Spartacus (1960) (Restored Edition)

[octagon]

Lotta good movies over the past thirty or forty years.

[reason108]

Originally Posted by kingdoxie

Attachment 125901

Now available at Best Buy ...YMMV

I was just at my local Best Buy and don't think that I saw a copy at all. Maybe I missed it. Oh well. Will look again next time I go.

[Early Memphis]

I hope all you "brainless masses" who have your heads so firmly planted in the past have great luck getting your wayback machines fixed.

[JB1981]

Hi Guys,

I'm new to the forum. The blu-ray master is incredible but I am very disappointed to find that the digital version is the old master. Feels like false advertising and the response received by another user earlier is very disheartening.

[ArnoldLayne56]

Originally Posted by JB1981

Hi Guys,

I'm new to the forum. The blu-ray master is incredible but I am very disappointed to find that the digital version is the old master. Feels like false advertising and the response received by another user earlier is very disheartening.

Totally agree. Since when is the UV code for a 'different' movie than the disc? If there are licensing issues, they should be stated. There are no disclaimers on the slip cover I just looked. Who would watch the BD, then for convenience, watch the 'digital' (online) version? They should have just left out the UV code.

[Illy Scorsese]

Finally got the chance to watch the Restored Disc this weekend...

What is there to say that has not already been said? It's absolutely incredible. Just stunning, truly. It's immediately in the class of "Lawrence Of Arabia", "Ben-Hur" and "Taxi Driver" as the very best restored picture quality for a classic film in Color released on the Blu-Ray format.

I cannot reccomend it highly enough. It's worth every penny, and in fact, much much more.

Thank you to Mr. Harris, and all the good folks at Universal to put in the work and proper resources to give this film the treatment it desearves. Look forward to seeing more work like this in the future from Universal.

[ArnoldLayne56]

Originally Posted by Illy Scorsese

Finally got the chance to watch the Restored Disc this weekend...

What is there to say that has not already been said? It's absolutely incredible. Just stunning, truly. It's immediately in the class of "Lawrence Of Arabia", "Ben-Hur" and "Taxi Driver" as the very best restored picture quality for a classic film in Color released on the Blu-Ray format.

I cannot reccomend it highly enough. It's worth every penny, and in fact, much much more.

Thank you to Mr. Harris, and all the good folks at Universal to put in the work and proper resources to give this film the treatment of desearves. Look forward to seeing more work like this in the future from Universal.

While the new restoration of My Fair Lady is from Paramount, not Universal, it was also a Robert Harris project and the results are similarly stunning!

[MisterXDTV]

Arrived today in my mailbox....

I watched the restoration featurette, I was in tears....

One of the greatest restorations ever. Unbelievable stuff...

Thank You Mr. Harris, Thank you Universal...

[jlk5844]

Originally Posted by emgesp

Sandwiched in between two horrific films. Spartacus deserves better!!!

I liked Spring Breakers. No classic, but the response was a bit harsh.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Doctor Jack

Even below it are terrible movies.

Originally Posted by Rory

Among the movies of the past decade or so, most are terrible! I look at those racks of discs at Best Buy or wherever and I can't help but think, "Who buys most of this crap?" I know it's not me, as I rarely buy a movie that's not more than thirty or forty years old.

The question I usually ask is not "who buys this crap?" but "who the hell approved spending money to make this crappy film?"

But having said that, I bet you're at least 60 years old. People tend to like the music, movies and fashions they grew up with, except for the few who can change with the times. We tend to remember the great films from 30-40 years ago, but we don't remember all the crappy b-movies, either because we didn't bother to see them or because we did and we forgot them. There was plenty of junk then and there's plenty of junk now.

There have been plenty of great movies since 1985. Let's start with 1990, since 1985 is around the 30-year mark and pick a few movies from the year and then skip ahead to 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2014 (since 2015 isn't over yet).

I'm not claiming that you should like every movie on the list (I don't either), but these are all respectable films.

1990:
Cinema Paradiso, Dances with Wolves, Goodfellas, Reversal of Fortune, The Hunt for Red October, The Handmaid's Tale, Metropolitan, Avalon, Miller's Crossing

1995:
Apollo 13, Toy Story, Braveheart, Get Shorty, Dead Man Walking, Leaving Las Vegas, Sense and Sensibility, Mighty Aphrodite, Rob Roy, Crimson Tide, The City of Lost Children, Braveheart, The Bridges of Madison County, Batman Forever (only kidding!), The Brothers McMullen, The Usual Suspects, The American President, Casino, 12 Monkeys.

2005:
Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire, Star Wars III, King Kong, Batman Begins, Sin City, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Crash, Cinderella Man; Good Night, and Good Luck; Oliver Twist, Capote, Walk the Line, Brokeback Mountain, Memoirs of a Geisha, Syriana, The Constant Gardener.

2010:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Inception, The Social Network, The King's Speech, The Kids are Alright, Black Swan, The Fighter, Toy Story 3, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish version), Shutter Island, Alice in Wonderland, Nowhere Boy, 127 Hours

2014:
Interstellar, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Theory of Everything, Birdman, Still Alice, Big Eyes, Whiplash, Gone Girl, Selma, Chef, Edge of Tomorrow, Jersey Boys, The Imitation Game, American Sniper.

