The movie exhibited a broad palette and used many lively tones in its variety of exotic settings. These were vivid and distinctive, with added power from the UHD’s HDR.
Blacks seemed deep and firm, while low-light shots demonstrated pretty solid delineation. HDR gave whites and contrast extra punch. The image held up well after 60 years.
Downverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the movie’s remixed Dolby Atmos audio worked pretty well. This led to a fairly broad and involving soundscape.
Most of the material still focused on the front, but the other channels nonetheless got good usage. Unsurprisingly, the film’s many action scenes offered the most engaging impact, and the entire package meshed together in a reasonably seamless way.
Audio quality generally worked fine, though I found some re-recorded effects to offer a moderate distraction. These didn’t always blend especially well with the circa 1965 elements, so while the newer bits offered superior accuracy and range, they created some distractions because they didn’t clearly “fit”.
Speech showed some “era typical” thinness but the lines seemed largely concise and natural. Music varied but generally came across as lively and full. Despite some inconsistencies, this usually turned into an effective multichannel remix.
The 4K UHD also came with the movie’s DTS-HD MA monaural track. Inevitably, it lacked the same dynamic range of the remix, mainly due to the absence of those re-recorded effects.
However, this allowed the circa 1965 audio to better match the visuals and not show the inconsistencies I heard on the Atmos remix. While the latter worked fine, I preferred the original mono track just because it offered the more logical connection to the film.
In addition, the 4K UHD came with alternate versions of both the Atmos and DTS-HD MA monaural mixes. This meant a mix of different musical and audio cues at times.
Do these make the movie a different affair in any appreciable manner? No, but they’re an interesting inclusion, especially because Thunderball ran with the “alternate” mix for a good chunk of time, so it’s not just some oddball version hardly anyone ever heard.
How did the 4K UHD compare to the prior release? The Atmos mix broadened the BD’s 5.1 to a mild degree but as usual, the nature of the aging source limited room for improvements.
The UHD’s Dolby Vision image offered the expected growth, though, as it appeared better defined and more vivid. As became the case with the first three Bond movies, though, the higher capabilities of 4K UHD made anomalies – mainly softness – more obvious. Nonetheless, I still found this to become the superior presentation.
The 4K UHD brings most of the BD’s extras, and first up we find two audio commentaries. Hosted by John Cork, the first combines comments from a number of participants such as director Terence Young, actors Luciana Paluzzi, Desmond Llewelyn, Lois Maxwell, Rose Alba, and Molly Peters, composer John Barry, special effects technician Bert Luxford, production designer Ken Adam, and underwater specialist Ricou Browning.
All sit separately for this edited piece. The track covers stunts, action and effects, cast and crew notes, story and script development, underwater photography and related elements, the score, and various other production elements.
As with most of these Bond tracks, this one tends toward anecdotal material. We get a good sense of nuts and bolts material but also find many stories about the participants’ experiences.
There’s a little dead air at times, and Cork carries too much of the load. With so many folks involved, we should hear more from them and less from a narrator. That said, the commentary proves informative and useful.
Heading to the second track, we hear from editor Peter Hunt and co-writer John Hopkins. Both sit separately for chats with Cork, who again acts as narrator.
Hunt and Hopkins discuss general aspects of their careers as well as specifics about their work on Thunderball. In addition, we hear the movie’s original theme song played over the credits and get a few sequences with the actors dubbed into other languages.
This commentary also drags a bit, but it usually gives us good info and it works well for the most part. Granted, I could do without the foreign language segments but I’ll forgive them due to the commentary’s laserdisc origins.
That format didn’t allow for as many different soundtracks as 4K UHD, so dubbed scenes were more of a novelty. In the end, this is another pretty good commentary.
Under Declassified: MI6 Vault, we get six components, and The Incredible World of James Bond original 1965 NBC TV special runs 50 minutes, 55 seconds. It purports to offer an examination of 007’s character, but mostly it just gives us lots of movie clips.
Still, a few interesting components appear, as we get a recap of Bond’s history as laid out in Ian Fleming’s novels, and we also hear a few comments from Fleming himself. The show presents some nice shots from the set, including a staged “violence school” for the three babe actresses in Thunderball.
The second half focuses more closely on the creation of the film, so it offers much better material. This is a promotional program but it offers more than enough interesting footage to make it worthwhile.
A Child’s Guide to Blowing Up a Motor Car offers a 17-minute, 10-second 1965 Ford Mustang promotional film. “Guide” shows a guy who takes his godson to watch them shoot a scene from Thunderball.
As one might anticipate from the title, this involves the destruction of a vehicle, as specifically, it details the scene in which Fiona offs Count Lippe. It gives us a tongue in cheek approach that delivers an unusual form of behind the scenes examination. It’s fun and informative.
