Slashdot Mirror
The Ultimate Star Trek Collection
roelbj writes "For those Star Trek fans wondering what to ask for this Christmas, you may wish to consider The Ultimate Star Trek Collection to be released on November 15. For just (cough) $2499.99, you'll get 212, count them, 212 DVDs with everything ever produced under the name, including all seasons of all five telvision series as well as the ten feature films. Before loading up your disc changer and hitting play, remember to get up once in a while."
It doesn't seem to contain Star Trek: The Animated Series!...
What makes owning this set of dvds and, presumably, rewatching the material worthwhile?
The only movies I've watched repeatedly are Casablanca, Apocalypse Now and to a lesser extent Alien and Blade Runner, but I've no idea why I can watch Casablanca and Apocalpse Now over and over. I know the material very nearly by heart, but have no idea what the mechanism is that hooks me in.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
I'm curious how much trektoday get if somebody buys that set through their handy referal link in this slashdot story, nice that the editors left the link intact.
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
So...it's a very, very boring night at work...
:
Here's the tally, this doesn't include any special features, commentaries, or otherwise useless filler:
ST TOS:
47 mins, 79 eps, 22 discs, 3,713min = 2days 13hrs 53mins
ST TNG:
45 mins, 178 eps, 48 discs, 8,010min = 5days 13hrs 30mins
ST DS9:
45 mins, 176 eps, 48 discs, 7,920min = 5days 12hrs
ST Voyager:
45 mins, 172 eps, 47 discs, 7,740min = 5days 9hrs
ST Enterprise:
42 mins, 98 eps, 27 discs, 4,116min = 2days 20hrs 36mins
The Motion Picture (Directors Cut): 136mins 2 discs
The Wrath of Kahn (Directors Cut): 116mins 2 discs
III: The search for spock: 105mins 2 discs
IV: The Voyage Home: 119mins 2 discs
V: The Final Frontier: 107mins 2 discs
VI: The Undiscovered Contry: 113mins 2 discs
Generations: 118mins 2 discs
First Contact: 106mins 2 discs
Insurrection: 103mins 2 discs
Nemesis: 116mins 2 discs
Grand Total (Minus Commentaries, deleted scenes, additional features)
212 Discs
32,638 minutes
3wks 1day 15hrs 58mins
References:
Amazon.com product info
IMDB Star Trek search
purchased individually, though... what parts *wouldn't* you buy, even at 50 a season?
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at ahem, NORMAL pricing...
28 total seasons @ 49.95
10 feature films @ 19.95
comes to a grand total of: 1598.10
so they've over priced it by 900 bucks. they must still be trying to recoup losses from enterprise or something. if it (upn) wasn't on a pissy little low-power uhf around here, i would probably have watched it (reception lousy even on digicable). (btw, the enterprise dvd sets must be selling well if startrek.com only had 10 copies to give away in a recent promotion http://www.startrek.com/custom/exclude/giveaways/
a more fan-friendly company might even discount the whole set a bit over separate prices to encourage sales of it, otherwise people would just purchase the individual items periodically as sort of a payment plan to getting the whole set. 20 percent off "my" total would be about half what amazon's charging.
the movies by themselves at amazon (se versions) is 122. which means at 2500 you're paying 85 for each and every season. a very generous discount from tptb, don't ya think? when mainstream tv series sell for 35-50 a season and have been spotted at 20 or less on sale lately.
considering the cost to duplicate, package and distribute, they could sell for 499 and still be in the black. the star trek empire has already paid for itself many times over (and no wonder with the prices they charge).. so why not do something crazy like deep discounts on an "ultimate collection" for a holiday season.. star trek could even end up being more popular than elmo dolls instead of being something only a google shareholder can afford.
they could even do it on hd-dvd or bluray instead and bundle a player. all for 399. that'd be one way to really get the new players on the market real quick. if this could get rolling and out the door before new format players hit the general market, whatever format they pick could very easily wind up being the "winner". even if priced at a loss, the future revenue for the hardware makers (& studios themselves by folks buying 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th formats of other movies they already have) over the next 20 years is huge and more than enough to subsidize a promo like this.
It's missing the theatrical cut of The Wrath of Khan, which I vastly prefer to the extended/alternate footage television version on the two-disc set - and I'm not even a big enough dork to own ANY of the television episodes.
Over two thousand dollars and they can't throw in a second copy of the best Trek film evar? What a swindle.
Man, I think the first Slashdot post I ever made was a complaint that the two-disc set didn't include the original release. What were they thinking? Extended is great. Replacing certain scenes - that I thought were great - with alternate takes, and then not including both versions a la the Terminator 2 DVD, that's lame.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman