Rating: 
Summary: I Agree that it Could Have Been Done Better...
Review: ...but it's still not bad. I bought THE BLACK SABBATH STORY, VOL. 2 at the same time as VOL. 1, and I did think right away that it was kind of weird that the 50-minute VOL. 2 sported 12 songs, while the 60-minute VOL. 1 had 10. Well, it is unfotunately true that most of the videos shown on VOL. 2 are truncated, which is too bad because most of these songs are very good. You know, every time people counted out Black Sabbath, they always came back with good material, no matter who sung for them. Hey, there were millions who thought that the Sabs were done when Ozzy left the band in 1978. But they came roaring right back with Ronnie James Dio in 1980, and put out two studio albums and their first-ever live album in the early 80's. Then Dio left in an acrimonious split, and former Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan took over for one album which, unfortunately, was poorly received. Then the whole David Donato misfire occurred (a male model with no previous professional singing experience, he was basically brought in for looks and nothing else, till he was fired by the band after three weeks due to his arrogance), after which Black Sabbath officially broke up, for the very first time in history. For the very first time, it seemed right to count out Black Sabbath for good. However, a very interesting thing happened: Tony Iommi wanted to do a solo album, which upset Warner Brothers, who didn't want to give up the Black Sabbath ghost as much as Black Sabbath itself! When Tony assembled a band that included former Ozzy bassist Bob Daisley and former Trapeze & Deep Purple bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes on lead vocals, Warner got cold feet and demanded that the finished product be released under the moniker "Black Sabbath Featuring Tony Iommi," rather than just under Iommi's own name. The result was the terrific SEVENTH STAR, which produced Black Sabbath's first Top 50 hit since "Paranoid," a great power ballad called "No Stranger To Love." Unfortunately, Glenn Hughes, who sang his heart out on the album, had fallen into cocaine addiction, and didn't last the tour. After briefly hooking up with up & coming New York-bred metallist Ray Gillen to finish out the tour, Black Sabbath got a dependable, and also virtually unknown, singer by the name of Tony "The Cat" Martin, who lasted for three albums from 1987-1991, till the Sabs reunited with Dio for the excellent album DEHUMANIZER (1992). This is the basic rundown of the many turns & twists in the career of the ever-adapting Black Sabbath from 1978 to 1992. it is fascinating; unfortunately, this video is so short that it has no time to dwell on any particular part of it. The result feels very rushed. However, it is still worthy to add it to your Black Sabbath video collection, as long as you don't spent too much money on it (Try Amazon Marketplace, or E-Bay). It does provide some very good interviews with some of the band members, such as Tony Iommi, Bill Ward, Cozy Powell and Ian Gillan. I particularly liked Gillan's segment the best; as much of a vocal legend as this man is, he makes no bones about the fact that he didn't really fit in well as a Black Sabbath singer, even going so far as to say, "I was probably the worst Black Sabbath singer ever," with a laugh. I can't agree with that; however, I can sure appreciate the unselfish sentiment represented by the statement. He does acknowledge that there were some very strong songs on BORN AGAIN (1983); unfortunately, we only hear brief snippets of the two best songs, "Trashed" and "Zero The Hero," from this much-unfairly maligned album. We also get not enough of the videos for the great Dio songs like "Die Young" as well as "T.V. Crimes" and "I" from the 1992 reunion. Sure, it's not the best Black Sabbath video, and it was obviously done to cash-in on the Dio reunion in that year. But for us die-hard Black Sabbath fans, it's worth it! RECOMMENDED FOR BLACK SABBATH FANS ONLY
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite the rest of the story, but close
Review: Covering '79-92, this video has lots of great footage -- some of which Tony Iommi would probably rather you didn't see. Includes interviews with Dio, Tony Martin, Cozy Powell, Geezer, Iommi, Vinny Appice, Ian Gillan, and others. Includes great concert footage with Dio (whole songs) and Gillan (snippets), studio footage with the '92 "reunion" lineup and the horribly bad MTV videos from Seventh Star and Headless Cross. For Ozzy fans, the only tidbit is the complete "video" for Hard Road, from Never Say Die. Ray Gillen is mentioned for only two seconds and Glenn Hughes not at all, although he's obviously in the video for "No Stranger To Love," which features Tony Iommi's dramatic debut and Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar) as his love interest. Great (terrible!) stuff. My only compaint is we could have done with more Gillan material.
Rating: 
Summary: Short, uneven, and sometimes a little embarrassing...
Review: First off, I'm a HUGE Sabbath fan, and admittedly more so of the early Ozzy stuff, so I could be biased in that regard. However, I still feel this DVD could have been much better. Starts off strong with great Dio fronted performances. Some stuff from "Mob Rules" would have been nice. We get literally a two second clip of "Zero the Hero" (which I think is a great song). And then we get POWER BALLADS! Like the entire, cheese covered, glossy MTV videos. If you're into the late 80's Sabbath sound, this might not be so bad. Then the DVD ends with the "Dehumanizer" reunion album/tour with Dio. Would it have killed them to include the entire "T.V. Crimes" video? The main portion of this DVD is less than 45 minutes long (there are some extra interview type segments elsewhere in the menu). It seems as though all the good stuff (i.e. performances) are either clipped or interrupted. Black Sabbath may not have been in top form for a good portion of the 80's, but again, this DVD could have been a lot better.
Rating:
Summary: 2 stars from a dio, gillian fan
Review: I love the music from this era of the band but I dont love this video. problems i have with this release: 1. widescreen format: The DVD cuts the heads of dio in Die Young and neon knights!
