Star Trek The Original Series: Complete [DVD]

Brilliant if you love the original series this is for you

All the episodes I grew up watching!

If you consider that the Classic Star Trek is a 60's television show... A very cheaply made 60's television show then you might wonder (perhaps quite rightly) if there's even much point in CBS applying all the effort and expense dusting off all that old footage and rescanning it all to Hi-Def; I mean all the releases on DVD looked pretty good didn't they? - Sure they did! Well I'm here to assure you that the answer is YES! -- Yes it was definitely all worth it.The picture quality of the Blu-Ray release of this series IS a whole world of amazing, perhaps a little too amazing for a show that was shot in the 60's on a shoestring budget; you see everything with fantastic clarity, the colours are great, the weave in the costumes, the texture of peoples faces, the colour of their eyes, the displays and signage on the Enterprise are screaming out at you for your attention; but then so is the coffee stain on the bridge carpet!One of the special features introduces you to the scan and clean up processes applied to the original shooting film, which is quite interesting although if you're really nitpicky when watching the episodes you can still catch this process out but trust me, 99.9% of the frames are gorgeous... It's unbelievable to me that footage this old looks this clean.Be aware that like the remastered issue DVD's, these Blu-Ray releases include the revamped CG special effects, a controversial choice for sure but take it from an amateur 3D artist, for the average Joe these revamped special effects do look quite cool, presenting themselves as a problem to only the Trek purists (even though I consider myself an ardent fan!) and possibly veterans of CG modelling and animation that probably would have done it all differently. My only critique with a lot of the CG shots of the Enterprise is that the ship can look a little too light on it's feet for what is apparently a million gross tonnes of vessel.To all the sceptics and the critics of the CG meddling I offer you the words of salvation that fans of Star Wars didn't get prior to the purchase of their remastered releases. The original stock shots and special effects shots are all present and accounted for (viewable via menu choice or camera angle feature) with these Blu-Ray releases, which was an extremely smart move on the part of the team responsible for this re-release and you're given the option to view the episodes with the original effects (or not) prior to hitting play on all the episodes; it's then you'll appreciate that the original stock shots of the Enterprise have not aged very well nor has their transfer to the world of Hi-Def been particularly successful, especially if you watch these episodes on say a 46" (or larger) screen on which all this footage is blurry, washed out and lacking in any kind of detail even when the camera's right near the ship; I appreciate now more than ever why the powers that be opted to manipulate the episodes in this way.The sound has been remastered to 7.1 DTS-HD (wasted on me as I don't own a surround system) or you can use the original Mono track, again to keep the Trek-puists happy!Watching the features you actually get to sit in on a 28-piece orchestra faithfully re-recording the theme music using the original sheet music, arrangements and of course a soprano where appropriate, all of which scored my approval and had me grinning from ear to ear. And for the fanboy's amongst us I can tell you that they were even able to locate and apply the original 60's master recording of Shatner's famous opening monologue.My only disappointment was that the discs come in these foldout cardboard slip cases, which I've never been a fan of as they're going to deterioate the more I use them which'll probably be a lot since I like to watch these episodes in production order; I really wouldn't have minded if they had been packaged the same as the DVD releases.But packaging aside my verdict remains A*, ten out of ten, five stars... This is a true gem in my Blu Ray collection which is really saying something as I experienced some kind of climax when I played through my Back to the Future and Matrix sets for the first time!I invite you to check out some Hi-Def screen stills over at Trek Core: http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/ - After viewing some of these stills you'll be dropping this in your basket right away, I'm almost certain of it!

I haven’t seen these for years, looking forward to watching them again

I had never really seen any of the Original Series of Star Trek before I bought this Boxset, but I found that I already knew most of the characters by name and mannerisms. That is the cultural impact this series has had. I have seen most of Star Trek: Voyager, though, so I was curious to see where the whole franchise began.I have only watched a handful of episodes so far out of this vast collection, but they are all very entertaining. The first thing that struck me, however, was that something seemed amiss. As soon as I saw the Enterprise, I noticed that something seemed wrong. It then occurred to me that the space scenes were in fact CGI rendered animations, rather than models on strings. My feelings about this were mixed, because although the new scenes look very nice, and are more visually consistent with later series in the franchise, I am a long-time fan of Classic Doctor Who, and have become very attached to old-fashioned visual effects. When I bought this, I wanted to see Star Trek as it appeared in the 60s, complete with model shots. I have now gotten used to these effects, however. They do look a lot better.The real upside of this remastering is that the picture quality is astonishing, at least on my small CRT TV which I still use. The colour and details have been painstakingly touched up, as you can see in the short documentary on the first disc, which also shows a side-by-side comparison of before and after. The theme music has also been re-recorded, but with complete faith to the original arrangements. I didn't even notice until I was told, but the sound quality has improved as a result.One thing people don't seem to like about this set is the cardboard box it comes in. I, on the other hand, think the cardboard box is really nice. It accompanies (and complements) my limited edition Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword bundle on my shelf, which now looks like a nerd shrine. The card feels much nicer than plastic, and, although there were no home media such as DVD or VHS in the 1960s, I am certain that they would have used cardboard packaging if they had released them then. My only complaint is that the discs are slightly difficult to put back into their cardboard slots. Also, cardboard is less durable than plastic, but if handled with appropriate care, this should not become a problem. By the time it does, I will have bought an HDTV, a blu-ray player, and realising how awful non-HD media look on HD displays, I will have replaced as much of my library as possible with Blu-Ray, and since Star Trek has also been released there, that will be my next port of call eventually.

Good