MORE Star Trek Cinema on 4k disc is happening! I have reviewed the STAR TREK original film series for the site on more than one occasion in the past, and while most of the series has their flaws, the overall theme of the future being a bright and prosperous one with future technologies benefitting all walks of life is a powerful one and has since expanded into even more series and upcoming movies.
Growing up, the series I had more connection with was THE LAST GENERATION with Picard, Riker, Data and the entire crew in a visually fascinating series that was set not too far from the Captain Kirk and Spock era. The series, which began in 1987, certainly had its detractors and especially with fans of the original series who were getting a film series around the same time. STAR TREK is going to remain complicated.
In the mid 90s, however, with the interest waning on the original film series, THE NEXT GENERATION crew were going to get their shot on the big screen, starting with the flawed but entertaining STAR TREK: GENERATIONS which I remember seeing on opening weekend in cinemas in 1994. Opening with the original cast on board another “next generation” of an Enterprise with a very unprofessional Captain (played by Alan Ruck) made for a very strange first act, but it picks up when it forwards ahead to the “current” cast, doing a ceremony on a holodeck kicking off the action, especially when Data (Brent Spiner) gets an emotion chip installed.
Watching these movies again, I did appreciate a few elements in GENERATIONS and even INSURRECTION, and it was thrilling to revisit Picard and his team as opposed. GENERATIONS was like they didn’t want to let go of Kirk just yet but then they did, and in a pretty uneventful manner.
FIRST CONTACT, however, remains a sci-fi classic and like with THE WRATH OF KHAN, a fully accessible space adventure that features Picard against the enemy Borg force with a terrific performance by Alice Krige as the main villain. INSURRECTION I felt the movie was overlooked even in its original 1998 release. There’s a storyline here about a technology-resistant society that is somewhat laughable in its hypocrisy, but nevertheless there are solid character moments. NEMESIS came out a few years later and I could tell there were too many cooks in the kitchen with its storytelling and even a bizarre performance by Tom Hardy (!) as our “nemesis” with an abrupt ending. It still has some good visual moments and some of the best visual effects of the series.
About the 4k discs:
Paramount has once again released a terrific TREK set and now remastering all of the movies in 4k, HDR resolution along with a Dolby Vision bump. There are also a lot of great with lots of additional features along with a nice presentation in a large disc case in a sleeve which matches nicely with the other releases.
All of the movies were shot in 35mm with anamorphic lenses and of course have a look more of its time with then-new film stocks, so in this case you see a lot more film grain and latitude and the new 4k transfers really showcase the film look. It is noticeable pretty quickly in the first few scenes of GENERATIONS on the bridge when you see a nice set of film grain. FIRST CONTACT comes across looking the best here with Matthew Leonitti’s great cinematography work, and INSURRECTION’S planet scenes have vibrant colours. Only NEMESIS suffers a bit more with its darker cinematography, but it is the best all of these have ever looked. FIRST CONTACT, as mentioned, is my favourite movie of the series and it’s a real treat to have the best possible visual and audio transfer here.
The sound mixes here are all Dolby 7.1 True HD mixes and not Atmos-based; though I do not have an Atmos system here at home this might irritate those with Atmos installations in their house. Even so, they sound very close to the original 5.1 mixes with strong surround use, bass and definition throughout and are quite representative of how these use to sound in their original digital surround mixes.
All movies also have Apple TV digital copy codes included and of course now also all redeem to the same 4k/HDR transfers that are on the discs. I love redeeming these to have a backup as well as a faster way to load the movies if I don’t want to dig the discs out and put them into the player. Options, I love them!
As per usual, there are a lot of additional features for this STAR TREK release and no doubt will please any fans of these movies. Since the list of features is impossible to read on the disc itself, they are listed at the bottom of the article. All of the features are mostly on the respective Blu Ray disc which is pretty standard, and are also available on the Apple TV copies.
For all STAR TREK fans, of course this is an easy purchase as it is such a well produced and restored release of the Picard crew movies, as flawed as they all are. THE NEXT GENERATION series is now available on 4k disc and Apple. Our thanks to Paramount PR for sending out a copy for review.
