Star Trek (2009)
The Video: A
The Audio: A-
The Extras: B+
The reboot of Star Trek 
The Video: A
The video here is excellent. This transfer comes in 1080 P in MPEG AVC codec. Shot in anamorphic widescreen 2.39:1 the image is very clear and organic due to the imperfections in shooting with anamorphic lenses. Personally I did not enjoy a lot of the lense flares employee stylistically in the cinematography but the image still translates very well to Blu-Ray.
The Audio: A-
Presented in Dolby TrueHD with 5.1. With such an active track being a sci-fi action film ideally I would like to have had a DTS-HD 7.1 track. But this track is very clear and alive as needed for such a film.
The Extras: B+
On the main feature disc you get a feature-length commentary track with Director J.J. Abrams, Producers Bryan Burk and Damon Lindelof, and Writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. You learn a lot. There is a lot of discussion in the beginning about the need for continuity in the Star Trek universe and how that problem was solved. Most of the information that is presented in the commentary is also shown in the documentaries on the second disc. BD-Live is also available on the first disc. Currently that brings you to an RSS feed of NASA news. I can only assume this will change in the coming years as we wait on the sequel.
The second disc is filled a ton of featurrettes. There is no one long form documentary here, but five separate featurette sections. The first being To Boldly Go which is a general overall look at the making of the movie.
The second section is labeled Casting. This section, as the name implies, deals with casting a movie with characters that were originally played by other actors. The piece seems to focus on the casting of Spock which is understandable since Lenoard Nimoy is also in the movie, I would like to have seen a little more about Chris Pine and how he was chosen to be the new Kirk. Because Zachary Quinto looks so much like Spock, Pine on the other hand doesn’t make that connection as well for me.
A New Vision discusses why this Star Trek feels different from previous Star Trek films. They want it to feel more like a Star Wars film in terms of pacing and speed. As a Star Wars fan that makes me smile. I’m not sure how well hard core Star Trek fans will feel about this when they see it. There is also technical explaination on creating effects in the camera as opposed to CGI in post production. It was cool to see JJ Abrams literally shaking the camera during a take. I think that would drive me nuts if I was the cameraman though.
You will find several other featurettes including:
- Planets
- Ben Burtt and the Sound of Star Trek
- Gene Roddenberry’s Vision
You will also find deleted scenes. You can chose to watch these scenes with or without commentary.
Overall, this is a great release of Star Trek. I could easily recommend purchasing this disc for your collection.
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January 29, 2010 at 2:08 am |
[...] Star Trek (2009) [...]
February 12, 2010 at 6:53 am |
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