Rome: The Complete Collection [Blu-ray] [2005] [2007] [Region Free]

Some very puzzling, indeed very serious ONE star reviews that to me make little sense - Sorry guys! For me and my wife this has been a brilliant series. Yes, it has serious faults which may concern you - more later. The BLURAY is excellent. Good picture, sound subtitles and some fascinating extras. Let's start with the acting - Brilliant from practically the entire cast with standouts being McKidd and Stevenson as Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, chalk and cheese, but loyal to the death. Series One has the benefit of Ciaran Hinds as Caesar and Kenneth Cranham as Pompey, both giving powerful performences. The distaff side is amazing - Polly Walker as Atia and Lindsay Duncan as her bitter rival Servilia. Their scenes are full of venom and hatred. I coould mention more - Indira Varma as Lucius''s long suffering wife, but in particular I must say it was a delight to see David Bamber and Nicholas Woodeson in such good parts, giving their all to the excellent scripts. So...the script - the plotting is excellent - can't speak for historical accuracy - don't really care!. The dialogue sparkles but more later. The sets/CGI/SFX are remarkable. The crowd scenes are amazing. I debated whether to write the following, but as I can't find any other mention...If the constant use of the "F" and "C" word offends - beware, particularly in series 2. If Full frontal nudity Mostly male, and full on sex concerns you, and here I include the many crude lewd remarks involving "sucking" (work it out!), then again beware. Many scenes of extreme violence and torture may also offend...But it does have an 18 CERT! Despite all the above I thoroughly enjoyed the whole farrago (!!?) and will miss it terribly

I don't have a TV licence and so therefore only get to hear about 'new' shows once others have watched them and shown enough interest for me to part with cash and buy on their recommendation. In the case of Rome, I'm so glad they did. The series is a visual and cultural feast with strong acting and exciting and realistic set pieces. I won't discuss the series in detail, but it covers some 20 - 30 years or Romes history with the rise of Julius Caesar to the rise of the first emperor Augustus. I was surprised by the attention and accuracy of the series and nicely, the Blu Ray has an option to watch through the entire series with pop-ups on screen detailing historical view points and facts. Certainly gives the series more depth and credibility. I will issue a word of caution, the series is very violent, filled with sex and strong language. It's not overly shocking as it's in keeping with the charachters and the accuracy of what the Romans were actually like. With such accuracy the series is true to the Roman world and that key aspect presents this series as not only being a great television show with tremendous entertainment value, but also a show that blends in a real level of detail to keep the brains switched on too. This is quite literally the best TV series I've seen in years and will be replaying the entire series over again. As for the quality of the Blu Ray, simply stunning. The sound was crisp and the picture vivid and sharp. One of the best Blu Rays for video / audio quality.

This is a great big budget series that HBO cancalled after season 1 that left season 2 to cover for what should have been 5 series. Season 2 had great viewing figures but by then it was too late to reverse the decision. I own this on DVD but the upgrade to Blu Ray was really worth it. Season 1 is all about Cesar and then 2 tries to tell the rest of the story. Great acting and massive sets make this a must have.

A superb very well written, directed and acted miniseries brought about through a collaboration of HBO and BBC. As someone who has interest in Roman history, I was pleasantly surprised to see that in a broad sense, the show stayed faithful to actual events. Some artistic licence is always expected (Atia in real life was supposed to be a very pious woman and not the scheming & manipulative opportunist shown) and the series should not be taken as an accurate representation of history. The first season is more about drama and politics. The second season is different. It is brutal, violent and (the first half at least) very fast paced. People have liked the first season more but I personally felt that the second season was better and more engaging. Rome is characterised by the realism shown in terms of how people of the times lived. With plenty of graphic sex and violence and language strong, it is clearly not a sanitised version of history. The sets and costumes are very realistic and give one a feel for how things must have been then. The money and effort spent in making everything look authentic clearly shows. Moving on to the Blu Ray’s picture quality, it was excellent and a pleasure to watch on HD. The sound was however somewhat muted and you really had to turn up the volume to hear it properly. Barring the opening credits’ music, the music was an absolute treat especially the scores played during the closing credits of each episode. They always reflected the mood of the episode that you had just seen and some of them are masterpieces. On the whole, an excellent and very realistic series & a must-see for anyone looking to watch a thrilling and engaging serial on ancient Rome.

