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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - Director's Cut (4K Ultra HD)

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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - Director's Cut is a two-disc 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray / Blu-ray Disc / Digital set, first released on 5 September 2022 , featuring the 4K UHD release of two Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country versions, the "Theatrical Cut" and the extended "Director's Cut" (formerly the " Special Edition "). As is currently usual with UHD/Blu-ray double releases of older productions, all special features (excepting the audio commentaries and isolated music score tracks, which are present on the 4K UHD disc as well) are only included on the Blu-ray disc of the release. The two discs are mounted in a standard plastic snapcase, which itself was for the North American release issued within a matching softboard slipover sleeve. The other releases came without the sleeve.

The 4K UHD standalone version of the film was released on the occasion of the completion of the long awaited [1] in 4K HD 2160p resolution remastered version of the Star Trek: The Motion Picture   (The Director's Edition) in 2022, and was simultaneously released as part of the Star Trek: The Original Motion Picture 6-Movie Collection 4K UHD set. The remastering of both The Final Frontier and its The Undiscovered Country - Director's Cut followup was only completed in 2022, and it was only then that an individual downscaled standalone Blu-ray version could be released, whereupon it was decided that that was the opportune moment to concurrently release all original crew films in individual standalone 4K UHD versions as well. In this case there was a twist however; only the Theatrical Cut was released in the upgraded Blu-ray standalone version and not the Director's Cut, which therefore remained an exclusive to the 6-Movie Collection and this 4K UHD standalone releases only, conceivably as a by the Star Trek franchise intended instance of " market discrimination ".

As usual with these releases (geo-restricted to North America only, as the – former Blu-ray Region B [2] – European/Australasian releases do not have these) a redeemable code is included to download the film in 4K resolution digitally.

As is increasingly becoming commonplace, no DVD counterpart was issued for this particular release. Those dwindling number of DVD customers still wanting one, had to make do with the original The Undiscovered Country (Special Edition) DVD release from 2004.

• 1 Special features
• 2 Background information
• 3 Footnotes
• 4 External links

Special features [ ]

As well as the extras originally featured on the prior Special Edition DVD, excepting the text commentary by Mike and Denise Okuda , the release also included the special features in high definition, as originally done for the 2009 Blu-ray release. The total runtime of the release therefore amounted to 333 minutes.

• Commentary by Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn
• Commentary by Larry Nemecek and Ira Steven Behr
• Tom Morga : Alien Stuntman †
• To Be Or Not To Be: Klingons and Shakespeare †
• Starfleet Academy: Praxis †
• Library Computer
• BD Live: Star Trek I.Q.
• The Perils of Peacemaking
• It Started with a Story
• Director Nicholas Meyer
• Shakespeare & General Chang
• Bring it to Life
• Farewell & Goodbye
• Conversations with Nicholas Meyer (this is actually an error as it concerns "It Started With a Story", the first segment of "Stories from Star Trek VI", and not the original source feature as intended)
• Klingons: Conjuring the Legend
• Federation Operatives
• Penny's Toy Box
• Together Again
• DeForest Kelley: A Tribute
• Original cast interviews
• Production gallery
• Storyboards
• 1991 Convention Presentation by Nicholas Meyer
• Trailers †

† - in HD (others in standard definition)

Background information [ ]

• While the "Director's Cut" can be considered the first-time HD release of the 2004 "Special Edition" DVD, there is one small, but significant difference; not included is the " Colonel West disguised as Klingon assassin reveal" scene at the end of the film. [2]
• In contrast to films II , III and IV , an individual standalone version did get released this time around in Scandinavia, as that territory had not seen their own separate The Original Motion Picture 6-Movie Collection set release, contrary to the former three films which had been included in that territory's preceding Star Trek: The Original 4-Movie Collection release.
• The two Australasian (Australia and New Zealand) releases had dispensed with a separate Blu-ray disc in the set, despite the fact that the The Original Motion Picture 6-Movie Collection had not seen a separate release in that territory either. Still, as Blu-ray versions had all become region-free as well by this time, any import would do in the territory.

Footnotes [ ]

• ↑ Talks of a High Definition release of the Director's Edition had been floating around since April 2013, but various reasons conspired against such a release for nearly a decade. For further background information on this subject matter, see main article .
• ↑ The Region geo-restricting encoding had, for all intent and purposes, been dispensed with all together by the industry upon the advent of the UHD format, even though that policy change has never been made public officially. This incidentally, has also applied for the Blu-ray disc format, whose region encoding was since late 2009 silently, but gradually, abandoned as well – which in Star Trek 's case started with the Blu-ray releases of TOS Season 2 and Star Trek: The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection [1] (X) – only to pick up speed from the mid-2010s onward.

External links [ ]

• Review at TrekMovie.com
• Review at Blu-ray.com
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country delivers upon the nearly impossible task of giving the original crew of the Enterprise a fitting sendoff within a genuinely excellent film with timely political overtones wrapped up in a tense mystery. With both cuts on 4K Ultra HD, fans can choose their favored version of the film with Director Nicholas Meyer’s preferred 2.39:1 aspect ratio in Dolby Vision HDR. With excellent audio and tons of bonus features, this final voyage of the original cast is a bittersweet goodbye to one of the greatest cast of actors ever assembled. Highly Recommended 

Read our single title Star Trek 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Reviews: Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's Edition Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's Edition Complete Adventure Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the Enterprise run into sabotage on the way to the Klingon-Federation peace talks.

Storyline: Our Reviewer's Take

To properly close out a generation of adventures, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country brings back our original crew (with Sulu getting his own ship) for one last mission. After the abject failure that was the fifth film, this final voyage brought in franchise heavy hitter Nicholas Meyer from Wrath of Khan to right the ship and deliver a politically-charged and highly entertaining film. For all intents and purposes, this film is a rousing success helping bring a fitting close for the original crew with a bittersweet send-off that gives every member a true fan moment to shine. With Christopher Plummer as the Shakespear-spewing Klingon General Chang, we get a genuinely lethal bad guy for a story wrapped within a classic whodunnit structure letting Spock play detective while Kirk and McCoy get to wax philosophical about aging out of their universe. 

I was nine years old when this movie hit theaters. The Berlin Wall had come down, and the global threat of communism was essentially vanquished. With those geopolitical happenings still fresh in the news, it was impossible to miss this film’s themes and ambitions. If there’s a failing to be leveled at Undiscovered Country it’s how on-the-nose everything is. While the original series never really stood in for a politically allegorical “us-vs-them” surrogate, it does fit well for this film. The Klingons have always been the intergalactic bad guys, but somewhere in the timeline, the Federation had patched things up well enough for dear old Worf to be a crewmember of the Enterprise for The Next Generation . So this film more or less fills in that plot gap while expounding on the nature of age and deep societal change. 

