Star Trek: The Original Motion Picture Collection DVD Review

Earlier this year, with the new J.J. Abrams directed Trek film about to hit theaters, the first six Star Trek movies were released on Blu-ray in a six-movie box set. A few months later, Paramount has put out a DVD version of this same set, marking the third time these particular films have been released in this format.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the product of the aborted Star Trek: Phase II TV series, and the end result is a slow non-adventure that re-introduces the crew and the Enterprise to movie audiences, while ignoring the sense of rollicking, sci-fi fun that made the series appealing in the first place. But fans of heady sci-fi will get their money's worth. The special effects, for the time, were state of the art and, for the most part, hold up. The story, however, still moves at a crawl. But love the jumpsuit, Shatner.

It's not a spoiler to say, more than 25 years after the film was released, that Spock dies in the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It was the torpedo-bay funeral heard 'round the world, a death director Nicholas Meyer took very seriously and gave significant weight. The movie gives Trek a grounded urgency and drama, which is saying something for a franchise where purring owl pellets and talking time-travel portals reign.

Arguably, the finality surrounding the movie, alongside the tense "Run Silent, Run Deep" approach to Kirk/Khan's starship hunt, are what make The Wrath of Khan the best Trek ever produced, and one of the genre's finest big-screen efforts. As a Trekker, yes, I am biased – I have also seen the movie more times than I've seen most of my family. But if you're one of the many who beamed on board with young Kirk and Spock recently, then you'll be 100 percent hooked after watching this perfect film.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock follows Khan's story of revenge and loss with one of resurrection and, well, more loss. Far from perfect, but the only "really good" odd-numbered Trek, director Leonard Nimoy's Search for Spock is a solid middle arc, picking up soon after Spock's death and the birth of the Genesis Planet, a world created by a scientific device that the Klingons will do anything to get their hands on.

Kirk's mission to save both his resurrected friend and stop the Klingons ends with the death of his son and the destruction of Enterprise, consequences that lead the film to believe that the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. As far as second acts go, one is hard pressed to find a more efficient effort than Nimoy's first feature film. Having the actor helm his character's rebirth could have been just a marketing ploy, but the movie never feels like it is pandering to that end, but rather building to a conclusion a captain like Kirk deserves after having lost so much.

All this talk about "loss" and "death" is replaced with whale song and Spock roaming the streets of San Francisco in a bathrobe in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Or as many non-fans call it: "The One with the Whales." If Trek II is putting the Enterprise crew up a tree, and Trek III is throwing rocks at them while they are up there, Trek IV is getting them down. The efforts to that end revolve around a mysterious probe's transmission which threatens to destroy Earth unless its call is answered. Trouble is, the only thing that can respond is an extinct species – humpback whales.

Kirk and company travel back in time to – now bear with me – rescue two whales from the past to save the future. I know, I know – I can't believe I just wrote that myself. But the idea, as off as it sounds, works. The fish-out-of-water concept delivers constant laughs that anyone can appreciate, as evidenced by Voyage Home, regarded as the then-most-accessible Trek. Shatner and Nimoy display expert comedic timing, the entire crew gets more business on screen than they ever had before, and the plot is constantly coming up with ways to challenge our characters. It's rare for any series to produce one great movie; Trek did two.

The Shat took the director's chair for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, a movie that is much worse than you originally remember it to be – in large part because the director and the story's fundamentals exceed the money they both had to work with. Spock's half-brother, Sybok, hijacks the Enterprise on a search for God on the other side of the galaxy's Great Barrier, an area of space that looks like a lot of neon inks swirling around a water tank, which is exactly what it is. The bargain-bin effects add insult to permanent injury, as does the very distracting broad humor that attempts to capture the tone and success of Trek IV is not-so-subtle ways.

Thankfully, this was not to be the last, complete mission for the original crew. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is a murder-mystery/whodunit set in space, with Kirk and McCoy framed for a political assassination on the eve of peace talks between the Federation and Klingon Empire. Trek II's Nicholas Meyer returns to direct, giving the series one of its best and most effective films ever. Trek VI is up there with II and IV. The set of all six films earns an 8 overall, but the individual films breakdown like this:

The Motion Picture Score: 6 out of 10
The Wrath of Khan Score: 10 out of 10
The Search for Spock Score: 8 out of 10
The Voyage Home Score: 9 out of 10
The Final Frontier Score: 4 out of 10
The Undiscovered Country Score: 9 out of 10

Overall Score: 8 out of 10

Video and Presentation

This is the third time the original Star Trek films have been released on DVD, after initial bare bones version and then two-disc special editions. Compared to the special edition releases, the remastered transfers here are improvements. The colors are more vibrant and the image sharper than on previous DVD releases.

