NFL Films - Super Bowl Collections - Super Bowl I-X

Rating:
Summary: BE AWARE
Review: If you are expecting uncut versions of the Super Bowl themselves you will be disappointed. This DVD contains 20 half hour television shows created by NFL Films, two from each year of the Super Bowl's first decade. Each year has two half hour programs dedicated to itself. The first is a recap of the season and the second half hour is a recap of the Super Bowl. The footage is priceless. It's a great primer to that era of the NFL. You can see the game not only evolve on the field but you can sense the league gain momentum in the annuals of American Culture.

Many reviewers and people I talked to wish the NFL would sell the complete games as they aired on television on DVD and I wish that too. For those who were fooled into thinking this compilation was indeed that, did you not read the box? The entire DVD is just over 10 hours long. In 10 hours you could barely fit 2 and half games!

If you like the NFL and NFL films, you'll love this box set..


Rating:
Summary: The real thing
Review: If you are looking for THE Superbowl DVD collection. STOP. Don't look any further, this is the real thing!!

Rating:
Summary: Super Bowl Collections
Review: On the positive side I liked that the video included color footage. I am very disappointed that the DVD's were not complete games. Why is it so hard to understand that some of us would like whole games!!!!!....not just highlights. My search goes on. I seek whole games of old superbowls, Michael Jordan games etc. If anyone knows of such products....please help me. Thanks in advance. [e-mail]

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Summary: It's classic NFL Films, folks, not CBS, NBC or ABC.
Review: People like me, who knew what they were getting, should love this set as much as any of the three Super Bowl highlight sets. Other folks...well, I'll get to them later.

You've probably seen most or all of these Super Bowl highlight shows on ESPN or ESPN Classic over the years. It's vintage NFL Films stuff -- John Facenda narrating, Sam Spence's musical direction, the great shot angles and slo-mo style that became NFL Films' trademark.

When these have aired on TV over the years, they've often had a snip here or there to allow for two things: more commercials than they were originally designed to accommodate and a Steve Sabol introduction. These include those snips. Nothing important, some of it interesting minutiae, but it all just flows better.

In the highlight shows for each of the first three Super Bowls, the bias in the commentary towards the NFL team is a reminder that these were done by "NFL Films" and not "NFL-AFL Films." The AFL was still a rival league, though the merger had been agreed upon. The Super Bowl IV show, with the merger nigh, is much more even-handed and, in fact, acknowledges that the Chiefs were more talented and creative than the Vikings.

These highlight shows aren't as precisely produced as those that would come later. Particularly in Super Bowl V, there are some shots that attempt slick editing -- Tom Landry is supposed to be shouting over an incompletion to Reggie Rucker but Rucker is standing next to him; Mike Ditka and Craig Morton are shown yelling at a ref after the Colts first touchdown when that actually came after a Dallas fumble they thought should've been ruled down by contact; most notably, on the side view of the kick that's supposed to be Jim O'Brien's game-winner, the ball clearly reaches the uprights much too quickly to be a 32-yarder. It's actually an extra point.

Also, these highlight shows don't break down strategy as well as later ones would. The masters have been used so often, it's no wonder they aren't as clear as the Lost Treasures. Still, they create a mood and, as I said, established the style that would be forever identified with NFL Films.

To me, the season highlight films, sometimes narrated by Facenda, sometimes by Pat Summerall or someone else, were cool bonuses. The only problem in the first four season highlight videos is, of course, they don't include the AFL's season. The 1974 season highlight film, The Championship Chase, is a favorite of Sabol's. It's easy to see why. It sets the tone for the decade highlight films they would begin producing years later.

Some of the features are little gems because some are on topics and players I feel go underappreciated by those under 35 or 40 (I'm 37). Everyone knows about The Ice Bowl, but few know about the 1966 NFL Championship game from a year earlier. Same teams, Dallas and Green Bay, and almost as good. I liked the piece on the Vikings, to me, still the ultimate Super Bowl losers (hey, at least Buffalo LED in three of their four Super losses. The Vikes never did in their four and were often behind big before scoring.). I remember having a passing thought about Bob Lilly a day or two before buying this set, and was gleeful to see a feature on him.

Overall, I've never been sorry I bought this set.

For people who expected the full games and were disappointed, it's your own fault.

It says both here, in the set's Amazon ad, and on the box (if you saw it in the store somewhere) that there are 10 hours of game footage and features. Now, how the heck could the full game footage from 10 Super Bowls be condensed into 10 hours and still leave room for features? Common sense, folks. Elementary math.