The film’s themes may be clunky, but I love this one. I remember being so excited to see this in theaters and unlike V , it still holds up very well. And both cuts are very good. The Director’s Cut may add some extra tidbits, some extra character beats, and a little extra silly Scooby-Doo reveal at the end, but all in all, this film was a fitting send-off. It’s a shame that George Takei’s Sulu couldn’t actually appear with the rest of the cast in the same room (that’s a whole mess I’m not going to dig into), but that final fanfare with each castmember signing their names against a traveling starfield is enough to bring any fan of Star Trek to tears. I know I get weepy every time the final credits start to roll.

For an excellent, thorough review of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, read Josh Zyber’s 2009 Blu-ray Review

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country kicks in the warp drive for a new two-disc 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray with Digital copy release. The discs are housed in a standard black case with identical slipcover artwork. The 4K version is pressed on a BD-100 disc with the 1080p on a BD50 The discs load to static image main menus with basic navigation options. For the 4K disc, you can choose between the Theatrical Cut or Director’s Cut from the Play sub-menu. The included Blu-ray only features the Theatrical Cut in 1080p

NOTE: All images are sourced from the new Blu-ray disc, when we can we'll replace with images from the actual 4K disc and if possible a demo video as well. 

Video Review

Rounding out the original cast franchise,  Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country comes home with a wonderful 2160p Dolby Vision transfer in Director Nicholas Meyer’s preferred 2.39:1 aspect ratio for both cuts. Because this film is the only one of the franchise shot largely on Super35, fine film grain is much more apparent than in the other films. But considering the horrible waxy DNR and dodgy edge enhancement of the 2009 Blu-ray, I’ll take a slightly noisy grain structure any day of the week. That 2009 disc is quite ugly by comparison. This new transfer gives you a full appreciation of facial features, clothing textures, and the impressive models for our various starships. It’s extra nice to finally fully appreciate all of the creature makeup work that’s on display in that Klingon prison camp.

Dolby Vision HDR has been smartly applied giving colors and skin tones a healthy presence. Past releases could look very washed out and pale by comparison leaving the red Starfleet uniforms looking almost pink. Now they’re back to a nice crimson without making the cast look too flush. Likewise, blue and yellow tones come through nicely. Early CGI effects are a little dodgy, the energy wave at the beginning, or the floating Klingon blood blops can kind of float over the screen a little - but outside of completely redoing those effects shots, I don’t think there’s any getting around that. Black levels are also greatly enhanced giving shadows to the image we haven’t seen before with a stronger three-dimensional depth. Whites are crisp without any blooming issues. Elements are in great shape without any damage to report. 

Audio Review

And once again, like the rest of the 4K releases for this franchise - Paramount opted to recycle the same excellent Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio tracks for both cuts of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . Doing some disc flipping with the 2009 release, I didn't notice anything different. Sure, a new Atmos track like what the Director’s Edition enjoys would have been great but I’m not going to complain. This track is active and engaging with clean dialog, and great sound effects and Cliff Eidelman’s excellent score comes through without issue.

Special Features

Nothing new in the soup for this release, but fans of the film can enjoy a trove of excellent archival materials. If you haven’t seen them or listened to the audio commentaries, they may be older but they’re new to you! And those commentaries really are the highlight. The other featurettes are nice but I hold the commentaries as the more informative and interesting extras of the whole bunch. For clarification, the included 1080p Blu-ray only features the Theatical Cut of the film so the text Commentary for the Director’s Cut is not included on that disc, only the 4K Disc. 

4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

• Theatrical Cut Audio Commentary featuring Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn
• Theatrical Cut Audio Commentary featuring Larry Nemecek and Ira Steven Behr 
• Director’s Cut Text Commentary featuring Michael and Denise Okuda 
• Audio Commentary by Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn
• Audio Commentary by Larry Nemecek and Ira Steven Behr
• Library Computer  
• The Perils of Peacemaking (SD 26:30)
• Stories from Star Trek VI
• It Started with a Story (SD 9:46)
• Prejudice (SD 5:02)
• Director Nicholas Meyer (SD 5:57)
• Shakespeare & General Chang (SD 5:53)
• Bring It to Life (SD 23:26)
• Farewell & Goodbye (SD 7:04)
• The Star Trek Universe
• Conversations with Nicholas Meyer (SD 9:33)
• Klingons: Conjuring the Legend (SD 20:43)
• Federation Operatives (SD 4:53)
• Penny’s Toy Box (SD 6:06)
• Together Again (SD 4:56)
• Tom Morga: Alien Stuntman (HD 4:57)
• To Be or Not to Be: Klingons and Shakespeare (HD 23:04)
• Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 006: Praxis (HD 2:38)
• DeForest Kelley: A Tribute (SD 13:19)
• Original Interviews
• William Shatner (SD 5:05)
• Leonard Nimoy (SD 6:26)
• DeForest Kelley (SD 5:00)
• James Doohan (SD 5:33)
• Nichelle Nichols (SD 5:39)
• George Takei (SD 5:28)
• Walter Koenig ( SD 5:28)
• Iman (SD 5:04)
• Production Gallery (SD 3:24)
• Storyboards 
• Rura Penthe
• Leaving Spacedock (Omitted)
• Promotional Materials
• 1991 Convention Presentation by Nicholas Meyer (SD 4:43)
• Teaser Trailer
• Theatrical Trailer

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country ships out the original cast and crew of the Enterprise in grand fashion. After the relatively uneventful fifth film, this was a welcome return to form offering a thoughtful action-mystery-whodunnit as the final cinematic voyage for our amazing cast of characters. Its ideas and themes may be pretty surface-level, but the film still holds up right through to the emotional end credits. After a fresh restoration for this 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, Undiscovered Country finally actually looks like a film again without the horrible DNR and over-used edge enhancement. The same audio track has been brought over - but that’s perfectly okay and a massive collection of archival bonus features beams aboard this excellent release. If you’re someone not aiming to own every film of the franchise or are simply looking to complete your collection from the previous 4-Film 4K set, this is a great disc for the shelf. Highly Recommended .

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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

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Product Description

The sixth STAR TREK movie, and the last to feature a group appearance of the original television series cast, comes to 4K UHD with HDR-10 and Dolby Vision, boldly remastered from the original film elements. After years of war, the Federation and the Klingon empire find themselves on the brink of a peace summit. Before negotiations even begin, a Klingon ship is nearly destroyed, and the apparent attack may be from the Enterprise. Now, the crew must brace for what may be their deadliest encounter. Both the original theatrical cut and the Director’s cut are included, alongside an array of special features.

Product details

• MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.81 x 5.39 x 0.55 inches; 0.02 ounces
• Media Format ‏ : ‎ 4K
• Run time ‏ : ‎ 113 minutes
• Release date ‏ : ‎ September 6, 2022
• Actors ‏ : ‎ William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Kim Cattrall, James Doohan
• Dubbed: ‏ : ‎ French
• Studio ‏ : ‎ PARAMOUNT
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B4G37JKH
• Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ USA
• Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 2
• #181 in Action & Adventure Blu-ray Discs

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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country 4K Blu-ray Review

The original crew's swansong impresses in a substantial 4k upgrade of star trek vi: the undiscovered country. join us as we take a close look..