As sometimes happens when you get a better transfer on an older film, some of the FX do suffer as a result – the poor opticals on The Final Frontier look even more notable alongside the otherwise more clear and polished imagery. But that issue goes back to the source material, not the transfer, which is very solid.

That being said, the image upgrade alone is not in and of itself enough to justify buying these films for a third time – especially since these films were released on Blu-ray as well for the first time earlier this year, which offers a much more notable leap forward visually.

Overall Score: 8 out of 10

Languages and Audio

All six films feature films have Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. The audio is very strong on these releases, with every phaser blast and beaming sounding clear and distinct – while the dialogue and score are well balanced and impressive.

French, Spanish and Portuguese dubs are also available on the films, along with English, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.

Overall Score: 8 out of 10

Extras and Packaging

Star Trek: The Motion Picture Special Features:

• Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda, Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Daren Dochterman
  
• The Longest Trek: Writing the Motion Picture
  
• Special Star Trek Reunion
  
• Starfleet Academy: The Mystery Behind V'ger

The commentary headlined by Trek tech gurus Michael and Denise Okuda stands out for its mix of sound bite trivia and fan reactions. "Longest Trek" chronicles the tedious process required to create the tedious film and "Reunion" catches up with extras from the film's briefing room scene and "Starfleet Academy" features that kinda hot chick with the accent briefing us on the mysterious origins of that blue death cloud, V'ger.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Special Features:

• Commentary by Director Nicholas Meyer and Manny Coto
  
• James Horner: Composing Genesis
  
• Collecting Star Trek's Movie Relics
  
• A Tribute to Ricardo Montalban
  
• Starfleet Academy: The Mystery Behind Ceti Alpha VI

Coto and Meyer's commentary track is the stand-out. Coto, the showrunner during Enterprise's last season, acts as both fan and moderator to Meyer, who re-emphasizes production and story points he made on his previous commentary track. The track is lively, with only intermittent pauses, but Meyer never feels like he has run out of steam talking about a movie he's already talked to death, and Coto is a welcome presence in the room to help things along.

"Composing Genesis" offers Horner a chance to reflect back on the development of the movie's three main themes, with the Oscar-winning musician providing explanation for his process to be very theme-centric. "Movie Relics" is for Trek geeks only, spotlighting some serious (read: rich) fans and their collection of movie and TV props – one of the original space suits worn by an assassin in Trek VI, for example.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Special Features:

• Commentary by Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor
  
• ILM: Visual Effects
  
• Spock: The Early Years
  
• Star Trek and the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame
  
• Starfleet Academy: The Vulcan Katra Transfer

Continuing with Trek II's professional-fan commentary approach, former TNG writer and BSG's Ronald D. Moore is joined by another Trek writer, Michael Taylor, to recollect on their first experience watching Kirk search for Spock and how the movie underscored their writing projects. Moore is the dominate presence on the track, sharing much geek knowledge and insight into the writer's room on a Trek show. He discusses how all of the movies were regarded as canon, especially the "trilogy," and even mentions that his own movie, Generations, is not as good an odd-numbered film as Trek III is.

"ILM" offers a too-short retrospective from the key FX experts as they talk about what is now a lost art: working with actual models to create sci-fi effects. Making a special wallpaper to line the interior of the Space Dock scale model to save time and money on an effect we would CG today is just one of the "how far we've come" stories shared on the featurette. "The Early Years" checks in with the actor who played Spock at age 17, who now looks like a cross between a hair-band Roadie and Crispin Glover. The actor recalls his audition on the Paramount lot, where he had no idea until a camera test that the film would bring Spock back from the dead (but not as a zombie, sadly).

- Paramount

A fun, albeit too geeky, feature is the tour of Seattle's Science Fiction museum. The Seattle Times' pop-culture critic leads writer/producer Harve Bennett on a tour of the exhibit's Trek memorabilia, which includes the original series' captain's chair, which was residing in some hideaway home in the Hollywood Hills before it became the center piece of the collection।

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Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Special Features:

• Commentary by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman
  
• Pavel Chekov's Screen Moments
  
• The Three-Picture Saga
  
• Star Trek For a Cause
  
• Starfleet Academy: The Whale Probe

Orci and Kurtzman -- the writers and producers of the new Trek film -- offer commentary, putting all of their Trek geek out there with no shame, and discussing the film's role in both franchise canon and as inspiration for their new film. Orci is clearly the bigger Trekkie of the two, but he and his writing partner balance their love for all things Kirk and Spock with recollections of when they first saw the film, what they took from it to Abrams' Trek and how well the jokes still work today. A quality commentary from the perspective of two fans who are currently re-energizing the franchise.

