HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Star Trek - Page 2

Aaron,

Is that the Target at Boynton Beach?

A fun Star Wars easter egg is found in the movie
 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Picked up the "gift set" that included the 4 Starfleet division badges.  (Available at HMV in Canada... didn't know!)  Didn't want the Steelbook, and I knew my wife wouldn't want a model of the big E sitting in the living room.  (Unlike my office... where there are starships, phasers and various other sci-fi/fantasy props.)

The badges are surprisingly nice quality!  Glad to have 'em!

The BD is amazing!  The feature is outstanding, and what a treat that damn near ALL of the extras are enjoyable (not to mention HD).

What a great set.  So happy to have it! 

(Now I gotta run out and get Galaxy Quest.. which I promptly forgot about in the depths of my Trekgasm.)  ;)

I have to give major props to the sound design team. 
First off, Giacchino's score is so insanely good. The first 12 minutes of the film is such an adventure and is so emotional and then you have the transition into the title with that score... Goosebumps all over.
Then did you catch the original series theme when Kirk, Bones, Uhura, etc board the transport ship to go up into space? It was subtle and updated to current time.
The space battles were just so well done. It's exactly how I would imagine a future space battle would sound. LFE for the warps was spot on perfect. And then the design to blend the sounds so seamlessly to what the viewer was seeing. The camera pans are the viewers eyes. So for example when the Enterprise swooshes by something that should make a noise, the viewer doesn't get that noise until the camera passes by. I noticed that on several occasions. 
When I viewed this film at my local IMAX theater, I was of course so involved with the story and the characters that I didn't notice all this at that time. 
Now I finally get a chance to appreciate the craft of these talented people.

Yeah, it is. As good as what is onscreen is in the opening prologue, I think it's the music that gives it the boost to knock the sequence out of the park.

I love that Giachinno's scores are different from each other. Star Trek doesn't sound like Lost and Lost doesn't sound like Up and Up doesn't sound like Ratatouille, etc.

Agreed in general.  The sound design was quite impressive, especially for a ST flick -- well, I haven't caught any of the more recent ones (after First Contact), so maybe that's not quite fair for me to say.   I wouldn't go so far as to say it sounds realistic or anything like that though since I don't know what's actually realistic.  I imagine there's probably plenty enough liberal license applied to the sound design just like other aspects of the film, including the cliched end of the final climactic sequence, which seems highly implausible/unrealistic (as usual for something like that).

Anyway, a good flick overall taking the franchise in a new direction -- and generally living up to the hype for the wife and I.

As I mentioned in RAH's thread, didn't have my glasses to watch it last night, so can't comment much on PQ (other than it looked at least better than reference quality DVD when viewed thru my unaided eyes ).  Someone in the other thread also mentioned there was excessive use of lens flare, and I agree to some extent (though that's not a fault of the BD itself).

_Man_

The Star Trek movies' sound design never really rose above that of the TV show, until this one.

I'm not 100% satisfied with the sound design--I really really wish they'd kept the TOS red alert klaxon. (Hell, it was even in the trailers!) But I'm probably about 95% of the way there. And I'm just a whiny fanboy, so I should be ignored anyways. ;)

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Nope, it was the one on Linton in Delray.

Still kinda tempted. . .

I must admit that I was never a huge fan of TOS -- I always found the technical aspect to be too wanting, but what can you expect from the antiquated 60's tech.   At least they didn't do away w/ the transporter idea (that was originally created to work around their low tech SFX capabilities).

Just chalk up the missing red alert klaxon thingy (along w/ the generally higher tech look and sound) to the Star Wars prequel syndrome.  If going from the apparently higher tech of the prequels to the lower tech of the OT was good enough for Star Wars, I guess it's good enough for Star Trek too -- at least they didn't add in a silly CGI creature to stand in for whatever missing/reduced comic relief.  

_Man_

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Extreme nerd-rant on:

The new Star Trek isn't a prequel.  In-universe, it's a divergent timeline where the future (remember, it arrived  in the "past" of the TOS) technology from the Narada influenced and changed the progression of technology past what existed in the TOS timeline.  Although it should have been made clearer in the movie, it was explained in some of the comics/supplements, which IMO is better than the Star Wars handwave, which only comes from Lucasfilm, that the Empire made tech stagnant.

/Extreme nerd-rant off

Hey!  Thanks for that heads up!

My kid, who has actually *not* been exposed to Trek that much (outside of a little TNG/First Contact and Galaxy Quest), will probably love that since he's become such a SW fan -- he's enough of a SW fan that I can actually use the SW music as incentive/inspiration for him to practice his violin.  

_Man_

^ Thanks for taking the words right out of my mouth, Jesse.  I had though the movie made that abundantly clear.  Maybe it's an understanding there can be different timelines with the same characters taking different courses which goes all the way back to TOS.  The Shatner Kirk and Nimoy Spock universe still exists.  The universe in the new movie is just a divergent timeline with the same names, people and general ideas.