Also, there's business sense. The full game broadcasts are owned by the broadcasters, not the NFL. Even the radio calls that are used in the highlight films from Super Bowls 11 forward aren't owned by the NFL. You want the full games? Go talk to CBS and NBC and pray they haven't destroyed the tapes for lack of storage space. Several great Tonight Shows and You Bet Your Lifes were lost because of this. NBC probably has Super Bowl III still around, as pieces of it have wound up on things like SportsCentury or NBC retrospectives over the years. And in the Don Shula SportsCentury that aired recently, there were a few seconds of the Super Bowl VIII broadcast,

Interestingly, a piece of the actual Super Bowl I broadcast is seen over the shoulders of some of the interviewees on one of the best features, Super Bowl I's unique telecast. This is the kind of footage NFL Films would have to get from NBC or CBS, both of which broadcast the first Super Bowl.

But the upshot is these aren't the full games, you weren't told you would get the full games and you shouldn't have expected the full games.

I'm going to go watch Supers V and VI now, then probably jump to XI and X. That's a lot of Dallas stuff for a guy who grew up a Pittsburgh fan...

Rating:
Summary: Not Quite Perfect Presentation
Review: Since they began, NFL Films set the gold standard of how a professional sport needed to preserve its history, whereas the other sports of the day only served up amateurish fare by comparison. The playing field is even today only because the other sports finally started borrowing a page from the NFL Films approach.

This boxed set featuring highlights of the first 10 Super Bowls is a must-have for football and sports fans, especially since we get to see the films unedited with original NFL Films credits that are always snipped on ESPN Classic. They don't appear to have been remastered much since some of them still look grainy and washed out compared to the footage we've seen in the "Lost Treasures" specials but it's still good to see them get this kind of presentation.

My one grip though that keeps this from being a perfect presentation is that the NFL season review film is paired with the Super Bowl highlights in a single play fashion, when they should really IMO be isolated as separate programs on the Main Menu. If you want to just watch the Super Bowl highlights film, you have to go into the Chapter listing section which IMO is a bit more awkward and clumsy then just listing the separate programs on the main menu screen.

Each Super Bowl contains 2 extra features of 5 minutes or so, and the best concerns the Super Bowl I telecast (and to NFL Films credit they even use surviving telecast clip fragments to illustrate this story) which was broadcast by both NBC and CBS.

Rating:
Summary: Not the whole games. Just highlights....
Review: These contain highlights of the Superbowls, pretty much what NFL shows every year on cable. I'm disappointed because I'd like to see the actual game being played and not just highlights. If you don't mind then get it, its good but if your like me and excpected the full games then skip it or buy it used.

Rating:
Summary: Super DVD!
Review: This DVD is excellent. Not only do you get the first 10 Super Bowl films uncut, but you also have season highlight films from that Super Bowl year. I also liked "They Call it Pro Football" which was the first film John Facenda narrated for NFL Films. The extra features were interesting too. I can not hardly wait for Super Bowl XI-XX to be released.

Rating:
Summary: Super DVD!
Review: This DVD is excellent. Not only do you get the first 10 Super Bowl films uncut, but you also have season highlight films from that Super Bowl year. I also liked "They Call it Pro Football" which was the first film John Facenda narrated for NFL Films. The extra features were interesting too. I can not hardly wait for Super Bowl XI-XX to be released.

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Summary: Isn't It About Time ?
Review: This is great - I like these highlights.

But they only wet my appetite for more! There would be nothing like going back in time and seeing these super bowls IN THEIR ENTIRETY! I was not old enough to remember most of the earliest Super Bowls - and would love to see a box set of, say, the first 4 or 5 super bowls - COMPLETE, with the ORIGINAL play-by-play, for a start.

I am a life-time football fan. It's really the only sport that has kept my interest over the years. But, I'm also a bit old school (and not ashamed to admit it). Sure all of the advances are great (especially HDTV) - the improved coverage, camera angles, etc. But the special effects and artificial flashing effects, IMO, sometimes detract from the game.

I'm not suggesting that they dump all the advances, it's just that occasionally, sometimes, I long for the look and feel of football the way it was presented in the late 60's and the 70's. For nostalgia sake. It just would be nice to have the option to once-in-a-while, put a DVD in, set down with a six-pack or so, and watch a classic game (as it was originally aired - and not just highlights)! I would even like to have as a special feature on the DVD some of the original commercials that aired during the game.

And I can't think of a better place to start than the classic Super Bowls of the 60's and 70's!

Rating:
Summary: Whats the deal
Review: Why cant they have a full GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. The NFL cant ever let us enjoy the game in its full. The dvd is good if you dont want to watch every single game for 3 hours but to me it would be alot better.