Star Trek: The Compendium Review

After Star Trek into Darkness was released, fans were angry to find out that most of the extras that they would normally expect were not available on the main release, but only available when purchased from various retailers such as Best Buy or Target.

But in this new Blu-ray release of the first two Abrams-verse films, fans will finally get all of the extra goodies in one package.

The Contents:

Star Trek: The Compendium includes four discs; two for Star Trek (2009) and its special features, and two for Star Trek into Darkness and its special features. There is also an Ultraviolet code included for each movie.

Star Trek (2009):

Disc One

• Star Trek (2009) feature film
• Commentary by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, Bryan Burk, Damon Lindelof, and Roberto Orci

Disc Two

• Ten featurettes with “branching pods.”
• Nine deleted scenes and optional commentary
• Starfleet vessel simulator
• Gag reel
• Four trailers

Star Trek Into Darkness:

Disc One

• Star Trek Into Darkness
• Enhanced audio commentary with J.J. Abrams, Roger Guyette, Tommy Harper, Michael Giacchino, Maryann Brandon, Mary Jo Markey, Dan Mindel, Bruce McClearly, Bryan Burk, and Damon Lindelof. This was formerly only available via iTunes.
• The Mission Continues

Disc Two

• Seven featurettes from the previous Blu-ray release (Creating the Red Planet, Attack on Starfleet, The Klingon Home World, The Enemy of My Enemy, Ship to Ship, Brawl by the Bay, and Continuing the Mission)
• Six Target-exclusive featurettes (The Voyage Begins… Again, Rebuilding the Enterprise, Vengeance Is Coming, Mr. Spock and Mr. Spock, Kirk and Spock, and Visual Affection)
• Six Best Buy/Cinema Now-exclusive featurettes (Down with the Ship, National Ignition Facility: Home of the Core, Safety First, Unlocking the Cut, The Sound of Music and FX, and Aliens Encountered).
• Seven deleted scenes (new)
• Photo gallery (new)
• Gag reel (new)
• Featurette: Fitting the Future (film’s costumes) (new)
• Featurette: Property of Starfleet (props) (new)
• Three trailers

Review:

This release would be more for those who wanted the extras from Star Trek into Darkness, as the Star Trek (2009) release is basically a repeat of the initial release. But it is useful to have both movies and all of the special features combined in one package.

The enhanced commentary, which is split into nine different chapters and features ten different people associated with the making of the movie, is interesting and the picture within a picture feature is fun – one sees how the scene was shot and then with the enhancements added to make that scene “futuristic.”

The featurettes are the reason for getting Star Trek: The Compendium as so many, in fact most of them, were not available in one place before this. Roughly, there is an hour of extra featurettes with this release, with most running from two to nine minutes in length.

The Verdict:

It was a mistake to exclude so many of the extras from the main Star Trek into Darkness release. Retail promotional extras should really be stuff like coins, posters, special cases and stuff, and not the meat of the special features!

In addition, having both Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek into Darkness on the same release was unnecessary, unless someone wants everything in one set. The Star Trek (2009) part of the set offers nothing new. Far better to have re-released Star Trek into Darkness, with the extras and commentary, at half the price!

So basically one must spend $34.00 on Amazon, minus the $5.00 rebate (actually less than $5.00 since one must pay for the stamp for the envelope), to get the goodies that they should have received the first time around. While it’s great that fans can finally get the extras without having to purchase a copy of the movie from several different places, it should have never been that way to begin with. I’m less than impressed with a $5 rebate; for the economics of the re-release to have impressed, no more than $15.00 should have left the wallet and even that is a lot for enhanced commentary and a bunch of extras.

If you don’t mind spending the money and really want the extras, get this. If you hadn’t managed to buy either movie yet, then this is definitely for you. Most fans will want to see the extra hour of special features.

Star Trek: The Compendium can be purchased here.

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