The CBS corporation wasted no time getting the "Star Trek" franchise up and running right before next year's release of the 11th Trek movie. They took the old, grainy original episodes and applied modern-day technology to clean them up and improve the crappy special effects. They did this to all 72 original episodes. I imagine it took a great deal of time and effort to achieve this. After all, these are The Original shows that got folk hitched in the first place. If they screwed up there would be a virtual revolt of Trekkers. Thankfully, they did a great job. All the Trekkers I spoke to made it sound as if all of this was better than sex. Well, what they think is sex ...
The images above pretty much speak for themselves. I know all the episodes like the back of my hand and when I think of all the FX shots and Enterprise exterior shots they had to fix it just boggles the mind. Entire scenes were entirely re-done. And you don't have to be a Trekkie to see the amazing quality of this work.
What's also amazing is the price. The complete DVD collection of all 72 original episodes retails for - hang on to something folks - $217 US! That's a lot of money even for hardcore Trekkers. The studio might recuperate enough money to pay for remastering but I doubt they'll make any big profits.
Also, they are releasing the double-length episode "Menagerie" (which features the pre-Kirk Captain Pike) in IMAX theatres. That will probably suck in some Trekkie cash.
Finally, the next movie, Star Trek 11 (still no working title) is scheduled to be released around Christmas of 2008. This will be a prequel that focuses on Kirk and Spock while they were at Starfleet Academy. The movie will be directed by J.J. Abrams (Mission Impossible 2) and casting is almost complete; Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Simon Pegg (Sean of the Dead) as Scotty, John Chu as Mr. Sulu, Anton Yelchin as Mr. Chekov, Zoe Saldana as Uhura and Eric Bana (The Hulk) as the bad guy, Nero. So far, no one has been cast for the role of Dr. McCoy. Leonard Nimoy will reprise his role as Spock as a narrator. So far, there's no word on the actual plot. For Paramount, a lot is riding on this film. The franchise fizzled out after the end of Voyager and the so-so movie Nemesis.
It's a sit and wait affair as far as far as the new movie is concern. How well the DVDs do depends on how many fans will pay top dollar for the whole package. Trek has been around for over forty years. I certainly hope that the franchise lives long and prospers.
-LAF
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