Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far (1 Viewer)

[Sam Favate]

How about spending a fraction of the budget on some TV or made-for-DVD movies with the TNG or DS9 casts? If the audience is a constant, that's likely to excite them a lot more than another big budget effects movie that gets away from the core ideas of the series.

 

[Jason_V]

Just to get the either cast back together would be cost prohibitive on a TV movie budget. Patrick Stewart by himself would get too much money. Then you'd have to rebuild the sets or create brand new ones...you're looking at a big money commitment. And I'd assume it would have to go through CBS, not Paramount. It's been stated recently CBS has no interest in more Trek on TV. If that means a TV movie in addition to a new show, I don't know.

 

[Nelson Au]

Kevin, those are very fair points regarding the budget allowed for the Star Trek TMP DC effort on the CGI and recut of the film per Mr. Wise's direction. Chalk it up to my enthusiasm to see the studio add this film to its slate of discs to be upcoming! And fair enough about the budget when Star Trek TMP was first made. It was a runaway train, that's a very apt description from what I understand. I do wonder, is there still an unfair stigma associated with this movie that makes the studio think its a less then wanted film on home video. Do they not want to invest in a high def version of the DC because they still think no one wants to see it? Is it due to the cost of making the movie originally? I can't accept it's still years away! The release of Into Darkness did not motivate them to put the DC of TMP out. So I'm not counting on the new Star Trek film to motivate a release of TMP.

 

[Worth]

There's really no need for another $200 million Trek movie. They've shown even when throwing a lot of money at the production and giving it a plum May release date, the audience remains relatively constant. This will never be Star Wars or Hunger Games. The budget for the next one needs to be greatly reduced and the release date moved.

No movie should cost $200 million to make. Production costs have become truly absurd. As bloated as the first film was, its budget amounts to around $115 million, adjusted for inflation.

 

[Kevin EK]

I think there will be another Star Trek TV series at some point, but probably not for a few years. Not sure what it will be or where it will air, but I would bet that it would be based on the Abrams movies' continuity - since that's what younger viewers are familiar with at this point, and since Abrams completely demolished the original continuity with his first movie.

I wouldn't think they'd do anything with the casts of the TV spinoffs from the 80s or 90s, given that those casts are now decades older, their storylines have already been wrapped up, and that the Abrams movies obviated all those stories. We at least have all those shows on DVD at this point, so we can still enjoy the episodes we liked out of the pile.

To Nelson, I honestly don't know why Paramount chose not invest in a Blu-ray edition of the Robert Wise cut of TMP. I think it was probably a couple of things. They'd need to spend some money now to pay for it, and from their perspective, they're already doing fine selling the existing Blus from a few years ago. Also, they've been watching CBS put out all these Blus of TNG and Enterprise over the past couple of years and I doubt they wanted to get in the middle of that pile of product. I don't think it's anything to do with the costs of a movie from 30+ years ago. We'll just have to see if Paramount does it when the next movie comes out in a few years. We have some time before then, so we'll know a while before anything happens.

 

[TravisR]

No movie should cost $200 million to make.

And if it does, studios shouldn't cry if they don't make their money back. When they spend that kind of money (and the money on the accompanying ad campaign), the movie needs to out gross probably 99% of every other movie ever made. It's ridiculous to expect a movie to perform that well.

 

[FoxyMulder]

I think a lot of these $200m budget reports are not quite true, i think it's creative accounting in order to make things look more expensive for tax reasons, i also think studio's can see the rewards that sometimes comes from movie sales, i mean look at Despicable Me 2, average film but worldwide it has grossed over $900m dollars, that's an incredible figure before you even take into account home sales.

 

[Cinescott]

Personally, I'd love to see a Blu-ray of the Wise DC on TMP. I'm not quite sure what the hold is on this, other than to think the profit motive is just not there. I would think that "Into Darkness" would have created the best platform window during which to release it, so my hopes are waning.

In years past I thought everything Trek was a slam dunk, but maybe not. The pricing point for meaningful sales would have to be $14.99 or so, so maybe anticipated sales are simply not enough to justify the costs.

On the bright side, the Blu-ray for the theatrical cut is pretty good quality-wise.

 

[Jason_V]

No movie should cost $200 million to make. Production costs have become truly absurd. As bloated as the first film was, its budget amounts to around $115 million, adjusted for inflation.

Well granted. I can make an argument for a movie that will make its money back (Star Wars, for example) to hit that price point. But there's no way a Trek movie should ever approach that.

