“Thunderball” strikes in new, remastered 4K UHD

4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS

2025 Restoration vs. 2010 Lowry Digital

Top: 4K/HDR - Filmmakers Mode (2025, MGM/Amazon/Warner Bros.) master.

Bottom: 4K/SDR (Digital) - Apple TV (2010, Lowry Digital) master.

SPECTRE agents transport two nuclear bombs in the waters off the Florida coast. Agent 007 prepares to dive with a special high-powered motor attached to his air tank.

Individual Steelbooks for the six Sean Connery films - Limited Edition box set & the six-disc plastic case set

“THUNDERBALL” 

4K Ultra HD, 1965; Not rated, contains violence; Digital copy via Apple TV (4K) or Fandango Home (4K)

Best extra: Making of “Thunderball” featurette with cast and crew interviews

4K screenshots courtesy of MGM/Amazon - Click for an Amazon purchase

FROM THE back seat of my parents’ car at a West Virginia drive-in, I was introduced to British Secret Service agent James Bond.

Wearing my favorite pajamas and fighting with my 5-year-old sister, I could barely see the superspy played by the athletic Sean Connery of Scotland. But that didn’t stop 007 from being implanted in my mind – especially after watching the striking underwater fight sequence between the U.S. Aqua-paratroopers and SPECTRE during “Thunderball,” the franchise's fourth installment of 25 total films. The intense sequence was filmed in the bluish/turquoise waters of the Bahamas as Bond tries to recover two nuclear bombs from Emilio Largo (Italian actor Adolfo Celi), the mastermind of SPECTRE.

The Bond girls include Claudine Auger (former Miss France and runner-up Miss World) as femme fatale Dominique, and Italian actress Luciana Paluzzi as SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe. Producers Kevin McClory, Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli originally wanted model/actress Raquel Welch, but 20th Century Production Chief Richard D. Zanuck wouldn’t release Welch from her contract to star in “Fantastic Voyage.”

British director Terence Young (“Dr. No,” “From Russia with Love”) demanded an exuberant budget, more than quadruple the cost of “Goldfinger,” to make “Thunderball,” his most successful movie. Also, it was the first within the series to be shot in the widescreen Panavision format, a process that benefits tremendously from the 4K imagery, especially on supersize screens.

(1) The iconic James Bond introduction with the ‘Gun Barrel’ shot, captured for the first time with a widescreen Panavision lens. The next four Bond films would be filmed with anamorphic lens. (2) Bond and French MI6 agent (Mitsouko) overall the castle of Colonel Jacques Bouvar, a SPECTRE agent, who killed two British agents. (3&4) Bond fights a SPECTRE agent inside the 16th-century Château d'Anet castle. (5&6) Bond uses the Bell-Textron Rocket Pack (stunt pilot Bill Suiter) strapped on for a 21-second vertical escape from assassins. (7) Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 has two water cannons to stop the killers.

EXTRAS

The 4K disc includes a 50-minute NBC-TV special that aired in ‘65, narrated by the king of documentaries, Alexander Scourby. It also features an interview with creator/author Ian Fleming, world premiere highlights where foreign audiences called Bond “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” and clips from the first four spy thrillers. Additional extras include a short documentary with production designer Ken Adam, two commentaries, trailers, and radio spots.

During the 27-minute ‘Making of’ documentary (1995) narrated by actor Patrick Macnee, star of the British TV series “The Avengers,” we found the first Bond script was based on a story entitled “Thunderball,” a collaboration between Fleming, producer McClory, and writer Jack Whittingham. After eight months, Fleming got “bored” with the screenwriting process and returned to “Goldeneye,” his Jamaican retreat to write his 8th Bond novel, “Thunderball.” McClory got his hands on an advanced copy and determined that some of the plot was his brainchild. He filed a lawsuit, while Broccoli and Saltzman bought the film rights to the Bond novels and hired screenwriter Richard Maibaum to write a treatment for United Artists. Eventually, “Thunderball” was shelved while the lawsuit was settled out of court. The producers then commenced production of Bond film “Dr. No.”  

