Trek Film Library Coming Coming to Blu-Ray in 2009?

Back in April Paramount Home Entertainment announced their first titles on the Blu-ray high definition format, but to date they have not announced any titles from their Star Trek library. However friend of the site and periodic contributor Bill Hunt of the Digital Bits is now reporting that ‘sources say’ Star Trek is headed for Blu-ray in 2009.

From the Digital Bits Rumor Mill:

We’ve gotten another update from our [Paramount] studio and industry sources on great titles that are in the planning or production stages (or both) for release on Blu-ray Disc in 2009. You can reasonably expect to see most of the Star Trek feature films on the format, as well as Chinatown, Deep Impact, The Ten Commandments, Sunset Boulevard, Apocalypse Now, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Saturday Night Fever, Flashdance and The Elephant Man. According to our sources, there’s also an outside chance that you MIGHT see Titanic on Blu-ray before the end of 2009. Keep your fingers crossed..

Looks good for 2009
As usual with Bill’s Rumor Mill column, he notes that the report is unofficial and subject to change. Paramount has give TrekMovie a ‘no comment’ with regards to their Star Trek Blu-ray plans. However, TrekMovie has previously reported and recently confirmed with its sources that there is work going on presently for re-issues of some (possibly all) of the ten previous Trek feature films, but it cannot be 100% confirmed that this will be on Blu-ray (although all the films have already been released as DVD special editions already). It is certainly expected for the JJ Abrams 2009 Star Trek feature film to be issued on Blu-ray and regular DVD, which is now standard practice for Paramount’s big new films.

Remember, Trek on TV is a different matter
Although the TV series are distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment, CBS Home Entertainment still makes the decisions. Although Paramount has been building its library of Blu-ray for months, CBS just began releasing TV series on the format. The first title (the first season of Dexter) comes out later this month. CBS will complete the standard DVD releases of Star Trek Remastered later this month with the release of Remastered Original Series Season Three. CBS has declined comment on any future plans for Trek TV series on Blu-ray.

TrekMovie will provide more updates as they are available. Thanks again to Bill at the Digital Bits.

VOTE: Are you blu?
Do you own a Blu-ray player or plan to get one? Vote in our latest poll (see right sidebar).

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Hey! You got my email. Cool beans!

About time, glad I waited.

Bahhh. Why bother to “remaster” Star Trek and not release it on Blu-Ray? What a no-brainer.

I contacted Lowry Digital Images regarding their involvement in mastering Trek for Blu. Alan Silvers told me they got to clean up Treks IV and VIII.

“”Thanks for the note. Although these are not “full restorations”, which can be cost prohibitive, we know they’ll be significantly improved. Hope you like them.

Alan Silvers

Director/Business Development

Lowry Digital””

I know this article says the future releases of the Trek TV series on Blu-ray are still unknown at this time but I won’t be upgrading to this format since TNG, DS9 and VOY will always look like crap thanks to their conversions to video. It’s been discussed before that these three shows will likely not be given the Remastering treatment TOS just received due to the enormous cost and daunting composite work neccessary to accomplish this. The source film elements for all the viewscreen scenes, for example, no longer exist.

Maybe something can be done many years from now but right now it seems a remote possibility.

I really hope Paramount spends some money and cleans up TMP for us. That film is in dire need of a major scrubbing.

As a Trek fan I will be extremely disappointed if they don’t do this.

I worry about a bluray release not happening and getting stuck with a DVD only release. Didn’t Paramount re-release the Indiana Jones movies only on DVD?? Yet 6 months later they release the Crystal Skull on Blu??

Shows how out of tune Paramount is.

It is good to hear that they are at least working on some sort of restoration for these movies though.

I’ll pony up for a Blu-Ray player when they release the second & third seasons, then the first six movies.

Dammit — had most of my portfolio in Redray. Stupid McCain!

I suspect that Star Trek: The Motion Picture might be further delayed than the other 9 movies.

From what I understand, the new effects fro the Directors Edition were set up for a high-definition render, but were only rendered in Standard Def to reduce costs and time.

These scenes would need to be re-rendered at full 1920×1080, 24p and re-edited into the film for a Blu-Ray release.

All of the other movies should simply require a rescan and cleanup.

Mr. Dochterman – you may have your work cut out for you and the Directors Edition team :-)

I heard Wrath of Khan was avail for HD download from apple. Anyone know if this is true? If so is it better than DVD?

