Sunday, July 22, 2012

[BR] Star Trek: Evolutions (2009)

I suppose it will take me quite some time to plough through each of the Blu Ray disc for the movies of Star Trek: The Next Generation, so it's a no brainer to want to go through this bonus disc first, having seen all the films in their cinematic glory when they were released. I found the extras here a little bit wanting, because there could be so much more packed into this high definition disc, although what it truly was, was a capture of Star Trek: The Experience exhibition for posterity.

These were the individual chapters and sections in this bonus disc:

The Evolution of the Enterprise (14:23). Introduced by Leonard Nimoy, this short featurette charts the development of the famed Enterprise ships, from the one piloted in the Enterprise television series, right down to its last incarnation in Nemesis. No blueprints or the likes, except for clips taken from the various films in their different timelines, and highlights to some critical changes to the overall design.

Villains of Star Trek (14:04) and I Love The Star Trek Movies (4:34) has interviews with Nicholas Meyer, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci talking about their favourite villains of the franchise from adventures led by Captain James T. Kirk and Jean-Lic Picard, as well as reasons enough why they love the respective films they mentioned. Comes complete with clips from the movies, but again, nothing that no Trekkie had already not seen.

Farewell to Star Trek: The Experience (28:06) proves to be the highlight of this entire bonus disc. I spent 8 days in Las Vegas in the year 2005, and by chance learnt that this exhibition was still ongoing at the Las Vegas Hilton. Needless to say I just had to go and see this for myself, and as it turned out, it became the most memorable highlight of that entire Vegas vacation. I will always remember my jaw dropping reaction when "transported" then "teleported" onto the "Enterprise", and lo and behold when the door opened, I was standing right there on the bridge of the Enterprise. The exact replica that is. Movie magic has never been this real, until now.

This feature features plenty of behind the scenes look into what went on in the preparation for each show, and contains plenty of interviews with the cast and crew in making this an unforgettable exhibition for anyone, fans or non-fans, who decided to go where no man has gone before. I would never have known those faces behind the makeup, and the fanatical fans who make countless of trips to this exhibition like a pilgrimage, until this feature showed who they really were, and the emotional goodbyes being said and paid to what had provided countless of entertainment hours to millions of people around the world.

And to relive those moments, and what was memorable about the entire Star Trek: The Experience, was the capture of the live-action moments in Klingon Encounter (3:29) and Borg Invasion 4D (5:12), albeit without the videos being made and played for these journeys.

The disc rounds up with Charting The Final Frontier, which shows the entire Star Trek universe map complete with the paths taken by the respective Enterprise ships and her crew throughout their 10 feature film adventures, told in video form (lasting 1:26, 1:12, 1:05, 0:40, 1:00, 0:48, 1:15, 0:51, 0:46 and 0:44) when you select each film title indicated on the map. Nothing fancy here, but it still worked to give some perspective in relative light year distances.

The Blu Ray disc from Paramount Home Entertainment is found as part of the Star Trek The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection consisting of 4 discs, one each for the feature film starring the next generation crew led by Captain Jean-Luc Picard played by Patrick Stewart, and the last being Star Trek: Evolutions, the bonus disc. Subtitles are available in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, and audio for this disc is in English Dolby Digital 2.0.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks for this :)

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