STAR TREK {1st. Season} REMASTERED (DVD Review) - 14/9/08

I was very concerned to hear that they were going to "revamp" in essence a number of effects and so on to the original Series of Star Trek - I thought it was very akin to the awful colourised versions of Laurel & Hardy or George Lucas messing about with the original Star Wars and then not allowing you to ever have copies of them apart from the 'new' versions. Having no current Star Trek fix to feed my addiction I bought the HD-DVD Version purely for the Special Features. Luckily I already had the first release on DVD so knew that I could always have the original version to watch in it's entirety. Luckily for silly old me it turned out that the people involved in the revamp remastered version were die-hard Trek fans and had lovingly collaborated on this labour of love to actually enhance the series in retrospect to the sixties feel. With this they completely re-did various effects and minute touches here & there plus a total clean-up of the original print and re-done sound & themes. I love the original and will always value this but now we also have another option with this new 'version' and it shows! Above and below pictures of the front & back of the new remastered set of Series 1 of the original Star Trek.

With these new re-done episodes we get some good Special Features. Of particular mention is the featurettes "Spacelift" covering the remasterisation of Star Trek & "Where No Man Has Gone Before" which sheds light on the Christie's Auction of 40 Years Of Star Trek memorabilia in the shape of costumes/props for sale to the fans. A TV programme from a few years back called something like "Whatever Happened To..." or "Where Are They Now.." on ITV covered Billy Blackburn's Home Movies and a nice featurette on one of these discs looks like it has been lifted straight from that show. Another feature was when Trek was originally released on DVD in the USA the 2-show discs had the original Episode Preview Trailers - This time at last they have been added to these discs in all their crackly, grainy glory. Below is a picture of the first release of Star Trek on DVD in the UK - The pictures had been cleaned up and the sound sorted to 5.1. Dolby. Of course now we have that and a whole lot more!

Not only is the remastered version an excellent buy it is also suitably a good finish before the new Star Trek feature film hits screens in 2009.

The picture above is the 'enhanced' shot from the new remastered edition of the episode "Man Trap". The picture below is the old shot from the first release on DVD.