Given that we are great fans of HBO drama, we were bound to encounter Rome eventually. HBO's superb production values are evident from the start and it was a surprise to see Bruno Heller (previously better known by us for The Mentalist) credited with much of the writing. HBO's exclusively (I think) British casting is superb; peppered with household names & many familiar faces, they all portrayed their roles to perfection. Baron Harkonen (a.k.a. Ian McNiece) as the newsreader was a pure delight, James Purefoy delivered a very creditable Mark Antony and Ray Stevenson played Titus Pullo with immense gusto and sympathy but it is not fair to highlight individuals; the whole cast worked together brilliantly. Not being an historian of the period, I cannot comment upon the absolute veracity of the events or the authenticity of the armour etc., but the characters and plot squared nicely with other such accounts and dovetailed neatly with the incomparable I Claudius and Conn Igulden's Conqueror series. The political machinations, the hedonistic lifestyle of the wealthy and the underlying themes of the abuse of power and the price of honour all combine to provide immersive, compelling and coherent drama. Yet another magnificently produced and lavish HBO offering; thank goodness somebody is willing to take the risk and invest in proper drama while the British media seems content to pander to the lowest common denominator, drowning us in cheap talent shows. Hoorah for HBO!

This is a brilliant piece of direction and excellent historical storytelling. I like the blu ray all roads lead to rome facts intertwined in the set. Season 1 is brilliant, they took their time to tell the history of Caesar vs Pompey. Season 2 was very rushed and under-developed, because HBO/BBC pulled money. Seems like a silly decision. They didn't explore how Cleopatra manipulated and seduced Mark Anthony, why Octavian was smarter and how he built his role to emperor. They didn't even show how Octavian built the temples, declared Julius Caesar divine etc. They missed many battles and how this led to an overconfident Mark Anthony and Cleopatra thinking they could do that they could. Then there was the issue of the Parthians. Judea and Carthage, so lightly touched upon. Season 2 looked so rushed it felt broken at times. This is a pity as the Direction is superb, sets magnificent and acting is great Ciaran Hinds excellent as Caesar, Polly great as Atia, James Purefoy as Mark Anthony but also Indira Varma as Niobe. Can someone in HBO/BBC wake up and re-shoot season 2 and perhaps make season 3 so we can see Octavian become Emporer Augustus and all the amazing things he did for Rome.

I missed this when it was first released and recored it in HD wheh it was repeated recently, but an update to the firmware on my TIVO box wiped out the first series. I'd been saving it so that I could watch both series over a few days. Becasue of the error, i decided to buy the Blu Ray version and was really pleased with the overall quality of production. These two series were riveting. I watched them all the way through series one in virtually one sitting, only taking abreak when the kids came home from school as many of the scenes are very explicit. I continued to watch, once they had gone to bed. It took me three days to watch both series and to be honest, I'm really disappointed that they didn't carry the series on with more stoies about Rome. They could have re done the Claudius stories with Calligula. I'd love to see a remake of that with all of the blood and gore and sex. If you don't mind full frontal views of both male and females and what looks like real sex (though it wasn't), this is a must have for any series and movie collector. I believe Heller has written a script for a movie of the series and that they are now looking for a director. I hope it is succesful. The original plan was to create 5 series, but spiralling costs put paid to any more than 2. :(

Firstly the drama itself is well worth the watch. I owned this on dvd and replaced with the Blu-ray when one of the DVD discs was damaged The blu ray quality was brilliant but on odd occasions the speech went out of sync. Pausing and then continuing to play resolved the issue. It was a minor inconvenience to myself but could spoil the enjoyment of others.