The Mirror Universe is a major alternate timeline which doesn't really affect the "real" one.  TNG had a new timeline in Yesterday's Enterprise and showed many, many more in Parallels. 

To be fair, the movie makes it clear that it's a different timeline, just not why the tech is more advanced.

My feeling is that it doesn't matter.  Why did the Mirror Universe Enterprise have different decals or uniforms than the "real" universe?  Why was the Ent-D in Yesterday's Enterprise at war with the Klingons?  Because those were the "rules" in those timelines.  Yes, the movie takes place between ENT and TOS, if you put everything into one timeline.  But since it is a different timeline, the tech does not need to line up between them.

Then again, I've been with the franchise since 1984 or so, when I was about 5...25 years of timelines and such will do this kind of thing to you.  :)

Yes, the movie makes clear that it's a diff timeline.  I was using the "prequel" term a bit loosely.

However, I think it does matter, if we're gonna get nerdy about it.

Just exactly what timeline are they running in this story?  Is it merely divergent from the one that led to the beginning of this story?  OR is it completely (and randomly) different amongst an essentially infinite number of timelines?  Seems like the first is implied (and suggested by some of the characters in the movie) though there's no guarantee of that (as the characters don't really know in truth).

So if you want to work it all out, I guess the oddly different/unexpected tech here (along w/ the Klingon war reference) might imply that this is actually a randomly/completely different timeline, not merely divergent during the lifetimes of the main characters -- either that, or the divergence happened much earlier than what's depicted.

If that's really the case, I guess all bets are basically off then...

And here's the problem w/ this alternate timeline/universe stuff (that implicitly happens all the time in the Trek franchise), does anything really matter in these stories and to these characters since we don't have a reliable way to nail down which and who is which verison of what and who and when, etc?

Maybe this new Spock is the one who eventually sets off the entire (also timeline/travel messed-up) Heroes TV series, LOL.  

Hmmm....  I wonder when any of these franchises will eventually resort to the old DC Crisis on Infinite Earths conceit and reboot the whole darned thing (only to bring them all back again over another 10-30 years of *our* lifetime).

_Man_
Edited by ManW_TheUncool - 11/19/09 at 11:43am

Uh, that would be Scotty's new alien "friend".

 
I always figured it was the autistic kid in St. Elsewhere...

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Haha...  But he(?) was only (silently) on screen for what? 2-3min?  And did not impact the story/plot at all (near as we can tell w/in all this timeline mess ). 

_Man_

 

I was saddened to see that Costco is selling these BluRays using a Cardboard replica on the stands, you gotta have them unlock the stock room for them to get you a copy.  Please do not support this practice, buy it elsewhere.

Hmmm...  Actually, I guess they *DID* already do something like that on a small scale (w/out the battle royale stuff) w/ the final 2 episodes of the TNG series.  Totally forgot about that.

I guess for an epic movie version (maybe one that even spans 2 or 3 films for the full story arc), they can go back to those 2 episodes and work from there (and then include the Dominion stuff from DS9, reveal how the prophets and all other more advanced species across the Trek universe are related to Q, etc).

_Man_

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That's new.  Is there some reason for that?  Is it the regular edition?

Just opened my copy (received from Amazon) and wanted to grab the digital copy while I was watching football.

The paper insert has nothing written in the box where the download code is supposed to be printed.

Anybody else have this problem?

Brad

Why?  What's the problem?

What's the issue Sam?

I briefly worked for Costco... and I know for a fact that DVD/CD/BD theft is HUGE for them... due to not having any theft-prevention systems other than people checking receipts at the door.  I've only heard rumours of numbers, but the RUMOURED values I've head staggered me.   So, the fact that they're locking up the BD edition of one of the most popular releases of the year doesn't trouble me.  Sounds like logical theft-prevention of a high-traffic item.

So... like I said... I'm curious what the issue is?

I must have had your code, then.  My first Star Trek BD set had two codes printed on top of each other; I couldn't read it, so I exchanged my set for another and all was well.

I would be more apt to not buy it from them based on the fact that they were selling it for about $10 higher than it was available anywhere else.   That's a practice I will not support.

I loved the film in the cinema

and got the Steel Book Blu-Ray at the start of this week

watched it at home, a fantastic movie the second time around, and a really crisp transfer with excellent sound

still watching the special features on the second disc - alot to get through!


a question about the third disc - the "digital bonus" copy

it gives a code to allow copying to either Mac or PC

if I lend my copy to my buddy who has a Mac, and he copies it, can I then copy it to my PC when he returns the disc? or is there some validation system through the internet that will stop me copying it to my disc

sorry if this is basic knowledge but I have not used a digital copy disc before!

I think the whole point of having a code is to limit you to downloading it only once.