It was only June when the ten Star Trek movies featuring The Original Series and Next Generation casts returned to Paramount+, making it the one streaming service in the USA with all thirteen feature films. But as of October, the TOS and TNG movies are gone again from “the home of Star Trek.” If you want to see all of them, you will have to subscribe to another streaming service. There are also updates regarding streaming Lower Decks and Enterprise outside of Paramount+.
Moving the movies (again)
The ten “classic” movies have spent more time exclusively on other streaming services than Paramount+ in 2024. For the first half of the year they were available only on Max (formerly HBO Max). Now after four months on the streaming service owned by the company that owns Star Trek they are gone again. The six TOS-era Star Trek movies (The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home, The Final Frontier, and The Undiscovered Country) and four TNG-era movies (Generations, First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis) are all now available on the MGM+ (formerly Epix) streaming service. All but two (Wrath of Khan and First Contact) are also all available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Both are only streaming the theatrical version of The Motion Picture. The new 4K “Director’s Edition” was available on Max, but is now not available for streaming anywhere in the USA.
Star Trek II on MGM+
It’s unclear why two of the Star Trek movies aren’t also on Prime, especially as Amazon owns MGM+, rebranded after Amazon purchased parent company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 2022. Like with Epix, MGM+ has an licensing deal with Paramount, and the Star Trek movies had been featured before on both Epix and Prime Video. It’s unclear how long they will will be exclusive to MGM+/Prime this time.
Generations on Prime Video
The three Kelvin Universe movies produced by J.J. Abrams (Star Trek 2009, Into Darkness, and Beyond) are still available on Paramount+. The “home of Star Trek” is also the exclusive subscription streaming home of the the “legacy” Star Trek television series (TOS, The Animated Series, TNG, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise). It is also the home of the new Star Trek Universe shows (Discovery, Short Treks, Picard, Lower Decks, and Strange New Worlds). The animated series Star Trek: Prodigy moved from Paramount+ to Netflix last year.
Beyond on Paramount+
Lower Decks season 4 also on Prime
Last week we reported that Paramount had made the entire fourth season of Lower Decks available for free on Pluto TV on YouTube. The season has also shown up on Prime Video as well. The Pluto TV and YouTube availability is limited to the month of October, to promote the upcoming fifth and final season, debuting on Paramount+ on October 24. It’s unclear how long season 4 will be able to stream for Prime subscribers. The first three seasons are still only available to stream on Paramount+ but you can buy the seasons digitally or via Blu-ray/DVD on Amazon.
Season 4 of Lower Decks on Prime
Enterprise on Pluto
Paramount’s free streaming service Pluto TV has also added all four seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise to its rotation on its SCIFI Channel in the USA. The first season is also available on-demand. By adding Enterprise, Pluto TV now has all the “legacy” live-action Star Trek shows, joining TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager. Both Voyager and Deep Space Nine have their own dedicated channels, with the original ‘Star Trek Channel” streaming TOS and TNG episodes.
Enterprise on Pluto TV
Find more news on streaming and home video at TrekMovie.com.
Are these still the previously-planned licensing agreements from before P+ even existed as CBS All Access that we heard about seven-ish years ago? That had already been the reason. I feel like, if they want to restore good faith re:if these movies will ever stay put on P+, the very least they could do is tell us now what the schedule is for when these movies will be going to another platform. If it was all planned out so far in advance, why can’t they share the schedule so we can know when it’s over? Or is this all-new licensing deals? It all just feels so silly from the pov of an admitted plebe.
These movies were produced (mostly) prior to streaming services existing. With the original contracts and union rules, the studio division has to seek the highest bidder so that the talent gets the highest royalties. Paramount Plus will probably always put a bid in when there’s an existing licensing window, but other distributors will sometimes put a higher one in.
If the studio (Paramount Pictures) gave their sister company (Paramount Plus) a special deal, that would open the door for the talent to use the studio for a lack of paid royalties. This has happened before with other franchises.
Disney has magical ways to get around this, not sure exactly how they do it, but its mainly at the contract stage. Still, they don’t always get to keep everything they’d like to on their service, like the Fox Marvel movies because of the way these old contracts were set up.
This makes the most sense to me out of a complicated licensing situation. Makes you wonder what it costs just to keep the legacy shows largely on P+.
That’s a good question. I know when the channel FXX premiered with The Simpsons around the clock, they had to offer the show to every competing cable network. Then, they had to outbid those networks just to have it. Even though both were owned by Fox companies (at the time). They might have to do something similar with the legacy Trek shows.
