A subreddit to discuss anything and everything related to Ian Fleming's James Bond 007.
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Impressive
Very nice
Let's see Paul Allen's LaserDisc collection.
Nice, do you own a working player?
Yes, though not a super fancy one. Maybe now that I'm out of James Bond movies, I can save up for a good one!
If you or if you have a friend who is techy, check out the following. It is the highest quality mechanism for pulling the contents of a LaserDisc into the pseudo-digital domain.
https://github.com/happycube/ld-decode/wiki
LD decode is a mechanism to capture a pseudo-digital representation of a LaserDisc. It came out of the BBC's Domesday Duplicator project, which was designed to archive LaserDiscs, before they broke down or rotted.
Yeah, it is all a bit "Q Branch", but it is a super important preservation project.
What advantages does the format have, besides being cool?
Yeah, not many. Sound quality is better than DVD in a lot of cases, but the video is a bit worse. Blows VHS outta the water, but of course, so does bluray :p
The main draw is the cool album-sized sleeves with artwork, sometimes with neat little booklets and inserts, and also there is a lot of content that never made it past laserdisc officially (like interviews, commentary, alternate cuts of movies). It's my favorite format to watch the original Star Wars movies before the special editions, for example.
Flipping the disc every so often acts as a bit of an intermission too, which I kinda like.
Are you familiar with the whole Bond Criterion fiasco? Cubby Broccoli threatened litigation and the discs, covering the first 3 movies, with a ton of unique extras and commentaries, were withdrawn.
While it doesn't have dvd or blu-ray resolution - it is better than vhs and also unlike dvd or blu-ray - there is no compression.
Also the laserdisc prints are not screwed with, which you can't say with later formats (i.e. the original Thunderball DVD had the blood in the pool water removed because some dumbass color correction person thought the original scan print had turned red. Later DVD and Blu-ray OHMSS versions have weird sound effect edits, etc.)
My criterion copies don't have the commentary, but they do have funny inserts that have order forms to get the commentaries on cassette tape lol
How funny. I guess you're supposed to press play at the same time?
Probably. But I believe Broccoli a sent cease and desist for the cassette tapes too.
None. lol
I'd say before the restorations were done for the Blurays, they probably had the best home cinema quality over VHS, better sound, but thats all the format had over VHS
Also, for the first 8 or 9 movies the LaserDiscs have much better transfers of the original mono soundtracks than the Blu-Rays. The mono soundtrack option on the FRWL Blu-Ray is particularly horrible, really muddy, but the LaserDisc sounds great.
Congrats! I have a box set or two on laserdisc packed away.
Would those be the Connery Collection ones by chance?
I believe so. Been a few years since I packed them away.
Cool collection
That's a lot of Bond, my friend... a lot of Bond.
Nice! I've got 4 on LaserDisc and am always looking for more, very cool collection
Happy hunting!
Hell yeah dawg
That's a life goal I can get behind. And I thought I was cool buying an old Birds of the West Indies hardcover...
This is awesome!
Fucking awesome. My only gripe would be the generic covers for some of them. The original artworks are so good I don't see a point in changing them.
Yeah, I have the same issue with the VHS releases from '98-'99. There are releases for most of these with the original cover art, but in most cases, those releases are fullscreen Pan & Scan. Homie don't play dat.
Actually pretty dope
Wow; every single classic-era Bond besides the last one being available in this format would bother the hell out of me, even if that’s the worst one.
Yeah, it is a bummer. The format died a year or 2 before DAD came out :/
Did you just rob Fort Knox to pay for all this?
This is pretty awesome! Well done.
you are an absolute lunatic
🥴
Well done. Probably not easy.
I didn't know they made LaserDiscs for that long. Looks like they just missed Die Another Day, which is a pity.
Yepp. TWINE is Japanese-only, as well, never got a US release
Collecting all the Bond movies on Laserdisc is an admirable accomplishment. As an aficionado, you should now assemble the corresponding Bond novels. You will find the endeavor worthwhile, the novels vastly more entertaining, and it will be less expensive. Once you read one of the novels, you will likely be disappointed, even offended by the movie “version.”
Ian Fleming's Bond novels are superior in every respect to the movies on which they are (loosely) based. In most cases, especially the later films, the connection between the books and the movies is superficial, often limited disrespectfully to character names. This disconnect is particularly glaring and offensive in "Moonraker." Completely omitted or ignored are almost all of the novel’s plot points and the intricate setup and complex backstory of Bond and Drax. These omissions are a significant loss from historical, literary, narrative, and contextual perspectives.
In Moonraker, the detailed depiction of Bond’s (and Fleming’s) bridge expertise and erudition, as evidenced by references to Ely Culbertson and the famous 18th-century Duke of Cumberland’s hand, is entirely missing. And it’s a shame. The 23+ page episode is such a credit to Fleming’s storytelling capabilities that he can take so arcane a topic as the bidding and playing of a very peculiar bridge hand and make it engaging, even exciting.
The movie reduces the rich, multi-layered plot and characters to a flat, one-dimensional portrayal and limbic caricatures, transforming nuanced personalities and their motives into comic book-like action heroes and villains. This transformation is an insult to Fleming's character development and representations of the attitudes and thinking of his time. Not to mention the mail-it-in acting (an insult to the word) of Roger Moore and Lois Chiles, and gag-me, Richard Kiel.
The filmmakers substituted flashy and ended up with a tasteless, superficial, pandering attempt at entertainment over the depth and sophistication offered by Fleming's storytelling and writing. Fleming, who objected to his works being “reduced” to paperback and “Americanized,” must have been greatly offended by these adaptations. Considering the commercial success of the films, Fleming and his estate likely consoled themselves with the resultant financial gains, drying crocodile tears with banknotes.
I am workin on that too! I have the first 4 books so far, they are awesome. As an aside, I picture Timothy Dalton as I read them
if memory serves, Fleming described Bond as fair-haired. If correct, wouldn't the fit D. Craig better than T. Dalton? For either one. it is a vast improvement over R. Moore. This discussion reminds me that I should read more fiction and observe depictions of characters, dialogue, scenes and action.