The Bottom Line

• + Stunning 4K remaster

Should you buy it?

Courtesy of an untested director, savage budget cuts, and an overly ambitious yet problematic script, Star Trek: The Final Frontier received a savage critical and commercial backlash upon release, which barely scraped in $50 million at the worldwide box office (Tim Burton's Batman released two weeks later managed over eight times that figure).

With the small screen revival of the franchise in The Next Generation proving that fans were happy to embrace a new, younger crew, it was perhaps tempting for Paramount and CBS to cut their losses and retire Kirk, Spock, and Bones for good. Thankfully, the studio decided to let the original crew have one final go around, which not only resulted in the proper sendoff that the sci-fi trailblazers deserved but also resulted in one of the best feature films in the series' history.

With the sudden destruction of the Klingon moon Praxis, the Empire decides it can no longer afford to continue its posture of intergalactic war and intends to broker a deal with the Federation for peace. While both camps remain suspicious of the other's motives, the Federation dispatches the Starship Enterprise to shadow a Klingon vessel transporting Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner), whose attending negotiations on Earth.

En route, the chancellor is murdered and when all signs point to an Enterprise crewman - perhaps even Captain Kirk - the chance for peace is not only risked, but the escalation of outright war becomes imminent.

Video transfer

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with H.265 compression, and finished with a Dolby Vision pass, in addition to a base HDR-10 layer.

As with its five predecessors, Paramount has returned to the original camera negative to produce this brand new 4K transfer, which replaces the previous, nearly 20-year-old HD master in a definitive manner. The new transfer is stable as a rock, crisply detailed, and cleaned of almost all the film artifacts that crept into the negative during production and subsequent handling.

The color balance is excellent, with rich and saturated tones where appropriate. This is an extremely 'filmic' presentation, which comes as a breath of fresh air compared to the previous master, which was riddled with noise, artifacts, and egregious edge enhancement, which made Spock look like a wax figure.

Overall, this is an impressive remaster, which finally does this film justice on the smaller screen.

Audio transfer

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is presented with a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 remix at 24 bits.

Porting over the audio mix originally assembled for the 2009 Blu-ray release, The Undiscovered Country certainly sounds a treat. There were no problems with audio sync or dialogue. Occasionally the mix sounded a little 'thin', especially in regards to the general ambiance, but when the action kicks into gear, the audio does a good job of keeping up.

Bass is responsive when requested and effectively underscores some of the more intensive sequences. Cliff Eidelman's score is a step down from the very best work of Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner, but his iconic opening theme is as rousing and as triumphant as always.

Overall, this is a solid effort that does enough to be impressive, but again it's hard not to imagine the improvement that could have been offered with a new Dolby Atmos mix.

Bonus materials

Unfortunately, unlike other international releases, Paramount has again not included a copy of the standard Blu-ray in the Australian release, which means all the video-based features are absent from this edition. Trekkers would be advised to hang on to the previous Blu-ray release or import the U.S. or U.K. editions to retain everything.

However, the 4K disc does include two previously released Audio Commentaries , the first Director Nicholas Meyer and Screenwriter Denny Martin Flinn, Meyer is ever consistent, and I enjoy listening to his comments, frequently drawing parallels to the films plot and the real-life cessation of the cold war.

The second commentary features writer Larry Nemecek and Deep Space Nine producer Ira Steven Behr. From the perspective of Star Trek fans and insiders, there's much less emphasis on technical talk and more tongue-in-cheek comments.

The original Enterprise crew finally receive the send off they deserve in this stunning 4K remaster.

Ben Gourlay

Ben joined the TweakTown team in 2008 and has since reviewed 100s of movies. Ben is based in Australia and has covered entertainment news and reviews since 2002. A student of film, Ben brings a wide understanding of the medium to the latest happenings in entertainment circles and the latest blockbuster theatrical reviews.

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Related Tags

• high definition
• Gene Roddenberry
• William Shatner
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• Cliff Eidelman

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Star trek vi: the undiscovered country blu-ray review, star trek vi: the undiscovered country blu-ray, video quality.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Blu-ray, Audio Quality

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Blu-ray, Special Features and Extras

• Audio Commentary : Director Nicholas Meyer and Screenwriter Denny Martin Flinn.
• Audio Commentary : Larry Nemecek and Ira Steven Behr.
• Library Computer
• The Perils of Peacemaking
• Stories from Star Trek VI
• The Star Trek Universe
• Original Interviews
• Production Gallery
• Storyboards
• Promotional Materials

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: Other Editions

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Review: ‘Star Trek V’ And ‘Star Trek VI’ On 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Beautifully Upgrade The Final TOS Movies

| September 6, 2022 | By: Matt Wright 51 comments so far

Just ahead of Star Trek Day 2022, Paramount Home Entertainment has released the newly remastered 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray versions of The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country . The release of these two films finishes the work of bringing all six of the TOS era movies into 4K UHD. The films are available individually and in a new Star Trek I-VI boxed set.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture — The Director’s Edition is also out today on 4K UHD Blu-ray, and will be covered in a separate review.

With the individual movie releases, you get a 2-disc case that contains the Ultra HD Blu-ray version of the movie, and a standard HD Blu-ray disc version. The Blu-ray discs feature the same newly restored versions of the film, just in 1080p. These new versions of the 1080p Blu-ray movies are also sold separately for those who haven’t made the leap to 4K/HDR.

NOTE: This review focuses on the 2022 Star Trek V and Star Trek VI releases. For the first four original series films, please see my review of the first boxed set Paramount released for Star Trek Day 2021.

Star Trek V

The Final Frontier is a bit of an odd duck. The success of The Voyage Home meant the studio felt the need to include more overt humor, and because Leonard Nimoy had directed one of the movies, the “favored nations” clause in Nimoy’s and Shatner’s contracts meant that Bill Shatner got a turn too. Star Trek V can be a very good-looking film at times, Shatner does a fine job directing, and the cinematography by Andrew Laszlo is very good. The plot itself at least tries to yield some interesting ideas about faith, with a dash of commentary on our quick-fix society. Ultimately, the film is let down by pretty awful special effects and misplaced humor. That said, the troika of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy have some lovely intimate moments around the campfire, and there’s some compelling insight into the characters around Sybok’s revealing of their pain, so The Final Frontier is worth a place in your collection for these moments, if nothing else.

Kirk and McCoy question Spock about Sybok.

Star Trek VI

After the mixed results of The Final Frontier , the future of the TOS film franchise was uncertain. With the 25th anniversary (1991) fast approaching, a plan was eventually hatched to make one last movie with the original crew as a proper send off. Star Trek II director (and Star Trek IV co-writer) Nicholas Meyer was brought back. While there were some obvious budgetary limitations, The Undiscovered Country managed to pull off a film similar to what Khan had done a decade earlier, which was to make a compelling film on (mostly) existing sets and in a short time. Also back was ILM for the visual effects, fixing a major mistake made with the production of Star Trek V . The plot smartly used the idea of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent dissolution of the USSR as inspiration for starting the process for peace with the Klingons. At the time, I remember eating this all up as viewer. I do wonder about the need for this (contemporary—now historical) context for younger fans when they watch this movie, and if it carries as much weight without it. Regardless, when everything is done and the cast is literally signing off on the screen, it’s hard not to get a bit teary eyed, knowing this was an exciting and generally satisfying send-off for our beloved crew.

