Oh boy. Does it ever make me feel good to review a movie before the big sites are able to. With this series being one of the most anticipated Blu-Ray releases, I am shocked that I am the first. Let me bask in the glory for a minute.
Okay, enough basking. So, let me start off by explaining, very briefly, by explaining the backstory for the uninitiated. Its 300 years in the future, Earth is part of a Federation of Planets, and Captain Kirk and his crew rush around the galaxy in their starship, saving the day.
Enough patronizing, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is, in my mind, one of the better Star Trek films. The movie takes place roughly five years after the series. Kirk has been promoted to Admiral, and the Enterprise has undergone a major refit. Far off in Klingon space, a couple of Klingon ships encounter a giant cloud in their system, and get completely vaporized. Trajectories place the object on an intercept course for Earth. Natually the only ship between Earth and this cloud is the Enterprise, which is still being refitted. Why the Klingons only have two ships, why there are no ships at Epsilon station, and, while Spock is able to make it from Vulcan to the Enterprise, why no Vulcan ships are in range is beyond me.
Kirk forcefully regains control of the Enterprise, demotes Captain Decker to Executive Officer, rounds up all of his old crew (one forcibly against his will) and sets off to intercept this "thing". Along the way, Spock does meet up with the Enterprise (as I previously stated) and resumes duties as science officer. About 1/3 of the way through the movie, the Enterprise intercept the "thing", and the rest of the movie is about them trying to learn what it is, why it is so intent on going to Earth, and trying to prevent this "thing" from destroying every last life form on Earth.
You may be asking about which version this is. At least three versions have been released over the years - the original theatrical version, an extended edition with incomplete scenes, and a Director's Cut that was released in 2001 that was recut and had computer-generated effects added. The edition given here is the original theatricla release. I am not sure why they did not release all the versions through seamless branching, but this is, indeed, the original theatrical version.
Video quality
So, I am sure someone is going to notice that, for the first time ever, I have given a movie a point rating - that is, a rating higher than 9, yet lower than ten. There is a huge reason for that, which we will get into shortly. Let me start off by saying that Star Trek has NEVER looked so beautiful. The movie looks like it was shot today in all digital. There is absolutely no grain whatsoever present - at least, none I could see setting four feet away from my 42 inch LCD at 1080P. Colors are extreamely vibrant, and fleshtones are natual. The movie is absolutely beautiful, and really shines in this restoration. The picture is so sharp, that, for the first time ever, I can see mistakes in a couple of the visual effect composite shots (when they are in the shuttle coming around the side of the Enterprise, you can see the edges of the Enterprise start to change shape a bit). You can also make out the halos around actors and models in these pre-digital blue-screen composite shots.
The rec room is absolutely beautiful, noticing details that I have never noticed before. You can almost see the weave in the carpet. The transporter beam is absolutely gorgeous. This has become my new demo disc, the new refrence that all other movie restorations should follow. UNTILL.....
So, I was forced to knock the movie down from a perfect ten by a single scene, which lasts about 90 seconds. In this scene, V'Ger starts to probe the Enterprise, and takes Ilea. I am not sure what happened, but the visual quality takes a HUGE nosedive. Sudenly, we have a grainy picture with tons of dirt and noise, and a huge reduction in resolution. Truthfully, the quality seems consistant with several Laserdiscs I have from the early 80s. I kid you not, the resolution looks worse than DVD. Saturation is blown out of proportion, colors are extreamely muted. It looks absolutely awful. I truthfully have not seen a telecine transfer that bad in 25 years. The only thing I can gather is that the original movie was damaged and they pulled out this very low quality copy. Why it is so bad, I do not know - surely there are better quality copies than this out there somewhere. This looks like a third or forth generation analog copy.
That being said, as its only 90 seconds of a movie that is over two hours long, it felt wrong of me to degrade the entire movie to a 9, hence the 9.95 rating on Video
Sound quality
As great as the video restoration is, the audio restoration is really amazing. My system only supports 5.1 channels, but from the very beginning, I was astonished to hear such an aggressive use of all channels. The subwoofer is amazingly active for a pre-1990s movie, and sound comes at you from every single channel. The music generates this wall of sound that makes you feel like you are in the middle of an orchestra. The cross chatter and confusion of the earlier parts of the movie come at you from every channel, which makes you feel like you are truely on the bridge of the Enterprise. Sound effects and even dialog are nicely spread out over all the channels to give a nice sense of depth to the movie. Star Trek has NEVER sounded this good, and kudos to the sound engineers who must have made this a labor of love. It sounds like it was recorded in High-Res digital 7.1 channels recently rather than being a gimicky restoration.
This is hands down the greatest soundtrack I have ever heard on ANY Blu-Ray movie, and the fact that the movie is 30 years old is really impressive. Chalk this up as a refrence material disc.
Bonus features
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is part of a multi-disc set. Getting these from Netflix, I am not sure if each movie has its own bonus disc, or if they are all thrown together on a single disc. I will revise this section when I find out for sure.
As for the Movie disc, two bonus features are included, a commentary and a Ship's Computer Library feature. With this second feature, during the film, certain facts about the film, characters, and science will show up, and you can select these and read them. However, this is not as annoying as it might at first seem. In a change from previous Studios (ie Universal), you do not have to watch the whole film to see all the notes. You can access any of the notes at any time from an alphabetical index. Really nice. I hope other studios will take note - this is the way that it should be done.
You also have a trailer for the new Star Trek movie, which looks and sounds incredible here. So much better than the trailers I have pulled off of the internet.
Final Word
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a must have disc for any home video collection, whether you are a fan or not. It is absolutely beautiful, a stunning example of what Blu-Ray can do, and a refrence for other studios when releasing catalogue titles.