I guess I should be happy that the number one answer to the current poll is that people weren’t old enough/weren’t alive for TMP’s 1979 premiere. That means most of the people here are a vital, young generation of Trekkies.

BUT I FEEL SO DAMN OLD!

Good news. Hm, I guess this is the moment I’ve been waiting for to switch to blu-ray for high profile motion pictures. I’ll still buy comedies and animation stuff on cheap DVDs but I’ll switch to Blu-ray for blockbusters as of January 2009 and rebuy some selected titles I own on DVD already, including all Star Trek movies…

I really hope for a swift release of all ten of them, especially TMP which is the one I’m looking forward the most in HD format. But I guess it will take some time to enhane that one…

I want TMP Enterprise fly-by in HD soooooooooo bad.

I was watching an HDTV ‘recording’ of Wrath of Khan the other day, and at 720p, there were many visible holes in the vfx work

it would be nice to see that film get a remastering job done similar to the TOS: Remastered…

of course, original theatrical should also be included…

Nice! The Blu-ray drive in my computer that I paid through the nose for will finally be worth it!

It’s gonna take one helluva lot to get me to drop any more money on any Star Trek TV or movies (except the new film, if it’s good). I’ve got all TOS and the movies and all fan collectives on standard dvd, which suits me fine.

Sorry CBS/Paramount – I’m spending my cash elsewhere. Enough is enough.

I wish they would just put all three seasons remastered on i-tunes. They could put all the other seasons of all the other shows and that wouldn’t hurt my feelings either!

As for me ill wait for the trek series for bluray. Though i did buy a few remastered Tos eps on ITunes. Hey. I could not help it. I had to see my faveroites remastered and unedited. Looking forward to the Movies on Blurey.

I voted today…

for ” No, no plans to get one (even for Trek)”

I have both formats – HD DVD and BluRay. Once you go HD, you’ll never look back.

….and the adventure continues….

THIS IS A COPY OF A POST I WROTE ON THE HOME THEATER FORUM ON 9/21:

I did a search and I couldn’t find a dedicated thread so away we go!

We know the following:

The Bits (3/5/08): Our own industry sources have recently hinted that several of the previous feature films are currently receiving brand new high-def transfers and a good digital scrubbing to prepare them for future Blu-ray release.

Same article, courtesy of Trek writer David Gerrold: “Tim King Productions invited me down to the Paramount lot to be interviewed for a documentary. Paramount is planning to rerelease all ten Star Trek movies on DVD with a bonus disc of extra material, including an interview with folks who were in the crowd scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.[…]”

I was on a Trek blog which had a link to another website which had a link to the page of Stephen Wolcott, writer/producer of many Trek documentaries over the years, including the DVD releases. This was listed in the “recent work” section:

-STAR TREK FILM COLLECTION – DVD Bonus Features for the complete Star Trek Film Collection. Includes exclusive interview with writer/director Nicholas Meyer, interactive features (in production).

-THE STAR TREK SUMMIT – A multi-camera Roundtable event filmed on HD in New York, featuring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg.

And on Tim King’s website, there’s a listing for the following in the “in production” section:

-“Star Trek” Movies Special Bonus Features DVD October 2008 (obviously the October date is now erroneous)

Interesting stuff.

I’d love to see the TOS cast moves go Blu, but I think Paramount would need to do some significant restoration work on those older movies as BluRay will magnify the shortcomings of any film just as well as the fine details.

Many of the effects really haven’t held up well over the years. I was watching ST:TMP on my plasma upconverted thru a Sony BDP-S350 player and the opening scenes of the Klingon ships approaching the V-Ger cloud looked especially bad, with some really thick matte lines. Likewise, Paramount should completely throw out the effects to ST V:TFF and just have Daren Dochterman redo them from scratch.

The composition for many of the effects is OK but a lot will look absolutely terrible in hi-def. Hopefully, when/if the older movies are remastered Paramount won’t do it on the cheap, otherwise a lot of people will stay away.

not “full restorations” ?

What does that mean?

ST V on Blu-Ray? Noooooo thank you. Not unless they redo the FX.

First, I’ll get that season three (remastered). Then I’ll wait for prices to drop in the blu ray sector.