For this new Ultra HD release, both the Theatrical Version (109:56) and the slightly-longer Director’s Cut (113:21) are included. For whatever reason, the standard Blu-ray edition only includes the Theatrical Version.

The Director’s Cut isn’t really required viewing. It restores a few interesting little scenes, and also reinserts the “Scooby Doo” ending first seen on the home video version of TUC in the ’90s, where the Klingon assassin is exposed as Colonel West (René Auberjonois).

Both the Director’s and Theatrical versions are now framed at 2.39:1. Director Nicholas Meyer has confirmed to Bill Hunt of The Digital Bits that 2.39:1 is his preferred framing for the film.

The TOS crew heads off into the sunset.

Video Quality

Just like the previous four films, these new 4K scans of the films look significantly better than the old 2009 HD versions. They look like films again, far less processed than the previous releases, and that alone makes the set worth getting. The wider color gamut of Ultra HD allows for richer colors; for example, the “monster maroon” uniforms are a shade of rich deep red. The films also benefit from a restrained HDR grade that helps retain details in the brighter scenes.

Nitty-gritty details: Without a doubt, the films look much better than they ever have on home video. The previous versions of the films which were released back in 2009 and then repackaged ever since had a number of shortcomings. They were overly processed, which meant the natural look of film was often scrubbed out. The biggest symptom of this over-processing is that faces looked waxy or leathery: The Undiscovered Country was probably the worst offender. These new versions of the films may at first appear “soft,” but that’s not correct; what this new scan of the movies did was restore a natural filmic look to the movies (film grain), and finer details are more visible now.

A closer look. Click to enlarge.

NOTE: The screenshots included in this article are from the standard Blu-ray 1080p release. The 4k HDR versions look even better. Staring at still frames of a motion picture isn’t exactly how a film is intended to be watched, so take these as a general demonstration of the changes.

For The Final Frontier, the biggest correction is fixing how “hot” the 2009 version was. The contrast was pumped up way too far. This blew out details in bright scenes, most egregiously in the scene with “god” which effectively made the face in the energy column un-viewable.

2009 Blu-ray

2022 Blu-ray (from 4K scan)

Audio Quality

The audio mixes are the same excellent lossless 7.1 Dolby TrueHD mixes previously released with the Blu-rays. I will say I’m slightly disappointed Paramount didn’t remix the movies in Dolby Atmos, but that isn’t a deal-killer by any means. The mixes are great and sound really good on a modern surround system.

Special Features

As this release is all about bringing the movies into UHD there are no new special features, but each film carries over pretty much all of the special features from the 2009 versions of the movies, which in turn carried over most of the DVD features from before. I recommend you check out  our review from 2009 for more .

As is common practice, the Ultra HD Blu-ray discs have minimal special features to allow maximum space for the 4K video. So the majority of the extras are found on the standard Blu-ray discs.

Full list of features:

UHD Blu-ray disc features:

• Audio Commentary by William Shatner and Liz Shatner
• Audio Commentary by Michael & Denise Okuda, Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, and Daren Dochterman

Blu-ray disc features:

• Library Computer (HD)
• Harve Bennett’s Pitch to Sales Team (SD – 1:42)
• The Journey: A Behind-The-Scenes Documentary (SD – 28:55)
• Makeup Tests (SD – 9:50)
• Pre-Visualization Models (SD – 1:41)
• Rockman in the Raw (SD – 5:37)
• Star Trek V Press Conference (SD – 13:42)
• Herman Zimmerman: A Tribute (SD – 19:09)
• Original Interview: William Shatner (SD – 14:37)
• Cosmic Thoughts (SD – 13:05)
• That Klingon Couple (SD – 13:05)
• A Green Future? (SD – 9:24)
• Star Trek Honors NASA (HD – 9:57)
• Hollywood Walk of Fame: James Doohan (SD – 3:07)
• Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 005: Nimbus III (HD – 3:02)
• Mount Rushmore (SD – :18)
• Insults (SD – 2:03)
• Behold Paradise (SD – :52)
• Spock’s Pain (SD – 1:02)
• Production Gallery (SD – 4:04)
• The Face of God
• Theatrical Trailer 1 (HD – 2:42)
• Theatrical Trailer 2 (HD – 1:34)
• Vacation Is Over (SD – :32)
• Renegade (SD – :32)
• Challenge of Rebellion (SD – :31)
• Brothers (SD – :32)
• Beyond (SD – :32)
• Adventure (SD – :16)
• Warp Speed Now (SD – :17)
• The Gag Reel (SD – 1:08)
• Audio Commentary by Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn (Theatrical Version Only)
• Audio Commentary by Larry Nemecek and Ira Steven Behr (Theatrical Version Only)
• Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda (Director’s Cut Only)
• The Perils of Peacemaking (SD – 26:30)
• It Started with a Story (SD – 9:46)
• Prejudice (SD – 5:02)
• Director Nicholas Meyer (SD – 5:57)
• Shakespeare & General Chang (SD – 5:53)
• Bring It to Life (SD – 23:26)
• Farewell & Goodbye (SD – 7:04)
• Conversations with Nicholas Meyer (SD – 9:33)
• Klingons: Conjuring the Legend (SD – 20:43)
• Federation Operatives (SD – 4:53)
• Penny’s Toy Box (SD – 6:06)
• Together Again (SD – 4:56)
• Tom Morga: Alien Stuntman (HD – 4:57)
• To Be or Not to Be: Klingons and Shakespeare (HD – 23:04)
• Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 006: Praxis (HD – 2:38)
• DeForest Kelley: A Tribute (SD – 13:19)
• William Shatner (SD – 5:05)
• Leonard Nimoy (SD – 6:26)
• DeForest Kelley (SD – 5:00)
• James Doohan (SD – 5:33)
• Nichelle Nichols (SD – 5:39)
• George Takei (SD – 5:28)
• Walter Koenig (SD – 5:28)
• Iman (SD – 5:04)
• Production Gallery (SD – 3:24)
• Rura Penthe
• Leaving Spacedock (Omitted)
• Teaser Trailer (HD – 1:28)
• Theatrical Trailer (HD – 2:23)
• 1991 Convention Presentation by Nicholas Meyer (SD – 4:43)

What’s missing

The only bonus feature that would have been great to see is the multi-part documentary by Roger Lay Jr. (who did the excellent documentaries on the TNG-R and ENT Blu-ray sets) commissioned for the 50th anniversary boxed set in 2016.

It’s understandable why this feature isn’t on the TUC disc; the other parts weren’t included in the other 4K discs either. This was a separate documentary commissioned for the 50th anniversary set, but it would be nice to get them into a new set at some point.