 

[Kevin EK]

I totally agree that it's ridiculous to see someone spend 200 million dollars to make a movie. We've gone through how hard it becomes to bring such a movie to profitability. As we noted with Star Trek ID, they were still well short of breaking even when they finished the theatrical run, in spite of having grossed around 450 million dollars.

And I could see some cases where you might see a studio padding the numbers on a budget. But nobody is going to brag about spending anything close to 200 million or pad the numbers to go higher in that case. It's not simply a tax matter. It's a situation where the studio exec would be admitting to putting the studio into the strong likelihood of not being able to make their money back, let alone go into profit. If anything, it's more likely for a studio exec to try to minimize the extent of the costs, given that the bar is being set so high already. Which is why I tend to doubt the 190 million dollar figure admitted by Paramount. I frankly believe it was more along the lines of 200 million or a bit higher. But in the light of Disney taking a giant bath with Lone Ranger, and Sony having a disastrous summer, I don't think they wanted to admit things had gotten that far out of control. So they admitted to a somewhat more modest figure.

We should note that Despicable Me 2 is admitting to a 76 million dollar budget, which I tend to believe. So that 900+ million dollar gross before home video is GIGANTIC. Even if we use the 3x rule here, Universal was in profit by nearly 700 million dollars. That, as they say, is serious money. We should also note that the Star Wars movies were fairly tightly budgeted. Wikipedia shows each of the prequels sitting around the 113-115 million dollar range. The original Star Wars was made for 11 million dollars or so. E.T. was made for about the same amount. You don't need to spend a gagillion dollars to make a great movie.

I'm still optimistic that we'll see a Blu of TMP at some point, but I agree that the lack of movement on it isn't encouraging. And I agree that there is an issue with the price point - which is why I'm concerned to see them taking the Star Trek ID Blus down so far when this is the time that they would have expected to sell the most units. If they're dumping the price that far, it can only mean that they didn't expect to sell them for even the normal price point.

 

[Tino]

A bit off topic but regarding Top Gun's 3D conversion, I thought it was excellent, among the best up there with Titanic.

 

[Jason_V]

I'm still optimistic that we'll see a Blu of TMP at some point, but I agree that the lack of movement on it isn't encouraging.

Me too. I always have been. They're going to wait for an anniversary or something monumental to get it out. Next year is 35 years. If it's ever going to come, I think it'll be next year. The 40th and 50th anniversaries are way too far away.

The only other real possibility is waiting for the 50th anniversary of the franchise in 2016...but waiting that long scares me.

 

[Osato]

I delayed in picking up Into Darkness as I was frustrated with the price at the time of the release of $19.99 and I was also frustrated with how the retailer exclusives were handled.

$8 seemed like a more than fair price for me though.

I wonder if others delayed in picking up the film due to these 2 reasons as well?

Just another thought I had.

2016 seems ideal for a TMP Director's cuts and new blu ray transfers of all the Classic Trek films.

 

[Nelson Au]

http://ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/Spock-screams.jpgI won't rest until Star Trek The Motion Picture gets a proper release!

 

[Ted Van Duyn]

I think there will be another Star Trek TV series at some point, but probably not for a few years. Not sure what it will be or where it will air, but I would bet that it would be based on the Abrams movies' continuity - since that's what younger viewers are familiar with at this point, and since Abrams completely demolished the original continuity with his first movie.

I'm not too convinced that would be the case since CBS is clearly keeping it's distance from Paramount's treatment of Star Trek. If you look at all their recent "The Next Generation" BluRay releases, no set contains a preview of Star Trek Into Darkness for it's theatrical run or for it's home video release. If CBS was to make another Star Trek series set in the JJ Abrams continuity, they would basically be surrendering a lot of their control over to JJ's team and Paramount since setting the series in that continuity would have to follow their rules.

Even if they were to make a new series set in the JJ continuity, what would they do? Can't make it a live action series with Kirk and crew since most of the characters are played by hollywood level actors. And if they were going to have it be a new crew, wouldn't that undermine the importance of the original cast being the most important "thing" in Star Trek? You could have it be animated and have the actors voice their characters or recast them all together. Personally, that sounds more like a desperate attempt to capitalize on popularity rather than doing something fresh and new. Is it really a good thing for Star Trek if it all comes crawling back to Kirk and crew when Star Trek has been able to create other series featuring characters that weren't even associated with Kirk or the name Enterprise? I think it's a discredit to Star Trek as a whole if all it wants to be is about the original crew.

