chose wisely in waiting for DVD IMO.

"Octopussy" was the first Bond film I ever saw theatrically and I remember seeing it four times in the Summer of 83 which was *really* a great time for a teenager to see blockbuster movies. But "View To A Kill" is forever going to have for me the albatross of the two worst Bond girls (and boy is that a stretch when we're talking about Grace Jones!) in the same movie and a plot that just rips off "Goldfinger's" in a less interesting way.

Eric Paddon wrote:Well, I can plead ignorance on "Casino Royale" at this point but if it is like "Licence To Kill" more so, that will mean I chose wisely in waiting for DVD IMO.

"Octopussy" was the first Bond film I ever saw theatrically and I remember seeing it four times in the Summer of 83 which was *really* a great time for a teenager to see blockbuster movies. But "View To A Kill" is forever going to have for me the albatross of the two worst Bond girls (and boy is that a stretch when we're talking about Grace Jones!) in the same movie and a plot that just rips off "Goldfinger's" in a less interesting way.

Interesting...OCTOPUSSY was my first Bond in theaters also. I remember seeing it on vacation on Nantucket and nearly being trampled to death by the mob of people outside the theater waiting in line to get in! (I was not quite 9 at the time). That WAS a great year though, I can only imagine what it was like to be in your teens!

A VIEW TO A KILL is awful, I will grant you that, though I find Barry's score more interesting than MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (plus I prefer the Duran Duran theme to the Lulu disaster). For that reason I can at least sit thru KILL, despite how tired Moore is in it, how awful the girls are, and how weak Christopher Walken was as well.

MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is just the bottom of the barrel for my tastes. It's just so boring, I can't find any reason to sit through it!

I used to think that TMWTGG was one of the worst Bond pictures, but actually found upon my recent viewing on the new DVD that it's better than I remembered. Yeah, the production values are kinda cheap, the goofy slide whistle during the admittedly impressive 360 degree car jump is unforgiveable, and Britt Ekland is rather annoying (although she looks great in a bikini ), yet I found Christopher Lee's baddie quite suave and charming, and even Herve Vilchaize's Nick Nack wasn't treated that badly. It's a minor Bond, but it's better than Diamonds Are Forever or A View To A Kill or (*gag*) Die Another Day (when are you going to own up to giving that film a better review than Goldeneye, Andy? That's like saying Moonraker is better than Goldfinger! ).

Incidentially, the option to watch each title sequence sans text may be the best extra on each disc.

I'm notcing one odd thing on these new DVDs. I've only watched "Goldfinger" and now "Dr. No" but when I load them in the first time I get the "Opinions and commentaries expressed by are solely the participants....." message in Chinese titles rather than English but the second time I loaded Goldfinger in I got it in English.

Summer 1983 with Octopussy, ROTJ, Superman III, Blue Thunder (the first R-Rated movie I ever saw theatrically), Wargames......that was a big one for me.

On Golden Gun, I find it has a lot more to recommend beyond just the beautiful women. The locales are a lot more interesting and they come up with some interesting set pieces in the HQ aboard the sunken Queen Elizabeth, plus Scaramanga's island and the Fun House.

Andy, you are so right about the image quality on these boxes. GOLDFINGER is so beautiful! I wonder why Sony didn't decide to go all out and do a Blu-Ray box set for these? That might have been risky financially, but it would also signal to both the supporters of that format and to those still hesitating about getting a player that they really are in this for the long haul and here is how to really show off your system.

I just finished DR.NO and FROM RUSSIA -- just amazing. I'm sure whenever they do an HD release of these it'll be even better, but the image quality is a sight for sore eyes and I've never seen any of the Connerys look better than they do here. That alone is enough for me to recommend a purchase for Bond fans.

I'm with you Jeff about the Blu Ray issue. Right now Blu Ray is lagging behind HD DVD and Sony needs some exclusive to really sell their $1000 players. Ps3 launch notwithstanding, it's like I said -- the format with the lower price tag is going to perform better. Not only that but I continue to read people with both formats prefer the picture quality of HD-DVD...making the race so far a no-brainer in terms of which is performing better. By the end of 2007 we'll have a better grasp on which (if either) format is going to "win" but Blu Ray is well behind the 8-ball at the moment. Sony will be using Bond big time in an effort to get it going in 2007.

