NFL Films Super Bowl Collection - Super Bowls XXI-XXX

Rating:
Summary: Superb, But some minor flawa
Review: For true sports fans, this box set is a dream come true. The Highlight films that we grew to love on the ESPN Networks have been brought to us along with my personal favorite "Road to the Super Bowl." These films are better than anything that Hollywood can come up with. Only one problem, some editing has taken out some of the clips from the highlight films. Also they changed some of the music from Road to the Super Bowl. Minor points yes, but that is the equivalent of Spielberg, making changes to his DVD releases. Steve Sabol Hang your head. Just Kidding, buy all three of these box sets if you are a true football fan.

Chris B

Rating:
Summary: Super DVD
Review: I really enjoy the season and Super Bowl highlights that NFL Films does every year. There were some exciting (XXIII,XXV) and boring (XXIV,XXVII) super bowls during this time. The special features are good as well. My only problem and I noticed from reading another review is that the Super Bowl shows are cut a little bit such as no Whitney Houston in super bowl XXV or no post game celebration in XXIII. I would perfer to see them uncut. Some reviewers are upset that these dvd's don't contain the original broadcasts of the game and how they were ripped off. Maybe they should make that a little more clear, but the back of the DVD does say that it was produced by NFL Films. I find it interesting that the NFL is the only sport that does not show the original broadcast of its games. On ESPN classic for example, they show old NBA, MLB, and NHL broadcasts, but for the NFL, only show NFL Films shows, not the broadcast. I think the NFL should show them in the future and see how the announcers called and how the networks showed the game. I would love to see the broadcasts of Superbowl I and III. However, I am happy to see the superbowl highlights from NFL Films released on DVD.

Rating:
Summary: 'Bowled over yet again
Review: I've always been a fan of NFL Films' half-hour Super Bowl game recap/highlight shows that play on ESPN2 during the week leading up to the big game, and have always lamented the fact that they never bothered to put any of `em out on DVD. Well, I lamented this fact until about a year ago (as of this writing) when they finally came around and put the first ten Super Bowl highlight shows out in a nifty DVD box set. Now they've thrown out the third decalogue of highlights from "The Great American Time-Out", featuring the good (the 49ers' last three championships & the `Skins' last two), the bad (the Giants escaping game XXV with the win, and the Cowboys grabbin' three Lombardis in four seasons in games XXVII, XXVIII, and XXX), and the downright ugly (The Broncos and Bills match the Vikings' record for Super Bowl haplessness). Now I can finally toss out a few more of the gradually deteriorating VHS tapes of those same segments that I taped off of ESPN2 a few years back!

Sadly, most of the contests recapped here were more like "Stupor Bowls" (see my ListMania on this coma-inducing phenomenon at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/POLOADG90JFT/ref=cm_aya_av.lm_more/102-8646183-3962510 ), featuring the bulk of the NFC's 13 year dominance of the big dance, including the only two Super Bowls where the winning team scored 50 points or more (XXIV and XXVII). A couple games were close at halftime (XXI & XXVIII), but the NFC champions eventually managed to pull well away from their less-than-capable AFC opponents in the second half. Fortunately, there was a halfway decent Super Bowl (XXX) along with two of the greatest ever played (XXIII featuring Joe Montana's legendary drive, and Buffalo kicker Scott Norwood's "miss heard `round the world" in XXV) to help keep the boredom from setting in too deeply. Adding a touch of excitement to both the "blah" games and the smattering of close ones is the wonderful background music, which is some of the most exciting soundtrack tunage I've ever laid my ears on. BTW I'm glad to see NFL Films has seen the light and finally put a whole buncha these tracks out on CD (check it out at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002VERQA/ref=cm_aya_wlasin.title/102-8646183-3962510?v=glance&coliid=I49VMCS3COBJX&colid=35SRBZ4ZQ8HU3 )...

Unfortunately, there were a couple things that I noticed were amiss: the Supe XXI and XXIII shows have been edited down a bit. I recall the XXI show being titled "Land of the Giants" during the "opening credits" sequence when I caught it on ESPN2, but when I saw it on DVD here, the "Land of the Giants" title had been deleted. More heavily edited was the opening title ("Drive to Greatness"... I think) & credits sequence to the Game XXIII show, which was completely excised.

Anyhoo: also thrown in with each game is a half-hour-long recap of the highs & lows of the NFL season leading up to the championship, and two profile shorts. Each short usually cover the players who coached or participated in that game (Doug Williams as the Super Bowl's first black quarterback in XXII, Steve Young finally "getting the monkey off my back" in XXIX, etc.) or breaks down the most memorable moment in that game (a look at the Niners' game-winning drive in XXIII, Norwood's miss in XXV, Leon Lett-ing a TD get away in XXVII, etc.). I find most of these a bit sappy and chock-full of the usual sports cliches (i.e. "playing with heart", "giving 110%", "football as a metaphor for life", etc.), but they usually make for some reasonably interesting viewing none the less. Fortunately, I've got my insulin within arms reach should these saccharine moments threaten to overcome me...

Topping off this set's sack o' goodies is a booklet that features images and basic info on each contest, including the date each game was played and the city & stadium it was played in, program covers, championship rings, rosters, scores by quarter, final scores, and the name & position of each game MVP. A glossy, full-color Super Bowl XXX ticket facsimile adds a nice finishing touch to it all.

