BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE
STUDIO: Paramount
MSRP: $9.99
RATED: Unrated
RUNNING TIME: 201 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
None
The Pitch
Where many a ripoff has gone before.
The Humans
William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, George Takei.
The Nutshell
Four of the best episodes of Star Trek have been gathered. Screw the other 75.
The Lowdown
This isn’t going to be a finesse review extolling the virtues of this disc. For the record, I’ve been a Trek fan all my life, have seen every episode of every show, and I grew up on the TOS and still enjoy it to this day. And I love the remastered episodes even more because they look phenomenal for the most part. What I don’t like is a spooning out of four episodes as some kind of special release when the full remastered seasons are available. This is nothing new, however. Studios have been doing it as long as they’ve been doing double dips. If you fall for it, you have no one but yourself to blame, especially now.
“Look, I’m just saying: a clone, a robot double, temporal counterpart, mirror universe, shapeshifter, evil twin…”
“There was no possibility for a part for you in the reboot, Bill. Deal with it.”
“You know, I resurrected myself in Star Trek: The Return. They didn’t even try to take that into consideration…”
If you haven’t seen a show and are curious about it, in the past it might have been conceivable to get a cheaply priced sampler disc such as this. But who the hell hasn’t seen Star Trek in this day and age? Even the recently remastered episodes? If you haven’t fine, go to Hulu. Go to YouTube. Hell, go even to less reputable sites. They’re not hard to find. You certainly don’t need to blow 10 bucks on an hors d’oeuvres platter of a show. For the same price you can get a Netflix subscription for a month and freebase as many episodes as you can handle. And for fifty bucks, a good price considering what you’re getting, you can get an entire season of the show (FYI, feel free to buy it here on Amazon).
As for the episodes gathered here, yes, they’re four of the best: “City On The Edge of Forever”, “Amok Time”, “The Trouble With Tribbles” and “Balance of Terror”. Although I personally would have liked to have seen “The Doomsday Machine” included, as it’s possibly the best example of the remastered special effects. Be smart and don’t buy this.
“Bill, I’m hearing bad things about my character’s future. Can you put in a good word for me?”
“Heh, you’re funny…”
The Package
The remastered episodes do look great, and the sound is suitably good in English 5.1. There are available Spanish and Portuguese Mono also, with subtitles in all three languages. There are no special features whatsoever except for trailers of other Star Trek offerings. This offering isn’t even a snack to a true Trek connoisseur.