Special Features List:
Generations 4k & Blu Ray:
- Audio Commentary by David Carson and Manny Coto
- Audio Commentary by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore
- Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda
Blu-ray Disc
- Same audio commentary tracks as on the 4k disc
- Library Computer Viewing Mode
- Production
- Uniting Two Legends
- Stellar Cartography: Creating the Illusion
- Strange New Worlds: The Valley of Fire
- Scoring Trek
- Visual Effects
- Inside ILM: Models & Miniatures
- Crashing the Enterprise
- Scene Deconstruction
- Main Title Sequence
- The Nexus Ribbon
- Saucer Crash Sequence
- The Star Trek Universe
- A Tribute to Matt Jeffries
- The Enterprise Lineage
- Captain Picard’s Family Album
- Creating 24th Century Weapons
- Next Generation Designer Flashback Andrew Probert
- Stellar Cartography on Earth
- Brent Spiner: Data and Beyond – Part One
- Trek Roundtable: Generations
- Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 007: Trilithium
- Deleted Scenes
- Orbital Skydiving
- Walking the Plank
- Christmas with the Picards
- Alternate Ending
- Archives
- Storyboards: Enterprise-B
- Storyboards: Worf’s Promotion
- Storyboards: Two Captains
- Production Gallery
- Trailers
Star Trek: First Contact:
4K UHD Disc
- Audio Commentary by Jonathan Frakes
- Audio Commentary by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore
- Audio Commentary by Damon Lindelof and Anthony Pascale
- Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda
Blu-ray Disc
- Same audio commentary tracks as on the 4k disc
- Library Computer Viewing Mode
- Production
- Making First Contact
- The Art of First Contact
- The Story
- The Missile Silo
- The Deflector Dish
- From “A” to “E”
- Scene Deconstruction
- Borg Queen Assembly
- Escape Pod Launch
- Borg Queen’s Demise
- The Star Trek Universe
- Jerry Goldsmith: A Tribute
- The Legacy of Zefram Cochrane
- First Contact: The Possibilities
- Industrial Light & Magic – The Next Generation
- Greetings from the International Space Station
- SpaceShipOne’s Historic Flight
- Brent Spiner: Data and Beyond – Part Two
- Trek Roundtable: First Contact
- Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 008: Temporal Vortex
- The Borg Collective
- Unimatrix One
- The Queen
- Design Matrix
- Archives
- Storyboards: 1930s Nightclub
- Storyboards: Hull Battle
- Storyboards: Hull Battle – Alternate Shots
- Storyboards: Worf vs. the Borg – Alternate Shots
- Photo Gallery
- Alternate Titles (Easter Egg)
- Ethan Phillips Cameo/Interview (Easter Egg)
- Queen’s Demise (Easter Egg)
- Trailers
Star Trek: Insurrection:
4K UHD Disc
- Audio Commentary by Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis
- Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda
Blu-ray Disc
- Audio Commentary by Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis
- Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda
- Library Computer Viewing Mode
- Production
- It Takes a Village
- Location, Location, Location
- The Art of Insurrection
- Anatomy of a Stunt
- The Story
- Making Star Trek: Insurrection
- Director’s Notebook
- The Star Trek Universe
- Westmore’s Aliens
- Westmore’s Legacy
- Star Trek’s Beautiful Alien Women
- Marina Sirtis: The Counselor Is In
- Brent Spiner: Data and Beyond – Part Three
- Trek Roundtable: Insurrection
- Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 009: The Origins of the Ba’ku and Son’a Conflict
- Creating the Illusion
- Shuttle Chase
- Drones
- Duck Blind
- Deleted Scenes
- Peter Lauritson Introduction
- Ru’afo’s Facelift
- Working Lunch
- Flirting
- The Kiss
- Status: Precarious
- Disabling the Injector
- Alternate Ending
- Archives
- Storyboards: Secondary Protocols
- Photo Gallery
- Worf and Troi (Easter Egg)
- Tom Morello (Easter Egg)
- Marina/Craft Services (Easter Egg)
- Advertising
- Original Promo Featurette
- Trailers
Star Trek: Nemesis:
4K UHD Disc
- Audio Commentary by Stuart Baird
- Audio Commentary by Rick Berman
- Audio Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda
- Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda
Blu-ray Disc
- Audio Commentary by Stuart Baird
- Audio Commentary by Rick Berman
- Audio Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda
- Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda
- Library Computer Viewing Mode
- Production
- Nemesis Revisited
- New Frontiers: Stuart Baird on Directing Nemesis
- Storyboarding the Action
- Red Alert! Shooting the Action of Nemesis
- Build and Rebuild
- Four-Wheeling in the Final Frontier
- Screen Test: Shinzon
- The Star Trek Universe
- A Star Trek Family’s Final Journey
- A Bold Vision of The Final Frontier
- The Enterprise-E
- Reunion with the Rikers
- Today’s Tech Tomorrow’s Data
- Robot Hall of Fame
- Brent Spiner: Data and Beyond – Part Four
- Trek Roundtable: Nemesis
- Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 010: Thalaron Radiation
- The Romulan Empire
- Romulan Lore
- Shinzon & the Viceroy
- Romulan Design
- The Romulan Senate
- The Scimitar
- Deleted Scenes
- Rick Berman Intro
- Wesley’s New Mission
- Chateau Picard, 2267
- The Time of Conquest
- Data and B-4
- Federation Protocols
- The Chance for Peace
- A Loss of Self
- Remember Him?
- Turbolift Violation
- Sickbay Prepares for Battle
- Cleaning out Data’s Quarters
- Crusher at Starfleet Medical
- Advice for the New First Officer
- Archives
- Storyboards: Scorpion Escape
- Storyboards: The Jefferies Tube
- Storyboards: Collision
- Storyboards: Data’s Jump
- Galleries: Production
- Galleries: Props
- Bryan Singer (Easter Egg)
- Riker and the Beast (Easter Egg)
- Terry Frazee (Easter Egg)
- Trailers