Star Trek - DVD

Star Trek: The Original Series, Vol. 18: Doomsday Machine/Wolf in the Fold

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Star Trek: The Original Series, Vol. 3: Man Trap/Naked Time

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Two great ones 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I love these two episodes.

"The Man Trap" scared the hell out of me when I first saw it as a kid. It seems that a lot of people don't care for this episode, but I've always found it supremely creepy--Dr. Crater all alone on that dead, lonely planet with the hideous creature that killed his wife, deluding himself that he has some kind of personal relationship with it. Despite the primitive special effects and cheesy music, TOS managed to produce some pretty scary episodes. The creature design here is exceptional.

In "The Naked Time," a virus results in intoxication and poor impulse control, causing various characters to act out in ways that are very revealing of character. This episode is sometimes quite funny, but it's also very eerie as our cast of characters struggles to maintain self-control while Lt. Riley croons, "I'll take you home again, Kathleen" over the PA system.

Editorial Review:

"The Man Trap," Ep. 6 - When the U.S.S. Enterprise's landing party arrives on a planet to give a routine medical examination to its inhabitants, a nightmare unfolds when several members die--each having every trace of salt mysteriously removed from their bodies. "The Naked Time," Ep. 7 - Sent to pick up a research team, the U.S.S. Enterprise finds the scientists dead. One of the landing party brings the disease back to the crew, forcing suppressed emotions to surface. Kirk must race against time before the ship is pulled into the disintegrating planet.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture DVD Collection

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Spanning two decades and countless light years of interstellar adventure, Star Trek: The Motion Pictures Collection is a testament to the enduring goodwill of Gene Roddenberry's optimistic sci-fi concept. Long before Star Wars sparked an explosion of big-screen science fiction, Roddenberry had planned a second Star Trek TV series; the project fizzled, but its pilot script evolved into the first film in Paramount's most lucrative movie franchise. Despite its sluggish pace and bland "pajama" costuming, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) offered a welcomed reunion of the "classic Trek" cast, packed with Douglas Trumbull's still-dazzling special effects. Trekkers were even more ecstatic when The Wrath of Khan (1982) revived the spirit of the original series, even though director Nicholas Meyer was a Trek neophyte. With Leonard Nimoy directing, The Search for Spock (1984) began where Khan left off, with a thrilling (albeit contrived) obligation to resurrect the formerly ill-fated Mr. Spock.

A box-office smash, Nimoy's The Voyage Home (1986) is the franchise's most accessible adventure--a high point offset by William Shatner's comparatively dreadful Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). Meyer (and his penchant for quoting Shakespeare) returned for The Undiscovered Country (1991), a conspiracy thriller that put the series back on track, inspiring fans to invoke the "even number" rule in rating their franchise favorites. Generations (1994) gracefully passed the torch to TV's The Next Generation, bidding farewell to Captain Kirk with honor and integrity intact. Highlighted by the evolving humanity of Brent Spiner's android Lt. Comdr. Data, First Contact (1996) explored Star Trek history with a logical (hint) surprise encounter, and Insurrection (1998) provided an adequate expansion of the successful TNG series. Taken as a whole, these nine films demonstrate the consistent vitality of Roddenberry's original vision, stoking any Trekker's appetite for "ongoing missions" in Nemesis and beyond. --Jeff Shannon

Star Trek - The Original Crew Movie Collection

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 50 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Devoted Star Trek fans will surely cite the "even number" rule in evaluating the Original Crew Movie Collection, but all six of these films qualify as rousing entertainment. Undeniably, the even-numbered films in Paramount's lucrative Trek franchise tended to be the best, as demonstrated by the superiority of The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, and The Undiscovered Country. And yet each film has something to offer die-hard Trekkers, beginning with the epic-scale wonders of the first Motion Picture (presented here as a two-disc special edition). Evolving from Gene Roddenberry's aborted attempt at a second Star Trek TV series, the effects-laden Motion Picture divided fans while proving that Star Trek had a promising big-screen future. Nicholas Meyer's The Wrath of Khan made good on that promise, reviving the Star Trek spirit and proving, in the case of Mr. Spock, that beloved characters "never really die." It's widely regarded as the best of these half-dozen features.

With its deadly Klingon confrontation, the Leonard Nimoy-directed Search for Spock was a thrilling (albeit contrived) excuse for Spock's inevitable resurrection, and its somber tone was readily countered by the Earth-based humor of Nimoy's The Voyage Home, combining a planetary crisis with a lively--and phenomenally popular--time-travel plot line. Unfortunately, William Shatner then lobbied for the director's chair, and The Final Frontier--an uneasy mixture of cheesy humor and grandiose themes--was the regrettable outcome. Paramount rallied by inviting Nicholas Meyer to repeat his Khan success, and Meyer rose to the occasion with the sharply scripted thrills of The Undiscovered Country. By ending the film with an official signature send-off from the "classic Trek" cast, the original crew brought their big-screen legacy to a graceful and upbeat conclusion, setting the stage for a transitional adventure in Star Trek: Generations. --Jeff Shannon

Star Trek: The Original Series, Vol. 5: What Are Little Girls Made Of/Dagger of the Mind

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Star Trek - The Original Series, Vol. 7, Episodes 14 & 15: The Galileo Seven/ Court-Martial