Finally, in 1964, a deal was struck between Broccoli/Saltzman and McClory, who became the producer of “Thunderball.” Twenty-five percent of the action would be filmed underwater, so they recruited expert Ricou Browning (“Flipper” TV series) to direct those scenes. Moviegoers were also introduced to the coolest Bond gadget to date, the Bell-Textron Rocket Pack, which Bond (stunt pilot Bill Suiter) strapped on for a 21-second vertical escape from assassins at a French castle.

(1) One of the futurist sets by Art Director Ken Adam. Number 2, Emilio Largo, arrives at a special SPECTRE board meeting. One of the members will be killed with an electric charge from Number One. (2) M orders Bond to the Shurblands’ health farm to recover his damaged body. He discovers Angelo Palazzi, a hired assassin, who had major face reconstruction to impersonate NATO pilot, Major François Derval. (3&4) Nurse Patrica Fearling (Molly Peters) attaches Bond to the traction machine, but SPECTRE Count Lippe turns up the machine that nearly kills Bond. (5&6) Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi) is working with Lippe to kill Major Deval (Paul Stassino). (7) The RAF V-Force bomber with two nuclear bombs onboard is overtaken by Palazzi and flown to the Caribbean.

“Thunderball” was released worldwide during the Holiday Season of ’65. It continued to be the biggest Bond box office smash (adjusted for inflation), $1.25 billion, until “Skyfall” (2012) starring Daniel Craig as Bond, which peaked at $1.34 billion. Surprisingly, it only received and won an Academy Award for Visual Effects for supervisor John Stears. You’ve got to ask, why didn’t art director Ken Adam (“Barry Lyndon,” “Dr. Strangelove”) get an Oscar nod for his stunning futuristic set?

VIDEO

Like the five other Bond films in the new Sean Connery 4K Ultra HD Collection released by MGM/Amazon and Warner Bros., the best surviving 35mm elements (2.35:1 aspect) were rescanned in 4K. Every frame was digitally restored and mastered in TRUE 4K, which produced a varying, but good wash of natural film grain. That wasn’t the case with the older 2010 4K master from Lowry Digital, which lacked grain at times. Expanded colors from the HDR10 and Dolby Vision grading looks natural and well-balanced, saturated with those turquoise waters. Overall, the clarity is much better with the new remaster compared to the older 4K master. 

The peak HDR10 brightness hits 1063 nits, the average is above the normal range at 838 nits. Everything was encoded onto a 100 GB disc. The video bitrate is lower than “From Russia with Love” since it includes several more featurettes. It peaks at 80-plus Megabits per second, but drops to the mid-20 Mbps and averages in the low 50 Mbps.

AUDIO

A new Dolby Atmos soundtrack gives John Barry’s score a real kick, expanding the soundstage – especially during the title sequence with Welsh pop-singer Tom Jones providing vocals. Originally, Shirley Bassey, who had a major hit with “Goldfinger,” recorded Barry’s “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” as the theme song, based on the Italian nickname for Bond. Then Dionne Warwick re-recorded the song, but both versions were dropped and replaced with a new song. The producers felt the theme song had to include the title of the movie.

The original 2.0 Mono track is provided for purists, but to my ears it sounds thin compared to the Atmos track.  

Overall, the 4K Ultra HD six-film Sean Connery Collection is a perfect late Father’s Day gift, or a birthday surprise. You’ve got to wonder if MGM/Amazon/Warner has plans for a 4K remaster of the Roger Moore Collection? The English actor starred as Bond in seven films (the most of the six different actors), starting with “Live and Let Die” (1973) and finishing with “A View to a Kill” (1985). My personal favorite is “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977) with co-star Barbara Bach.

— Bill Kelley III, High-Def Watch producer

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