Star Trek TOS DVD Box Sets Forthcoming 304
bluethundr writes "According to Trek Today: the diabolical Trek 'powers that be' have come up with yet another way to separate the hapless trekkie from his hard earned cash. The Original Series is being re-released as a Box Set. Reportedly, the sets should feature enough extras to make (they hope) the die-hard pony-up against their better judgement. They have an image of the box set on the R2 Project. One interesting aspect of this release is that the Region 2 release will package all original season eps in order of original air-date! One also has to wonder why in the world they are still refusing to offer the The Animated Series on DVD, forcing one to buy the bootlegs if you want to get your hands on a copy. VHS only, as far as official release goes. TAS featured most of the original cast, many of the original writers. What's more, is that one episode was penned by another author you may have heard of in which he mingled concepts of his own distinct mythology with that of trek-lore." Update: 05/06 14:54 GMT by S : Phrase by original submitter removed - apologies, I was completely unaware of etymology.
Go the Animated Series (Score:3, Interesting)
And no, I'm not a trekkie, I'm just an animation fan who shared a house with one a few years back.
Regions... (Score:1, Interesting)
I hate frickin' DVD "regions".
Several times I've wanted to rent an imported video from my local rental shop and I haven't been able to rent it because it won't play on my DVD.
Deliberately making a product that some people can't use! What the hell is that about!??
Parallell (sp?) (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that it's bad or anything!
Wait until this (and LOTR) goes gold, platinum, super-platinum collector's edition with Enterprise scale model, etc.
Then they release The Hobbit/TAS, and the cycle begins again.
Wow, I really must be showing my youth... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Regions... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why just a laptop? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Solly Cholly??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Parallell (sp?) (Score:3, Interesting)
why? because the store is sick of carrying a bunch of stock that takes up half of their storeroom and noone buys. I did buy the collectors edition the other day, took the dvd out and threw the rest of the packaging in the bin.
Re:Is anyone else fed up? (Score:3, Interesting)
IOW, you never give away everything, always hold something back for later.
It's about time (Score:2, Interesting)
I have the $700 tied up in the TNG sets ($100 * 7 years) and I never regret it. It's a complete collection, that no one can ever take away. Paired up with the "Companion" CD containing all of the TV commercial spots, it is the complete TNG series.
Re:Regions... (Score:3, Interesting)
My understanding of the rationale behind this is to cut the production costs on something which will sell, but not sell enough in some areas to make region coding worthwhile. When they're around 20 or so years old, there's not much to lose to piracy.
On the other hand, stopping the region-coding of movies might be bad for the cinema industry. Why? Well, take the movie Galaxy Quest. The UK theatrical release date was the same as the US DVD release date. Given the prevalence of international sales via, say, eBay and Amazon, I can imagine people being tempted to buy a DVD and sell it if they don't like it, or buy a secondhand one.
That said, IMHO movies like LotR wouldn't be hurt due to simultaneous releases, unless they take more than a year to get out to the most remote cinemas in some parts of the world.
So, the long and short? My 2c is that region encoding is good for the industry in some cases (and also means they don't have to squeeze every language soundtrack or subtitle onto the same disc), but is also detrimental to the industry - if, for example, ST:TOS had been released in region-free format originally, Paramount would have easily at least doubled, if not tripled, their sales. (I don't intend to buy it now. The profile says recovering ex-Trekkie, and not only do I not want to waste the money on that stuff, but that packaging is hideous.)
Re:Solly Cholly??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Most people probably didn't comment on this either because they only skimmed over the text of the posting, because they had no idea that it had any racial conotation, or were unphased. I am in he first two groups (didn't fully read the text and didn't know the expression). I had no idea what the expression is about and I have never heard it until now. I take it that is purely USA slang?
Re:Go the Animated Series (Score:5, Interesting)
I attended a short talk by George Takei ( Mr Sulu ) a few weeks ago at the Supanova popular culture festival in Sydney, Australia while I was waiting for David Carradines Q&A, and he was a very funny and personable speaker, this from someone who doesn't really know Star Trek from a bar of soap... Some discussion of his feelings on the Animated Series came up.
He seemed to consider it something of a damp squib: despite being freed of the constraints of period special effects, the writers never let themselves go and explored the possibilities on offer - he said he would have particularly liked to see some non humanoid aliens, or some more inspired Zero-G work. And while I agree with his point, I don't think I've really seen much animation work at all that manages to dramatically explore the potential of the medium like that.
Also, apparently it wasn't as much fun to work with as the original series because all the voice talent recorded their lines separately to each other, in their own booths, and often not even at the same time. How an actor is supposed to build up any sense of timing or interrelation in a scenario like that I can't even begin to guess.
Re:I must be the only person happy to see this (Score:5, Interesting)
I would love to get all the TNG and DS9 box sets but not at $100 or higher a box. Paramount is gouging star trek fans because they know they can get away with it. Its a big slap in the face to star trek fans but they are to stupid to realize it.
Re:Regions... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Solly Cholly??? (Score:3, Interesting)
but that all kinds of other European ethnic stereotypes are considered acceptable but ANY ethnic stereotype of non-Europeans is considered taboo,
You know, I think that has something to do with a number of things. First, Europeans, throughout all history, have all managed to take a turn at being both the oppressor and the oppressee. As a result, they're generally more light-hearted about this sort of thing, because they know it doesn't really mean jack. I mean, take a walk through a Jules Verne book one of these days. Even the French aren't perfect for him, and he pretty much romps on every nationality.
But these other guys, Mexico being an exception (and Messcans are also generally of the European approach, I've never known a Messcan that took offense at being called a spic or a landscaper) haven't yet taken a turn as oppressor that they're willing to admit. Call yourself African American? Great, if you want to adopt African history as your own. Except that African history is generally much more brutal than European and/or American history.
But all this is part and parcel of the idea that racism is something exclusive to whites.
Man oh man. Just the idea that racism is exclusive to whites is racist. Sinfest has a thread going right now about the old "why can't I call black people nigga, they call each other that?" question. When I was down in Texas, I saw racism going back and forth all the time, black people hating white people and white people hating black people. Hell, the only people in Texas that don't seem to hate anybody are the no-green-card-carrying messcans that get sent back over the river when INS knocks on their door.
Racism is stupid, agreed. But this politically correct way of approaching the problem is doing more to prolong it than fight it. Of course, if I were a minority member (and everytime someone calls themself a Latino I call them countryman and point out that Latin comes from Rome, and being of Italian descent that makes me Latino. NObody likes that explanation, of course) I would do everything I could to try to prolong the problem, because in the meantime I get all these nice benefits just by being in a minority. I get to tell everyone how to talk (so as not to offend my minority sensibilities). I get to tell everyone how to act, or the DOJ investigates. I get to whine about how I'm not being paid what I'm worth because I'm in a minority and know that I'll get a raise to "shut me up".
Blah. If people really wanted to solve this problem, they would. Nobody really wants it solved. The racists want to keep hating, and the poor victims want to keep being victims for the preferential treatment it gets. The rest of us will eventually out-evolve them all, but it'll take some time before the problem finally goes away.