Warner Home Video must die!

I saw two Trek Movie Blu Ray bundling the othe day. One was the the first 3 TOS movies and then the second was all six. I didn't notice on the first but the second it was all Theatrical Release.

Given they have the directors cut versions of most of the TOS trek films why go back to the theatrical release (especially in the case of TMP where the new cut has made it a much more watchable film).

 

^ Paramount loves to double and triple dip, especially when it comes to Trek. Remember when all ten Star Trek movies were packaged in the same box set? TMP was a special edition (because it was the first to get an SE and there was no regular edition) and the other nine were regular edition. And then as each movie got an SE double dip, they repackaged the entire thing! So there were 10 different box sets of the same 10 movies!

How else do you explain why there's a "trilogy" for just II, III and IV? Are there any Trek fans who only watch those three movies?

I thought this was going to be a thread about Warner's straight-to-DVD team and The Lost Boys 3 and 4.

 

I don't know why the director's cuts of ST II and VI weren't released on Blu-Ray, since the added material (what little of it existed) was strictly live-action and involved no effects that I could make out.

TMP, however, had new effects that were rendered at Standard Definition only - for reasons unknown. To release the TMP director's cut on Blu-Ray would require that those new effects be rerendered (but, apparently, NOT re-created from scratch - I think there is a difference) in High Definition.

 

Actually, as far as sets that only package a few of the movies go, that's the only one I'd stand up and make an argument for. Still, when it comes down to it, I'm sure most fans who refer to the "Genesis Trilogy" probably have every Trek film on DVD...even Star Trek Nemesis.

The reason the new effects for TMP were not rendered in HD was that it would have cost more money. And Paramount was not forward-thinking enough at the time to do it.

 

the TMP director's cut came out what 3 years go? Computer processing power had taken a pretty big jump in that time, so if the computer models exist, how expensive would it be to re-render them for hi-def? I know that yes you'd have to re-edit the films - but again all the hard work has been done - just insert the hi-def renders in place of the standard ones.

Btw the TOS box set remasters - where the new graphics rendered to standard or hi-def?

 

Probably not THAT much. As I said earlier, they wouldn't really have to re-create the new effects from scratch, just re-RENDER them. Kind of like recompiling a program.

The new effects in TOS-R were, I believe, rendered in HD from the get-go. That's the whole reason they were DOING the remastering project, is for HD broadcast.

 

Thirded. This whole hi-def thing is being forced down our throats by equipment companies wanting to sell us new gear.

 

Actually, it's likely the original digital information IS lost. One of the FX guys on Enterprise pointed out that a lot of the early FX modeling was lost when they changed studios, and that the models weren't really compatable anyways. That's why, for example, you didn't see Sabre or Norway class ships in latter Treks: the models were lost or unusable.

 

I believe that poster was talking exclusively about the TMP Director's Edition project, which, as far as I know, all of the CGI files still exist for.

 

Assuming they do, that does not guarantee that they can be used. They were written for specific software, and moreover for a specific VERSION of that software. That was what, 8 years ago? It's not like you can just take any datafile, plop it into shelf-standard Lightwave (or whatever) and hit "render"...

 

3 years? Try 8.

 

LightWave is backwards-compatible to at least version 6.0; they're currently on version 9.6 for Windows. (I know, as I have files that go back that far). The major problem would probably be making sure all the resource forks were still intact; having to reapply a bunch of textures that the system can''t find is no fun.

 

It's a obvious hint "go to Blu-ray!" If anything, it's all the more reason for me to resist even more. Especially since it's been pointed out they added an entire 3 minutes to the cut. Did they give the franchise it's balls back? No. They throw in a topless scene and say it's unrated or rated R as if that made a difference.

 

Same here. And I don't buy that Blue ray is necessary for a bigger screen. Some months back I traded in my old Panasonic 20 inch TV I had since 1994 for a Vizio 32 inch TV, and the ONLY difference is that my widescreen DVD TV series (Babylon 5, Smallville, Sarah Connor, New Galactica , ENETERPRISE, and others) are now full screen. The picture resolution is no different, just bigger.

 

Then you're doing something wrong?

 

The native resolution will be the same. But the upscaler is supposed to improve the colorspace, and display the image in the higher resolution of your TV. Basically you should see a pretty obvious improvement. If you don't have an upscaling DVD player, then it's up to your TV to do it, and Vizio sucks at it.

 

I lucked out since my Dad is a big electronics guy and he bought an HDTV and a Blu-Ray player, so he managed to help me out in that regard as well. For instance, he just bought me Star Trek on Blu-Ray, which looked absolutely gorgeous, so I don't really need to worry about converting or anything like that.

 

I was under the impression that some of the new FX for the Director's Edition of The Motion Picture wouldn't hold up under HD scrutiny anyway. Particularly the tiny CG models of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Ilia, & Decker walking across the Enterprise saucer section to get to the pathway to V'Ger's core.

Yeah. I was bloody surprised & bloody happy to see that Director's Cut DVD on the shelf at Target. How fortunate that I got a $10 Target gift card for my birthday.

In the end, I wish I had saved some money by someone else telling you what I'm about to tell you: It's not worth it. The added scenes are crap and the documentaries don't really tell us anything interesting.

Even Moon Bloodgood's bloody good moons are a disappointment. While she is topless, she keeps her hands over them most of the time. You never get a good look at them. And there's still a very awkward jump cut to the next scene when it has suddenly stopped raining, she's fully dressed, and she's being menaced by some crazy rednecks. The transition isn't quite as bad as it was in the theatrical cut but it's still bad.

Maybe he has since become one of those directors that doesn't like to overly explain his movies. It's a shame, because I would have loved a commentary track on The Prestige.

While I think a lot of these plot points sound terrible, I think it would have at least been interesting to see them as deleted scenes.

The hybrid storyline sounds like crap and tries too hard to give Skynet a deeper motivation. Skynet doesn't need a deeper motivation. That's the beauty of it. A defensive, killer computer program. It's so simple yet it has been sufficient motivation for the last 25 years of the franchise.

I suspect John Connor giving Kyle Reese the photo of Sarah Connor is now being saved for a later movie.

Spoiler: the Connor/Terminator fight

For the Connor/Terminator fight, at that point was he fighting a T-800 endoskeleton or Roland Kickinger with Schwarzenegger's face added on?

Spoiler: the ending

What about the ending? What did they do with Marcus' death that allowed him to come back in the future?

And did they ever shoot that alternate ending where John Connor dies and his face is grafted onto Marcus Wright's body?

I don't think there were quite that many. IIRC, there were 6 DVD movie box sets prior to the most recent ones.

1.) Standard editions of the 1st 3 Next Generation movies.

2.) The Director's Edition of TMP, standard editions of everything else up through Insurrection. Nemesis hadn't come out yet.

3.) 2-disc editions of TMP, TWOK, & TSFS; 1-disc editions of TVH, TFF, & TUC.

4.) 2-disc editions of TMP, TWOK, TSFS, TVH, & TFF; 1-disc editions of TUC, GEN, FC, INS, & NEM.

5.) 2-disc editions of each of the 1st 6 movies.

6.) 2-disc editions of all 10 movies.

 

My DVD player does upscale, so it must be my TV that makes no difference picture-wise.

What's so bad about Vizio? I like it.

 

Vizio is fine. But it's no top of the line TV, thats' why it's good to have other component that do the job for it. (For example, a good upscaling DVD player) How is the DVD player connected? Upscaling only works via HDMI.