The Motion Picture director's edition getting a 4K upgrade, plus latest TOS movie and TV bluray releases

Paramount have got some real treats in store for TOS fans and physical media peeps, with new releases of the TOS movies on the way, and the complete TV series. But the biggest most exciting news is...

Two decades after The Motion Picture got a significant facelift in the form of The Director's Edition DVD(ad) release - In which director Robert Wise re-edited the film, including adding several new visual effects shots - Paramount have finally taking the plunge to do the work all over again and produce a 4K release of this much improved version of the movie!

Paramount are expecting the restoration project to take 6-8 months, and the end product will be a 4K Ultra HD release with Dolby Vision high dynamic range and a new Dolby Atmos soundtrack. The final product will initially be available exclusively on Paramount+(ad) (one hopes and assumes home media releases will follow in due course).

The restoration will be undertaken by the original team who worked with the late Robert Wise before; producer David C. Fein, restoration supervisor Mike Matessino, and visual effects supervisor Daren R. Dochterman,

USS Franklin model coming as Star Trek Beyond home video bonus

Not wasting any time, the home video pre-orders are going live for Star Trek Beyond. As ever many retailers will have exclusive offers with different covers and extra goodies. And top of the line once more appears to be Amazon, who are offering a model of the USS Franklin (looks like a QMx job to me, same base as their forthcoming Mini Masters range).

Details are still early and I imagine the covers and details will change before release for most of what is below (such as that weird pentagram on the Franklin's base, or the blue nacelle caps), but so far listings suggest the US USS Franklin release will come with the 4K Ultra HD release of the film (which includes bluray and 3D bluray discs too), while the UK counterpart will come with the bluray. Current artwork for both uses the dominant poster in each market:

Latest nuTrek, TOS, and TNG home video releases

CBS and Paramount make sure to regularly reissue all the Star Trek titles on various home video formats so we can always get a-hold of them, and in this 50th anniversary year I'm sure we can expect even more reissues than normal! The latest announcements give us the nuTrek movies in new formats, and new box-sets for TOS and TNG TV series on bluray and DVD. Continue below for the details.

Paramount have now officially announced and revealed the covers for the first ever Star Trek 4K Ultra HD titles, which as was previously reported, will be the first two nuTrek movies, Star Trek, and Star Trek Into Darkness. Both will be arriving in June, in three disc packs which will contain the new 4K Ultra HD version of the films, plus a bluray movie disc, and special features bluray disc, with each.

Star Trek The Animated Series coming to bluray, plus new 4K Ultra HD movie releases

At long last Star Trek: The Animated Series is coming to bluray! The second ever Star Trek TV series is relatively easy series to bring up the HD standards, in comparison to the only other series Trek series still awaiting bluray treatment, DS9 and Voyager, which will require significant reconstruction efforts to see them upgraded to higher resolutions - Indeed TAS has apparently already been scanned at HD resolutions, so for CBS it's a pretty straightforward release. According to The Digital Bits CBS are looking to get the new blurays out in time for the holiday season this year, so we should be just a few months from being able to examine TAS's glorious and exotic aliens and settings in crispy high definition.

One thing I dream of them doing, and that would be a lovely addition for this 50th anniversary year, is creating a brand new TAS episode, using the original cast recordings made for the cancelled video game Secret of Vulcan Fury.  The game had a story by TOS writer D.C. Fontana, and all of the main original cast had already recorded their parts of the script before the plug was pulled. Obviously it would need a bit of tweaking to make it work as an episode rather than a game, but what an amazing thing it would be to get the last combined efforts of the entire original cast resurrected as a brand new episode of Star Trek! Given the relatively simple animation style of TAS, the actually making the episode shouldn't be too tricky, so long as those recordings can be recovered. (See trailers for the game here, and here)

Anywho, in other home video news, Star Trek is set to be among the first film series to get releases in the new 4K Ultra HD format, which is four times higher resolution than standard bluray. The Digitial Bits again report that both Star Trek (2009) and Into Darkness will be released in this format, and they expect Star Trek Beyond will follow too (as I would imagine most big movies will from now on). Additional one lone entry from the older film catalogue is getting remastered for a 4K release, The Wrath of Khan. A new bluray release will see both theatrical and director's cuts of the film using the new remaster. Posting on Facebook, director Nicholas Meyer seems very enthusiastic about how good it will look: