Tremendous Quality and Value - TNG arrives in serious style on Blu-Ray
I just received my TNG Blu-Ray set from Amazon. After the TOS set, which had a decidedly mixed quality, I was ready to give this set some tough scrutiny. Happily, I can report that A/V quality is superior to the previous set, and the extras and packaging share the same quality with that set.
The films:
Generations - I find this movie to be underrated. The intro sequence aboard the Enterprise B is just a terrific bit of continuity expanding coolness. The emotional weight of the movie is great, and although it falls into the "big villain" syndrome, the big villain is 1. played by Malcolm McDowell, 2. is realistic in his motivations and his abilities. The only failings in my book are some torpid pacing in the "Nexus" scenes, and some painful Data scenes. Still, this is a movie that I appreciate more each time I watch it.
First Contact - this is everyone's pick for "2nd best of all time" (after "Khan" of course). I'm not going to disagree. It's got a whiz...
Finally on blu-ray!
**Individual Movies**
This review is for people familiar with the TNG movies in the first place and so I will not touch on them individually, but moreso on the package as a whole. As for the individual movies, in short: "Generations" was cool as it was the first TNG movie and had Picard and Kirk on-screen together, but was overall just OK, "First Contact" is the best Star Trek movie of all time, "Insurrection" is like a long, dull episode, "Nemesis" is OK for action, although lacking overall.
**The Total Package**
The Good:
All 4 Star Trek: The Next Generation movies in one, very nicely priced, collection. "Generations" and "First Contact" both look excellent, with amazing quality, nearly none noticeable film grain, vibrant colors, sound, etc. All 4 movies are just as good as ever, but the higher quality sound/video truly adds to the experience. Most of the extras are nicely done, and include everything from sfx and sound featurettes to top-down maps of...
The final four - Nice but Not an Essential Upgrade
The final bloc of old school Trek films hits Blu-Ray with surprisingly few differences from the standard DVDs. There are no "directors cuts" or variations to make this set a must buy. At the same time, there's little here to make one annoyed at the possibility of a later, better release. Unless Paramount decided to include finished deleted scenes via branching next time around, this is pretty much it. Unless you are bugged by the DNR. Some people are. I'm not since these are the nicest I've seen the films since their first run. However, since they are all recent films, there's little to get excited about in that area. Sounds quality is excellent, I didn't notice anything negative there either.
One really nice thing: they FINALLY provided the trailers to Generations. For some reason, Paramount pulled them at the last minute from the SE DVDs, siting music rights issues (does this make any sense?). Also, the final Nemesis trailer is included on that disc, rather than just the...
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