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

[Jason_V]

I like Simon Pegg and really hope this all works out. But when you have a start date and release date, but no script, I have to worry. It feels like Paramount is flailing about here.

Flailing is an understatement. They lost "their" director (my guess is over the debacle of STID), they hire and then "lose" Orci as director, they have a release date that's roughly 17 months away, they have no script and filing starts in less than three months. The movie is positioned as a summer tentpole, which means (IMHO) more of STID and less of even Trek 09.


The only upside I see right now is Simon Pegg. I don't love him, but he could not come up with a more derivative script than STID if he tried.


Yeah, my expectations are so low that it's going to be virtually impossible for the movie to disappoint me.

 

[Kevin EK]

Trek 13 is going to film in Vancouver, assuming that it is able to start shooting on time. That's the actual difference - all the other Star Trek movies were based out of Los Angeles. They sometimes had shooting in other areas here and there, but the meat of the work has always been done in Hollywood. The new movie will be the latest example of runaway production, which has decimated the local industry in Los Angeles. (The bright side of that is that the new filming incentive will kick in as of July 1st, so we'll see a lot more production in the 2nd half of 2015 and onward.)


I would agree that the production of Trek 13 is indeed flailing. They have a director who is busy working on "True Detective", they don't have a script, and yet they're supposed to be up and shooting in time to get a movie into theaters by next summer. That's a recipe for disaster - and you'd think they'd have learned that lesson after TMP. My thinking would be that they would be wiser to postpone the movie til Christmas 2016 or summer 2017, push back filming til this summer or later, or simply cancel the production. It's interesting that they keep having these giant breaks between their productions - this is due to the fact that they don't seem to get to work on anything for 18 months or more after they finish the last one. The Trek movies of the 1980s would always start working on their scripts within weeks of the last movie opening.


As for future Blus, there's been no indication that Paramount will do anything more than a repackaging of the existing discs to promote a new movie. I continue to hope that they'll issue a Blu of the Robert Wise cut of TMP, but that will depend on the thinking at Paramount. Right now, it seems that they are more interested in promoting the new era of Trek movies. If that's the case, the promotion for the new movie will simply involve a new packaging of the 2 movie set they released last year.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It's interesting that they keep having these giant breaks between their productions - this is due to the fact that they don't seem to get to work on anything for 18 months or more after they finish the last one. The Trek movies of the 1980s would always start working on their scripts within weeks of the last movie opening.

I think that's one of the biggest problems with this new take on the franchise - there doesn't seem to be anyone in charge, and there never seems like any urgency to get anything done. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I think a sequel to "Star Trek '09" would have grossed more than "Into Darkness" ended up grossing, if only it had come out within two years of the '09 movie. (This is obviously just anecdotal evidence, but when the '09 movie came out, a lot of people I knew who had zero interested in Star Trek specifically or sci-fi in general thought the movie looked cool and actually saw it. And if a new movie had come out shortly after, they might have seen it. But by the time 2013 rolled around, they seemed to have forgotten their enjoyment of the '09 movie, and perceived "Into Darkness" as being just more of that Star Trek thing they never liked anyway. Anyone else had similar experiences among friends and colleagues?) The studio had squandered the momentum. It's kind of stunning to me that we got a reboot Trek in 2009, and by 2016, at best, there will have been two other movies.


It seems to me like Paramount wants Trek to be as big for them as Harry Potter is for Warners, as big as Fast & Furious is for Universal, as big as the Marvel movies are for Disney, etc. In my opinion, the difference between those franchises and studios and Paramount and Trek is that those studios are/were pushing ahead with a new movie every year or so, and Paramount just keeps waiting and waiting and waiting. I was so excited in 2009 when that movie came out and it was as good as it was... but it's been pretty much nonstop waiting since then. I hate to say it, but maybe they should have relaunched as a TV show instead of a movie, even if it was an HBO/cable style 10 episodes a year thing. Having one movie every four years doesn't seem like enough.

 

[lukejosephchung]

The first 10 Star Trek films featuring the Original Series & Next Generation casts always had a clear person in charge of production...for the first movie it was Gene Roddenberry, for 2-5 it was Harve Bennett and Leonard Nimoy for 6, while Rick Berman had the reins for the Next Generation feature films. Paramount approached the reboot franchise without a clear production approach until J.J. Abrams took charge of the 2009 and 2012 movies and now that he's moved on to Star Wars, there's no clear person in charge of the next film.

 

[Ejanss]

I think that's one of the biggest problems with this new take on the franchise - there doesn't seem to be anyone in charge, and there never seems like any urgency to get anything done.

I remember seeing the trailer and special introduction to "The World's End" before Into Darkness, just because they wanted to merchandise Simon Pegg as Scotty.

