Product Description

Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell Director: Terence Young

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18884 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-10-20
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds
• Running time: 130 minutes

Synopsis
Based on Ian Fleming's 1961 novel. Here's 007 at his best. The fourth film in the Bond series finds the super spy battling a powerful organisation named S.P.E.C.T.R.E, which has threatened to destroy Miami with an atomic weapon unless a huge ransom is paid.

Customer Reviews

Restoration has its limits
After Lowry Digital set the bar sky-high with its fantastic restoration work on Dr. No and From Russia with Love, I was ever so slightly disappointed by this spruced up version of Thunderball.

Despite Lowry's best efforts, it seems there were some elements of the original negative that had deteriorated beyond repair. In particular, there are occasional gate-hairs that remain on screen for several seconds at a time, and some underwater shots contain a vertical line in the picture. Since these parts of the film involve movement and a quickly changing frame, the blemishes must have been too problematic to remove digitally.

However, these very minor defects are few and far between and do not detract from the overall presentation, which is easily on a par with other Bond releases on Blu-ray. I look forward to more of them.

Product details
Audio:
5.1 DTS HD Master Audio English.
5.1 DTS French & German.
5.1 Dolby Digital Portuguese, Spanish.
2.0 dolby Digital Commentaries.

Subtitles:
French, Spanish, English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish.

Excellent picture and sound
Although not quite as jaw dropping as the first two bond movies on Blu-Ray, Thunderball still looks terrific. The colours are vivid, depth perception into the image is strong, and there's plenty of fine detail. I know this film quite well, but still noticed many details I hadn't before, one striking example in particular being the legibility of the warning signs on the Vulcan bomber; the bombs have "handle like eggs" written on them which I'd never noticed. It may well be possible to make out these details on the DVD, but the fact is they jump out at you on Blu-Ray.

The sound is also superb, although limited to DTS only, it is very punchy compared to the DVD soundtrack with excellent clarity, I was immediately struck by subtle cues in Tom Jones' voice as he sang the (rather weak) title song, and again, its the details spring out at you. Effects steering is also a noticable improvement over the DVD release.

The extras appear to be the same as the Ultimate Edition, which is pretty exhaustive in any case, and much of it is now in HD which is great.