Ok, so, let me see if I've got this straight. Follow me on this: Some of the best new features of Blu-Ray (everything from the super-charged high resolution to the IMDb metadata) are most appealing to movie buffs and video enthusiasts, and honestly, only kind of "eh" to everybody else.
Now most of those features are all available in software and methods available to those movie enthusiasts already. As an example, I have a media server, on to which I've ripped my DVDs as isos (which is the only the strangest kind of illegal). They're lossless, stored on a single hard drive, presented in XBMC, with IMDB metadata, fast load times (with or without previews), and I have a remote application for my Android phone.
But they lock down the Blu-Rays, so I can't (yet) copy them to my hard drive. They lock down the media I give them money for, then offer me the features I'd already have if they hadn't locked it down in the first place?
@OCEntertainment: At 40gb per blu-ray you could only get 25 movies on a 1tb drive, why bother? Just put the disc in the BD player. It's not THAT much more work.
@firetwuck: It's not about convenience. It's about coolness. "Yes, that's right. Every single Blu-Ray disc on ONE drive." Not to mention, I likely wouldn't own too many Blu-Rays anyways. As some person whose name I can't remember said...Serenity is definitely better in 1080p, 5.1 Surround Sound. But Groundhog Day is still funny no matter what resolution it is.
@landoncube: Thanks for that, man. I actually haven't gotten into the Blu-Ray ripping scene yet, so it's good to know it's alive and well. Awesome.
@Eulatos: Out of curiosity, did you do any compression on your BDs? For myself, I'm a stickler for using as little compression as possible. I'd rather spend another $80-100 for another TB drive than squeeze all my movie onto the storage space I have and get pixelated movies. I mean, especially for Blu-Ray, that's just silly.
@ridgecity:
Most places I see here (Canada) have them retailing for like 5-7 more. But there are obviously exceptions (like Wolverine: $26.99 for the DVD, $39.99 for the Bluray which is nuts)
(The Borg aren't mentioned by name, but material deemed canon claims Roddenberry designated the species as the Borg.)
ABSOLUTELY WRONG... the Borg were not even conceived of as an entity until the end of TNGs first season by writer Maurice Hurley and others. There is some SPECULATION that Gene made that Voyager COULD have visited and photgraphed the Borg homeworld. BUt this was just SPECULATION on Gene's part. It is not canon and the machine inhabitants actions do not jibe with the Borg directive anyway.
WHY should the Borg care about a crappy damaged probe and help it? It doesnt make sense.
@dacheeze: Roddenberry was long dead before Voyager was conceived. After the "Q Who" episode of TNG aired, Roddenberry joked that V'Ger from the 1979 movie must have been found by the Borg.
Writers for Voyager expanded on this, giving the Borg the mission of assimilating cultures in the pursuit of perfection ("Omega"), similar to V'Ger. But there is no canon connection.
So the Borg... with all of their collective technology and wisdom extracted from countless worlds... were to stupid to wipe off the muck covering the letters OYA.
Perhaps they had just finished assimimlating the Pakleds when they found the probe. At least they were able to make it go.
I saw this movie in a crappy little theater in Upstate NY (we were visiting relatives for a long weekend). The film broke right about the scene where they first go to Warp and the engines are imbalanced. I can still envision Shat's face getting really bright, then melting away like a shrinky-dink. We sat and waited, and waited, and waited. Finally repairs were made and the movie resumed but the delay dragged the whole experience out to 4 hours....
The only movie experience worse than that which I can recall off the top of my head was watching Leonard: Part 6....
Of all the movies, II, VI, TMP and Star Trek (the new one) have become my favorite of the 11.
Not saying III-V are terrible (even V has its good points) though I dislike ALL but First Contact of the TNG crew. But those where the most Star Trek to me, TMP exploring strange new worlds, II and VI for the human stoy of growing old growing past yourself, and 11 for adventure as well as the humor which was always present in TOS yet never properly shown on screen.
"Hell, if you've put a little bit of money into your home theater it may be better than the actual theater you saw this in in 1979."
I originally saw it on opening day in full 70mm with SENSURROUND right smack dab in the sweet spot seat of the theater! Somehow, I don't think my home setup could EVER top that.
