| | |  | GIFT SETS | Home » » The Ray Bradbury Theater: The Complete Series | | | | | | | Description: | | William Shatner, Jeff Goldblum, Drew Barrymore, Elliott Gould. One of the all-time great American writers provides the literary fodder for this classic sci-fi anthology series. Gathered together in a great box set are all 65 episodes on 5 DVDs. 1985-92/color/26 hrs., 11 min/NR/fullscreen. | | | Features: | |
• Entranced by magicians, comic strips, and science-fiction magazines, Ray Bradbury began "educating" himself at the Los Angeles Library three to five times a week. By twenty-seven years of age he "graduated," having written over several million words. In his early twenties, he supported himself by selling newspapers on street corners and writing for radio programs such as Suspense,
| | | Product Details: | | | Actors:
| William Shatner, Jeff Goldblum, Leslie Nielson, Peter O'Toole, Eddie Albert | | Format:
| Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC | | Language:
| English | | Number of Discs:
| 5 | | Studio:
| Echo Bridge Home Entertainment | | Run Time:
| 1571 minutes | | DVD Release Date:
| January 11, 2005 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 79 reviews |
| | | | Used and New: | | | |
| All | |
| $8.99 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $9.80 This item is eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. | New | | | $9.80 This item is eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. | New | | | $10.11 | Used
- Mint | | | $10.11 | New | | | $12.38 | New | | | $12.40 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $12.45 | New | | | $12.49 | New | | | $12.50 | New | | | $12.59 | New | | | $12.72 | New | | | $12.73 | New | | | $13.37 | New | | | $13.89 | Used
- Good | | | $14.34 | New | | | $14.34 | New | | | $14.86 | New | | | $14.86 | New | | | $15.75 | New | | | $16.02 | New | | | $19.99 This item is eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. | New | | | $20.60 | New | | | $21.99 | Collectible
- Good | | | $22.32 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $24.99 | New | | | $24.99 | New | | | $25.00 | New | | | $35.98 | Used
- Mint | | | $35.99 | Used
- Mint | | | $64.38 | Used
- Good | | | $119.99 | New | |
| New | |
| $9.80 This item is eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. | New | | | $9.80 This item is eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. | New | | | $10.11 | New | | | $12.38 | New | | | $12.45 | New | | | $12.49 | New | | | $12.50 | New | | | $12.59 | New | | | $12.72 | New | | | $12.73 | New | | | $13.37 | New | | | $14.34 | New | | | $14.34 | New | | | $14.86 | New | | | $14.86 | New | | | $15.75 | New | | | $16.02 | New | | | $19.99 This item is eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. | New | | | $20.60 | New | | | $24.99 | New | | | $24.99 | New | | | $25.00 | New | | | $119.99 | New | |
| Used | |
| $8.99 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $10.11 | Used
- Mint | | | $12.40 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $13.89 | Used
- Good | | | $22.32 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $35.98 | Used
- Mint | | | $35.99 | Used
- Mint | | | $64.38 | Used
- Good | |
| Collectible | |
| $21.99 | Collectible
- Good | |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 79 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
432 of 445 found the following review helpful:
The Complete Ray Bradbury Theater! Short Stories from the Master!Jan 25, 2006
By a reader
Finally, The Ray Bradbury Theater is back on DVD!!! This forgotten classic is a must for all anthology lovers (Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Amazing Stories).
The Show began on HBO and showcased some high profile names from the 1980s. It was moved to the USA Network and apparently thrived enough to have been on until the early 1990s. Personally, I think the show would have been better off if it would have stayed on HBO because the early episodes are a few minutes longer and being on a paid movie channel they attracted bigger names. Plus, the original opening to the show with Ray walking around his office was a lot more atmospheric and creepy than the later episodes on the USA Network.
Like all anthology shows there are some bad episodes. However, what I like about this show is that ALL of the 65 episodes were written by one of the greatest American writers of the 20th Century! True there are some sleepers and stinkers in the bunch, but in general this is a very entertaining show. Even the episodes that do fail, I think suffer more from ineffective special effects and/or lackluster acting and dialogue than from Mr. Bradbury's actual "ideas."
This box set is very affordable. Unfortunately, the re-mastering is mediocre in picture and sound quality and because there are like 13 episodes per disc, the episodes look pixilated during fast motion scenes which can be annoying! To top things off, the episodes aren't even in the order of which they aired and there is even misspelling of a title on the DVD menu! However, I'm just happy to have this show on DVD. I got it for a great price and provided like a month full of cheap entertainment. For my 2 cents worth, I would say "The Playground," "The Murderer," and "Tomorrow's Child" are the high-water mark episodes of this show. Down below I rate each episode.