2. no restoration of film. its very grainy and fuzzy throughout the film
3. Very short clips of Trashed and Zero the hero. Where is the rest of the footage?
4. Too much interuption of the vocal biography track. (which is ironic considering this "biography" is completely lacking in details. where is the care and thoughtfulness in this release?)
5. actual biography is only 45 min. True there is another 30 minutes of interviews elsewhere on the disc but it completely confuses the chronology of the band, because it rehashes what we already heard on the biography.
6. no transitions at all between segments except for a video still of the album cover.
7. most importantly: who is the narrator of this biography? it should be toni iommi but he is absent through much of the discussion. I seriously cannot follow the development of the story because there is no story other than this band is a buisness arangement.
8. finally no videos were created for dehumanizer. All we are given is some studio session video with no clear presentation of what we are seeing there either. Frankly it seems that the whole video is a promotion for this tour. And the tour did not even last a year before dio left! What a tragic mistake this video is. Please do not purchase this video.
Rating:
Summary: The Black Sabbath Story
Review: I purchased this on VHS in 1992 (Released by Castle Communications PLC....2 X videos CAT No. SVO994 (55 minutes long) & CMP6070 (60 minutes long)) and the DVD is 85 minutes long??? - go figure, sounds like the DVD is just a rehash of the VHS with bits left out. This would be a great collectors item if it had full versions of the songs instead of small bites.
Rating: 
Summary: What Is UP With This !!!!!
Review: Let me start this review by saying that I am a ---BIG---!!!! Black Sabbath fan and that this review is NOT a knock on the QUALITY OF THE MUSIC or the CONTENT of the video's. What it is is a KNOCK AT THE PEOPLE WHO EDITED AND COMPILED THIS JOKE OF A DVD!!!!!!!. What is up with all the CUT and HACK footage, this is A VERY UNWATCHABLE video.The interview segments are interesting, but WHY aren't the VIDEO'S SHOWN in thier FULL LENGTH.I have seen many of these video's on MTV and other places IN THIER FULL LENGTH, so WHY NOT ON THIS DVD!!!!!!!. This is a DVD that I bought, watched once, and then traded in at the used CD store. I should feel guilty trading it in, becouse someone else will buy it and probably be severly dissapointed like I was. SAVE YOUR MONEY PEOPLE, don't flush it down the toilet like me and MANY other people have.
Rating:
Summary: DIO rocks with Sabbath!
Review: The only great thing about this DVD is that Ronnie James Dio is on it rocking out with sabbath. It shows the very awesome Ronnie James Dio with Black Sabbath performing at some gigs and they do very well at it and the fans don't even miss Ozzy. The fans are too caught up in the perfection of Black Sabbath with Dio singing. The flaws are that they did not spend time reviewing the mob rules cd which went Gold and placed in the billboard top 40. In other words Mob Rules was the last popular and classic Black Sabbath cd. The flaws are they did not cover enough of the Ian Gillan era which was only for one year but it was good nonetheless. The rest of the dvd consists of Tony Martin and Glenn Hughs where all of us witnessed Black Sabbath fall from stardom and into unpopular cheese rock. Then they covered the short reunion with the very busy Ronnie James Dio or Dio. The tour and album was called dehumanizer (being the heaviest sabbath album and tour ever). Black Sabbath immediatly became popular again (playing in packed arenas) with Dio until he left and continued onward with his own very awesome band called DIO.
Pretty good DVD but way too short with way too much talking!
Rating:
Summary: DIO rocks with Sabbath!
Review: The only great thing about this DVD is that Ronnie James Dio is on it rocking out with sabbath. It shows the very awesome Ronnie James Dio with Black Sabbath performing at some gigs and they do very well at it and the fans don't even miss Ozzy. The fans are too caught up in the perfection of Black Sabbath with Dio singing. The flaws are that they did not spend time reviewing the mob rules cd which went Gold and placed in the billboard top 40. In other words Mob Rules was the last popular and classic Black Sabbath cd. The flaws are they did not cover enough of the Ian Gillan era which was only for one year but it was good nonetheless. The rest of the dvd consists of Tony Martin and Glenn Hughs where all of us witnessed Black Sabbath fall from stardom and into unpopular cheese rock. Then they covered the short reunion with the very busy Ronnie James Dio or Dio. The tour and album was called dehumanizer (being the heaviest sabbath album and tour ever). Black Sabbath immediatly became popular again (playing in packed arenas) with Dio until he left and continued onward with his own very awesome band called DIO.
Pretty good DVD but way too short with way too much talking!
Rating:
Summary: Could have been MUCH better....
Review: The stuff with DIO and IAN GILLAN kicks [butt]. Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules, Born Again, and Dehumanizer are great albums. Bad enough that the period between 1985 to 1991 was a weak period, BUT THEY ADD INSULT TO INJURY BY ONLY PLAYING THE LOVE BALLADS!!! THIS IS BLACK SABBATH??? C'mon now, there was SOME decent stuff from that time period...COULD HAVE BEEN GREAT, but they ruined this DVD. DO THE GUYS FROM SABBATH ACTUALLY APPROVE OF THIS STUFF BEFORE IT IS RELEASED?? ALSO, the DVD is NOWHERE near 85 minutes as claimed...
Rating:
Summary: Fake Widescreen
Review: The top and bottom of the picture are chopped off. Sometimes the tops of people's heads are missing, and sometimes they even compress the image so that it fits into the fake "letterbox" shape, so that everybody looks short, fat, and squished! Seriously, this is one of the worst instances of fake widescreen that I've ever seen.
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