 

[Jason_V]

I've always been in favor of an anthology series, like Twilight Zone, where every episode can take place with a different set of characters/races/time periods/etc. This way, CBS could get the movie crew to do one episode a year or something, but then have everything else jump around.

It's not like the entire cast is anti-TV. John Cho was a regular on Go On last year and has a recurring part on Sleepy Hollow. Zachary Quinto comes from Heroes. Abrams and Bad Robot produce every other show on TV. The sets are built, the characters established...all the episodes would show are the "minor" things the movies can't. There are enough side stories or small things we never got to see in both the Prime and Alt Universes to make a five or six season show, if it's done right.

One complete episode on a Borg cube. The next is a Martok/Worf adventure. Riker and Troi on the Titan. Heck, here's a great time to have a Captain Sulu episode. There's now two universes to explore.

 

[Kevin EK]

Ted, you make a good point about CBS and Paramount and whether one division wants to go with the other one's rewriting of the whole canon. But my instincts say that they would most likely go with what is currently the look, feel and mythology of the story. In the same way that the Trek shows starting with TNG moved forward from the movies, starting with that basic idea, rather than going back to the original series style of sets, costumes, music, etc. In the same way, I'd expect that a new TV series, say in 2015, would adopt the basic approach of the Abrams movies, only placing the story somewhere else in Starfleet or farther forward in time. We'll just have to see what these guys come up with.

Jason, I don't think you'll see the movie cast popping up in TV episodes, other than maybe one or two, here or there as a favor to Abrams. Keep in mind that when TOS actors popped up on TNG, it was an extremely rare thing. DeForest Kelley showed up in the pilot of TNG as a favor to Gene Roddenberry, who had been a lifelong friend and supporter of Kelley's career. Leonard Nimoy showed up to promote Star Trek VI. James Doohan showed up only after the series was already in its 6th season and at a point when he was practically retired. The current cast of the Trek movies are very happy to working in movies rather than TV. Zachary Quinto started in TV as you noted, and is very happy to be acting in and producing movies these days. I strongly doubt that the cast would agree to work for scale on a TV show when they regularly get a much better situation to do one of these movies every 3-4 years. I could be wrong about that, but it just doesn't sound realistic. And the anthology idea sounds great, but it would be way too expensive to mount a TV show like that. It's one thing to do "The Twilight Zone" in black and white in very limited conditions, or even the 1980s "Zone" where they did a tiny bit more. But to constantly need to build completely new sets for every episode in a sci-fi series, generate completely new costumes, generate completely new makeup for EVERYONE, etc? Way too expensive for any TV show to pattern. The whole notion of a TV series is that you have a home base of several sets you can always shoot on, and a home base of cast, costumes, design, etc. To do what would be a brand new experience every week would be horrifyingly expensive for any TV production company. As it was, the Star Trek shows were all very expensive for their time - just the basic materials cost so much that even amortizing everything for a full season would force the writers to really economize what they did outside the regular sets and cast. Your idea is a nice one to think about but I don't think it's practically feasible.

 

[Osato]

More food for thought...

If / When Paramount does new blu rays of the Trek films, will they scan at 4K as was done with the early 007 films in 2005 and 2006.

I hope Star Trek does return to TV soon. If not I am so behind on the tv blu ray remastered re issues.

I have TNG Seasons 1 and 2 and have yet to watch them!!! No time right now.

 

[Kevin EK]

Anything is possible in terms of how Paramount would approach future home video releases of the Trek movies. Just depends on what they're willing to invest in the process. If they think they can market a 4K copy, I'm sure they'll make one. Otherwise, I think they're likely to just stay with the discs that they continue to reissue. The only exception would be TMP, simply because it's a very different version of the movie and they already have the bonus material to go with it. We've discussed the possibilities of the other movies having some deleted scenes included, but that honestly doesn't sound like much in terms of generating massive new sales.

 

[Nelson Au]

I'm curious if there is anyone at Paramount one can contact to ask about the possibility of the Directors Cut of Star Trek The Motion Picture coming to blu ray.I understand that Ron Smith who was head of film preservation and restoration for 19 years and responsible for such work as The Ten Commandments restoration, and was here on the HTF to answer questions about future titles, has left Paramount shortly after that interview. I thought he may even have had some influence on the Star Trek II blu ray. So if there's someone of that influence, I'd like to send him an old fashion snail mail letter to express my enthusiasm. I realize that kind of person may not have the power to decide future releases.