See that shot of the Enterprise right there? That’s the feeling in my gut right about now on the Blu-ray release of ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’. Before I get into this, I will say I am not advocating buying the DVD over the Blu-ray release. If you are into physical media the Blu-ray will still visually be the best thing you can pickup (as I hate 3D I’ll even say over the Blu-ray 3D release, but that’s purely my opinion though.) With that out of the way, I say that there is a huge problem with this home video release. In fact, there are a few problems. So let’s see what they are, shall we?

I can sum it up in 2 words: Bonus Content.

Or should I say the absolute lack of bonus content.

One of the big draws when first DVDs and later Blu-rays were released, is that with the added room on the disc,  we, the viewer, could get added bonus content. However, it would appear that someone who works at Paramount has been playing far too many video games as of late.

Wait I thought I was talking about a movie? I was. Therein lies the problem. Films released on home video have historically contained all of the bonus content with the film itself.

With ‘Star Trek Into Darkness‘ it would appear that Paramount is trying to take a page out of the downloadable content (DLC) that was made popular by video games over the past few years.

So what bonus content do we get on the Blu-ray release?

  • ‘Creating the Red Planet’
  • ‘Attack on Starfleet’
  • ‘The Klingon Home World’
  • ‘The Enemy of My Enemy’
  • ‘Ship to Ship’
  • ‘Brawl by the Bay’
  • ‘Continuing the Mission’

7 featurettes. In those featurettes there is no commentary track by J. J. Abrams and cast, there is no trailer, and it seems extremely thin on the featurettes in general. Why could that be? Well it appears that some markets are getting their own exclusive bonus discs.

The commentary isn’t included on the Blu-ray and has to be downloaded separately from iTunes (which means played from a separate device so timing could be off.) 5 bonus features entitled ‘The Journey Continues… Again,’ ‘Rebuilding the Enterprise,’ ‘Full of Wrath,’, ‘Kirk & Spock,’ and ‘Visual Preferences’ are apparently available on bonus discs that will only be sold through some retailers (like Target and Best Buy).

I’m sure that’s great for the retail partners but I’m sorry,  this sounds like I’d have to buy a copy from a retail chain I don’t like in order to get all of the bonus goodies! I’d also have to stream the audio commentary while the Blu-ray is playing also in to hear it?

What the hell are you thinking Paramount? This is not how to keep your customers happy and your sales up!

I bought the Blu-ray with the first ‘Star Trek’ and I was extremely happy with it. This version? As much as I loved the movie – it’s boldy going into the not buying list until a real edition is released.

Paramount you need to fire whoever came up with this idea because it’s about the dumbest thing you’ve done since ‘Sahara’ lost you $171.7 million. Shame on you. You almost make me want to revise my opinion on where Into Darkness ranks among trekkies.

Source: The Digital Bits.