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Galileo 7-Does Man Need his Emotions? 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The original Star Trek series came out in the 1960's at a time when the worst horrors of the 20th century were still fresh in everyone's minds-two world wars, the Holocaust, the millions who perished in the Gulag's of the USSR, China and other Communist countries culminating in the omnipresent threat of the total annihilation of humanity by nuclear weapons. The writers of the series decided to make a statement of how possibly to cope with these things by creating the character of Mr Spock who comes from a race which decided to eliminate all emotion and to live only by "logic" and "reason". However, the question is always hovering over Spock as to whether this is really possible, i.e. can man really change his nature. Spock's friendly adversary, Dr McCoy does not believe this is possible and in the "Galileo 7" both men are put in a crisis situation where Spock is finally given command and he can now put his theories on human perfection to use. This show has all the elements of Star Trek at its finest: life or death drama, fear of the unknown, military command decisions, loyalty of friends to each other, interference from superior authorities and others. The script and acting are splendid and the first-time viewer will be riveted to his TV screen. This proves that a good story and fine actors can make a great production even with low-budget sets (something the later versions of ST forget).
I would also recomment "Journer to Babel" an another excellent epidsode that deals with the Vulcun/Human encounter.

Editorial Review:

"The Galileo Seven," Ep. 14 - Spock learns the trials of command when Kirk sends him, along with Scotty, McCoy and a shuttlecraft crew, to investigate a quasar-like phenomenon. "Court Martial," Ep. 15 - Kirk's reputation and career are at stake when he faces a court-martial for negligence that resulted in the death of a crew member.

STAR TREK: FAN COLLECTIVE - Q (4PC) / (FULL CHK) - STAR TREK: FAN COLLECTIVE - Q (4PC) / (FULL CHK)

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Trekkies

Amazon Price: $26.99 List Price: $29.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Paramount Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $4.25

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 71 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In just under 90 minutes, this dynamic documentary manages to boldly go where a lot of Star Trek fans have gone before: into the heart of Star Trek fandom, where humanity blossoms into its most endearingly odd and bracingly positive manifestations. Are "Trekkies" (or "Trekkers") just a bunch of geeks, loners, and societal outcasts who've found their niche on the fandom convention circuit? This delightful film proves that the stereotypes are simultaneously valid and woefully myopic, because the people introduced here are only as strange as you make them. We could just as easily embrace them as ideal citizens of the United Federation of Planets, living Gene Roddenberry's fictional future on present-day Earth. Who's to say theirs is not a better world than ours?

Superbly directed by Roger Nygard and hosted by Denise Crosby (who played Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation), the film offers splendid interview segments with all of the original Star Trek cast, and many from later Trek series, but the real story here lies with the devoted fans who are profiled with an equal balance of fascination, bemusement, and respect; they're a bit weird, to be sure, but these die-hard Trekkies are never unduly patronized. Instead, Crosby and Nygard respond as all Trek insiders have in the past: with astonished affection.

Filmed in 1996-97 at a variety of locations and conventions, Trekkies visits a vast array of Trekkers, Trekkies, and just plain folks who love the series and its pop-cultural progeny. Uplifting, thoughtful, comprehensive, and frequently hilarious, this good-natured film (sanctioned by Paramount without being subservient) is guaranteed to entertain fans and nonfans alike, and a proposed sequel would be wholeheartedly welcomed. --Jeff Shannon

Star Trek - The Original Series, Vol. 10, Episodes 19 & 20: Arena/ The Alternative Factor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An Alternative Opinion 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Being an ORIGINAL trekkie (I care not for johnnie-come-lately Trekkors who have no clue what this series meant in '66), I have strong memories of watching Kirk and Spock every week. When the reruns began to be aired locally (some years after the rest of the country, apparently), I got to see stuff I did not remember. The Alternative Factor became my personal favorite because of the struggles: 1. Kirk and Spock not understanding the nature of the situation 2. Lazarus dealing with his opposite self's actions after they swap universes 3. Stopping anihilation successfully.
The state of budgets and special effects somewhat hurt the visual storytelling, but the rest of the show I find heroic in a very classical sense. I was always blown away by the magnitude of the sacrifice of the rational Lasarus, and Kirk's words at the end chill me even today. Maybe having a friend who looked like, and whose intellect was on the order of Spock's, gives me a different perspective toward this tale. I always felt like Kirk to his Spock, but without a ship to command (Boy, did we need one). Hey, If networks today would pay attention to what Gene and the guys were up to, we'd have shows like...like...like...Enterprise today. Hey, we do! Trek Lives! Long Live Treckkiedom!
This is story telling at it's peak, galactic in scope, human at it's heart, and gut wrenching in it's conclusion. They don't come better than this, even with bigger budgets. This is the stuff that inspires kids to be great achievers, and grown-ups to think about why we do what we do. Great stuff, if you pay attention.

Editorial Review:

"Arena," Ep. 19 - While pursuing a ship that destroyed a Starfleet base, Kirk intrudes into the territory of the highly advanced Metrons, who decide to settle the conflict. "The Alternative Factor," Ep. 20 - The Enterprise takes on board a man with a dual personality. It is soon discovered that there are really two of them--one with the power to destroy the universe!

Star Trek: Generations (Laserdisc)

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