As covered previously, the aughts were a decadent decade for physical movie releases and re-releases, where titanic boxsets of film ephemera reigned supreme.
In 2009 the Biblical peplum film Ben-Hur turned fifty years old. Such an occasional merited a boxset re-release of the film, even though it had just been re-released as a four disc collector’s edition four years prior, and as a deluxe edition in 2002. In 2011 the fiftieth anniversary edition was finally realized on Blu-ray with standard and boxset editions, which saw unprecedented restorations to the film’s quality.
Compared to the 2002 deluxe edition of Ben-Hur, which included lobby cards, a film frame, photographs, and a poster, the 2011 boxset edition seems rather chaste. The boxset proper is rather large, promising lots of cinematic paraphernalia inside.
The boxset has an outer cardboard sleeve that has a sticker denoting what number the edition is out of 125,000 units.
The sleeve slides off easily, revealing the boxset underneath. Super sturdy back cardboard with an embossed Ben-Hur bookended by two olympians.
Lifting the boxset lit, the first item encountered is a commemorative hardback book, with a cover depicting the famous chariot race.
The inside of the book contains a plethora of behind the scenes photos (including wardrobe stills), photos from the film proper, sketches, and reproduced news clippings and adverts.
Under the book the large digipack edition of the Blu-ray sits atop a felt-lined tray. Unlike the Troy boxset which used all of its real estate, the Ben-Hur box has a third dead air inside, much like a Doritos bag filled with snackmosphere. Perhaps a missed opportunity to add more swag to the boxset, but on the hand, prior releases contained their own exclusive swag, so what does one put into this boxset to make it unique? There’s definitely a less-is-more route with this edition, focusing mostly on the Blu-ray’s contents and the restored edition of Ben-Hur over collectables.
The Blu-ray digipack unfolds to three plastic trays/pages, with three Blu-rays proper: one for part one of the film, one for part two, and the special features on the third disc.
Under the digipack the final item of the boxset can be found: an on-set journal of Charlton Heston.
The cover is adorned with the same Olympian as the box. The contents mimic a daily schedule, with entries at certain times of the day. Typewriter text captures Heston’s musings on each day. On some of the pages, photos and ticket stubs have been tapped inside, mimicking a scrapbook.
Overall, living up to being an epic film, the 50th anniversary boxset of Ben-Hur omits the small items and instead aims big: big box, two books, and three Blu-rays, which of course, are loaded with commentaries, special features, trailers, and documentaries. Definitely a nice presentation while also encapsulating an era of lavish home video releases
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