I found Christopher Lee's baddie quite suave and charming, and even Herve Vilchaize's Nick Nack wasn't treated that badly. It's a minor Bond, but it's better than Diamonds Are Forever or A View To A Kill or (*gag*) Die Another Day (when are you going to own up to giving that film a better review than Goldeneye, Andy? That's like saying Moonraker is better than Goldfinger! Shocked ).

MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is better than DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER? No way my friend!

I've never cared for GOLDENEYE and it still has one of the worst scores ever composed in the history of film, much less for a Bond movie...plus Brosnan is relentlessly stiff and the film is ice cold with blown action sequences. The Nintendo 64 game was much, much better!bDIE ANOTHER DAY is flawed but I still prefer it to GOLDENEYE.

But hey, it's all different strokes for different folks. Did any of you see Entertainment Weekly's ranking of the top Bonds? OCTOPUSSY near the bottom and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and THUNDERBALL at the top?? The whole list was like a reverse barometer for me at least.

AndyDursin wrote: Did any of you see Entertainment Weekly's ranking of the top Bonds? OCTOPUSSY near the bottom and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and THUNDERBALL at the top?? The whole list was like a reverse barometer for me at least.

Which is pretty much how your ratings on Bonds work for me, Andy! But then, as a teen who had the misfortune to be working in a cinema in the summer of '83, I'd rate it one of the worst summers ever - four or five shows a day of one of the very worst Bonds, Octopussy, the dreadful Superman III (You'll believe Richard Pryor can fly, so who needs the guy in tights?), what's still the worst of the Star Wars films, Return of the Jedi (the Ewoks are the Jar-Jar Binks of my generation)... for fourteen weeks. Fourteen weeks of living hell at little more than the minimum wage. And that after 14 weeks of Turds of Endearment - no wonder I'm the bitter man I am today...

I'd certainly rate Golden Gun over Diamonds, which has some good moments in the first half but is too much of a camp comedy and boasts Connery's laziest performance. But then, as dull, overlong, derivative and misjudged as it is, I'd still put View over Octopussy, which is like a catalogue of all that's wrong with the Moore films - bad jokes, terrible stunt doubling, lazy plotting: Hell, they even turn him into a clown in the finale.

Licence to Kill also hits my worst list, not so much for the lack of any sense of fun but because of the lack of real guts. Although they made all the right noises about going back to basics and making Bond bleed, they chickened out and instead of really going for a gritty Bond went too much the Roger Moore route - Wayne Newton as comic relief vilain, Uncle Q coming along for more comic relief, pointless gadgets, inept ninjas, lazy direction and a monster truck finale. Even Felix gets over the death of his wife as if it never even mattered to crack jokes in the end that feel like those horrible freezeframe end-on-a-laugh moments from bad 70s cop shows. It's just a messy movie with a couple of good scenes whereas with Casino Royale they actually delivered what LTK promised - much to my surprise...

But then, as dull, overlong, derivative and misjudged as it is, I'd still put View over Octopussy, which is like a catalogue of all that's wrong with the Moore films - bad jokes, terrible stunt doubling, lazy plotting: Hell, they even turn him into a clown in the finale.

Couldn't disagree more. That's why you're a reverse barometer for my Bond tastes

But then, as a teen who had the misfortune to be working in a cinema in the summer of '83, I'd rate it one of the worst summers ever - four or five shows a day of one of the very worst Bonds, Octopussy, the dreadful Superman III (You'll believe Richard Pryor can fly, so who needs the guy in tights?), what's still the worst of the Star Wars films, Return of the Jedi (the Ewoks are the Jar-Jar Binks of my generation)... for fourteen weeks. Fourteen weeks of living hell at little more than the minimum wage. And that after 14 weeks of Turds of Endearment - no wonder I'm the bitter man I am today...

And yet I'd call '83 one of the best summers!

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT though is not one of my favorites either, lol...I still can't believe they gave that the Oscar instead of THE RIGHT STUFF!!

Like I said, summer of 83 is perfect for those young teens of 14 like I was, who were still not old enough to have to find summer jobs, and could go to quite a few movies. And believe me, us 14 year olds when it came to ROTJ who first weren't impressed by Princess Leia at age 8 when we saw Star Wars, were suddenly taking notice of her metal bikini, and after that who cares about how bad the Ewoks were!