Star Trek: Motion Picture Trilogy

In assembling a trio of Trek films for this package, Paramount rather shrewdly ignored the franchise's momentously boring first feature, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, for a trilogy of films that stand as the franchise's trifecta. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is generally considered the finest of the Trek films. A swashbuckling revenge opera with one foot in the Star Trek universe and another in the thematics of Melville's Moby Dick, Khan has Kirk and company facing off against genetically enhanced superhuman Khan Noonien Singh (the late Ricardo Montalban). Conventional wisdom dictates that only the even numbered Star Trek films are worthwhile, and The Search For Spock is likely the exception. While it spends an awful lot of time undoing any number of the lessons learned in Wrath of Khan, it's a fairly fun piece of sci-fi silliness, thanks in no small part to Christopher Lloyd's histrionic turn as renegade Klingon tyrant Kruge. But in terms of sheer inanity, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home takes the space cake. With heavy-handed moralism laid on as thick as Chekov's "looking for nuclear wessels" accent, Voyage Home sees the gang trekking back through time to rescue a few humpback whales in order to save the Earth of the future. Besides a fairly consistent quality, what this accidental trilogy shares is an over-arching plot revolving around the Genesis Device: a terraforming torpedo used to stimulate organic life on barren planets. They're also notable in their development of the cosmic bond between Kirk and Spock, mirroring the major concerns of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek semi-prequel. The discs include a slew of special features, including new commentaries by the directors and writers, and short documentaries on everything from the collection of Trek memorabilia to a Greenpeace plea to clean up the oceans. Yes, it's likely just an excuse for Paramount to repackage trailers for Abrams' film but it's tidy, pretty looking package nonetheless.