Star trek on DVD blue ray.

Devons Daddy · 13 November, 2009, 07:44:52 AM

IT IS OUT!
so time to inform the significant other, that christmas day you expect to be able to get the DVD/Blue ray player ready.

otherwise you will SULK!
finest movie of 2009, greatest movie since star trek III

if you have not seen it? whats wrong with you man.

COMMANDO FORCES · 15 November, 2009, 03:18:17 AM

I am so tempted to buy this tomorrow and just enjoy it by myself when the wife is at work and Sam is at school.
Best have the volume up high and set phasers to KILL.

Buddy · 15 November, 2009, 09:19:45 AM

Quote from: Devons Daddy on 13 November, 2009, 07:44:52 AM
IT IS OUT!
so time to inform the significant other, that christmas day you expect to be able to get the DVD/Blue ray player ready.

otherwise you will SULK!
finest movie of 2009, greatest movie since star trek III

if you have not seen it? whats wrong with you man.

Gettin this... not waiting till christmas!

But DD... greatest since The Search For Spock??? nahh... Undiscovered Country is brilliant.

Word is for the Sequel.... looks like Khan will be making an appearance soon.

Mardroid · 15 November, 2009, 06:30:21 PM

Quote from: Buddy (previusly Uncle Umpty) on 15 November, 2009, 09:19:45 AM
But DD... greatest since The Search For Spock??? nahh... Undiscovered Country is brilliant.

I think The Undiscovered Country is my favourite Trek film. With the possible exception of First Contact. I've yet to see the new film, but I'll likely buy the DVD at some point.

QuoteWord is for the Sequel.... looks like Khan will be making an appearance soon.

I actually hope they don't do Kahn. I think ST2 did that just fine. (And they're still young anyway. They shouldn't catch up with his sleeper ship yet.)

COMMANDO FORCES · 16 November, 2009, 03:04:39 PM

Anyone know the best deal on Bluray on this at the moment!

I'm a tight git on DVD's.

COMMANDO FORCES · 16 November, 2009, 07:35:07 PM

Just got back from the shop with this. I shall be watching the first big scene and then handing it over to the wife for Christmas!

COMMANDO FORCES · 16 November, 2009, 09:06:37 PM

That brought a tear to my eye but then I though about my confrontation in the pictures

Still it's now been handed over to the good lady to be wrapped up.

TordelBack · 17 January, 2010, 07:40:18 PM

Hmmm, gave the missus this for Christmas (big Karl Urban fan, no I have no idea how I'm her "type" as well, but best not to pull on that thread), and finally got around to watching the extras, in particular the Deleted Scenes. Interested to know what others think. For the record, I possibly enjoyed the film even more the second time around, even if its flaws were more glaring (the interior of the Enterprise, the geography of space and the vacuum where a villain should have been).

SPOILERS FOR THE DELETED SCENES FOLLOW:

As is often the case, I applaud the decision to cut many of the deleted scenes, and regret the absence of others.

The Good stuff is the rest of the Kobayashi Maru sub-plot, which I really enjoyed, especially the excellent punchline. It didn't take very long, and it fleshed out Kirk's and Uhura's characters quite nicely. Should have stayed in. Probably helps that Wrath of Khan is my favourite Trek movie, and I thoroughly enjoyed the old Kobayashi Maru novel, which explored each main character's 'solution' to the no-win scenario, but I still thought this was one of the best bits of the film, and the deleted bits would have made it better.

Then the Bad. The 'Kirk's homelife' scene is completely pointless, and introducing Jim blasting across the alkali flats in a monkey-navigated etc. was a much better call.

Then the Ugly. The Rura Pente stuff was rubbish, and the Klingons themselves worse than awful in every respect. I hope the excision of these scenes means they're rethinking the whole design, concept etc. for the sequel. Worst of all the scenes included failed (to my feeble mind) to explain what actually happened to Nero and his ship for those 25 years, which was the attraction for me.

On to the commentary!

Mardroid · 18 January, 2010, 05:50:05 AM

I disagree concerning the klingon scenes. [spoiler]It provided an explanation as to where Nero and co had been for the last 20 odd years (although I suppose space being a big place is adequate enough)[/spoiler] and I really liked the look of the klingons. A nice nod to the series continuity there with the change in klingons appearance. I.e. are they bumpy under those helmets, or is it just a disguise because they're acclimatising to their more human-like appearance? (Bearing in mind this film is actually set in the time period between Enterprise and the original series.) We just don't know, and the helmets allow for both!

