The Borg MegaCube 303
Alien54 writes "Paramount Pictures this week revealed plans to release a DVD box set containing every single episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Called the 'Borg Megacube', the box set will include all seven seasons of TNG across 48 discs, thus collecting all the individual DVD sets into one package. As the name implies, the set comes in the form of a Borg cube. Due out at the beginning of November..."
Region 0? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if it's region encoded.
The press release is full of foofoo crap ("By order of Starfleet Command...") and doesn't contain too many specs, like whether it's NTSC or PAL!
It makes me cringe to think about people dropping 450 #'s on this thing and then not opening it up for fear of it losing the precious MINT, NIB collector's status. Personally, I'd rather have a complete run of the series in a nice binder. (On DVD-R.)
Re:Region 0? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There go my savings. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a shame that there's only 1000 copies released. I'm not the biggest Trek fan, but I used to watch TNG fairly religously (still catch it now and then) and a whole set like this would of been real nice to have. But, like others have said, I'm going to guess that about 900 of those 1000 copies will be bought by die hard trekkies, never opened, and either safely tucked away in a nitrogen filled, cooled, tungsten safe or immediately put up on ebay with a starting bid of $10,000.
Wrong way to think about (Score:4, Insightful)
Packaging!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, people! I want the movie, not lots and lots of plastic and foam and "collector's edition" space wasting. JUST GIVE ME THE BLOODY DISK!!!
Re:Yet another way to turn the nickle (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you are really rich and plan on giving your old collection away as Christmas gifts, or are expecting that one of the "add-ons" is a coupon for sexual favors from the crew members of your choice, then I'm saddened that you would consider buying it under any circumstances.
I don't mean to be blasting you in particular. It's your money, not mine. It's just that I see this as the as-yet-most-absurd example of the already absurd "special edition DVD" craze. It reminds me of the re-release of "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes". At the beginning, the director stands up in front of an audience to explain how wonderful it is to have all these deleted scenes back in. One audience member shoots back, "If they were so wonderful, why did you delete them in the first place?"
My brother managed to snag "The Fellowship of the Ring" for $10 the first day the DVD was available. Nevertheless, when the "full six-DVD collection" came out, with its hours upon hours of deleted scenes and other goodies, he went out and bought it again. To this day, he's only watched about an hour's worth of all those "goodies," which makes for damned expensive entertainment.
It's all a ploy to get the maximum amount of money from fans with a minimum of actual effort. I'd bet good money that, when George Lucas finally allows Episodes 4-6 out on DVD, there will be a "Special Edition" release (they never start with just a "regular edition"), then a "Director's Cut" edition, then throw in a "Directors Cut Gold," and so on up to "Director's Cut Gold Alpha Turbo Xtreme Edition" ($109.95, and includes deleted extended sequences and cameos by Jar-Jar).
All these releases and re-releases don't add anything of value to the economy. It's all plastic and cardboard. At least with normal DVDs, you're paying for the content, but with re-releases, they've found a way to turn worthless behind-the-scenes footage into gold by using it as an excuse to sell us the same thing over again.
In the end, it's up to the individual to decide whether or not the re-release adds enough value to warrant a separate purchase. But please think about the game they're asking you to play before you get roped into playing it.
Note: The dude who was talking about putting seven seasons on four discs probably meant using some sort of DivX encoding.
Re:why does it matter? (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally like Star Trek because it is very much different from other sci-fi shows which concentrate mostly on solving conflict with aliens by killing them. In Star Trek, the crew's mission is not to use violence unless absolutely necessary. In I-Borg, for example, the crew nurses to health an injured Borg, a mortal enemy of the Federation, while the Borg begins to understand what individuality is.
Many episodes deal more with the social evolution of humanity rather than shooting 'phasers' at everything that doesn't look human. The very first one, Encounter at Farpoint, is probably the best example of this. After referring to humanity as a "dangerous, savage child-race," Q taunts the Enterprise crew hoping to make them fire upon an unidentified vessal attacking a planet. Rather than attacking it, they investigate the situation further to discover that another alien being is being held captive and forced into labor by the inhabitants of the planet. Of course, they make the right decision in the end and prevent the destruction of mankind at the hands of the Q.
It seems the idea was that a much more evoloved society would investigate threats and come up with peaceful solutions whenever possible rather than taking a course of violent action like Q had expected of them in that first episode.
Re:nice troll... (Score:1, Insightful)
Let's also not forget that almost all major electrical components are manufactured by, or with permission from, Matsushita. Think of them as the quiet, Illuminati of Electronic devices.
Even the things they don't own outright, they own major stakes in.
Re:Region 0? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Region 0? (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the easy region mods have been for the lower end of the market DVD players. Meanwhile, the more expensive players required hardware mods or updated firmware, which cost more to do.
Many of the cheaper brands, such as Samsung, became infamous for selling machines that could be hacked by certain sequences on the remote-control. This started off back in the day when the legality of these hacks was still in question. The smaller brands were not members of the DVD consortium, and weren't forced to follow it's rules as closely. The reputation pretty much remains. It's interesting for Sony, because one division (movies) want's region coding, while the hardware division wants to do anything to increase sales, e.g. easy region free.