It saddens me whenever I hear about those younger than me who refuse to watch a movie if it happens to be B&W, or its from the 70s or earlier. They miss so much that way. Many have grown up with the internet always available and they can grab a multitude of short videos from youtube and other sites and they develop a short attention span. Something big has to happen every 5 minutes or they get bored. Or the storytelling styles from other areas take too long to develop and they can't wait for it.

I really like Ben-Hur. It is a long film (I was just watching some of it on TCM last week) but it is a classic film with so much to offer. When I was a kid, after it would air on TV every kid in school would jokingly yell "Ramming Speed!" Or would talk about how great the chariot race was. You don't have to be relgious-minded to appreciate a big epic story like this. Movies like this or The Robe, or Ten Commandments were the 300 of their time.

I was about to say all that you said Monkeyfoot....our future generation seems to not care about the past, only the next gadget and whine about things.

This Ben-Hur box set is on my X-mas list for sure.

Two thumbs up for the Ben-Hur set.  Definitely one of the finest movies EVER.  Not the crapfest of remakes/reimagining/sequels we are inundated with week after week, year after year now from Hollywood. And, no sex or f-bombs to be found anywhere.

If it was made today, there would be in 3-D and have at least two sequels.  And, the finale would have to be completely remade so not to offend anyone.   

 Love the movie, and the Blu Ray set looks pretty awesome (makes me wish I had a Blu Ray player and nice TV and sound system), but just have to point out the irony in your statement, ObiWannaJones...THIS Ben Hur was a THIRD remake.  Also, the second remake (and second silent version) came out *God forbid* LESS than 20 years after the first silent version.  

I wonder if anybody in 1925 bitched about a remake of a picture show that came out in 1907...

 Sorry, second remake...first film version was 1907, next was 1925, and the classic Chuck Heston awesome king of the screen was 1959.

 Makes me wonder how much silent film technology changed in 18 years.

Actually we do have a 9 min overture in movies now.  It's called commercials and previews.

The fact that the younger generation doesn't like the older movies means there will be a non stop wave of remakes over the next 40 years.

I like Ben Hur but repeat viewing time for a 4 hour movie just isn't there.  If I have time to watch a 4 hour movie I would pick the uncut edition of Lord Of The Rings.  As it stands I actually liked the 10 comandments better but Heston himself is a classic and missed.  I read his bio and he was a down to Earth guy.  The only time I ever heard anyone beech about him was because he believed in the right to bare arms and libs just hate that and thus made him a target at times.

 Point well taken Caveman but:  the motion picture technology of 1907 made the first version little more than flickering stills. Little, if nothing even exists.  The 1925 version actually has pretty impressive special effects, and is a classic of silent film art. However, this was still silent. 

So if new technology is the key, the time is right for a 3D motion capture remake?  Might not be a terrible idea.  They've remade worse movies which were more reciently made.

I would be into that 50th anniversary edition if I was still buying dvd's, I've pretty much have given up collecting except for very few titles in the superhero henre mostly and those rare must have films.

Like Caveman poiinted out, remakes have been a part of Hollywood forever. If you look at the amount of films released per year the number has increased so much over time that percentage wise we're probably seeing a similar number of remakes. 40 years ago maybe 4 or 500 films were released while in 2005 we had over 8000.