Jingle all the Way: Arnold finds himself surrounded by urban hijinks as he attempts to purchase a high-demand toy for his child's Christmas present, but is ultimately killed by the more powerful Arnold.
You can't say the V'ger was created by the Borg. You just can't. It doesn't matter what Rodenberry said off screen - he didn't actually put the reference in the movie!
Not until JJ Abrams creates Star Trek with Decker/Ilia machine God progeny as the new Borg queen can you draw any linkage between V'ger and the Borg...
@fellersmtc: I'd just like a link to the Rodenberry comments to which Jason is referring.
Regardless, I'm definitely siding with the "If Rodenberry speaks it, it's canon" argument. I mean Star Trek is a creation directly spawned from his mind, and he kinda gets final say on what is in and what is out.
Kinda like Lucas, although I really wish that there could be some kind of way to vote Jar Jar into a character that actually eats if for being stupid. Kinda like 80% of all the clone/stormtroopers.
Still I don't think you can say what Brannon and Braga ultimatly turned the Borg into is what Gene intended or would of wanted. Little Borg is OK. Showing up in every episode, not so much.
I watched it about 4 months ago with my 4 year old son. After that, he felt in love with space and Star Trek. It is indeed a great movie, and it's nice that Giz is paying tribute to it. Thanks Jason.
@FrankenPC: I thought that the special effects at the time were good, I enjoyed seeing the old cast, but I felt that the entire thing was a bit overly contrived.
Call me odd, but 2001 and 2010 were, I felt, superior stories and a better analysis of people under pressure...
I love Star Trek in general, but outside of being pretty, I never found the movies to be "moving". The bad guys are generally one-dimensional and over-the-top.
Rather than say, they merely believe their cause is truly righteous. Wrath of Khan was probably the closest it got to a sane, pre-meditated very bad guy being well portayed on screen.
To me ST:TMP was more a visual trip of what Roddenberry wanted us to see, with a comfortable cast (Even if the cast didn't seem comfortable working together...) that we were familiar with. "Here's what we really wanted you to be seeing all along."
ST:TNG was the whole package of a good cast that (still) had chemistry and the special effects too.
@FrankenPC: When I was younger this was in 2nd to last place on my Star Trek film awesomeness scale, but then again, I never really looked at it in context. Its certainly unlike, in many ways, everything else Star Trek, an attribute that many seem to have contempt for, including my younger self.
Now that I actually think about it, its probably one of the best Star Trek films that was made, even more so, since it kinda is a stand-alone series of events. Most people would have hated 3 and 4 if they hadn't seen 2.
Big thumbs up for Jason putting this one back onto my radar.
@xbinflux: I'd say that Robert Wise's Director's Cut was a significant improvement and caused TMP to jump from the lower half of my personal ranking of ST films to the upper half.
10/12/09
10/12/09
09/30/09
Now most of those features are all available in software and methods available to those movie enthusiasts already. As an example, I have a media server, on to which I've ripped my DVDs as isos (which is the only the strangest kind of illegal). They're lossless, stored on a single hard drive, presented in XBMC, with IMDB metadata, fast load times (with or without previews), and I have a remote application for my Android phone.
But they lock down the Blu-Rays, so I can't (yet) copy them to my hard drive. They lock down the media I give them money for, then offer me the features I'd already have if they hadn't locked it down in the first place?
Yes. This. Makes. Perfect. Sense.
09/30/09
09/30/09
09/30/09
@landoncube: Thanks for that, man. I actually haven't gotten into the Blu-Ray ripping scene yet, so it's good to know it's alive and well. Awesome.
10/01/09
10/01/09
09/30/09
09/30/09
09/30/09
Most places I see here (Canada) have them retailing for like 5-7 more. But there are obviously exceptions (like Wolverine: $26.99 for the DVD, $39.99 for the Bluray which is nuts)
09/30/09
07/15/09
ABSOLUTELY WRONG... the Borg were not even conceived of as an entity until the end of TNGs first season by writer Maurice Hurley and others. There is some SPECULATION that Gene made that Voyager COULD have visited and photgraphed the Borg homeworld. BUt this was just SPECULATION on Gene's part. It is not canon and the machine inhabitants actions do not jibe with the Borg directive anyway.
