Blockbuster films in the summer mean a bountiful harvest of DVDs/Blu-rays in the fall, and Paramount had three of the biggest this year. At a two-day event last week, IGN got a sneak peek at the Blu-ray release of Star Trek and spoke with director J.J. Abrams about some of the special features that fans will find on it.
We also got to see much of the film itself, which looks just as slick as it did in theaters. All that fast action and rapid camera movement didn't seem to be a problem for the disc; what we saw (and we can only report on the video, as the sound wasn't cranked up enough to get a real sense of it) was pristine and absolutely reference quality. This is going to be a title you'll want to keep near the HDTV to make your friends drool when they come over.
As for the large collection of special features, we got a look at the section titled "To Boldly Go," which includes several sub-sections and branching features. Fans should be most interested in the handful of deleted scenes, especially the two that we had a chance to watch.
In the first deleted scene, the Narada flies into the wrong section of space and is captured by a ship full of Klingons. Yep, Klingons. This brief scene is the setup for a much longer sequence in which we meet up again with Nero on the Klingon penal planet Rura Pente (a name that will be familiar to any true Trek fan). After he's caught trying to smuggle a message out of the prison, a Klingon interrogator (played by Victor Garber, who previously worked with Abrams on Alias) offers him a deal if he'll help them take down the federation. But, as we saw in the film, Nero is not the deal-making type.
"It's one of those things I hated to cut for a number of reasons," Abrams said of the deleted scene. "One of them was, I loved the design, I loved the world, I thought the story in that moment was really cool. So I'm really excited for people to see these scenes. But also Victor Garber, who is one of my favorite actors, played a Klingon. He was in the movie, had a ton of makeup -- a very heavy, hot costume. And we shot with him and I had to call and tell him that his scene wasn't in the film. And a huge consolation for me was it will live forever on the DVD and Blu-ray, so you know I'm psyched for people to be able to see that."
Another thing that will be addressed in the extras are the logic gaps that were criticized by some of the fans after watching the film. Abrams said that there will be some explanations for a few of the more controversial plot points.
"There are elements in the special features and deleted scenes that address the storyline and sort of logic of it," he said. "For example, one of the things that people had issues with was, 'Oh, come on. Kirk is going to run into an ice cave and he's going to run into Spock? Like, that is the dumbest thing I ever heard.' And, granted, you know, unlikely. But, in the scene where they're in the cave there was a sequence that is on the DVD that was cut from the movie where Spock speaks to that and he talks about how this is sort of the timeline's way of trying to repair itself and its as much about faith as anything. And so to me, it was one of those moments where I thought you can use that definition that you now see on the video, because it really, in my mind, didn't need to be explained away. Although, I think people who have seen it have said, 'Oh, that was really good though because it helped explain why that unlikely thing happened.'"
In addition, some of the features will focus on the technical and artistic aspects of the film. Abrams said that he's excited to give the crew members and craftsmen a chance to show off their work in the spotlight.
"I want to make sure that we're doing stuff that is going to be beneficial, so if it's about getting video crews in as early as possible to just document moments that might seem insanely mundane or unimportant, but in a context of how things got made. The crew of a movie like this, and especially this crew, worked so hard. And they did such incredible work. And they're usually the invisible person. If they do a great job, you're not really thinking about the costume -- you're looking at it. If they did a great job you're not really thinking about that visual effect or that prop or that set. And its even more reason that they should be celebrated."
Abrams also talked about the disc's gag reel: "When you see Zachary [Quinto] screw up and kind of go from Spock to Zachary, Spock to Zachary, the back and forth is so funny to me, because he could not be less like Spock. And yet, he was so convincing and to have him sort of bounce back and forth so quickly as he screws up, it just makes me laugh every time. But there's that kind of stuff. To see the personality of the actors and just see how great they were off camera is wonderful."
For those who wanted to know why William Shatner did not join his former cast mate Leonard Nimoy in the film, there's also a feature just for you, called "The Shatner Conundrum."
"'The Shatner Conundrum' which you will see on the DVD talks to this," Abrams said. "Which is essentially, how do you put him in the movie when you want him in it so badly and yet the story actually seems in counter purposes with the movie you're trying to tell?"
Finally, we saw a demonstration of the "Vessel Simulator," an interactive feature that's exclusive to the Blu-ray disc. It allows you to move around three-dimensional models of the Enterprise and the Narada and get information about the various parts of the ships. You can explore different angles in space, get a 360-degree view of the interior corridors and even fire the Enterprise's photon torpedoes. With gorgeous, intricate images provided by ILM and detailed technical specs, there's really only one way to describe this feature: nerdgasm.
And that pretty much sums up the entire disc, as a matter of fact.
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