Now that Pegg's writing, and Abrams has no more Khan references to geek-quote, looks like Paramount's putting everything into selling the future Trek movies to Shaun fans, for lack of any other artistic identity to the franchise.


(I would say I'm happy Abrams isn't writing/directing, until I stop to remember......why he isn't directing this one at the moment. )

It seems to me like Paramount wants Trek to be as big for them as Harry Potter is for Warners, as big as Fast & Furious is for Universal, as big as the Marvel movies are for Disney, etc.

Exactly--People keep asking "Why is Sony still hanging onto Spiderman?" or "Why won't Fox let the X-Men just die already?" but Warner and Disney have turned the game into generic franchise brand labels that literally sell themselves on name and audience pre-identification, otherwise Universal would have stopped making F&F movies after the third one.

Up to now, Paramount's Big Brand was the Transformers, but that's looking less likely after the fourth one, and since they don't have another Tom Cruise M:I ready, and another Ninja Turtles is still iffy, they're promoting the next successor to the studio-brand throne. I'm up for more Trek without Abrams, just so long as Paramount keeps an open mind and doesn't bet the farm on it for the next seven years.

 

[Rick Thompson]

"Into Darkness" was a mishmash that turned me off on Star Trek. The first one was enjoyable, not least because of how it was setting up and matching up to the original. "Into Darkness" should have let "Nimoy Spock" rest, and dumped all the cribbing from "Wrath of Khan." It was longer and louder, but nowhere near as good as the original six films. It was a confusing mess.

 

[Paul_Warren]

Paramount need to get these movies out every 2 years waiting 3-4 years is letting the franchise go cold... But after STID its going to be an uphill battle to get people back into theatres they need more serious sci-fi not pointless but costly action sequences then the budget can be lower its not like any of the cast command money much outside of Trek anyway. No wonder Paramount audited the budget on STID


With the right person in charge (a Harve Bennett equivalent franchise boss) you could put 3-4 ST movies out in the next few years & tie the storylines in somehow so your audience is hooked to go again & again then the grosses will increase steadily.

 

[RJ992]

I remember seeing the trailer and special introduction to "The World's End" before Into Darkness, just because they wanted to merchandise Simon Pegg as Scotty.

Now that Pegg's writing, and Abrams has no more Khan references to geek-quote, looks like Paramount's putting everything into selling the future Trek movies to Shaun fans, for lack of any other artistic identity to the franchise.


(I would say I'm happy Abrams isn't writing/directing, until I stop to remember......why he isn't directing this one at the moment. )




Up to now, Paramount's Big Brand was the Transformers, but that's looking less likely after the fourth one, and since they don't have another Tom Cruise M:I ready, and another Ninja Turtles is still iffy, they're promoting the next successor to the studio-brand throne. I'm up for more Trek without Abrams, just so long as Paramount keeps an open mind and doesn't bet the farm on it for the next seven years.

Actually, they DO have another M:I (with Pegg) due to be released sometime this year. What you REALLY have to worry about re: TREK (with the changing of director and writing) is that Paramount wants their own GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and are trying to steer TREK in that direction.

 

[Ejanss]

Baton down the hatches!!! First trek film to not use the paramount lots!!!

Not to be spellcheck police, but it's "Batten down the hatches".

("I did batten them down!" "Well, batten them down again, we'll teach those hatches!")

A baton down the hatches would seem rather painful.

Actually, they DO have another M:I (with Pegg) due to be released sometime this year. What you REALLY have to worry about re: TREK (with the changing of director and writing) is that Paramount wants their own GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and are trying to steer TREK in that direction.

I'm sure a lot of blind studios are feeling the #1 box-office elephant right now ("It seems to me, this sci-fi film has obscure characters!" "Anyone can see, it has 70's songs!" "I believe this has fratboy humor and a big cute CGI character!"), but I don't think Paramount is trying to turn Trek or M:I in that direction.

They may be tarnishing, but you don't mess with the central studio pillars until the box office says so, and MI4 and STID both did well enough to keep Paramount in their delusions.


It's more a case of thinking that some new breakout talent will "jumpstart" an artistically flagging franchise, and again, they discovered there was more interest from the Shaun fans in Pegg's Scotty as the most identifiable breakout character, and in seeing the "World's End" trailer than in seeing old Spock again.

M:I would be the third big script Pegg and his co-writer have at Paramount, and it feels like a distinct case of Save Our Studio.

 

[Chareth]

My thinking would be that they would be wiser to postpone the movie til Christmas 2016 or summer 2017, push back filming til this summer or later, or simply cancel the production.