For material with the production designer, we go to On Location With Ken Adam. The 13-minute, nine-second featurette presents a collection of Adam’s home movies accompanied by his narration.
We see footage from location scouts, boats, sets, and other spots. Adam tells us about the locations, the folks involved with the flick, and other aspects of his films. The shots themselves are interesting, and Adam’s narration fleshes out the pieces to make this a satisfying featurette.
More footage of this sort comes to us via Bill Suitor: The Rocket Man Movies. This three-minute, 57-second clip shows footage from the set accompanied by narration from Suitor, the man who flew the rocket pack in the movie’s opening sequence.
The quality of the film is very rough. However, we still get some nice shots, and Suitor’s remarks provide good information about creating the famous sequence.
Thunderball Boat Show Reel goes for two minutes, 50 seconds. Michael Wilson introduces this vintage segment that was used for a 1965 boat show.
It offers an alternate version of the movie’s climactic underwater sequence. That makes it interesting for fans to see.
Under the banner of Selling Bonds, we get three original 1965 TV commercials: “007 Raincoat” (0:32), “007 Slacks (0:34) and “007 Action Pack Toys (1:03). Each is very amusing and great fun to watch.
Exotic Locations runs three minutes, 18 seconds. Maud Adams chats over some scenes and tells us about where they were shot. Despite its brevity, it offers some useful material.
Heading to Mission Dossier, we begin with the 27-minute, 32-second The Making of Thunderball. Narrated by Patrick Macnee, it presents notes from Llewelyn, Adam, Browning, Paluzzi, Peters, Maxwell, Young, associate producer Stanley Sopel, Goldfinger director Guy Hamilton, actors Martine Beswick and Sean Connery, chief draftsman Peter Lamont, special effects supervisor John Stears, and production buyer Ron Quelch.
The show looks at the origins of the story and complications related to how it came to the screen. From there it moves through getting a director, underwater photography, casting, the opening sequence various stunts and effects, boats and sets, locations and the tone during the shoot, various scene specifics, and the movie’s reception.
A nice complement to the commentaries, “Making” covers the production well. Inevitably, it duplicates some info from those chats, but it manages to give us a different perspective on many issues. We find a solid recap of the important subjects in this tight little show.
Called The Thunderball Phenomenon, the second program lasts 31 minutes, one second as it covers the publicity of the film and discusses the way Bond impacted upon society as a whole. Again narrated by Macnee, we hear from Maxwell, Peters, Stears, Paluzzi, Beswick, Llewelyn, Lamont, writer Richard Maibaum, Ian Fleming Foundation president Michael Van Blaricum, UA art director Donald Smolen, James Bond 007 Fan Club president Graham Rye and ABC News correspondent Bill Diehl.
The show repeats the Bond bio from “Incredible World” and some other elements in that program before it digs into notes about Terence Young and his impact on the character. From there we hear about the success of both the novels and various forms of publicity, spin-offs and merchandising.
We see a lot of cool elements, especially when we check out the toys and other retail elements. Though a few of these can be found elsewhere, we still find plenty of great bits in this entertaining piece.
Lastly, The Secret History of Thunderball appears and lasts a whopping three minutes, 54 seconds. Still, it's short but sweet.
“History” features interesting information about the differences among some releases of the film. It also shows the effects of overdubbed vocals and some scene deletions.
Under Ministry of Propaganda, the disc presents publicity materials. Three trailers appear here. Two of these are from the film's original theatrical release.
In the style of the day, they tend to be rather loud, garish, and overbearing. The third promotes a double bill re-release of both Thunderball and You Only Live Twice. It's not as grating as the other two, but it's still pretty annoying.
Five television ads can be found on this disc. Two are for the original release, and the first resembles the obnoxious trailers, but the second – which features only the theme song as audio accompaniment - is much more elegant.
The other three ads promote a re-release double bill of Thunderball and From Russia With Love. All three of these ads are essentially the same but they just vary in length.
We also receive ten radio spots on the disc. All of these are reminiscent of the film's standard ad campaign - with its call of "Look up, look down, look out!" - but they're not quite as shrill as are the trailers.
Note that the 4K drops a collection of stills as well as some segments that just offer compilations of scenes from various Bond flicks. I don’t miss the latter but the absence of the galleries disappoints.
While I wouldn’t refer to Thunderball as flawless Bond, it remains one of the series’ best efforts. With its great action, interesting settings and stellar babes, it’s a winner. The 4K UHD presents positive picture and audio along with a solid roster of bonus materials. This becomes a winning release..
Note that as of June 2025, this release of Thunderball can be purchased solely as part of a “Sean Connery Six-Film Collection”. This provides all of Connery’s official Bond flicks in 4K versions, so in addition to Thunderball, we find Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever.