WHY should the Borg care about a crappy damaged probe and help it? It doesnt make sense.
07/17/09
Writers for Voyager expanded on this, giving the Borg the mission of assimilating cultures in the pursuit of perfection ("Omega"), similar to V'Ger. But there is no canon connection.
07/15/09
Perhaps they had just finished assimimlating the Pakleds when they found the probe. At least they were able to make it go.
07/14/09
The only movie experience worse than that which I can recall off the top of my head was watching Leonard: Part 6....
You still owe me for that one Cosby!!
07/14/09
William Decker became William Ryker
And Ilia became Deanna Troi.
07/14/09
07/14/09
Not saying III-V are terrible (even V has its good points) though I dislike ALL but First Contact of the TNG crew. But those where the most Star Trek to me, TMP exploring strange new worlds, II and VI for the human stoy of growing old growing past yourself, and 11 for adventure as well as the humor which was always present in TOS yet never properly shown on screen.
07/14/09
I originally saw it on opening day in full 70mm with SENSURROUND right smack dab in the sweet spot seat of the theater! Somehow, I don't think my home setup could EVER top that.
07/14/09
Alien: "An alien kills everyone on a space ship".
Godzilla: "Godzilla fucks up the city but dies ultimately".
Rocky: "A determined boxer almost beats the champion".
Passion of the Christ: "Jesus dies".
Predator: "The predator kills a squad of elite soldiers but is killed by the more powerful Arnold".
07/14/09
Benjamin Button: A man is born old and ages into a baby, but is killed by the more powerful Arnold.
07/14/09
Ghostbusters: "A giant stay puft marshmallow man fucks up NYC before the guys put on a light show for the Cirque du Soleil acrobat."
07/14/09
07/14/09
Anyway, this is fun. Let me have a go:
Shawshank Redemption: A man goes to jail, escapes, sands a boat, hugs morgan freeman.
07/14/09
07/14/09
07/14/09
07/14/09
07/14/09
Ok, look. Im sorry. It just slipped out.
07/14/09
07/15/09
Jingle all the Way: Arnold finds himself surrounded by urban hijinks as he attempts to purchase a high-demand toy for his child's Christmas present, but is ultimately killed by the more powerful Arnold.
07/14/09
Not until JJ Abrams creates Star Trek with Decker/Ilia machine God progeny as the new Borg queen can you draw any linkage between V'ger and the Borg...
07/14/09
Regardless, I'm definitely siding with the "If Rodenberry speaks it, it's canon" argument. I mean Star Trek is a creation directly spawned from his mind, and he kinda gets final say on what is in and what is out.
Kinda like Lucas, although I really wish that there could be some kind of way to vote Jar Jar into a character that actually eats if for being stupid. Kinda like 80% of all the clone/stormtroopers.
07/14/09
Borg Origin
Still I don't think you can say what Brannon and Braga ultimatly turned the Borg into is what Gene intended or would of wanted. Little Borg is OK. Showing up in every episode, not so much.
07/14/09
07/14/09
07/14/09
Call me odd, but 2001 and 2010 were, I felt, superior stories and a better analysis of people under pressure...
I love Star Trek in general, but outside of being pretty, I never found the movies to be "moving". The bad guys are generally one-dimensional and over-the-top.
Rather than say, they merely believe their cause is truly righteous. Wrath of Khan was probably the closest it got to a sane, pre-meditated very bad guy being well portayed on screen.
To me ST:TMP was more a visual trip of what Roddenberry wanted us to see, with a comfortable cast (Even if the cast didn't seem comfortable working together...) that we were familiar with. "Here's what we really wanted you to be seeing all along."
ST:TNG was the whole package of a good cast that (still) had chemistry and the special effects too.
07/14/09
Now that I actually think about it, its probably one of the best Star Trek films that was made, even more so, since it kinda is a stand-alone series of events. Most people would have hated 3 and 4 if they hadn't seen 2.
Big thumbs up for Jason putting this one back onto my radar.
07/14/09