Review for Blu-ray only.



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"Star Trek: The Next Generation" had a mixed series of films released in the wake of the end of the TV show. This terrific Blu-ray set brings us all four films looking from extremely good to terrific looking. "Star Trek Generations" acted as a transition film between the original cast and the STTNG crew.



Soren (Malcolm McDowell)hijacks material from the Romulans to cause a sun to go nova. His purpose to alter the course of an energy ribbon where one can exist in almost a fantasy world and going backward and forward in time. Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart)must face off against Soren and uses the help of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) to stop Soren, save a populated planet and his own crew from death so Soren can relive his own past.



While hardly perfect, "Generations" features a complex almost sympathetic villian as portrayed by McDowell. The Blu-ray looks extremely good with nice inky blacks, solid detail and a crisp image that doesn't suffer from overprocessing like some of the original "Star Trek" films did when they came to Blu-ray.



Extras include a marvelous commentary track by co-writer Ronald Moore ("Battlestar Galatica")and Brannon Braga ("Threshold") as well as a new commentary track by "Enterprise" co-producer/writer and "Odyssey 5" creator Manny Cotot (also "24") and director David Carson. There's also deleted scenes as well as a visual dictionary giving you definitions for many of the things in the film and about the "Trek" universe.



The best film in the series "Star Trek: First Contact" allows Picard and his crew to engage the Borg the best villian introduced on "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Picard discovers that the Borg plan on assimilating humanity in the past while at their most vunerable. Picard and the Enterprise crew survive the change of the future and travel to the past to undo the damage they've done in their attempt to prevent the first flight of Zephram Cochran (James Cromwell). Data must resist the advances of the Borg Queen (Alice Krige in a brilliant performance) who tries to use him to take over the Enterprise.



Featuring exceptional direction by cast member Jonathan Frakes "First Contact" also benefits from a first rate script by Braga and Moore again. The films allow us to see a darker side to Picard's character developing a literary parallel with Melville's MOBY DICK. The entire cast does a terrific job with the material and brings humor, pathos and a stronger sense of humanity to the characters in the film.



The extras are exceptional here. It appears that the original extras have been ported over along with a new commentary track by the writer of J.J. Abrams' next "Star Trek" film Damon Lindelof ("Lost") and Anthony Pascale that compliments Brannon and Moore's insightful, trivia filled commentary track that gives us insight into the writing process for the film. We get the majority of the special features ported over from the original (many of them in SD)including the visual effects featurettes. We also get "Industrial Light and Magic-The Next Generation", "Greetings from the International Space Station", "Spaceship One's Historic Flight","Data & Beyond", "Trek Roundtable" discussing the "Next Generation" films as well as "Library Computer" and "Star Trek IQ" with the last available only via BD Live.



"Star Trek: Insurrection" the third film fell back into TV territory in terms of scope and story. That's not a bad thing but the theatrical version of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" needed to break free of its TV origins with bigger, broader stories. Where "Insurrection" falls down is a smaller character driven story the late Michael Piller ("The Dead Zone", "Star Trek: The Next Generation", "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine") and producer Rick Berman. Director Jonathan Frakes makes the best of his material and Piller's screenplay does provide us with plenty of "character" moments that stand out in the film. The terrific character actor Anthony Zerbe("The Omega Man", "Matrix Revolutions") and Oscar winning actor F. Murray Abraham ("Amadeus")make the best of their roles. Abraham tries to chew the scenery appropriate given that his villian SHOULD be larger-than-life but he just doesn't have the material here. The film looks exceptionally good with a colorful and sharp BD transfer.



While Data is away observing an alien civilization called the Ba'ku he goes bananas revealing the observation station and not responding to commands. Picard and the Enterprise are called upon to help shut him down and discover a conspiracy to remove the Ba'ku from their planet.



The extras here are feature the original DVD materials ported over along with new material as well including a goofy, endearing if hardly informative commentary by Frakes and actress Marina Sirtis. Sirtis apparently remembers very little about the shooting of the film. We also get "Trek Roundtable" again discussing "Insurrection", "Origins of the Ba'Ku and Son'a Conflict", "Marina Sirtis: The Counselor is In" and the third part of "Data and Beyond". Again, we get "Library Computer" (not my favorite special feature) and "ST:IQ" as a BD-Live extra.



I never understood the hate directed against "Star Trek: Nemesis". It's probably the second best film in the series with a strong performance by actor Tom Hardy, Ron Perlman playing a creature once again and the examination of a number of terrific themes including family, mortality and the path not taken. The transfer itself looks extremely good if a tad overprocessed--I suspect it was pulled from an earlier HD master where a large amount of noise reduction was used as detail isn't quite as sharp although it still looks better than the DVD.



I can only surmise that the sometimes generic action direction of Stuart Baird and lack of character moments (an important element to a "Trek" film)contributed to this feeling. That along with the fact that the film is a bit revisionist--there's never been a mentionof the Romulus' sister planet Remus nor of the "slaves" working there. The other sore point for some is the fact that B-4 was introduced when most fans know that Lore was Data's prototype. Baird a talented editor elected to remove most of the character moments that endear these films to Trek fans. Those scenes are included in SD in pretty bad quality in most instances. The original extra from the two disc set are included. The screenplay by "Gladiator" writer John Logan (who also wrote "The Time Machine" remake)has a number of marvelous set pieces but it fails to add up and doesn't quite hold together as well as "First Contact".



The new extras include a commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda, HD featurettes including "Reuion with The Rikers", "Today's Tech, Tomorrow's Data", the last part of "Data and Beyond" with Brent Spiner, another "Trek Roundtable" about the film, "Robot Hall of Fame" and a "Starfleet Academy" piece on "Thalaron Radiation".



As with the other "Star Trek" boxed set we get an "extra" disc with plenty of HD content including interviews with "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan" & "Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country" director Nicholas Meyer, the writers of J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci discussing the villians in the "Trek" universe. We also get an intersting documentary on "The Evolution of The Enterprise".



Overall, this is a very good set with two exceptionally good movies, two entertaining if less than brilliant "Trek" excursions (you decide which is which), plenty of new BD high def material, a bit of BD exclusive material and the original extras ported over from the two disc DVDs from a couple of years back. The transfers look from very good to exceptional.



"Generations" 3 1/2 stars, "First Contact" 5 stars, "Insurrection" 2 1/2 stars, "Nemesis"...well you decide what you want to give it.