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29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Decent collection, with one or two niggles., 29 April 2009
First of all, the technical niggles out of the way. I had problems with the Star Trek VI menus on my PS3, and my Captain's Summit disc was missing, so I've got to return it to Amazon. I've already bought another one from somewhere else because I couldn't wait. The same menu problem with Star Trek VI, so that must be a manufacturing problem. Okay, that aside, now on to the films and their extras...
Well, with slightly varying standards, they all look pretty good. I watched Star Trek VI first, and thought it looked pretty good. It's probably the poorest transfer of the six, but it still looks okay. I can't really tell if the slight over-vibrancy in some scenes is just the way the film looked - the CGI used here was pretty early, remember - or whether it's been slightly overdone in the remastering into HD. I read someone somewhere complaining that this movie was not HD, but that's nonsense. It's definitely a HD master, albeit not the best one(!).
Next I watched The Motion Picture. It looks good, but as with very many movies, the HD mastering highlights inferior visual effects and the flaws built in during the original production. Bear in mind that this master is from the original theatrical print, and not the already SD-remastered Directors Cut. At the same time, the grain and flaws in some scenes are simply from the original print, and not because of the HD remastering. Nevertheless, this doesn't excuse the inferior transfer process used by Paramount, because many other films have been cleaned up and had such photographic flaws removed. The best thing about this movie for me was the commentary, by five long-time Star Trek writers. I really enjoyed listening to them, and scene-specific group commentaries are often the most accessible and informative. It's a pity that Robert Wise and Nick Meyer's commentary from the Director's Cut couldn't be used here, as it wouldn't fit. The rest of the movies still have their director's commentary.
Star Trek II is probably the best Blu-ray of the bunch. It's nice. Very nice. It's been cleaned up far more than the others, probably because it's the most loved of the lot. I've always found Kirstie Alley quite captivating as Saavik. This movie works in every way that The Motion Picture fails, and if that means losing some cinematic scope in the process, so be it. While the remastering doesn't look overly detailed, it certainly does look clean. The only drawback is that it highlights the inferiority of the HD remastering on the other five films.
Star Trek III isn't one of my favourites of the series; I think the set design is dreadful and the lighting bland and positively amateur at times. Look at the cell block scenes, for example, and tell me they couldn't have done it a hundred times better. These things only look worse in HD. Nevertheless, the transfer is decent. It hasn't got the deluxe treatment The Wrath of Khan has, but it's good.
Star Trek IV is obviously the most widely-accessible of the whole series, and it's still a lot of fun. I enjoyed watching this, but it's quite light on the sci-fi and FX, so in a way benefits less from the spectacle factor of HD.
Star Trek V... hmm. Well, it's got some of my favourite character moments of all the original crew movies, and yet it's perhaps the weakest of all. It just tries to tackle a subject that is never really going to be addressed satisfactorily... okay, so in Star Trek there is no God, that's cool. But the attempt to tell this story is undermined by Shatner's lack of vision, awful production design, the poorest visual FX of the entire series and some very poor writing. The clumsy, heavy-handed humour tries to ride on the populist appeal of The Voyage Home and fails miserably. Still, like the other movies, the transfer is nice enough, but it highlights FX flaws further, and they were dreadful to begin with.
Finally, the Captain's Summit. I already saw this with a friend at the weekend (which is just as well, as mine was missing!) and we enjoyed it a lot. It's obviously shot in HD, and it's a nice, (mostly) relaxed chat between friends and colleagues. Whoopi is the apparent host, although she really just chats along with the others. Bill Shatner and Leonard Nimoy talk with Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes for about 70 minutes about Trek in general and their reflections on its effect in their lives. There are definitely a couple of awkward moments, and the usual egos occasionally influence proceedings, but mostly it's pleasant and very enjoyable. Shatner and Nimoy are both 78 now and won't be around forever, so any opportunity to get them reminiscing is very welcome, and Trek gatherings on this level are far too rare.
One other thing that disappointed me was the packaging. The outer case is fine, but if there's one thing I hate with packaging in the last five years it's the tendency to use the ultra-thin snap cases instead of gatefolds or book-flips. When we're paying £70-80 for a box set, I think we're entitled to better. Overall, it's a nice set, with nice new commentaries in addition to those done for the Special Edition DVDs, but there are some areas definitely lacking.
Phew. That's quite enough Star Trek for me for a while.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not What I Expected, 27 Aug 2009
What I find not only unacceptable but also inexplicable is the production of this box set which could have been and indeed should have been absolutely brilliant.
What are they playing at ? They have released every one of the first six individually , they even have a bizarre trilogy box set of films 2,3 & 4 (what happened to number 1 ? ) , they have released the next gen films in a separate box set (7-10) and now we have this box set of the first 6 films but casting to one side the superior remastered director's cut editions and transferring straight to blu-ray the grubby old theatrical releases !!!
The audio is great and sounds great as it should be.
The video quality leaves somewhat more to be desired. The Wrath Of Khan has been excessively cleaned up - something Paramount are notorious for - scrub it with bleach and then splash red blue and green all over it - it does look good on a small TV but watch it on a full HD screen or bigger and watch the faces closely - the excessive dnr clean up makes it look like you are watching Captain Kirk in the House of Wax !!! all faces turn into a lurid amber waxwork skin colour and everybody loses their wrinkles - looks like Botox Heaven
.
The other films in the series fare even worse , the dnr is less in evidence but the overall picture does not look good or even a slight improvement on the director's cut 2 disc dvd editions and the meticulous attention to detail that heralded the arrival of the High-def original series releases has been totally forgotten when remastering this film set.
This box set is pretty bad and certainly not worth paying the money for.
With the number of separate releases Paramount is churning out in relation to this film series / cash cow , i would wait until Christmas 2009 or even 2010 and see what they come up with in terms of transferring the entire collection 1-10 or even 1-11 from director's cuts remastered to blu-ray.
If they can do such a great job with the original tv series ( revamped cgi , remastered picture & sound ) on 80 full length episodes , I fail to see why they can't use the same techniques or at least dedication and produce the same results on 10 films.
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10 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
stunning collection, 27 April 2009
picture quality and sound is awsome!
I have had the set for a few days and rate it as 1st Class.
My star trek VI has corrupted menu buttons (tested on BDs350 and PS3) however which make accessing the special features difficult on this disc only, so it may have to go back at some point, but not before I run the movies again, amazing improvements on all films from the SE DVD's I upgraded from.
Trek Movies have never looked or sounded this good!
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