What DVDs should I buy

Television, Movies Games and Books Star Trek
#1

I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t have a complete set of Star Trek movies on DVD. I have a copy of First Contact, I used to have Generations and Insurrection but I can’t find them. No matter, the First Contact I’ve got is the very basic DVD. I got it years ago on a deal for all 3, but this is irrelevant. I want a new copy of them all. One thing though is do I try to hunt down the old special editions or should I go for the new remastered ones they are releasing.

The new ones likely have better picture but seem to lack on special features, especially the Okuda text commentry (I’m very interested in seeing that). Also only the TOS movies are availible like this. For a complete collection I’d have to add the TNG movies. The TNG movies are only availble in the regular basic edition or the special edtions. It would bother me to have the TNG special editions, but not the TOS ones, and I don’t want the very basic ones. The new ones are a lot cheaper though. The special editions are availble but they are getting hard to track down, which increases the price. They aren’t hugely expensive yet though. Any one have the new DVDs, any opinions?

Right now I really regret not picking up the special editions boxset years ago for cheap. There was just no urgency, I’ve seen all the movies a number of times (except Final Frontier and Nemesis). Another option is to wait until I’m set up for Blu Ray. Waiting might be a good idea. I’m a little compulsive when it comes to collections. If I buy all the movies I’d pretty much have to buy the various series on DVD, and that would be expensive.

#2

I’ve got all ten movies in the grey “Special Collector’s Edition” cases, and prefer them to the standard edition DVDs, with the exceptions of The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan, which are actually “Special Director’s Editions” and do not include the original cut of the film. In the case of The Motion Picture, the director’s cut actually improves the film by tightening the cut and inserting some impressive digital effects; however, being a geeky completist, I would prefer any new edition to include the original thetrical version as well. As for Khan, the same applies, no original version, and thought the changes are more subtle (they just stuck in a few lines and scenes that they’d previously cut), I didn’t think any of them improved the film, rather you can really see why they were cut in the first place, kind of like Apocalypse Now Redux, not terrible, but only for die-hards who’ve seen the original multiple times. It’s all moot, though, if you plan on making the leap to blu ray, which I fully recommend, I’d just wait. They just put out a blu ray set of the first six movies, but it’s only the original theatrical cuts of the first two, and apparently only Khan got the full treatment. The new Original Series Season One blu ray set gets it right, with the original version and the new-effects-enhanced version together on one set, for only 65 bucks on Amazon.