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Released by: A&E
Released on: November 1st, 2016.
Director: Ian Roumain
Cast: Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, Whoopi Goldberg
Year: 2016
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The Movie:
The problem with covering anything as huge as the Star Trek universe in an 85 minute documentary is figuring out what aspects to focus on. This History Channel documentary does the best it can but it's frankly hampered by both it's running time and choice of available talking heads.
As a serious fan of the original series (and the films that featured that cast) as well as having some familiarity with the Patrick Stewart led "Next Generation", I must admit to being fairly ignorant on the other multiple offshoots related to this franchise.
So what's really here of value? The biggest hook is the final filmed interview of beloved star Leonard Nimoy. Unfortunately, his interview was broken up into chunks that show up throughout other various pieces in the documentary when most fans would've preferred it in one piece. Still, he certainly has some interesting things to say and it's really good to see him one last time. The format of this documentary focuses on various aspects of the franchise like the technology and the morality dealt with in the shows and films. Despite being all original material, a lot of this - especially the parts dealing with Gene Roddenberry - will have a rehashed feeling for most fans. The strongest section is probably the one on Star Trek technology - it really is amazing to see that this show from the 1960s accurately predicted flip phones, electronic sliding doors and iPads.
This is a talking heads documentary with a roundtable discussion included. Of the various participants, the most interesting are Avery Brooks (Deep Space Nine), Nichelle Nichols from the original series, the underappreciated D.C. Fontana (one of the major writers for the original series), and Jeri Ryan from Star Trek Voyager. The roundtable section's main flaw is the a little too much in-jokey tone and over reliance on Ryan (who was a major sex symbol on the show, so that probably explains that!). Nevertheless there are some good stories here with some insight like Nichols' meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King jr. and his convincing her to stay on the show as a sign of hope for the civil rights movement.
Video/Audio/Extras:
This is a pretty basic standard definition affair. The 16í—9 Widescreen 1.78:1 framed DVD presentation looks perfectly fine. There are no visual anomalies that I noticed. As a recent production that's about what you'd expect. I imagine this looks as identical to what one would have seen on their TV when the show aired. There are quite a few clips from the various Trek projects though and those come with the attendant drops in quality at times. This certainly could have benefited from the HD Blu treatment, but the producers of this disc probably wanted to keep this at its current low price point.
The 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio audio track is also perfectly serviceable but does highlight the disc's only real flaw - a sometimes obnoxiously intrusive background soundtrack that can be annoying when trying to listen to what the various participants are trying to say. We live in the age of wall to wall background music for documentaries, and this is an unfortunate example of that trend. All the key areas otherwise are fine -like balance and clarity. This production is on the upper tier of the lossy audio scale.
There are no extras on this - just the documentary.
The Final Word:
I'm giving this one a qualified recommendation due to it containing Nimoy's final interview and some interesting stories and analysis. The low MSRP also helps. Truthfully, this is really not all that cohesive as a documentary, but there's enough interesting material to make it worth at least one watch.
