Nobody got "screwed over." Fandom has no one to blame for this but themselves. No one was forced to buy the first Star Trek Into Darkness Blu-Rays; anyone who double-dipped (myself included) did so knowing full well that Paramount would very likely eventually re-release the film again. That Paramount felt the need to apologize is nice and all, but was also largely unnecessary.
I interrupt my three-page parenthetical discussion about underwear just to point out that I was NOT double-dipped. I refused to buy the exploitative retailer releases. If the Compendium was not released, I never would have purchased STID. Ever. I wish others would stand the same ground against manipulative studios.
Also, the
Compendium release might NOT have happened had Bill Hunt at DigitalBits.com not made such a strong case to Paramount about how badly they handled the initial release and what they should do to fix it. I'm as cynical as anyone else about studios, but I do not believe they planned on Compendium as a double-dip release. It was produced in response to fan complaints AND they offered a rebate to those who purchased the original release.
You're absolutely right -- fandom needs more consumers like you who won't pay for things like the intial release. I think if Paramount didn't know
beyond the shadow of a doubt that there was a large contingent of completist fans with money to spend out there who would buy up anything with the words
Star Trek emblazoned across it, they probably would have handled the situation better.
Bill Hunt at the Digtial Bits is a douche. Good on him
for doing his damn job, but Paramount had
every right to release whatever the hell they wanted to when they put out
Into Darkness the first time around. They could have put a piece of cardboard in a DVD snapcase, slapped the
Into Darkness logo on it with a little note in the fine print that said "This is just a piece of cardboard, nothing else", and offered it for sale and they'd still be
well within their rights because it's
their property to do with as they please. Nobody here is entitled to some uber-release of the film just because it's something we want, nor was it some huge human-rights victory because Bill Hunt gets credit for championing the cause.
That said, it is great that Hunt thought enough of the fans to communicate to Paramount how displeased fandom was, but I don't for a second believe that the
Star Trek Compendium release was put out solely in response to how unhappy everyone was with the first edition of the
Star Trek Into Darkness release. It was just another opportunity for Paramount to make some money off the fans, plain and simple. That it also came with the good PR of (hopefully) repairing whatever damage may have been done considering fandom's goodwill was secondary to the whole situation.
Huh? Buying into what?
