Wow, sorry.

Culver City, on Venice and Overland. I bought them at the full price, using reward zone coupons and the magnolia audio demo coupon. Then I went to customer service to get the price match. That way all I had to do was show the receipt and the ad, and the person was not looking at the physical product.

Agreed, I think the way you were introduced to Bond plays a large part in the ones you prefer. I saw Dr. No on VHS years ago. I then caught a double feature of On Her Majesty's Secret Service and From Russia With Love at a revival theater and to date those are still two of my all time favorite Bond films. The first Bond I saw in its original theatrical release was Goldeneye, so I have a lot of affection for Brosnan, even if Goldeneye is the only film of his that's actually good. Moore and Dalton were the last two I saw, and neither really do it for me. Dalton was better than Moore, but didn't feel quite right, in my estimation. And Casino Royale blew me away. Craig is, at this point, my favorite Bond after Connery.

Edit: Gizmo, I was just messing with you. No foul intentions, I assure you.

Yeah, I know...

Kinda bummed I didn't get on these. They look really cool. I have all 6 of the normal editions but just knowing a metal version exists...sigh. Maybe I'll snag a good deal on eBay one day.

Why not go to BB, price match them from Fry's, then sell the other ones on ebay?

Hmm.... I might have to do that. I wonder if they pretty much sold-out at most BBs now. I'd have to have like 4 out of 6. Argg, can't even do that since they are not being advertised in todays paper (and we tossed yeterdays at work). Damn.

I took my receipts into Best Buy today with Quantum Of Solace coupons and got the prices adjusted. I am happy getting all 6 Bond steelbooks for $14.99 each (+tax and pending the return of 6 game preorder receipts). Too bad I won't get them that cheap the next wave of Bond steelbooks (if the steelbooks continue).

Probably because, while you consider it a stinker, it made the MOST money of all the Bond movies prior to Casino Royale.

Mine are on the slipcovers. Arrgh!

Time to delicately peel them off.


Update: I got the stickers off and got my three tickets... now I've got to find a way to get the goo off the slip covers. Any ideas?

The reason for mixing up the Bond movies is strictly a MARKETING move.

Clearly, they want to release a "tentpole" Bond title in every box set.

That's why they'll have a good Bond movie surrounding a couple of stinkers.

Die Another Day is grouped with Dr. No and Live and Let Die to sort of "cleanse the palette" so to speak.


Most likely, they'll bring out GOLDFINGER as the anchor for the next wave and then GOLDENEYE for the anchor of the wave after that...and so on.

In Best Buy, the stickers on Casino Royale were on the plastic with the case shrinkwrapped. On one copy, the sticker with the code was peeled off. Maybe that is why they are actually stuck on slipcovers in most instances.

Went back to my Best Buy today just out of curiosity and they still had at least 3 of every title.

None of the local stores had Casino Royale. Best Buy still has plenty of steelbooks left.

^ Yeah, mine didn't have Casino Royale (BD) either. They had a couple copies of the DVD.

Mine didn't have Casino Royale, either. I was thinking of getting it, but I decided that I wouldn't be watching too many of the supplements, so might as well stick with the one disc.

I wasn't going to buy it either. I'll wait for the next release. Hopefully Sony decides to use steelbooks with the series, but I'm not holding my breath.

Casino and Solace are Sony releases not MGM (Fox). If they didn't release the new version of Casino as a Steelbook I doubt they will with Solace.

The problems with the Bond discs just shows why BD is destined for a niche product if they can't get their shit together.

I bought my first dvd player in 1998 when dvd was still considered in its infancy (commercial-wise). That Pansonic I bought never had any issues playing anything that I can remember and still can play any dvd you throw at it now. And guess what...not one firmware update. Hell, I don't know if they were even doing firmware updates back then.

Until the general public can buy a dedicated BD player that will actually play any and every BD you throw at it without any issues, it is destined to lag behind. It just pisses me off that I have to own a PS3 to play the BDs that my current BD player will not. Fucking ridiculous.