But I do give Disney+ credit for at least trying to keep the big IPs around.
I remember before it became active that Marvel fans were complaining only a third of the MCU movies would premiere on because of all the contracts it had with other studios. But a few days before the site went live they were able to add essentially all the films with exception of the Hulk movie and Spiderman films . Now all those are there. And now all the FOX X men movies as you said along with the Netflix shows. They must have paid a lot of money to get all these back.
They recently had all the Indiana Jones movies when DoD premiered but lost them all again (minus DoD) last week…because they went back to Paramount+. So yeah, all these things are in flux at some level.
But it is frustrating to be told the stuff they OWN is exclusive only to find out the hard way it isn’t the case time and time again.
The Indiana Jones franchise has the wrinkle of being a Paramount release from Lucasfilm. Disney likely had an exclusive window for DoD and arranged for the other titles as well until that window expired.
As for the stuff on Netflix, Disney just had to wait for those licensing windows to expire.
While I could see Universal selling that first Hulk movie back to Disney but Marvel will never let go of Spider-Man (even though they have no idea what the heck they’re doing).
The first four Indy movies never left Paramount+, but now Amazon Prime has them while Disney’s run is paused.
It really comes down to Paramount and WBD needing outside cash and both are now licensing as much content as possible to boost revenue. The studios are basically reverting to pre-pandemic practices.
Wow! I really appreciate this explanation. That makes total sense.
When studios pulled back on licensing their titles to make them exclusive to their own streaming services to drive subscriptions, they lost a fortune in licensing fees. Since virtually every media company is strapped for cash, they’re back to licensing their titles again. There’s no money to be made if they hold on to these titles as exclusives since they’re not instrumental in driving new signups or retaining subscribers who are looking for new and original content.
These deals aren’t always planned far in advance.
I see, thank you! That makes a lot of sense. The past few years, I really just thought we were waiting for prior licensing agreements to finally finish so that they could stay put. I didn’t realize these were NEW agreements. While it sucks on an experiential level, the logic adds up. Thanks for the info.
John Van Citters, can you talk to your people, please? They’re being all doofy again…
So stupid. Between selling Prodigy to Netflix and these licensing deals that make P+ only the partial home of all things Trek, they really do not treat this IP with any respect. A revolving door of execs and cubicle drones that have no long term vision for nurturing the fan base and franchise. It’s all short term thinking instead of cultivating something larger. Visionless.
I’m not sure I can see it from this perspective. Prodigy was licensed out, but could still come back for season 3 or have reruns revert back to P+ one day. At the very least it got to tell a complete story and was not locked in a vault for tax write-offs.
Even media companies with more money than Paramount have fumbled their franchises, and verifiably lost money in the process. Ask a Star Wars, Marvel, or DC fan if they’re thrilled with how their parent companies have treated the properties, all of which have underwent substantial overhauls in the wake of middling reviews and performance issues.
In contrast, we’ve gotten 6 big budget series and a tv movie produced in the last 7 years under the purview of one creative executive, divisive though he may be. If you could go back in time and complain about that to a fan in 2005 while explaining how huge a problem it is that the shows won’t all in one place to instantly watch over the internet… they’ll think you’re off your rocker and ask if you remember Rick Berman or UPN. We’ve still got it pretty good.
And yet, except for Picard, none of them have been very good or even made much sense.
That’s subjective, obviously. Critics certainly aren’t all that divided about the shows. They perked up for Picard season 3, but even Discovery has politely positive reviews. They’ve also all been very different, which one could argue is an essential element to long term success along with constant attention and investment, which we’ve been given. Again, I think some of the things being complained about are silly when 10 years ago there wasn’t a single new Star Trek series even on the air.
Thank you so much for saying exactly what I have wanted to say for a while.
Like I’m sure many or even most here do, I own all the films on physical media. So I can watch them whenever I like. But I do find it amusing and even mildly frustrating to see these movies kicked around these channels like kids no one wants to take care of.
Paramount is a business, and by licensing the movies to other services, it drives revenue. If anything, Paramount is lifting up its kids, saying, ” These movies are awesome and have a massive following. You want this content on your platform!”
Yep I fortunately now for me as well. A year ago I couldn’t say that. But after the Prodigy debacle on P+ I’m sure you remembered I vow to buy all Star Trek on physical media and I’m about 2/3rds complete.