Now I'm wondering if NFL Films will wait until after game XL is played before they put out the final box set-- well, "final" `til games XLI to L have been played, anyway-- or will they do it shortly after XXXIX, and leave the set one Super Bowl short of a full ten? Personally, I'm hoping they go for the former option; I'm patient enough that I could stand to wait an extra year to get a complete ten-game set. But even if they don't wait, set four will likely be the most exciting of the bunch, featuring the best bits of XXXII (John Elway & the Broncos finally winning it all), XXXIV (the Titans end up a yard short of tying the game as time runs out), and XXVI & XXVIII (the Pats' Adam Vinatieri becomes the first kicker to win two Super Bowls with field goals in the closing moments). One way or the other, I can hardly freakin' wait...

`Late

Rating:
Summary: Are You Ready for Some Football?
Review: These Super Bowl DVD box sets have been simply the best, I tell ya. If you haven't already, you have to check out the first two box sets.

Not only do these sets have highlights from the Super Bowls, but they have highlights from the season play leading up to each Super Bowl! And what highlights they are.

There's two special features segments for each Super Bowl event.

The Super Bowls themselves on this set are:
Denver v. NY Giants / Denver v. Redskins / 49ers v. Bengals / 49ers v. Denver / NY Giants v. Buffalo / Washington v. Buffalo / Buffalo v. Dallas / Buffalo v. Dallas (again) / San Diego v. 49ers / Dallas v. Pittsburgh

The first two box sets are the two most cherished dvd sets in my collection. And I love DVDs, a little too much probably.

Rating:
Summary: great again!
Review: This is amazing, and a must-by for any Super Bowl fan, like myself. One curious factoid to point out. As the owner of EVERY Super Bowl highlight film on VHS through Super Bowl XXV (after XXV NFL Films stopped selling individual Super Bowl highlights), I noticed that the DVD cuts OUT Whitney Houston singing the national anthem, which was in the opening credits of the Super Bowl XXV video. Seems as if there was a licensing snafu with including it. Just interesting, since the portion of Whitney singing the anthem was on the VHS. I wonder exactly what happened???

Rating:
Summary: Don't be fooled
Review: This is NOT a collection of the superbowls, played from start to finish, as some of the reviewers would lead you to believe. I got this for my father so he could watch the 49ers tromp all over the Broncos over and over again (since they certainly haven't been up to much lately!). Unfortunately, all we got was a collection of highlights, with so many "up close and personal" shots, that it was almost nauseating to watch on a bigger screen TV. An expensive disappointment, surely.

Rating:
Summary: Over Produced - Under Presented!
Review: This product was a terrible terrible disappointment. I purchased this product expecting to get the play-by-play presention of the Superbowls. Instead, what I got was an unbelievably overproduced rehash of the half hour superbowl shows that are seen on ESPN.

Each "Superbowl" DVD is organized into two parts; a review of the season, and the superbowl. Both parts are travesties that are almost beyond belief.

The review of the season is nothing more than a collage of out-of-context film clips with voice-overs. It was designed as artistic pabulum meant for only the most casual of football fans (i.e., a gift idea for a non-football fan to give to a real football fan - thinking it would be a good gift!). It is not organized by conference or team or game or anything like that. These are simply a very subjective compillation of play highlights that leave the viewer remarkably uninformed about the overall history of that particular year in NFL History. There were no statistical presentations - not even a chart showing the league standings!

The Superbowl part itself was even more disappointing - if that is possible. Make no mistake! This product is most definitely not an historical record of each Superbowl. This product will not show any of the following information...
1. You will not see any pre-game analysis or get any sense the almost palpable tension the precedes each Superbowl.
2. You will not see a play-by-play of the game. 80% to 90% of the plays will have been cut out.
3. You will not hear any play-by-play analysis from the announcers as the game unfolds. All of this has been cut out.
4. You will not see any of the normal play-by-play views of the game. NFL Films doesn't have them. You will only see those sickening close-ups and slow motion shots. Thats all they do!
5. You will not see the formations, or the normal scale view of each play as it unfolds.
6. You will not see any of the plays on each team's drives that NFL Films does not deem to be of sufficient interest; 90% of them.
7. You will not see the half time show. It has been cut out.
8. You will not see any post-game analysis or interviews.

To be fair, the problem with this product is not entirely NFL Film's fault. They don't advertise the fact that this is not network film. NFL Films shoot their own film and it is not the same film as the network coverage. It is not meant to be. They are selling you their film. It is the only film they have to sell. They should be given credit for offering for sale the only historical NFL film that is currently available.

This begs the question: Why aren't the networks themselves making the historical NFL telecasts available? Why can't we buy the actual telecasts of the games? Why can't we buy every telecast game of our favorite team for a whole season? One has to believe that the networks are sitting on a huge huge gold mine and don't even know it! Perhaps they haven't lost enough market share to cable yet.

I guess my biggest disappointment with this product is not what it is, but what I thought it would be. The unforgivable fault of NFL Films is that they don't make clear that this product is not the original telecast of the games - enhanced or otherwise.

Jim Yarbrough