Sorry for the rant. I am just pissed and disappointed.

Quick question, how are people getting Best Buy to price match with Target's price when the Bond BD's are not in the Target ad? Would Best Buy just call a local Target to confirm the price?

Thanks for the help.

What is it that makes me think a lot of these problems are related to BD+? Is it just me or does it seem that there have been issues since they rolled that out? DVD had fewer problems, but it's not as if certain discs were running a virtual machine either.

I respectfully disagree ...

My $1000 first gen Sony DVD player did not support DTS or DVD+-R/RW, as was the case for many of the players sold in '97 and '98 ... when DVD was a niche product.

Also, I remember plenty of posts in the late '90's and early 2000's where certain DVDs would not play in certain brand/model players. A number of those resulted in recalls/replacements. ... and a few were supported via firmware upgrades via burned CD's.

I think the fact that the big box retailers are already buying into Blu-ray shows that this is already beyond a niche product. I also remember not being able to buy a DVD in any B&M store for over a year after launch. The first rack of DVD's in Best Buy held about 40 titles, less than what we already have for Blu-ray today, and this was 18 months after DVD launch. Now laserdisc ... that was a niche product.

It was also several years before progressive scan DVD players were standard. My first DVD player wasn't progressive scan and didn't support DTS.

Regarding Blu-ray, as our beloved engineer Scotty once said, "The more they overtake the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."

I did a firmware update on my Sharp HP20U Blu-ray player tonight. The update was successful, but still no change on the James Bond BDs. However, the latest update from Sharp is from June 2008.

Congratulations on not owning a Toshiba DVD player. Toshiba players often had playback issues with certain DVDs, and did need firmware upgrades. Trouble was, the user couldn't upgrade the firmware. The players had to be sent to Toshiba.

My Panasonic Blu-ray player has been flawless thusfar.

Maybe that's what I should have bought. My first dvd player was a Panasonic and is still going strong at my in-laws. Yeah, it didn't have progressive scan (this was 1998), play DVD+ or dts capability....but those items weren't part of that model anyway. You can still buy dvd players that don't have certain features or extras...my point was that they still play dvds like they are supposed to. My BD player gets choked on normal big title release BDs coming out 8 months after the damn thing was built. That's just silly. You can claim it's just my player but talk a walk at the AVS forum and virtually every BD player has some sort of issues with the exception of the PS3 and maybe a couple of other models...out of the dozens that are out there.

I am not trying to turn this thread into a BD bitch-fest. I am just pissed that they can't seem to get this shit straight after being on the mass market for what...3 years now?

I know firmware can be a good thing but it seems to fuck up as much as it helps.

Bah...sorry for the rant. Guess I need to get a PS3 again.

What model Panasonic do you own Mr. Salty?

This seems to be my conclusion after reading about Blu-ray players. Which is why I won't compromise my wallet when I get a Blu-ray player. It will be the BD50 or whatever the flagship is when I get one possibly around the end of this year or early 2009. I'm hoping to see some good discounts around the holiday season.

EDIT: I'm probably shooting for the BD55 since it has 7.1 analog outs. Mr. Salty, you know of any benefits the BD50 would have over the 55? Damn, that was a short lifespan on the BD50. WTF. If the only difference is 7.1 analog out, then I'm going for the BD55.

I have the DMP-BD30. When I bought it it listed for something like $500, but I got it on sale for $400. Now I see you can get it for $258 at Amazon.com. It doesn't have Internet connectivity (BD Live, etc.), but so far none of that stuff matters to me. I just want a player that does a good job of playing the damned discs, which this one does. Outstanding picture quality, reasonably fast load times (second only to the PS3 from what I've read), and it hasn't had a problem with any disc I've put in it, including rentals from Netflix.

Panasonic's two new models, the DMP-BD35 and BD55 look like keepers, too.