Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Scotty (James Doohan), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), and Sulu (George Takei) are on a five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations—to boldly go where no man has gone before.

The original Star Trek television series has reached its 40th anniversary, and Paramount and CBS have restored the original 35mm prints and struck new HD masters for preservation, but they didn't stop there. In a controversial move, they took the opportunity to update the special effects using modern technology. One of creator Gene Roddenberry's goals was to keep the science as "real" as possible, so I'm sure he would be proud that some of the new effects come from images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. In addition to new CGI, they re-recorded the theme music utilizing the original arrangements to present 21st century audio as well.

When I first read of the effort to revamp the show, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was impressed by what I saw on the HD DVD release in 2007, and I'm even more impressed with this Blu-ray. The enhanced CGI effects are faithful to the original elements, and the Blu-ray has one advantage over the HD DVD—seamless branching. By pressing the "angle" button on the remote, you can switch back and forth between the original and new effects. This shows how impressive the new effects look and how well they integrate into the storylines.

Each episode was painstakingly remastered frame by frame, and Paramount did a fabulous job. For the most part, print damage is virtually nonexistent—although an occasional nick and scratch makes an appearance. The HD DVD was impressive, but its AVC encode did show signs of compression and banding, both of which are nonexistent in this newly minted, high-bitrate VC-1 encode. Additionally, the image doesn't look filtered and grain is preserved along with high-frequency detail, a minor complaint I had with the HD DVD.

The color timing was redone during the remastering, and comparisons to the original 2004 DVD release reveal a remarkable improvement. Red actually looks red and not burnt-orange, especially on the doomed crewmen wearing red shirts. Shadow detail is also improved and highlighted by the unique lighting used during the shoots. Flesh tones also look more naturally balanced compared with the bluish tones found on the DVD.

The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack found on the HD DVD was scrapped in favor of a new DTS-HD MA 7.1 option—or traditionalists can choose the original mono. Either way, the audio doesn’t veer far from its roots. The majority of the sound comes from the front speakers and is collapsed toward the center. General ambience is provided from the rear speakers, but they rarely come to life except during the revamped opening credits when the swish of the Enterprise shoots through the room.

Most of the supplemental features from the 2004 DVD and 2007 HD DVD releases were ported over to this release, but a few of the goodies are absent—a fair trade for the added bonus of seamless branching to compare the special effects. First, there are six episodes with "Starfleet Access," which is Bonus View content with trivia, text commentary, and video clips that run during the episodes (the HD DVD had seven). Next is the "Interactive Enterprise Inspection," a unique tour of the Enterprise from the comfort of your couch. It operates just like the HD DVD, but the user interface is much faster thanks to VC-1 encoding versus AVC, which is a resource hog.

Additional supplements include "Billy Blackburn's Treasure Chest: Rare Home Movies and Special Memories" and "Spacelift: Transporting Trek into the 21st Century," both in HD. The SD featurettes are scattered throughout the 7-disc set and include trailers for each episode, interviews with the cast and writers, and some other items.

The set also includes BD-Live content that's actually worth downloading and watching. Paramount did a fantastic job with this content, which features an online database filled with information on the cast, ships, and aliens as well as a photo gallery. Most impressive of all are three downloadable featurettes—"Filming the Galaxy," "The Sounds of Star Trek," and "Saving the Show," which each run only a couple of minutes but are available in both SD and HD.

I fell in love with Roddenberry's universe when I was a kid and have watched nearly everything "Trek" ever since —I gave up on Enterprise during the second season. I can't think of any reason why a fan of the show wouldn't want this set in their Blu-ray collection. There's a subtle increase in video quality over the HD DVD release, which I attribute to two factors —the added bandwidth and the more efficient VC-1 encode. Regardless, the episodes look and sound remarkable for something from the 1960s, and it gets my highest recommendation.

Release Date: April 28, 2009
Studio: Paramount

Movie: 10/10
Picture: 9/10
Sound: 8/10

Review System

Source
Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player

Display
JVC DLA-RS1 projector
Stewart FireHawk screen (76.5" wide, 16:9)

Electronics
Onkyo Pro PR-SC885 pre/pro
Anthem PVA-7 power amplifier
Belkin PF60 power conditioner

Speakers
M&K S-150s (L, C, R)
M&K SS-150s (LS, RS, SBL, SBR)
SVS PC-Ultra subwoofer

Cables
Monoprice HDMI cables (source to pre/pro)
Best Deal analog-audio cables
PureLink HDC Fiber Optic HDMI Cable System (15 meters) from pre/pro to projector

Acoustical treatments from GIK Acoustics