[spoiler]For those sequences to work I think they'd need to flesh out more really how Nero escapes from Rura Penthe, rather than he just did. What with Kirk in the Undiscovered Country and Archer in Enterprise, that Rura Penthe is getting a bit easy to escape from. I realise they wanted to focus on Kirk and Spock's story though, but I wouldn't have minded a bit more from Nero's pov too. That would have made the film even longer though, so I can certainly understand why they took the choices they did.[/spoiler]

Oh, and the scene with Kirk and the second Orion girl was amusing.

[spoiler]I agree they probably should have included the scene of the Orion girl uploading the virus.[/spoiler]

TordelBack · 18 January, 2010, 08:28:15 AM

My problem with the Rura Penthe sequence (apart from the boring Kilingons) was that it didn't explain what had happened. [spoiler]Nero's ship gets captured by Klingons, they all hang around for a quarter century in prison with some odd handwritten book thing, and then after a bit of a scuffle they're all back aboard their ship just in time for Spock to show up. It's almost like they were using the place like a motel. Where was their amazingly futuristic ship all this time, and how did they get it back, and repaired enough to defeat '40 warbirds'? How did they know when Spock was going to appear? [/spoiler] Aren't these the things we were wondering in the first place?

This isn't to say I didn't enjoy the film immensely, although on a second watching the dull industrial locations really grated. Why Scotty's Federation base on a monster-filled planet in (presumably) the 40 Eirdani system is made out of breeze blocks and has a 20th C fire alarm is a puzzle, but it does rather resemble the the back entrance to the multi-storey brewery that occupies the 20% of the Enterprise not made out of shuttle bay. Also, the numbers used were horribly thoughtless - 6 billion people live on austere desert-world Vulcan? And in a starfaring culture with that kind of population, only 10,000 Vulcans were off world at the time? Ah well, Old Spock can presumably point them at the Mintakans if they need to bulk up their genetic stock.

All that said, original Trek was always more a character-based drama than a story-based show, and that's what the new film captured so perfectly.

Mardroid · 18 January, 2010, 03:51:47 PM

Quote from: TordelBack on 18 January, 2010, 08:28:15 AM
My problem with the Rura Penthe sequence (apart from the boring Kilingons) was that it didn't explain what had happened. [spoiler]Nero's ship gets captured by Klingons, they all hang around for a quarter century in prison with some odd handwritten book thing, and then after a bit of a scuffle they're all back aboard their ship just in time for Spock to show up. It's almost like they were using the place like a motel. Where was their amazingly futuristic ship all this time, and how did they get it back, and repaired enough to defeat '40 warbirds'? How did they know when Spock was going to appear? [/spoiler] Aren't these the things we were wondering in the first place?

I agree that those scenes would really need to be expanded on to work properly, but I liked them in themselves and the look of the klingons as I said. Apart from the way the long wispy beard hung out of the bottom of the visor...that looked kinda silly.

I also wondered at the reference to 'Warbirds'. Was that an error? In the series, that reference was only used correctly the Next Generation onwards*, and that was to Romulan ships. Mind you both cultures (Romulans and Klingons) have had Birds of Prey (albeit with very different designs) so maybe the Klingons have had Warbirds too.

In the test sequence at the start the word 'warbird' is used but the ships I saw (vaguely to be fair) were those big Klingon battle cruisers. (D7 or Ktangas I think they're called.) Maybe 'Klingon Warbird' was just another term for those...

*Apparently the word was used in Enterprise too but that one was an error. It was admitted by one of the writers afterwards.

Tiplodocus · 18 January, 2010, 05:41:34 PM

Warbirds? Remember "Everything you know is a lie!" because Nero came back in the first place so they could use whatever terminology they like and it will be cannon.

Apart from Orion Girl and the virus, I didn't think the deleted scenes added much (and even that implied that Kirk was just using her which was a bit harsh even for a shagnasty like him).

My missus bought me a comic which has all sorts of extra shenanigans in it involve the next gen people and Nero pimping his ride but it was deathly dull and dry compared to the fun romp this film was. The villain shaped hole at the centre is it's big problem and the fact he's just left hanging around for twenty five years doing nothing makes me think the writers kinda knew that but couldn't come up with a credible fix (I originally assumed he just travelled in time as soon as he'd destroyed teh Kelvin and turned up 25 years later - makes more sense to me).

TordelBack · 18 January, 2010, 06:44:37 PM

Ach I wouldn't worry about the 'warbirds' thing. Back in the happy days before TNG the Trek RPG and wargames assumed a period of technological exchange between the Klingons and Romulans, largely to explain the fact that both use the same D7 cruisers in TOS and TAS, and the ship-as-bird-motif first seen on the Romulan Bird of Prey in Balance of Terror then appears on the Klingon Bird of Prey in Search for Spock/Voyage Home. So a common name for a classification of starship is the least of anyone's problems. Ahhh, feels good to stretch those old Treknerd muscles - it's been a while.