I, like many of us, I suspect, own all the films on DVD Special Editions. So, whilst I am interested in the blu-ray versions, for me to buy them, these new releases must have had some real effort put into them. Because they’re going to be expensive, aren’t they? A necessary condition for my buying these films is that all the imperfections (hair, dirt, aging, etc) are corrected, such that the general picture quality is noticeably much better. Other improvements I would like are additional scenes. Nemesis would have been a much better film had some of the scenes that are on the DVD, as extras, been part of the feature film. Of course, this will cost very little to correct. In TWOK, the famous scene where Spock tells (reminds?) Kirk that Saavik is half-Romulan should be included: this would help the viewer understand why she is often a very un-Vulcan Vulcan. I don’t understand why Meyer didn’t include this in the Special Edition; after all, he had the opportunity; and the additional scenes explaining Peter Preston’s relationship similarly benefited the film. Also, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for that we have some, at least, of the special effects improved, such as the awful rendering of the Genesis cave.

If these blu-ray releases are just a slight improvement over the Special Editions, with no new scenes or special effects at all, then I see no point in buying them. Especially as players can now upscale standard DVDs.

I’ve never even seen a bluray disk. I don’t know what it’s all about? Spent tons of money on my DVDs. I like them fine.

28. Andy….

If the transfer is done right, high-def in any format (Blu-Ray, etc.) does look quite a bit better than standard DVD. But some movies were clearly just shoved on to Blu-Ray (and HD-DVD) without much concern for quality.

Blu-Ray won the High Def battle primarily on the argument that BD discs had more capacity than rival HD-DVD, but none of the studios have shown any indication they plan to take advantage of the extra capacity. “Indiana Jones 4” and “Iron Man”, for example, are still on two discs, even for Blu-Ray.

Those Blu-Ray “size matters” zealots have some ‘splain’ to do.

#28,

I’m with you. I love my DVDs just fine. I even have a big-screen (65″) tv and they look nice and crisp and sound great. I still have VHS movies that I can enjoy on regular basis, but to each their own.

only want
TMP – want this the most
TWOK
TSFS
TVH
TUC

make me set with those only

I recall when TMP DE was completed it got a special theatrical premeir (with even cards/invites printed). I would think the new effects would have been sufficiently rendered for film transfer (4k?). The DVD may have been directly down converted in the digital domain, but a hi-res master must exist.

#4
That’s a HUGE relief.
Lowry is the company responsible for those amazing James Bond and Hitchcock restorations. They also did Citizen Kane which in itself is a huge responsibility.
I was extremely disappointed with Star Trek TMP director’s cut as the quality of the film was terrible. There were scratches, pops and grain everywhere.
What I would LOVE to see is for them to fix up The Ten Commandments (as stated above) and have ILM redo ALL of the effects shots with the option however, of being able to see the original untouched version on another Blu-ray disc in the set.
: )

31 – I thought they planned it, but never did that.

I seem to remember something on Darren Dochterman’s site about this.

“According to our sources, there’s also an outside chance that you MIGHT see Titanic on Blu-ray before the end of 2009. Keep your fingers crossed..”

“Keep your fingers crossed”…. ?!??

I am not a weepy 14 year old girl, bawling my eyes out to James Horner’s ridiculous score. So I will never buy that piece of bloated, overproduced, overracted and underwritten dreck.

As a Canadian, I’m embarrassed. You can keep James Cameron. Céline Dion for that matter.

Oh yeah, and James Horner knows where he can put his eulian pipes.

Star Trek’s II, IV, VI, & VIII are available for 24 hour rental in 720p on the PS3’s Playstation Store for $4.50 each. They only have 2.0 audio, but if you have (i.e. bought) the SE DVDs and own the Hauppauge HD PVR you can offload the movies in High-Def and replace the audio with full 5.1 surround sound. I did this with “The Voyage Home” and burned to BD-R. It looks great.

I have TMP (theatrical cut), TWOK (theatrical cut), TSFS, TUC (theatrical cut), and FC in 1080i from various HDTV airings. III and VI only had 2.0 audio, so I replaced them with 5.1 from the DVDs.

Bring on the Blu-rays… I’ll buy them too!

Titanic was awesome. Shame all you kids under 30 who can’t enjoy it.

I have all the Trek films already on DVD. See no need for Blue Ray.

Star Trek on BluRay? I’m freaking there!

Oh, by the way Paramount. If you’re going to remaster the movies, CLEAN ST:TMP UP! Seriously, that film is more dirtier than my apartment. The Kolinar sequence alone will scare people away in high definition.

To make me buy a blue-ray, they (Paramount) have to remaster every movie and release director’s cuts of every of them.