Final thoughts

The TOS movies have never looked better. Are they perfect? No. But it’s pretty darn close. As fans who enjoy these films and want to have them in the best possible format, this is a must buy. Fans need to vote with their wallets. Remember, there’s more at stake here than just these movies. If we want the TNG movies available on disc (which we assume would be released next September), the studio needs proof that there’s a demand for it.

If people don’t buy these on disc, it also sends the message that streaming-only is okay. Streaming rights come and go, and vary by region, so the only surefire way to collect these movies in 4K to keep as your own is on disc. And at least for the US version of these films, it comes with a code for a digital copy of the movie, so you can have your handy digital version while also showing your support for the disc format.

Available today

Star Trek V and Star Trek VI were released today, September 6 in the USA on 4K Ultra HD. Each is available on Amazon for $19.99 ( Star Trek V: The Final Frontier ) and ( Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country ). You can also pick up Blu-ray editions of both for $14.99.

Also out today

Today Paramount also released Star Trek: The Motion Picture—The Director’s Edition in 4K Ultra HD. Look for a review of that later this week, but you can pick it up at Amazon for $25.96 . The standard Blu-ray edition is selling for 17.99.

And for The Motion Picture: Director’s Edition they also released “The Complete Adventure” (limited edition) boxed set. This includes an Ultra HD Blu-ray of Theatrical + Special Longer Version and an Ultra HD Blu-ray of the Director’s Edition plus the Blu-ray of bonus features, and various collectible swag.

Amazon has already sold out of this version which has a MSRP of $107.99. There does seem to be limited stock at Best Buy , so check both vendors.

You can also pick up new individual releases of the other TOS era movies priced at 19.99 for UHD Blu-ray or 14.99 for standard Blu-ray ( Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan  , Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ).

And all six original series movies are available in 4K UHD in a new Star Trek: The Original Motion Picture Collection box set. It includes the theatrical cut of The Motion Picture with UHD and standard Blu-ray discs for each film along with digital download codes. The new TOS movies set is available at Amazon for $107.99

Packaging for six-movie collection

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I just received TMP special edition which was $85 so I am not sure if I want to double-dip (for TMP included again) for the full set here? I may wait 6 months so that I can get this for $60.

Great review — it’s so good to hear that they did not half-ass this.

The Director’s Cut isn’t really required viewing. It restores a few interesting little scenes, and also reinserts the “Scooby Doo” ending first seen on the home video version of TUC in the ’90s, where the Klingon assassin is exposed as Colonel West (René Auberjonois).

I never thought of it as a Scooby Doo ending. You made me laugh. Made my day better. Great analysis! I will be picking up the golden 6 on 4K for sure.

Where have you been? People have called it a Scooby Doo ending forever.

I’ve never heard that term used to describe that cut of TUC before either.

…neither have I.

It was a fairly common (often used in a slightly derogatory way) term for the home video edition in the ’90s which is where those scenes were first included.

You can still find people using it, like this podcast episode title https://standardorbit.libsyn.com/-247-the-scooby-doo-ending

He’d have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for those meddlesome geriatrics!

I saw that ending on my old videotape version. I thought it was dumb.

In fact, having Col. West brief the president of the federation on the rescue plan for Kirk and McCoy in front of the Romulan ambassador in that version was a weird mess up by Nicholas Meyer. I’m glad those scenes were eliminated from the theatrical cut.

There was one scene though, with Spock, Scotty, and Valeris where they were visually counting the torpedoes in the Enterprise’s torpedo bay that was eliminated on my blu ray that was on the VCR version. I do miss that scene. Yes, it’s probably extraneous but its another nice scene with Nimoy and Doohan who aren’t here anymore. : (

ST VI is a great film. I wish Paramount had given Meyer and Nimoy more money though. This last film with the original cast deserved it. I always disliked seeing the very obvious use of the TNG sets in ST V and VI, even though a large chunk of those sets, i.e. engineering, some of the corridors, sickbay, and the transporter room, were originally built for Star Trek the Motion Picture for the movie Enterprise. They even used the TNG briefing room as the dining room of the Enterprise-A despite the fact that model of the movie Enterprise had no windows of that shape at all. And then, of course, two movies later when First Contact comes around, the Enterprise A gets a bunch of all-new sets.

It just underlined how parsimonious Paramount Pictures was with regard to the TOS films.

As for these new blu rays, I don’t have a 4K TV or player at the moment and I already have blu rays of all the films and the DVD of the TMP director’s edition. For you 4K folks out there, what do you think? Is it worth it?

Thanks for the review!

I was very bored one weekend last year, so I started playing around with iMovie and made a fan edit of Final Frontier, cutting it down to about an hour so it was more like an episode of an 80s TOS revival series that never was. The plot is what it is, but it’s quite a bit more watchable with the goofy jokes removed, that’s for sure. No bonk-bonk on the head for Scotty in my cut!

The Scotty head bonk was the funniest gag in all of Trek feature films! Yes, it’s kinda slapsticky but it works.

Not really. It’s awkwardly staged, even as slapstick, to the extent that it makes Scotty look stupid. James Dothan hated it.

Awkward indeed. Besides that, what does it add to the narrative? To lead us to another weird ‘romantic’ moment between him and Uhura that goes nowhere? I cut that out, too.

And if you cut out those two things, the next time you see Scotty after the jailbreak, if I remember right, he’s working on the transporter — exactly where you want Scotty. So yes, the goofy things aren’t missed.

It added nothing but a laugh. Nothing wrong with breaking the tension. And it took Scotty out of the equation because had had he not been caught things would have been easier for Kirk, Spock & McCoy.

The gags in TFF were some of the best of the film series, quite honestly. Please do not take this as me thinking TFF was a great film. It wasn’t. But there were some good things in it. The humor was one of the things it got right and removing them would just make the sub par film worse.

Yep, it’s a knee-slapper alright. Worthy of Hee-Haw.

Certainly better than anything in TVH. I’d suggest editing that one but even without the lame gags there is still the entire crew coming across as dumb as the Galaxy Quest aliens and the lame plot.

Now it’s out: ST V is their first attempt at Lower Decks! They were 3 decades ahead of their time!

On the contrary. Every time I see the scene it evokes a laugh to this day. It was perfectly executed.

What made Scotty look stupid was talking to the computer in TVH. In fact, a lot of things in that movie not only made Scotty but everyone look stupid.

Confirming my ‘blue-haired lawyer theory’ about the internet. Doesn’t matter what topic it is, someone will come out of the woodwork to defend it.

Didn’t you yourself confirm that already?

Uh sure, why not.

Regarding VIs end of Cold War theme, perhaps they should give Meyer Trek XIV to reflect current events (with the Kelvin Klingons, and elements of Yesterdays Enterprise?).

Of course, this is just the beginning. no one knows how far things will go..

He really is an excellent writer with very good instincts as a director, he performed so well under enormous pressure and constraints. Star Trek owes him so very much. I’ve no idea if having bountiful resources would ruin his special sauce, but I’d love to see what happens.

