Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #637 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-08-25
• Rating: Exempt
• Formats: Box set, PAL
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 195 minutes

Synopsis
Contains both volumes one and two of Michael Jackson's HISTORY series. HISTORY VOL. 1 features Jackson's ten most famous short music films. Along with being one of the most successful pop stars of all time, Jackson also helped to revolutionise the music video art form, hiring Hollywood film directors like John Landis and Martin Scorsese to direct what are essentially short narrative films. Included are the videos for 'Billie Jean', 'Thriller', and 'Bad'. In HISTORY VOL.2, the King Of Pop is showcased at his absolute best on this compilation of some of his very best work of the 1980's and 1990's. This compendium of Michael greats mixes music videos, short films like 'Moonwalker' and the full version of 'Thriller', and live performances, highlighting Michael's innovative contributions to both the visual and live realms of pop music.

Customer Reviews

Great value!
Immediately after hearing the sad news of the passing away of Michael Jackson, I bought this DVD box set and I have to say it is worth every penny! I already owned the VHS tapes of HIStory, but ordered this DVD box anyway because my VCR broke down. I was mighty pleased to discover that the DVDs contain even more material than the video tapes.

For example, the entire never-before-seen short film of BAD was really a pleasant suprise for me. I'm a huge MJ fan and own all of his CDs and films (including the ones from his Jackson 5/Jacksons period), but was really suprised to find this 18 min. short film directed by Martin Scorcese on the first volume of this DVD box. That, together with the rare 9 min. video of The Way You Make Me Feel, Michael Jackson's live performance of Billie Jean at Motown 25 and the entire MOONWALKER version of Smooth Criminal on Vol. II is worth the 9 pounds alone. Besides, the box contains loads and loads of more breathtaking video clips (or should I say music films?), such as Thriller, Beat it, Remember the Time, Black or White (including uncensored panther scene), They don't care about us (Rio version), Scream etc. In total I counted 26 clips.

The only point of (slight) criticism I have is that some films are included on both vols., leaving you with duplicate versions of Brace Yourself, Beat it and Thriller. This is probably due to the fact that the DVDs were released separately initially. Another thing that I would like to bring up is that although the DVD box is a masterpiece and really showcases Michael's brilliance as a dancer, singer, composer etc., with an artist like Michael Jackson it is easy to become greedy and it leaves you wishing for more. That is, other brilliant video clips like Speed Demon, Leave Me Alone, You Rock My World and notably Ghosts (40 min. version) are not on this DVD box set. It might be an idea to update the box set with these, and make it a 3-disc set for instance. I have no doubt this will be done, one way or the other, in the future.

AMAZING!!
michael is THE BEST entertainer ever and with HIStory I and II, he shows the world what makes people love him in the first place. this collection contains the FULL VERSIONS of his best videos-from the 18 minute version of Bad to the 14 minute version of the way you make me feel!
awsome buy,love it!

Fairly comprehensive collection - worth the price
HIStory Vols. 1 and 2 double pack is a fine collection of Michael Jackson's music videos, some of which - as everyone knows - are more like short musical movies than normal music videos. While far from exhaustive (no "Man In The Mirror", "Leave Me Alone", "You Rock My World", no videos from his time in The Jacksons, etc) this is still one of the best collections out there.

The first Volume is all pre-1995 material. Included are the famous (and more than a little ridiculous) "Thriller", "Billie Jean", "Black Or White" (full version), "Bad" (full c. 18 minute movie!), "Beat It" and the Egyptian-themed "Remember The Time". In all there are 11 clips on here. Overall it is fairly basic - no fancy menus or proper extra features like interviews - but it still delivers the goods.

The second Volume is divided into two sides. One side is concerned with videos from the HIStory album itself (1995), so you have "Earth Song" (longer version), "Scream", "Stranger in Moscow", "They Don't Care About Us" etc. All fine, but not as good as his earlier material. The other side of Vol. 2 features a teaser, highlights of his live performance from the 1995 MTV Music Awards, and older clips. Unfortunately, some of these are just repeats from Vol. 1 because the two volumes were originally sold seperately. So "Billie Jean", "Beat It" and "Thriller" turn up again. However, the gem on this side of Vol. 2 is the full 9-minute version of "Smooth Criminal", which is great - easily my favourite clip on the whole collection, and it might be yours too!

My top 3 favourite videos from the collection... and 3 good reasons to buy this:

"Smooth Criminal" - as I said, this video is great fun, and a brilliant song too.
"Beat It" - short and sweet, showcasing Jackson's youthful energy and anti-gang violence message without running too long (unlike a certain other song from that album). Excellently edited, better than anything you'd see on MTV today. Weird Al Yankovic did a great parody of this, too - with Jackson's blessing. Check it out on YouTube.
"Earth Song" - pompous (but powerful) as the song itself might be, the highlight here is the video itself.

If you're a fan - or at least vaguely interested - and don't have any other of MJ's video collections, get this now. It's probably the best one out there... for now at least.