DVD Review by David Blackwell

DETAILS: 103 mintes, 2 discs, featurettes, photo galleries, text commentary, delted and extended scenes, and theatrical trailers for the movie

STUDIO: PARAMOUNT

RELEASE DATE: 6-7-2005

ANALYSIS: STAR TREK: INSURRECTION (the ninth film in the Star Trek film series) tried to go back to the ideas that Gene Roddenberry wanted to present when he created Star Trek almost 40 years ago. Captain Picard and his crew are faced with a situation that has consequences if they don't interfere to save a group of people from the Sona (who the Federation have allied themselves with). INSURRECTION is a nice try, but it is one of the weaker films to feature the Next Generation cast. They tried to make a fun romp, but it doesn't hold up to the superior FIRST CONACT that came before it.

VIDEO-

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen)

The colors asnd blacks are nice. Image detail is sharp. Another reviewer (over at The Digital Bits- great site by the way, Bill) mentioned the transfer for the Collector's Edition is probably the smae transfer as teh single disc but with much improved MPEG-2 compression.

AUDIO: English 5.1 Dolby Digital, English 2.0 Dolby Surround, English DTS

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish (all featurettes and deleted scenes have subtitle option).

The audio impresses like the previous CE for FIRST Contact. First rate audio effort.

SPECIAL FEATURES: The only extra are disc one is a text commentary that reveals details about the Star Trek universe and Insurrection's production in a way that doesn't take itself too seriously. Some people are disappointed with no director's audio commentary for INSURRECTION, but it is better not to have it if it would have turned out like the lackluster director's commentary for FIRST CONTACT. All of the other extras can be found on the second disc.

An extensive group of featurettes on the production are the best part of disc two besides the seven entertaining deleted scnes (which include a funny extended library scene, Picard's onscreen kiss, and an alternate ending) with introductions to a few of them by a Co-Producer of this movie. The production featurettes focus on several aspects of the production including the construction of the village, a big set they constructed and realized they could made it smalled when they made part of the same set for reshoots, a stunt that was filmed and not included in the final film, and the development of the movie's storyline (like the Heart of Darkness storyline that was dropped). The Director's Notebook has Jonathan Frakes talk about his choices in directing his second Trek film (he directed FIRST CONTACT in addition to several episodes of various Star Trek series). Also disc two has featurettes on various special effects, alien creature design, and the beautiful alien women. Not to woory, the trailers for INSURRECTION are inclued on this CE along with galleries of production photos and storyboard art. The extras are as good as the ones featured on the FIRST CONTACT CE (but I did the production featurettes for INSURRECTION better than the ones for FIRST CONTACT.

MENUS: I'm a little disppointed with the menus for INSURRECTION. They are poor compared to the fantastic menus for the FIRST CONTACT CE.

FINAL ANALYSIS: Paramount continues to put extreme care into their Collector Editions for the STAR TREK films. Plenty of extras on the films make the STAR TREK: INSURRECTION CE a must buy for fans of Star Trek.

this DVD Review is (c)6-3-2005 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. Send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com and look for additional content at http://www.livejournal.com/users/enterlinemedia