BTW: Does some know, when TOS-R will be released in region 2?

no way am i gonna replace the star trek films i have on dvd (or any other films for that matter) with blu ray discs…

even if i won the lotto id think twice…

Ive only just got around to replacing the films i like from vhs to dvd (which while frustrationg, was understandable as vhs is a crap format)…now we’re expected to do the same with dvd just cause the pictures a bit clearer on blu ray?! sorry – no deal

i mean what a collosal waste of money! – 1st having bought the SE dvds to stuff like the trek films, all the 007s, 14 disc superman set, 9 disc Alien set, 11 disc Matrix set, all the star wars and Indys, Terminators, 5 disc Blade Runner etc etc…

Only to have to buy them all AGAIN on expensive blu ray!!

are you guys all lottery winners or sumthin?

39 – Yes. Yes we are.

No 36 “Titanic was awesome. Shame all you kids under 30 who can’t enjoy it.”

I’m flattered, because I’m 43. The irony in your comment is that from my perspective, the younger one is, the more likely one will enjoy the movie.

Truth be told, I DO understand why many people thought Titanic was awesome. But putting the over the top humour of my previous post aside, I still can’t shack the story. I simply found it clichéd and maudlin. The dialogue and its delivery were rather atrocious, too, which didn’t help things either. More often than not, Cameron’s boat teeters on the edge of camp. So unless one hasn’t seen that many love stories, it’s hard to take it very seriously. And I think that’s why it was such a hit with teens, who flocked to the cinemas like sci-fi fanboys, seeing the movie many times over.

Personally, I certainly don’t think Titanic will age well. I will say this, however: I was blown away by the underwater location photography.

No offense to any Titanic lovers out there, though. The movie has its strengths. It’s certainly a big screen experience, with lots of eye candy “wow!” moments. But IMHO, drama, acting and storytelling are not among them. I’ll take A Night to Remember (or Terminator, or Aliens) anytime over Cameron’s extravaganza. Enjoy the film, ’cause I can’t!

Peace!

P.S. Apologies for turning this into a Titanic thread. ; )

Rabelais

Sitting through Titanic won me the undying affection (harumpf, harumpf) of the tres jolie French graduate student at my side for all that over-weepiness.

:-)

No. 42. Félicitations, mon ami! Tant mieux pour toi!

I DID say the movie had its strengths, didn’t I?

; )

P.S. I’m surprised a French graduate student fell for the movie. Overall, the French are a little more cynical about these kind of stories. That’s a sweeping generalization, I know. But even the more sentimental 19th century French lit grad students I met were fairly hard-nosed when it came to sappy date movies. So more power to you dude!

P.P.S. I like your handle.

#38. CaptainRickover – “To make me buy a blue-ray, they (Paramount) have to remaster every movie and release director’s cuts of every of them.”

That VHS copy of yours must be pretty worn by now, eh?

Remastering is one thing (and they MUST be remastered for 1080p), Director’s Cuts for all? Might as well wish for Shatner to be in the new film.

Rabelais,
How did Kirk put it? “Galaxies blah blah blah but a woman is always a woman!”

Thanks for noticing the handle. Titanic represents a period of my life that is remembered fondly but never to be revisited. I’ve returned to my roots and I suppose that’s where I’ll stay.

I’m surprised to read people talking about BluRay like it’s some new magical thing? It’s a DVD with better resolution for those who have new HD TV’s. It’s not the boogey-man, just better technology for a new HD era!?

If you want your content in HD then get it, if you don’t that’s fine too.

Oooh, Flashdance in Blu-Ray!!!

I can’t wait to get my hands on that……………………………..NOT.

“What A Feeling”, Paramount. Way to go!

As someone who LOVES Blu-ray, and has even upgraded several of his DVDs to Blu-ray, I can’t wait for anything Trek on Blu.

And hopefully some of the films where multiple cuts exist (I know TMP has 3 or 4, TWOK has 2 and TUC has 3), we get all of them on the same disc. Plus, a new cut of Final Frontier will certainly be welcomed, as I’m one of those who say it’s better than most people say, with the visual effects being the weakest part.

Awesome. I’ve been wanting to get the films I don’t have and I have been holding off until I knew if Paramount was bringing them to Blu-ray. A complete restoration would be nice, but I can see how laborious and cost intensive that might be.

#16,
DON’T apologize to CBS Paramount. Do they care what YOU (the royal we) think?