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Star Trek TOS DVD Box Sets Forthcoming
bluethundr writes "According to Trek Today: the diabolical Trek 'powers that be' have come up with yet another way to separate the hapless trekkie from his hard earned cash. The Original Series is being re-released as a Box Set. Reportedly, the sets should feature enough extras to make (they hope) the die-hard pony-up against their better judgement. They have an image of the box set on the R2 Project. One interesting aspect of this release is that the Region 2 release will package all original season eps in order of original air-date! One also has to wonder why in the world they are still refusing to offer the The Animated Series on DVD, forcing one to buy the bootlegs if you want to get your hands on a copy. VHS only, as far as official release goes. TAS featured most of the original cast, many of the original writers. What's more, is that one episode was penned by another author you may have heard of in which he mingled concepts of his own distinct mythology with that of trek-lore." Update: 05/06 14:54 GMT by S : Phrase by original submitter removed - apologies, I was completely unaware of etymology.
I love it - it's great for using to confunse and annoy supposedly "hardcore" trekkies who get all their info out of magazines.
And no, I'm not a trekkie, I'm just an animation fan who shared a house with one a few years back.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
The boxed sets of LOTR are probably making tons of money... perhaps that's why these people decided to recapitalize on a decades-old series.
Not that it's bad or anything!
Wait until this (and LOTR) goes gold, platinum, super-platinum collector's edition with Enterprise scale model, etc.
Then they release The Hobbit/TAS, and the cycle begins again.
Don't forget the prime directive of show business: "Always leave them wanting more".
IOW, you never give away everything, always hold something back for later.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Interestingly, I understand that an increasing number of DVDs of older shows are being released in a "region zero" (region-free) format.
My understanding of the rationale behind this is to cut the production costs on something which will sell, but not sell enough in some areas to make region coding worthwhile. When they're around 20 or so years old, there's not much to lose to piracy.
On the other hand, stopping the region-coding of movies might be bad for the cinema industry. Why? Well, take the movie Galaxy Quest. The UK theatrical release date was the same as the US DVD release date. Given the prevalence of international sales via, say, eBay and Amazon, I can imagine people being tempted to buy a DVD and sell it if they don't like it, or buy a secondhand one.
That said, IMHO movies like LotR wouldn't be hurt due to simultaneous releases, unless they take more than a year to get out to the most remote cinemas in some parts of the world.
So, the long and short? My 2c is that region encoding is good for the industry in some cases (and also means they don't have to squeeze every language soundtrack or subtitle onto the same disc), but is also detrimental to the industry - if, for example, ST:TOS had been released in region-free format originally, Paramount would have easily at least doubled, if not tripled, their sales. (I don't intend to buy it now. The profile says recovering ex-Trekkie, and not only do I not want to waste the money on that stuff, but that packaging is hideous.)
"It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." -- Zork
What kind of racist crap is this? It shouldn't be in a /. article, for one thing. Bad taste. VERY BAD TASTE
Most people probably didn't comment on this either because they only skimmed over the text of the posting, because they had no idea that it had any racial conotation, or were unphased. I am in he first two groups (didn't fully read the text and didn't know the expression). I had no idea what the expression is about and I have never heard it until now. I take it that is purely USA slang?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The star trek box sets are SO overpriced its not even funny anymore. Look at other popular tv box sets for comparisons and they are much cheaper. CSI $60, Friends $55 for season 1, $35 for other seasons, Angel $45, Buffy $45, West Wing $45. But DS9 $97, TNG $97-$111. For the same number of episodes as other tv shows.
I would love to get all the TNG and DS9 box sets but not at $100 or higher a box. Paramount is gouging star trek fans because they know they can get away with it. Its a big slap in the face to star trek fans but they are to stupid to realize it.