This looks like a winner here. Looks to be one of the finest transfers of an old film to date. Can you believe I have never even seen this film?
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Ben-Hur-Blu-ray/756/#Overview
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1385/benhur.html
I'll have to check that one out. It was the ultimate spectacle of its day, a descendant of the Orientalist fantasies of the 19th century. I have not seen it on film in ages and the last time I saw part of it on TV (the outrageously spectacular chariot race, which was staged with real chariots and drivers in a huge arena and consumed something like a third of the budget), it was low def. The wide screen original filled about 40% of the TV screen.
My guess is that nothing like this movie will ever be done again. Building huge sets and populating them with casts of thousands is beyond anybody's budget or ambition. The most comparable recent film is probably Kingdom of Heaven, a similar Orientalist sort of film and visually almost as stunning, except that it was mostly done with digital FX and backgrounds and had battle scenes courtesy of WETA's "Massive".