1960:
The good:
Spartacus, Psycho, Exodus, The Apartment, Elmer Gantry, Sunrise at Campobello, Sons and Lovers, Bells are Ringing, Black Sunday, Breathless, La Dolce Vita, House of Usher, Inherit the Wind, The Little Shop of Horrors, Never on Sunday, Rocco and His Brothers, Shoot the Piano Player, The Sundowners, Swiss Family Robinson, Testament of Orpheus, The Virgin Spring

The not so good:
Ocean's 11, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, The Alamo, The Bellboy, Can-Can, Pepe, Pollyanna, The Facts of Life, Cinderfeller, Cleopatra's Daughter, G.I. Blues, The Lost World, The Private Lives of Adam and Eve, The Rat Race, Tall Story, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, Where the Boys Are,

[Geoff D]

Magnificent Blu-ray of a magnificent film. Universal (with RAH's help) done good.

[jlk5844]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

But having said that, I bet you're at least 60 years old. People tend to like the music, movies and fashions they grew up with, except for the few who can change with the times. We tend to remember the great films from 30-40 years ago, but we don't remember all the crappy b-movies, either because we didn't bother to see them or because we did and we forgot them. There was plenty of junk then and there's plenty of junk now.

There have been plenty of great movies since 1985.

+1000

I think it stems from the great or good movies of today still not measuring up to the all-time classics of decades' past, which is true here and there, no doubt, but there's just as much crap being produced today as there was in every other decade. Some of it is vanished from memory with time because they're simply bad movies, whereas the classics never die. Some of it is still crap but people have nostalgia and/or preferences for the times and/or genre. I'm sure with some of the slasher movies from the 80s that I love, if I had seen them then (were I to exist) or they came out today, I would think terribly of them, but there's a charm to them 30+ years later and I overlook their flaws and see them as cookie cutter fun. If the poster had said anything from the past 15 years I could understand somewhat, but anything younger than 30-40 years ago?! That's laughable. That's getting into the latter half of the 70s which is debatably the greatest decade for cinema. There's so many incredible films from 1975-1979 alone that it's ridiculous.

[35mmDreams]

Hey all -

I got this about a week or so ago and am REALLY looking forward to watching it, but I've been having a difficult time with playback. The MAIN MENU seems screwy. When I try to view the "Restoration Feature", it plays the movie. When I try to PLAY the movie, the disk removes the menu and plays the menu clips in a loop.

Granted, I have an older Blu-Ray player (Pioneer BDP-05FD), but I am running the latest firmware (1.74) according to the Pioneer website. All my other disks, including some recent ones, seem to play fine.

Is anyone else having problems like this with the new REMASTERED edition? Is it the disk or am I finally going to have to think about retiring my old Pioneer player?

TIA!!

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Magnificent Blu-ray of a magnificent film. Universal (with RAH's help) done good.

[Race Bannon]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

2010:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Inception, The Social Network, The King's Speech, The Kids are Alright, Black Swan, The Fighter, Toy Story 3, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish version), Shutter Island, Alice in Wonderland, Nowhere Boy, 127 Hours

No True Grit? Dead to me.

[Duke_45]

Just watched the restored version, and was simply blown away by the magnificent transfer. I was in a wonderful state of mind for 3+ hours. The one minor issue I have, is not directed at the people involved with this incredible restoration job, but with thinkng at the time this film was made, to incorporate "soft focus" lenses, whenever Jean Simmons had a close up. It's annoying to see the film stock go from a crystal clear image, to an almost out-of-focus image. Luckily, the soft focus lens is not used too often in Spartacus...

[Geoff D]

It's not just this film though, it was the done thing with lensing the ladies at that time. And the more of these super high quality restorations we get, the more that stuff like that will stand out (ditto for any dupes or opticals). It is what it is.

[Doctor Jack]

Originally Posted by Race Bannon

No True Grit? Dead to me.

True Grit remake was terrible. 2 hours of Jeff Bridges mumbling. John Wayne should have shown up and shot him for disgracing the character. Add me to the dead to you list. Just thought you should know for future reference.

[Page14]

Originally Posted by Page14

Has anybody ordered this from Barnes & Noble? And if you have, did you receive it yet?

Just curious as I ordered this back on October 8th before it went into "backorder" mode. I'm still waiting. (FWIW, I saw this in-store at B&N, but held off on buying it because I'm hoping to find one with a slip cover while they're still available).

A follow-up to my own post ...

While my order still was being listed as backordered, it no longer appeared as backordered on the product listing on B&N's website. Kind of screwy. So I called B&N's customer service to hear what they had to say. For whatever reason, they couldn't get my order moving and advised me to either wait until it ships or order the blu-ray again. I hesitated canceling the order because I didn't want to lose a 20% off coupon discount I used. So anyway, I got tired of waiting and thought it couldn't hurt to order it again, so I did. It was delivered yesterday ... and it came with a slip cover too. My original order still hasn't shipped although it moved from "backorder" status to "Your order is being processed".

Seems way more complicated than placing an order should have to be, but at least I finally got it. (It's so much easier to just pick one up in a store ... if you're fortunate enough to find it).

EDIT: I'm hoping the original order will be delivered within the next 2 weeks, so that it falls within B&N's return policy window. (That would be the order that had the 20% discount applied to it). That way, I can return one of the 2 blu-rays using the receipt from the 2nd order (the one that didn't have the 20% discount applied, but was delivered first). Way too fricking complicated for my pea brain. lol.

[igloop]

What exactly do the 12 extra minutes encompass or add? Were they meant to be in the film & previously censored?

I've seen an older version including the 'snails or oysters' scene. Which I appreciated being included & as I recall Kubrick approved of the work being done, even though he personally wasn't involved. What is considered official? is the consensus that the additional 12 minutes belong or do they not? While I understand this transfer is considered definitive, even reference quality; i wonder about the cut.

Because having more scenes, is not always better. I am hoping these are scenes always intended to be there, which for some poor reason were lost or removed?