I think Meyer’s inherent cynicism, which he came by honestly (the guy said in a mid-80s interview he didn’t think we’d survive to get out of the 20th century, and this was BEFORE he wrote that laugh line in TVH), would make it almost impossibly hard to do an entertaining story that reflects the current turmoil. I mean he chose to make TREK seriously retrograde in TUC (not just Kirk’s pride and Spock’s prejudice, but all the stuff that made TSFS’s political paranoia seem validated, which seemed just SO retroretro), and I found that pretty abhorent, and to make a Federation that would be run by something like what we just had creeping through the Oval would be going bridges too far in the wrong direction for Trek, or so I think.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture-The Director’s Edition includes “The New Frontier: Resurrecting Star Trek” and “Maiden Voyage: Making Star Trek: The Motion Picture” from the 50th Anniversary set and The Wrath of Khan contains “The Genesis Effect: Engineering The Wrath of Khan”. “The Dream is Alive: The Continuing Mission: and “End of an Era: Charting the Undiscovered Country” from the 50th Anniversary set are not included in any 4K release.

You’re correct, unbeknownst to me, Paramount revised the standalone TWOK disc to include the 50th documentary. It was not included in the 2021 version that was part of the I-IV set. Also note this review is does not cover the new TMP:DE disc.

I just spun up The Wrath of Khan Blu-ray disc from the 2021 4K set. “The Genesis Effect: Engineering The Wrath of Khan” is there. Same as it was on the 2016 release, as you noted in the review of that release.

I somehow had it in my head it was missing from that disc. I have no idea why. Thanks for correcting me.

Really disappointing that they don’t have dolby atmos!!! There are much “smaller”, insignificant and older films out there that receive a dolby atmos upmix. I REALLY hope they will upmix the TNG movies in dolby atmos – I’m the biggest tng fan but if paramount is not willing to give me the best possible product (sound in this case) for my felt 50iest time buying these films, I will not buy them (again).

These discs are wonderful upgrades to the frankly atrocious blu-rays. They’ve been a long time coming. Let’s hope the TNG films are coming next year.

Was going to order the TMP remnaster until I saw it was included in the Box set. I ordered the Box set yesterday. A bit disappointed to hear the extended cut of TUC is missing from the BD. I don’t think it was all that necessary, however. And I do still have the original DVD that was that cut.

The documentary mentioned would have been good to include. I don’t think I’ve seen it. I’ve seen so very many, however I just wonder if it has anything in it that hasn’t been seen before? If anyone has any thoughts or could tell me about that doc I’d appreciate it.

I ordered TMP Directors Edition The Complete Adventure from Amazon UK since the disks are region free and the UK set comes with the new DE on a separate Bluray Disk instead of the digital download like in North America. That drove me bonkers when I saw it was a digital download in North America.

Yep, the UK edition is the better version if you want to have everything on standard Blu-ray too.

Just be sure you have a region free player if you are in N America. Which I am seriously considering.

You may not be aware, but UHD Blu-ray has no region code. They finally did away with that stupid idea. And according to all reports, the standard Blu-rays included in the UK set come set to “all regions”, so it’s not an issue. Amazon UK’s listing even states “Regions A,B,C”. You wouldn’t see folks in North America widely recommending the UK set without caveats if it had specific region coding.

I’ve seen vastly superior fan-made CGI replacements for the dreadful STV FX on YouTube. If Paramount had wanted to do an upgrade on the cheap, it wouldn’t have been difficult.

Seems like such a missed opportunity to do this for The Final Frontier, Generations and even Insurrection. Work with the director to identify shots that could be augmented or swapped out with improved VFX they couldn’t do back then and then spend a small amount with any of the VFX houses working on Trek to give some added value when asking fans to buy these films again for the umpteenth time.

I’ve seen those videos too. Some are really impressive. Get on that, Paramount!

I’m still of the opinion that you could fix most of V’s effects by simply using different stock elements from previous films, then recomping them with other backgrounds (there aren’t THAT many shots where you see whether the -A is there or not.)

And just about anything would have been better than the toe-painting-looking and backlit-cottonball center of galaxy — I have always said you could take the vger cloud stuff and mess up the color while skip printing and get a very suitable center-of-galaxy that had scope and looked pretty.

The only things any of these sets are missing are the animated menus that came with the old DVD sets. Those were awesome and its a shame they werent reproduced for any of the later releases. At least all of the bonus content is included though from those same DVD sets!

As wonderful as the sixth film is (and it’s my favorite in the canon) the fifth film is 180 degrees the opposite. I tried to rewatch that abomination last week and gave up less than an hour into it. Horrible, horrible, horrible. I’m a first gen, all in ST fanatic and watching ST-V is about as painful to me as someone beating my hand with a hammer.

Great review and I’m glad we finally have confirmation that these new remasters are also on the standard Blu-ray Discs too. I hate the 2009 transfers so replacing them entirely with the box set is the obvious choice for those who can afford it.

My one gripe is that here in Australia, as is now sadly the norm, we are only getting the single UHD individual releases for each film. No remastered BDs, no bonus discs and certainly no box sets. So, I will be importing my box set from the UK which, while it solves my personal collector’s issue, doesn’t help the cause here in AU. If everyone does what I’m doing then Paramount will assume that Aussies only want to stream. There may not be as many physical media collectors here as in the rest of the world but if they released the same UHD/BD box set here in Australia I reckon they’d find there would be a reasonable number who would buy it. Perhaps a limited release? Stamp a ‘1 of 500’ sticker on it. They’d sell then!

Anyway, rant over. I am so happy these films are finally available dressed in their best. I am very excited to see the four Next Gen films in the future as the photography in those is uniformly gorgeous and well deserving of a first class UHD release. I just hope those films get a 7.1 upgrade…or better!

Maybe Nemesis will finally get re-released as a very extended edition with 45 additional minutes how it was supposed to be from the start?

Too bad they didn’t use that opportunity to fix the bad and unfinished fx of ST V (and Sybok’s messy and inconsistent hair cut ;) )

are these new 4k versions also the ones that are now available on Paramount +?

P+ updated TMP-TVH last year, but sadly they still have not updated TFF or TUC to use the new versions.

Star Trek V in 4k is ready for download on iTunes, but VI is only in HD. When do we get the 4k Version of it, are there any news?

Another question I have…is anyone else having trouble playing their digital copy of the Director’s Cut of Star Trek VI on AppleTV 4K? All I get is sound, no video. It plays fine on my reg HD AppleTV…

My old SD Version of Star Trek VI DCut works fine here on the latest Apple TV 4k, but its not the version that you can buy today in the Apple Store. Did you test it on an iPhone or Macbook?

yeah, works fine on my Macbook. I haven’t tried on my iphone yet. I was talking with 8 different support members from Apple last night, and no one could figure out the issue.

I would try to reset the Apple TV, but you have tried this, I am sure…

Try it again, Part VI is now back in 4k in the iTunes Store in Germany, maybe this version has the DC of the film in the correct version.