My rating system goes like this:
Excellent ... is a classic episode
Acceptable ... is an enjoyable, but perhaps slightly flawed episode
Poor ... is a boring and/or weak episode
"Marionettes Inc." Acceptable
"The Playground" Excellent (The ONE everyone remembers!!!)
"The Crowd" Excellent
"The Town were No One Got Off" Excellent
"The Screaming woman" Excellent
"Banshee" Excellent
"The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" Excellent
"Skelton" Poor
"The Emissary" Acceptable ( It bugs me they have a girl playing a boy character!)
"Gotcha!" Excellent (Starts off slow, but then becomes intensely scary!)
"The Man Upstairs" Acceptable
"Small Assassin" Poor
"Punishment without Crime" Excellent
"On the Orient, North" Poor (Zzzzzzz...)
"The Coffin" Acceptable
"Tyrannosaurus Rex" Poor
"There was an Old Woman" Acceptable
"And so Died Riabouchinska" Acceptable
"The Dwarf" Acceptable
"A Miracle of Rare Devices" Poor
"The Lake" Excellent
"The Wind" Acceptable
"The Pedestrian" Poor
"A Sound of Thunder" Excellent
"The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone" Excellent
"The Haunting of the New" Poor
"To the Chicago Abyss" Poor
"Hail and Farewell" Excellent
"The Veldt" Poor
"Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar!" Poor
"Mars is Heaven" Excellent
"The Murderer" Excellent (Both hilarious and thought provoking, my favorite episode)
"Touched with Fire" Acceptable
"The Black Ferris" Excellent (It's like a mini movie)
"Usher II" Acceptable
"Touch of Petulance" Acceptable
"And the Moon be still as Bright" Acceptable
"The Toynbee Convector" Excellent
"Exorcism" Poor (Seems like a pilot for a bad TV show)
"The Day it Rained Forever" Poor
"The Long Years" Acceptable
"Here there be Tygers" Acceptable
"The Earthmen" Poor
"Zero Hour" Excellent
"Colonel Stonesteel and the "Desperate Empties" Poor
"The Concrete Mixer" Acceptable
"The Utterly Perfect Murder" Acceptable
"Let's Play Poison" Poor
"The Martian" Poor
"The Lonely One" Excellent
"The Happiness Machine" Acceptable
"Tomorrow's Child" Excellent (A bizarre episode, Rod Serling would have been proud!)
"The Handler" Acceptable
"Great Wide World Over There" Acceptable
"Fee Fie Foe Fum" Poor
"The Anthem Sprinters" Poor
"By the Numbers" Acceptable (A surprise ending, indeed)
"The Long Rain" Excellent
"The Dead Man" Excellent
"Sun and Shadow" Acceptable
"Silent Towns" Excellent (Very Funny)
"Downwind from Gettysburg" Excellent
"Some live like Lazarus" Acceptable
"The Tombstone" Poor
120 of 124 found the following review helpful:
 An excellent collected-works setJan 30, 2006
By Michael Osborn
I have always liked Ray Bradbury's mind. As a kid I read his stories in comic books and as a teen I read nearly all of his books. When the Ray Bradbury Theater was on the USA Channel in the 1990's I tried to never miss it. I don't understand why, but I guess I was one of the few people on the planet who had no difficulty in setting my VCR to record whatever I wanted to watch if I wasn't home to watch it. As a result I just happen to have a few miscellaneous episodes of the Ray Bradbury Theater around that I recorded fifteen years ago. The visual quality of the video tapes were nearly as good as the actual broadcasts. I was excited to learn that the entire run of 65 episodes of the Ray Bradbury Theater were released on DVD last year but after reading some of the disparaging revues railing its inferior quality, I refrained from buying it. Recently I bought a used copy on Amazon and I have been kicking myself ever since because the quality is better than my video tapes and I have been really loving watching the many episodes I have never seen. True they do not look as pretty as transfers of high-budget Hollywood fare of today but the originals were never filmed on 35mm and will always look like a TV show. If you like Ray Bradbury or if you enjoyed the show, you'll be glad you bought this set.