I bought all 13 movies first (yes even Nemesis;)) and then got all the classic shows. I’m waiting for the newer shows with the exception of Prodigy. That’s the only modern show I bought so far. I will eventually get to Picard, SNW and LDS but will probably wait for LDS and SNW to finish out their runs first and get them in a complete box set. Picard is next on my list now that it’s done but no rush to get it yet.
Sadly, I hate to say this, I really do but I’m torn on if I should even get the Discovery discs? I’m just so put off by that show I don’t know if it’s even worth getting because I doubt I would really watch much of it. I did like the last season but not begging to rewatch that anytime soon either.
I probably will eventually but I will just wait a long while and and see if it falls in price first.
They make more money off them this way. It’s debatable if they’ve harnessed more revenue from Trek fans subscribing to Paramount+ for the legacy shows than they would have gotten from renewing the licenses with all the streamers who used to pay millions for them.
To everyone complaining about losing the movies on streaming: Buy the damn movies on DVD/Blu Ray/4K and then you don’t have to worry about P+ licensing out the content. Think about it. You pay $50-$100 to own these movies outright for a lifetime and, in some cases, generations. And with 4K its actually better quality than streaming. If you rely on P+ or other streaming, you’re paying $10-$20 monthly to have no guarantees that your favorite content will be there! You’re losing out financially by only sticking to streaming.
And people I talk to actually have the nerve to be surprised when I tell them I prefer physical media. Fortunately, all I have to do is explain what’s going on (and what is likely to happen), and they wise up real quick. Streaming is a wonderful option, but I will never allow myself to become dependent upon it.
Just had this discussion again with an online buddy. We’d been so excited that Homicide: Life on the Street was finally coming to streaming…and turned out a good chunk of the montage music had been replaced due to licencing. The performances are all still intact, of course, but it was jarring. So we’re glad to have the DVDs.
Do you know where I can find them all the time? Sitting on my shelf in 4k UHD, ready to watch at any time on my Blu-Ray player.
But then you would have to watch them without all of the Paramount+ ads and other commercials. Where is the fun in that?
These streamers really are making the case that it’s time to go back to discs :D I bounce between different residences, and I finally plopped down on TOS Blu-rays for both places. I gave up P+ a while ago at this point – no regrets so far.
We’re lucky Star Trek is still Paramount. Amazon, Apple, Hulu and Netflix rarely release their original content on DVD/Blu-Ray. Man In The High Castle never did come out. Stranger Things has had only a limited release (if you bought Season 1 and 2 on DVD, the only way to get Season 3 is to buy the Season 1-3 box set, and no sign of Season 4.) No sign yet of more recent Wheel Of Time or Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power. Disney finally did a massive dump of their Star Wars/Marvel shows to home media in the last ten months, but it was a long wait for Mandalorian, WandaVision, et al.
Rule of Acquisition 17: A contract is a contract is a contract… but only between Ferengi (and Paramount).
time for a (brief) best to worst reapprisal:
1 – TWOK (is there even any point is saying this anymore lol)
2 – TSFS (i will never understand get the ‘meh’ attitude to this movie from many fans)
3 – FC (normally i put it after VI but you caught me on a ‘FC is 3rd best movie’ kind of day)
4 – TUC (it def should be 3rd best , but FC is just too awesome..)
5 – TVH (should the Genesis trilogy end be higher? maybe..)
6 – GEN (ikr, but there it is..its an important movie when you think about it. the two timelines collide. like in Deadpool/Wolverine but its Picard/Kirk.. and makes about as much sense. )
7 – ST09 (going further down the list as time burns on..)
8 – ID (i know you guys hate it like the world hates Joker 2 but damnit jim it stays just under ST09! imo)
9 – TMP (should be higher i know. as its Bob Wise. its Roddenberry. its Goldsmith. its Trumbull/Dykstra ..its important. but im not feeling very TMP today)
10 – TFF (i still kind of love this esp the memories of it summer 89 with Batman and Indy3 , i want to put it ahead of TMP..but how can i.)
11 – NEM (seems abit better now after it got some connections to ST: Picard)
12 – INS (this was the worst movie imo for many years.. )
13 – BEY (Paramount you took my Orci ST3 with Shatner saving the timelines and gave me this.. this.. Gold Key version of ST09/ID??.. how could you.. and for the big anniversary!? damn you,)
Because I’m bored!