Chekov's Screen Moments is a testament to the fact that any actor outside the big three has a lot of time on their hands. Walter Koenig, in a den surrounded by many action figures – including his own Chekov – enthuses about his character finally getting his own theme in Trek IV and becoming more than just the guy who helps steer the ship. His reason for why Khan remembers Chekov in Trek II, when the two had never met prior, is very fan fic, and how he delivers it is, er, a tad on the creepy Comic-Con attendee side. Have fun with this one …

- Paramount

Producers Ralph Winter and Harve Bennett take point on how, in hindsight, they made a trilogy on "Three-Picture Saga." They reveal that it was never the intent to tell a story that expands three films, and how that approach helped make the films better for it. "For a Cause" spotlights Nimoy the environmentalist, in regards to the film's key theme of saving marine life from extinction, and rounds out the disc's new features.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier Special Features:

• Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda, Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Daren Dochterman
  
• Star Trek Honors NASA
  
• Hollywood Walk of Fame: James Doohan
  
• Starfleet Academy: Nimbus III

The Okudas get the leftovers on the commentary front, apparently, having to lend their fan observations to two of the series' less-than-loved entries. But to their credit, all participants on the track do not shy away from calling out the movie's lesser merits, starting out by labeling the movie as the most challenged of the six. The commentary moves along with more observations and topics of debate than Motion Picture's, and at times is a more suitable soundtrack than the film itself. (We kid, we kid …)

Star Trek's long association with NASA, beginning with the first space shuttle named "Enterprise", leads the very brief "NASA" featurette, and "Hollywood Walk of Fame" is self explanatory.

- Paramount

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Special Features:

• Commentary by Larry Nemecek & former DS9 showrunner Ira Steven Behr
  
• Tom Morga: Alien Stuntman
  
• To Be or Not to Be: Klingons & Shakespeare
  
• Starfleet Academy: Praxis

Behr, having worked on the more military-minded stories during Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's run, teams up with part time moderator Nemecek to gush over the film. Behr points out a lot of his favorite scenes, and why they work, as well as a few observations regarding the film's tone impacting to some degree his work on the series. A commentary for die-hard fans only.

"To Be or Not to Be" tells us that Minnesota is the place where fans with too much time on their hands go to die, as this featurette goes on for an ohmygod-this-is-still-happening 25 minutes chronicling a St. Paul theater group's efforts to translate Hamlet into Klingon. A fictional language. That actors, wearing fictional alien makeup, perform.

- Paramount

The brave will witness the gravedigger scene where Yorrick's skull is discovered, performed in Klingon with English to Klingon translations of the Bard's masterpiece serving as text. Prepare to shake your heads in disbelief for quite some time. It's car-accident fascinating.

Tom Morga gets credit in a brief featurette for being Trek's go-to stunt guy when exaggerated barrel roles and flying kicks just won't do. Overall, the new extras here a few and far between, but in concert with the previous SD features, the set boasts as close to complete as a completist could ask for.

Given its own special disc is "The Captain's Summit," a 70-minute interview with William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes. And yes, it is geekilicious.

Shatner is not quite full Shat, but he does provide interesting annecdotes regarding his tenure with the franchise and how it has impacted his career. Stewart is the main draw for me on this set, as our attention and that of the other panelists gravitate toward him. All participants share the floor, with Whoopi Goldberg as moderator having a little too much screen time. I hope a longer edition of this surfaces down the line.

The two-disc Special Edition DVDs of these films, released earlier this decade, were very comprehensive. That being the case, the new extras have the burden of being akin to supplemental supplements. It's interesting material, but with a few notable exceptions, not crucial material. The frustrating thing is that unlike the Blu-ray version of this same set, the previously produced special features are not included here, meaning if you never bought these films on DVD before, you'll be missing out on a ton of integral behind-the-scenes material those previous discs contained.

Overall Score: 6 out of 10

The Bottom Line

Once again, the question is, if you have those two-disc special editions, do you want to buy the films all over again in order to get a visual upgrade and the new extra feature material? While the answer may be yes for the hardcore fan lacking a Blu-ray player, in my opinion, the content offered is not worth it – especially when you factor in that none of the great previous extras are ported over here, which means you'll have to continue to own two DVDs of each film if you want it all.

More likely, anyone who is looking to buy these films again would simply want to make the jump to Hi-Def with the previously released Blu-ray set – which not only offers the films in Hi-Def, but also includes both the new and old special features.

IGN's Ratings for Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection

Rating	Description
out of 10	click here for ratings guide
8	The Movie A couple of notable misfires are made up for by some great entertainment - just remember that the even ones are the best.
8	The Video A strong looking, remastered transfer for the six films starring the original cast.
8	The Audio Well done Dolby Digital 5.1 audio captures every classic Trek sound FX.
6	The Extras Fun and entertaining for the most part, but only a couple of the newly produced extras are truly insightful in terms of these films.
7	OVERALL (out of 10 / not an average)

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