Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

There are two versions of the James Bond series out there on Blu-Ray right now. The "Ultimate" set on this page is the higher end version. There is also a cheaper, lower-end version of this set simply called "The James Bond Collection". So what's the difference? INCLUDED IN BOTH SETS: Both versions contain the exact same set of 23 Blu-Rays spanning the entire "official" James Bond series by EON Productions, Dr.No through Skyfall (there is actually an extra slot available for you to add a copy of "SPECTRE" too, but that wasn't out on Blu-Ray at the time of this set's release so it's not included). For collectors, I'm hearing that this is the exact same set of Blu-Rays that came with the previously-released "Bond 50" set, just repackaged. The Bond 50 set presented the films in a cardboard book-style format, with each Blu-Ray being on a different "page" of the book. These newer sets instead present the films in standard multi-disc Blu-Ray cases. The films are divided up into three "volumes", the first contains "Dr.No" through "The Spy Who Loved Me", the second contains "Moonraker" through "Die Another Day", and the third contains "Casino Royale" through "Skyfall" (with an extra slot for SPECTRE). While this newer packaging unfortunately loses all of the artwork that graced the pages of the "Bond 50" set, this presentation does result in a slightly more protective and less bulky set. The film quality absolutely stunning. The restoration done on these films for the "Ultimate DVD Collection" sets from a few years back look absolutely magnificent on Blu-Ray. This is truly some of the best film restoration work ever done--you can tell no expense was spared to make these films look better than they probably ever have. Even the oldest films look gorgeous. The colors are just incredible, and great care was taken to remove every single blemish from the original film. These movies look and sound as if they were shot yesterday. This is what Blu-Ray was made for. As far as the films themselves, every Bond fan will tell you that some have definitely aged better than others. Obviously this all comes down to personal preference. Here's my brief assessment. The best entries in the set include the early Connery films ("Dr.No", "From Russia With Love", "Goldfinger"), a few of the Moore films ("Live and Let Die", "The Spy Who Loved Me", "For Your Eyes Only"), the Daniel Craig ones, and a handful of others including "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", "Licence to Kill", "Goldeneye", and "Tomorrow Never Dies". The outright stinkers of the set are definitely the late Moore era ("Moonraker", "Octopussy", "A View To a Kill"). The rest are somewhere in between. But your mileage will definitely vary depending on how you like your Bond. ULTIMATE EDITION ONLY: The differences between this "Ultimate" set and the standard set are actually smaller than you might think. The Ultimate set comes with a bonus disc containing a handful of extra bonus features not found on the main Blu-Rays, plus the James Bond documentary from a few years back called "Everything Or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007" (actually a pretty good documentary, but also something you can find elsewhere). It also comes with an artbook containing a selection of posters for all of the movies. Like most of the artbooks that come with Blu-Rays, they're just a preview of another book that's available elsewhere. Certainly not a make or break for the Ultimate Set. By far the biggest difference between the sets is that the "Ultimate" edition comes with an Ultraviolet code that can be redeemed for the digital versions of all 23 films. Like I said in the title, this should be your decision maker between the two versions of the set. How much does Ultraviolet mean to you? If you're one of those people (like me) that trudged through the confusing mess of setting up an Ultraviolet account and linking it to a site where you can watch the movies (like Vudu or Flixter), than this code will effectively allow you to watch your Bond collection from any device anywhere you are. Despite the hassle of Ultraviolet, that's a HUGE bonus in my opinion, and the only legitimate reason for going with the "Ultimate" version of this set. And if you do decide to go for the "Ultimate", it might be worth waiting to see if it goes on sale--I got mine for as low as $90 during a sale shortly after Thanksgiving. Like a lot of things on Amazon, the price of this set seems to fluctuate dramatically. A COUPLE OF ANNOYING ISSUES I RAN INTO: --The copy of this set that Amazon originally shipped me contained two copies of "Tomorrow Never Dies" and was missing "The World Is Not Enough". While Amazon made it super easy for me to ship it back and get a new one, this points to a lack of quality control on the studio's end. Make sure to check your set to make sure you have everything. --There have been issues for a lot of people, including myself, with the Ultraviolet redemption of "Goldeneye". From what I've gathered, there are multiple IDs for Goldeneye floating around the Ultraviolet realm for some reason, and depending on where you redeem it might not show up in your library. I've had to deal with both Flixter and Vudu customer support to get it to show up correctly on their respective service, and I now have two separate copies of Goldeneye in my digital locker in order to accommodate both services. With a little patience you can get it to work, but it's infuriating that they still don't seem to have gotten this resolved. For this set, Vudu is definitely my preferred player because they have the movies in HD whereas Flixter only shows them in SD. My suggestion would be to do the redemption through Vudu, and deal with them if Goldeneye doesn't show up.