1. TWOK
2. TUC
3. FC
4. TVH
5. TSFS
6. BEY
7. GEN
8. 09
9. INS
10. ID
11. TFF
12. TMP
13. NEM
Honestly it hasn’t changed much since Beyond came out.I think I switched that movie spot with TSFS after I did a grand rewatch a few years ago and TMP got even lower lol; but others been in the same position forever.
Interesting you put Beyond so high, of course you probably don’t have the attachment that I do for Orci’s long lost mythical ST3 which still fascinates me to this day, if that wasn’t the case for me i might put it up a notch or two, just above NEM maybe .. I don’t think it could near TFF bc i have a soft spot for that film (I do like the end of Beyond tho, Spock finding TFF photo and the absent friends gathering/watching the Ent-A getting built)
Well Beyond was my favorite of the three obviously since it was really the only one that felt like a true TOS movie and less of a Star Wars/Marvel feel as the first two.
But I don’t think it’s amazing either but certainly good. But as you can see on my list the Kelvin movies have always been more in the middle for me. Never hated them at all but never loved them either. 1 always considered them fun distractions but never looked at them as I do the TOS and TNG movies. Fun actiony popcorn movies for sure but that’s mostly it.
Also why I’m not bothered anymore if they just moved on now. Ready for something new and completely different.
It is funny though when I originally saw the 09 movie it was immediately my favorite movie lol. I was just so excited and very impressed with what I saw. But yeah the more I seen it the issues with the movie stands out a lot more today but still like it obviously.
As far as the Orci movie, I get it, we all do, but yeah it didn’t happen. That’s life. And we can easily dress anything up as what could’ve been. But it also could’ve been bad. We’ll never know.
But I still wish Orci was part of the franchise in some way. Didn’t love STID obviously but he deserved to be more involved because his passion for the franchise was obvious. It’s still weird how he was considered the golden boy back then and now seem like he has completely moved on from Trek and the fanbsse but I gone way off topic lol.
Because I need a break from writing about THE PENGUIN …
TWOK
TMP/TFF
uhh …
TUC
TSFS
TVH
GEN
crickets …
FC
INS
BEYOND
NEM
ID
09
Bro I don’t think I have ever seen TFF placed so high before! 😂
Not knocking you over it of course, everyone enjoys what they like But that is one of the few films I hardly ever see rise above the second half of a list, much less the top 3.
13 – Generations. It was written in a room full of sea otters (because saying it was written by monkeys is an insult to monkeys) with typewriters, and it shows …
Nah, we’re grouping them:
TVH, FC, TWOK, TUC, TSFS
Beyond, 09
Generations
TMP/TFF
Insurrection/Nemesis
Into Darkness
Here is my list:
Absolutely love:
1. TWOK
2. FC
3. TUC
4. TVH
(Honestly these are really the ones I can say I care about and have watched repeatedly)
OK/decent:
5. TSFS
6. GEN
7. BEY
Absolutely dreadful:
8. TFF
9. ST09
10. INS
11.TMP
12.STID
13.NEM
Overall the movies don’t really do a lot for me. The TOS ones are easily the best but half of them are still not amazing to me. The TNG movies only produced one iconic hit and JJ verse movies are just generic action schlock with dumb and formalic plots but Beyond is the least dumb one and feels the most like a Star Trek movie at least. I was reading somewhere a week ago that sone fans thought Star Trek Into Dorkness would age better in the fanbase after a few years. Nope, still a dumb and bad movie that basically killed JJ verse off just two movies in.
You might want to doublecheck on this, Amazon prime lists TUC as ‘unavailable in your area’ even though I’m in Pacific NW US. I only know this because I somehow managed to toss out my blurays of TUC and TFF ahead of actually finding a good deal on the 4Ks, and so was happy to be able to watch TFF on Prime on the weekend (and it was the absolute best it ever looked by a significant amount.) But TUC is definitely not on Prime (for me anyway.)
There may be two different versions of the movie there. But one of them for sure is available
Had to scroll through various fields, and wound up finding three TUCs listed (assume one is a dupe), but yeah, you’re right, the third one was ‘free.’
Weird that right now you can buy the set of 1-4 for the same price as TUC by itself on 4K.
As an avid movie fan in general, I’m so glad that I continued to add to my own collection of favorite movies (and tv shows) on physical discs despite the supposed ‘convenience’ of ‘streaming services’.
Luckily for me, I’m not a dyed-in-the-wool ‘completist’ who feels the need to own every single entry in the ‘Star Trek’ franchise, no matter what. I only own the specific titles which I’d happily re-watch at any given time, and just ignore the stuff I wouldn’t. And that goes for certain other franchises too, where there’s just a select few entries which I’ll contentedly re-watch also.