Cancellation has occurred to me too, but I wrote it off as my own anti-Into Darkness bias until I read your comment plus the following from Drew McWeeny in his report on Pegg's hiring:

I hear not everyone is united on moving forward with the movies, and I'm curious if there will come a point when a TV version is more economically attractive than the feature model, or if Paramount ever tries to juggle both at the same time again.

http://www.hitfix.com/motion-captured/simon-pegg-set-to-steer-star-trek-for-real-as-he-signs-on-to-co-write-new-sequel


That said, I can't think of an instance where a sequel to a major film that at least broke even was cancelled. Bryan Singer's Superman Returns sequel is the closest example I can think of, although it's not clear how far that was actually developed, and the margin between production budget and worldwide gross was a fair bit narrower than Into Darkness. With the marketing budget included, it may have lost money. Can anyone else think of a relatively recent example of such a cancellation? Terminator Salvation has an almost identical budget/worldwide gross ratio to Superman Returns, but a sequel was never really discussed.


Into Darkness seems to be profitable from the public figures, but Paramount may have under-reported its costs, which I gather is increasingly common for huge blockbusters like this. But even if it merely underperformed, surely they would produce the sequel on a lower budget. Then again, does that happen nowadays either? TV seasons may get budget cuts when the ratings are low (eg: Fringe season 5), but I'm not sure blockbusters ever do when the previous film at least broke even. The next film either gets an equal or larger budget or is a reboot.


But with new writers appointed, presumably this is happening, at least for the next little while. But surely it has to be postponed, unless these writers have been working on a script for a while, perhaps since before the Orci issues became public. Maybe Paramount were developing a parallel script as a backup.

 

[Nelson Au]

Perhaps all this discussion should go to the Star Trek 3 thread where the recent turmoil is being discussed.

And please bring the remastered Star Trek The Motion Picture Directors Cut out on blu ray.

 

[Joel Fontenot]

Perhaps all this discussion should go to the Star Trek 3 thread where the recent turmoil is being discussed.

And please bring the remastered Star Trek The Motion Picture Directors Cut out on blu ray.

I agree. This has gone off track about a movie not even released to theaters yet, much less "what we know so far" about Star Trek films on Blu-ray.


Bring TMP back in properly restored and more film-like theatrical and Directors cuts (I'm just not feeling it for the the "Special Longer" TV cut).


Bring TWoK on in a less "blue" look.


Bring on the rest without the overly done grain reduction.


I'm just a-waitin'...

 

[Ejanss]

I agree. This has gone off track about a movie not even released to theaters yet, much less "what we know so far" about Star Trek films on Blu-ray.


Bring TMP back in properly restored and more film-like theatrical and Directors cuts (I'm just not feeling it for the the "Special Longer" TV cut).

Well, think the message here is, "We'd rather talk about Trek in general than talk about TMP--What fan talks about TMP like it existed?"

 

[Tino]

A TRUE fan, that who.

 

[Gary Seven]

See? Tino and I can agree on something Trek

 

[Rick Thompson]

Into Darkness seems to be profitable from the public figures, but Paramount may have under-reported its costs, which I gather is increasingly common for huge blockbusters like this. But even if it merely underperformed, surely they would produce the sequel on a lower budget. Then again, does that happen nowadays either? TV seasons may get budget cuts when the ratings are low (eg: Fringe season 5), but I'm not sure blockbusters ever do when the previous film at least broke even. The next film either gets an equal or larger budget or is a reboot.

I believe Wrath of Khan was made on a smaller budget than The Motion Picture. It's why they brought in Harve Bennett, a TV guy who was used to making small budgets go far.

 

[Kevin EK]

Wrath of Khan was made for a budget that was around 1/4 of the total spent on TMP. You're correct that Bennett was brought in due to his extensive television production experience, particularly in dealing with science fiction properties like Six Million Dollar Man.


Regarding these movies on Blu-ray, we continue to have the question of when Paramount will approve the funds to render the Wise cut of TMP in HD. And now we have the additional question about whether they intend to create 4K masters for the next generation of Blu-ray. If they do so, this would allow them to fix the errors noted from the earlier Blus. I totally agree that the current Wrath of Khan is noticeably blue-shifted.

 

[Osato]

If i recall correctly Star Trek the animated series was scanned for hd. Is there any news on that series coming to blu Ray? I've held off buying it as I knew hd mastering was done for the series even though it was only released on DVD.

 

[Tino]

If i recall correctly Star Trek the animated series was scanned for hd. Is there any news on that series coming to blu Ray? I've held off buying it as I knew hd mastering was done for the series even though it was only released on DVD.

Netflix streams it in HD.

 

[Camper]

Netflix streams it in HD.

Was it cleaned up for HD streaming?


The animated episode on TOS season 2 showed a lot of dirt, etc.