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Make it so —

For the first time, you can now watch every star trek movie in 4k hdr, 13 star trek movies are available in 4k, dolby vision, and dolby atmos..

Samuel Axon - Apr 10, 2023 8:06 pm UTC

For the first time, you can now buy or rent every single Star Trek movie in the latest 4K and HDR standards. That includes all six movies based on the original series cast, all four featuring The Next Generation 's cast, and the more recent J.J. Abrams films.

On April 4, Paramount released an UltraHD Blu-ray set that included Star Trek: Generations , Star Trek: First Contact , Star Trek: Insurrection , and Star Trek: Nemesis along with several special features. The set marks the first time these films have been available in a 4K and HDR home video release. Alongside the Blu-rays, the films also became available on on-demand storefronts like Apple's TV app.

Further Reading

So as of this week, all 13 theatrically released Star Trek films are finally available in 4K and HDR. The latest releases also support the Dolby Atmos audio standard in addition to Dolby Vision HDR.

That said, large swaths of the classic Trek TV series aren't even available in HD, much less in 4K or HDR. All three seasons of  The Original Series and all seven of  The Next Generation got Blu-ray and digital HD releases in recent years, as well as Enterprise and The Animated Series , and all the new Paramount+ shows are in HD. But Deep Space Nine and Voyager  are still only available in standard definition.

A documentary about  Deep Space Nine released a couple of years ago featured small segments upscaled to HD to show what might be possible and there have been fan projects to do the same with AI, too. However, there hasn't been much movement on an official full series upscaling project.

Update : A previous version of this article failed to properly distinguish between the non-AI and AI techniques used in prior attempts to remaster portions Deep Space Nine . It was corrected in an update.

Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs .

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Along with standalone 4K releases of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ,   Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , and  Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home — previously part of last September’s four-film collection — all six Original Series films are now going to be available in a new 15-disc collection arriving September 6.

New additions from the 2021 release include  Star Trek: The Motion Picture — The Director’s Edition (3 discs), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (2 discs), and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (2 discs).

Full contents for the 15-disc collection which you can preorder today:

· NEW! Star Trek: The Motion Picture —The Director’s Edition (4K + Blu-Ray) · NEW! Star Trek: The Motion Picture — The Director’s Edition Bonus Content (BR) · Star Trek: The Motion Picture Theatrical Cut (4K + BR) · Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Theatrical & Directors Cut (4K + BR) · Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (4K + BR) · Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (4K + BR) · NEW! Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (4K + BR) · NEW! Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Theatrical & Directors Cut (4K + BR)

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) will be presented in 4K UHD with HDR-10 and Dolby Vision, boldly remastered from the original film elements; a Blu-ray disc containing the remastered presentation will also be included. (A standalone Blu-ray is also available.)

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country  (1991) will be presented in 4K UHD with HDR-10 and Dolby Vision, boldly remastered from the original film elements; a Blu-ray disc containing the remastered presentation will also be included. (A standalone Blu-ray is also available.)

Before his time aboard station Deep Space 9, Rene Auberjonois starred as the devious Colonel West in the director's cut of "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country." #StarTrek #ReneAuberjonois pic.twitter.com/eSJMYs8TfO — TrekCore.com 🖖 (@TrekCore) December 8, 2019

Notably, this edition of  Star Trek VI will include Nicholas Meyer’s director’s cut of the film, which includes sequences cut from the theatrical edition — including the appearance of Rene Auberjonois as devious Starfleet strategist Colonel West, and some edits to the Spock/Valeris mind-meld sequence near the end of the film.

Those scenes have previously been available only on VHS, DVD, and in certain streaming-service presentations of the movie; this will be the first time the Star Trek VI director’s cut will be available in high definition on home media.

After beaming down to Paramount+ back in April, the long-awaited 4K remaster of  Star Trek: The Motion Picture — The Director’s Edition is finally arriving on disc September 6, in a two-disc set packed full of new behind-the-scenes bonus content (as well as bonus features from previous releases).

While a two-disc standard Blu-ray release is also available, the two-disc 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray edition will feature The Director’s Edition in Dolby Vision and HDR-10, as well as with a Dolby Atmos sound mix for those of you with supporting home theater systems.

Here are the full contents:

DISC ONE · NEW! Audio Commentary with David C. Fein, Mike Matessino, and Daren R. Dochterman · Audio Commentary by Robert Wise, Douglas Trumbull, John Dykstra, Jerry Goldsmith, and Stephen Collins​ (from 2001 DVD release) · Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda​ (from 2001 DVD release) DISC TWO · NEW! The Human Adventure —An all-new 8-part documentary detailing how the Director’s Edition came to life – Preparing the Future: How the remastering began – A Wise Choice: The storied history of Robert Wise – Refitting the Enterprise: How the Enterprise design shaped future federation starships – Sounding Off: Exploring new dimensions of sound in Dolby Atmos – V’ger: The conception and restoration of an iconic alien antagonist – Return to Tomorrow: Reaching an already high bar with new CGI effects – A Grand Theme: Behind the iconic, influential music score that shaped the franchise’s -future – The Grand Vision: The legacy and evolving reputation of this classic movie · NEW! Deleted Scenes · NEW! Effects Tests · NEW! Costume Tests · NEW! Computer Display Graphics · Additional legacy bonus content

While the new commentary from the trio of driving forces behind the  Director’s Edition is a lovely inclusion, the one thing this does seem to be missing is the 2007 audio commentary track Fein, Matessino, and Dochterman recorded for the DVD edition of the film which we’ve saved in the TrekCore archives here for posterity — so if you want that for your legacy DVD copy of The Director’s Edition , you’re welcome!

The fully-remastered and enhanced  Star Trek: The Motion Picture — The Director’s Edition will also released in a massive three-disc special limited set this September, as The Complete Adventure will contain not only the  Director’s Edition and theatrical cut of the film in 4K UHD, but it will also include 1983 “Special Longer Version” as an exclusive feature.

Producer David C. Fein also confirmed the “Special Longer Version” 4K edition will include one shot of previously-unfinished VFX, which we’ve learned will be a fix for the infamous exposed-rafters shot from Kirk’s spacewalk departure.

There is one previously unfinished vfx shot, yes. — David C. Fein (@DavidCFein) July 6, 2022

The “Special Longer Version” (also known as the “ABC cut”) included nearly 12 minutes of additional footage not seen in the theatrical edition which originally aired on ABC in the United States in 1983 and had a decent life on home media up until the mid-1990s. This will be the first official release of this cut of  The Motion Picture  since its last VHS edition in 1991.

Beyond two additional cuts of the film (which will not be on the standalone 4K release of The Director’s Edition ), the additional on-disc bonus content will be identical to the standalone TMP:DE set.

Full contents:

· NEW! Star Trek: The Motion Picture —The Director’s Edition (4K) · NEW! Star Trek: The Motion Picture — The Director’s Edition Bonus Content (Blu-ray) · NEW! Star Trek: The Motion Picture Theatrical Edition + Special Longer Version (4K)

Along with the on-disc content,  The Complete Adventure also includes replica  Motion Picture promotional material, stickers, poster art, and more in its oversized packaging. The limited edition The Complete Adventure set also arrives September 6 and is available for preorder today.