There’s also the fact that certain titles are just not available on any of the various streaming services at all, that I can now re-watch in future thanks to the ‘convenience’ of owning all my absolute favorites on disc. And I really must get around to compiling them all to a PLEX server or something similar someday, as a way to get my own personal ‘streaming service’ on tap.
I feel much the same, re: being a “completist.” I have TOS, TAS, and the first six movies (I bought the 50th Anniversary box set), the Director’s Edition of TMP, the TNG series and movies, Voyager, and Picard. DS9 and SNW are on my list, but I really have no interest in getting Enterprise or Discovery (the latter of which I tried to watch but just couldn’t get into), and Lower Decks and Prodigy aren’t on my list simply because I have yet to watch either of them to judge whether or not I want to own them.
“If you want to see all of them, you will have to subscribe to another streaming service. ”
Or you can buy the blurays and /or digital copies. Honestly following the bouncing ball on which streaming service has movies month after month or year after year seems pointless. If you a big fan of the movies, you would likely own them. And the casual Trek movie fan probably is ok with an occasionally watch whenever it falls into a streaming service or on Pluto.
I don’t think this is really headline news anymore honestly
The exclusive home for Star TRek *facepalm*
After SNW and the Yeoh movie I’m not sure I’m going to have a reason to keep P+ anymore.
But yay for ENT on Pluto!
‘After SNW and the Yeoh movie I’m not sure I’m going to have a reason to keep P+ anymore.’
Classic Hawaii Five-0? Hey, Jack Lord was offered The Chair for TOS, so it’s sorta Trek related a little :D
LOL hey more power to ya!!!! I did mis speak a bit tho. I can’t miss Giamatti in Acadamy!
Book ’em, Spock! :D
(For those reading this who don’t understand what I’m babbling about, Jack Lord was offered the role of the captain by Roddenberry, and his counteroffer was he wanted a 50% stake in the show, and that wasn’t gonna happen, so hello Jeffrey Hunter! … Jack took over Hawaii Five-0 pretty soon after it started (especially after producer Leonard Freeman died), whatever he wanted he got, and he got a healthy piece of the show too, so I can’t imagine what would have happened to Trek had that happened.. he had an ego that made Shatner look positively humble in comparison, he made sure that the surrounding cast and characters could not overshadow him… he never would have countenanced Leonard Nimoy or DeForest Kelley (or their characters) rising to the prominence they did. The whole time James MacArthur was part of the show as Danno, the character was always deferential and at best supporting McGarrett, rarely getting to gain prominence in any episode.)
lord did the same thing when asked to return as felix leiter after ‘dr no’.
cubby and harry, of course, said no and cast different actors to play the role over the years
I’m definitely watching LDS and whenever SNW come out of course but Section 31 looks so bad I may not bother watching it until there is something else I’m subscribing to that service for. But if the reviews are decent I’ll watch it right way of course. I just don’t want to pay solely to watch it if it sucks either.
But you already know how much I hated Adolf so was never that excited about this movie. But the trailer managed to make me care about it even less.
I have all of them locally in 4K….so….*shrug*
The SciFi channel is still around? Who knew… :D Or is that different than SyFy? Which used to be SciFi? Freaking confusing much? :D
Artificial scarcity. Which is why you need a Plex server (or compatible) and MakeMKV.
Revenue streams, trickle on, something something. Moar monies because monies.
ST-WoK and First Contact are usually said to be the best of all Prime Timeline movies so, perhaps they are using this “quality” to try make more money… just my thoughts
Fortunately for me I have the first 10 movies on discs now for ages. I don’t have the JJ reboot movies. Zero interest to watch them again.
I rarely even subscribe to Paramount + now so I rely on watching the golden era of Trek, 1966-2005, on my discs or catch them on reruns on TV here and there.
I think this is the reason why it’s sad physical media is going away. Streaming is convenient but it’s still very frustrating to watch when a show or movie gets moved.
But Paramount + obviously needs the money. At some point they will probably license out the shows again too.
Paramount = Strange Old World :D
I just… love watching my blu-rays.
# Blu-rays
# You lovely little blu-rays
# You precious little blu-rays
# Where are you?
(on my shelf! In 4K!)
Makes sense to move these around. Not everyone subscribes to all streaming platforms, or P+ for that matter, so spreading exposure to Trek is only a good thing.
Trek needs a steady intake of new fans, so who knows where those fans might come from.