114 of 119 found the following review helpful:
Finally!Mar 29, 2005
By Brian Reaves
I've been waiting for a long time to see this series come to DVD. I remember watching it when I was a teen and loving it. Now, almost 20 years later, the show lives again on DVD! Some of Bradbury's best short stories are shown here, including "The Wind", "The Veldt", "The Town Where No One Ever Got Off", and "A Sound of Thunder" (being made into a feature film for this Summer). There are over 65 episodes here, which gives you an idea of the hits and misses you'll find. Not every episode is a gem (what series could ever say that anyway?), but most are great. Guest stars galore like Jeff Goldblum, Drew Barrymore, Peter O'Toole, William Shatner (in a REALLY creepy story called "The Playground"), and lots of others (remember, this was the 80's, and those were big names then). The special effects aren't necessarily anything to brag about, but the stories can keep you on the edge of your chair.
Unfortunately, the image transfer is horrible at times. The images blur when the camera moves, or pixellate at odd times. Some of the images look washed out. But keep in mind that this was probably made off of older masters, so you can't expect perfection. I'm just glad to see it finally made it to DVD so we can see it again in its entirety!. The shows range anywhere from 22 to 30 minutes.
If you're a fan of the Twilight Zone (of which Ray wrote a couple of episodes), then this is another great series to add to the collection (and at a good price for all the episodes). There are no extras at all in here, but I can live with that. Thanks for bringing it back for us!
102 of 114 found the following review helpful:
 While Bradbury is great, this DVD transfer is a ripoffDec 24, 2005
By A. Koehler
"-"
Huge ripoff, very shoddy image quality. I felt so burned. Video quality genuinely worse than a used eight-hour slow-speed EP VHS tape. The fault is NOT the source material. I have old VHS SP recordings of Bradbury Theatre off cable, and in direct comparison they're far better than the DVD, which tells you just how bad this whole set is.
A DVD normally carries 2 hours of material at decent video quality. Platinum Entertainment, however, chose extremely high video compression and crammed 13 half-hour episodes per disc, providing 6 hours at absolutely terrible video quality. When a vendor crams things on disc like this, they are choosing to be cutrate, saving them cost of extra discs and of course make a higher profit at the expense of your visual enjoyment. The rotten video here does not appear accidental but a deliberate quality choice. Shame on these people for taking advantage of Ray's name to sell garbage.
Just a few of many examples: In 'The Pedestrian' and many other episodes, many shots pixellate (break up into jagged blocks) into unwatchable versions. Lousy video in dark night-time scenes in 'Banshee', again bad video compression. In 'A Sound of Thunder', the spinning timesphere completely breaks up into huge blocky video chunks due to incompetent video processing. This did not have to happen. Professional video encoding DOES allow vendors to choose temporary better compression in scenes with fast moving objects for far better video quality, but Platinum did not. The discs look a lot like an amateur effort using consumer video encoding software instead of professional tools. Every video in the set is brutally flawed enough to make you cringe.
In retrospect, I should have gotten a clue from the package statement of "over 28 hours" on 5 discs to mean the material would look awful. I hope that someday Bradbury/Atlantis pulls the rights and someone else issues a better version. Until then, avoid this set and Platinum. I am pretty sure you will be sorry otherwise.
17 of 17 found the following review helpful:
 Great stories, horrible picture qualityFeb 23, 2008
By jon
This is a nice collection of the Ray Bradbury series that was on cable TV some years back. I had missed most of them, so it is nice to get them all in one package. However, the video transfer to DVD is about the worst I've ever seen. The box says "digitally mastered", but since DVDs are digital, EVERY DVD is mastered digitally! It looks as though they used old VHS tapes as the masters, then digitized them at very low bit rates. Lost of pixelation, especially in motion scenes. In addition, there was obviously no attempt at color control during the mastering process, as things can range from oversaturated to washed out from one scene to the next. I guess this is to be expected when they put 28 hours on 5 discs (5.6 hours per disc), when a movie is usually around 2 hours per disc.
That being said, it is nice to have all of these stories that haven't been done elsewhere. A couple (The Long Rain, and The Veldt) were both previously done by different actors/directors in the movie " The Illustrated Man". As with any series, some episodes are better than others, but they give you a great insight into the creativity of Ray Bradbury.
So, I'd give 5 stars for content, and 1 star for quality, averaging to 2.5. I'd buy it again, but be prepared for the poor transfer.
See all 79 customer reviews on Amazon.com
| | |
|