As for the four  Star Trek: The Next Generation films, while not announced for 2022, we highly expect them to follow on 4K Blu-ray in 2023 to coincide with the return of the TNG cast in the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard; the remastered edition of  Star Trek: First Contact is already available on Paramount+.

In the meantime, let us know what versions of the classic  Star Trek films you’re going to be adding to your own collection as we wait for September to get here!

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4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review – Star Trek: The Next Generation 4-Movie Collection

April 7, 2023 by Brad Cook

Star Trek: The Next Generation 4-Movie Collection

Directed by David Carson, Jonathan Frakes, and Stuart Baird. Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Levar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Malcolm McDowell, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, William Shatner, Alfre Woodard, James Cromwell, Alice Krige, F. Murray Abraham, Donna Murphy, Anthony Zerbe, and Tom Hardy.

The four films in the Star Trek: The Next Generation series have gotten their big 4K Ultra HD debut, with beautifully remastered image quality that was also used for the Blu-ray platters included here. You also get codes for digital copies as well as tons of bonus features that were ported over from the 2004 DVD and 2009 Blu-ray editions. This one is a must-have for fans, and it arrives just in time for the anniversary (or pre-anniversary) of first contact.

I’ll confess I never got into later iterations of Star Trek the same way I enjoyed reruns of the original series when I was a kid in the 70s. I still land on the side of Star Wars in that age-old “Which franchise is better?” debate (I find such debates a waste of time, honestly), but five of the first six Trek movies will always occupy a special place in my heart next to all the other genre films I loved during my formative years.

That said, I still find Star Trek: The Next Generation enjoyable. I’ve always appreciated the follow-up series’ approach to remaking the crew of the new Enterprise, leaving behind the trio that dominated the original cast in favor of an ensemble approach. Just like I don’t have much use for Star Wars vs. Star Trek debates, I don’t care much for Kirk vs. Picard arguments; each of them is an interesting, fully developed character in his own right.

When the Next Generation movies began to appear, I went along for the ride, although it felt like they petered out, rather than conclude on a rousing finish like the original cast’s films did. That was a bummer, but perhaps it was for the best: It paved the way for the reboot trilogy, and now Trek thrives as a group of streaming series. In today’s modern media world, perhaps Trek (and Star Wars , to be honest) is best enjoyed as an episodic series.

If you’re a fan of the Next Generation movies, however, you’ll want to get yourself a copy of this new four-movie collection that presents the post- Star Trek VI films with spectacular 4K visual quality. The remastered films are also found on accompanying Blu-ray discs, along with a heaping helping of bonus content ported over from previous editions. If this is the end of the line for Trek movies on physical media, it’s a fine way to go out. And as with previous Star Trek films on 4K UltraHD, codes for digital copies are included too.

Star Trek Generations (1994)

Meant to pass the baton from the original cast to the new one (although without half the former), Generations is a bumpy opening to the next phase in the movie series, much like Star Trek: The Motion Picture was when it kicked off the film franchise. However, unlike ST: TMP , which has aged pretty well, Generations remained a “meh” experience when I revisited it.

I hope I’m not spoiling anything for anyone when I note that while the film opens with Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov, only Kirk ends up meeting Picard and helping him save the day in the end, thanks to an interstellar ribbon that traps him in a kind of stasis for nearly one hundred years. Kirk’s death (again, this isn’t a spoiler, right?) during act three is a bit of an anti-climactic moment given the way it happens, but the ending sets up the potential for more entries in the series.

The bonus features include a pair of audio commentaries, a text commentary by Denise and Michael Okuda, a bunch of featurettes, several deleted scenes, and more. As with the other movies in this set, none of the extras are new, having been ported over from the 2004 DVD and 2009 Blu-ray editions, but it’s nice to have them all in one place. And they’re so exhaustive that I’m not sure what else Paramount could have included here.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★★ / Movie: ★★★

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

This one is my favorite of the four films in this set. Time travel stories are always a blast, especially the Trek ones, and this tale is unique in that the crew of the Enterprise-E travels to our future, the year 2063. That’s the year humans launched a spacecraft that first achieved warp speed, garnering the attention of some passing aliens (thus “first contact”) and setting the stage for our journey into space.

The date of first contact is actually April 4, which, unsurprisingly, informed the release date of this set. (It’s also my dad’s birthday, so I have to give a shout-out in his memory; he died in March of last year.)

The Borg also factor into this story. They’ve gone back in time to assimilate the Earth, since humans couldn’t defend themselves against such an onslaught in the past (not sure why they didn’t just do that during The Next Generation ’s run on TV), leading our heroes to chase them. James Cromwell turns in a great scenery-chewing performance as Zefram Cochrane, the pilot and ship builder responsible for such a momentous historical event. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t quite live up to the image that the Enterprise-E crew has of him.

First Contact also has a nice big batch of extras, including three commentary tracks, the Okudas’ obligatory text track, tons of featurettes, and deconstructions of three scenes.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★★★ / Movie: ★★★★

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

Unfortunately, the Next Generation film series started going into a tailspin here. Insurrection feels like it should have been a two-part TV episode, complete with all-CGI effects that don’t hold up well today. Rather than go big and bold, the powers that be decided to go small and old.

In this outing, Picard and his crew must intervene in the lives of the peaceful Ba’ku people, who have eschewed all modern technology, after Data seems to malfunction while conducting an undercover assignment to observe them. It turns out that a Federation Admiral is in cahoots with the Son’a people, who want the Ba’ku’s secret for longevity for themselves.

I’ll confess that I don’t remember if I ever saw this film, so it seemed new to me when I watched it. Maybe it was so bland that it slid out of my brain shortly after I originally saw it. That’s not to say that it’s a bad movie — it’s a decent one, but there really isn’t much that elevates the story to “This should be a big-budget film” status.

The bonus features include a commentary track, the Okudas’ text commentary, deleted scenes, and a bunch of featurettes.

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

The last film until the 2009 reboot, Nemesis is a more interesting outing than its predecessor. The story involves a human named Shinzon who lives among the Remans, a slave race of the Romulan Empire. Shinzon leads a revolt that culminates with him taking control of the empire, and he seeks to confront Picard, from whom he was originally cloned.

That’s quite a setup, of course, and the story does delve into a “nature vs. nurture” theme as Picard tries to convince Shinzon that he could choose a different path, but the whole thing just feels a bit blah. Like Insurrection , it’s not a bad film, and it actually has a story worthy of the big screen, but I’ve never found it very engaging. Next Generation fans may beg to differ with this one, as well as the other three movies in this set, to which I say, “To each their own.”

The extras include no less than three commentary tracks, the Okudas’ text commentary, and a bunch of featurettes. As with the other films in this set, it’s nice to have all the previous extras in one place.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★★★ / Movie: ★★★

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