First Four STAR TREK Films Get New 4K UHD Remasters in September, Full Details and Cover Art Announced

Hot on the heels of the breaking news about Star Trek: The Motion Picture — Director’s Edition getting an unexpected facelift to 4K, Paramount Home Entertainment has formally announced the heavily-rumored addition of the first four Star Trek films to hit the Ultra-HD format as well!

Announced through StarTrek.com this evening, this September will see the Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Theatrical Edition), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Theatrical and Director’s Editions), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home all get a boost to the next level with brand-new 4K UHD remastered transfers.

The 4K Blu-ray and standard Blu-ray collections, with outer slipcover artwork.

Available for preorder now, this set — billed as Star Trek: The Original 4-Movie Collection, as we are expecting the later films to come in separate, follow-up sets — this new release will feature both improved picture quality with Dolby Vision mastering, along with an isolated score track for The Motion Picture. (This appears to be the only new bonus feature in the collection.)

The formal announcement:

For the first time ever, experience the original four Star Trek films in stunning 4K Ultra HD. Newly remastered from original elements for optimal picture quality, each film is presented with Dolby Vision® and HDR-10.

This exceptional collection includes four Ultra HD discs, as well as four remastered Blu-ray discs with hours of previously released bonus content.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (both the theatrical and director’s cut), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home are presented on both the 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray Discs, along with access to digital copies of the theatrical version of each film.

While all of the other bonus features on the set are carried over from the previous Blu-ray editions (fully detailed at the StarTrek.com announcement), the standard Blu-ray discs in this new collection appear to contain the newly-remastered picture — which is great for those of you who haven’t yet made the leap to 4K but are interested in the upgraded visuals on each film.

Each of the original four Star Trek films will also be available individually on Blu-ray…

Newly remastered versions of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (both the theatrical and director’s cut), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home are presented in high definition along with digital copies of the theatrical version of each film.

And good news, international fans — while this new collection arrives in the United States and Canada on September 7, it’s not limited to North America!

The 4K Star Trek film collection will make its way to the United Kingdom on September 6, and then to France on September 8, followed by Germany on September 9. For those of you in other locations, no specific dates have been announced — but Paramount’s Blu-ray and 4K collections are typically region free so you may be able to import as needed.

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As we mentioned above, this is the first four films only — and its quite likely that one follow-up set (featuring the six other films), or two follow-up sets (split between V, VI, Generations and First Contact / Insurrection / Nemesis) will follow, however there’s no specific news on that front yet.

While we’ll take them all now, now, now! of course, this actually makes sense for a few reasons (if it occurs as we are speculating); it will be easier to ask fans to spend, say, $80 three times over a year, rather than one $300 price tag up front.

In addition, including one of the ‘premiere’ Trek films in each of our three hypothetical collections — Wrath of Khan in the first one, The Undiscovered Country in round two, and First Contact in the third set — gives each collection a ‘draw’ for fans along the way.

The Digital Bits’ Bill Hunt also shared his insight into the situation on that site’s Facebook page:

For those wondering why this set only includes films 1-4, it’s because it takes time to remaster all these films and the studio is doing them in batches. You’ll get 4 on 9/7, and the others will follow next year.

Besides, if Paramount released a 10-film 4K remastered box set first, people would b—- that it’s too expensive and they only wanted one or two of the films. The more of you who buy this first set now, the more comfortable Paramount will be in continuing to spend the money to release them all.

Vote with your dollars and don’t get picky if you want them all. Fans who got picky with ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation – Remastered’ on Blu-ray essentially ensured that ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Remastered’ got cancelled.

The other question not yet answered: when will these remastered versions of the Star Trek films land on streaming services? We know that the still-in-development Director’s Edition of The Motion Picture will arrive first as a Paramount+ exclusive, but there’s not yet any information on when we’ll see these other 4K editions outside of the Blu-ray format.

Fans in Europe have reported listings of Star Trek: First Contact on the Rakuten streaming service in 4K UHD format, so it’s likely just a matter of time until the next round of Star Trek films makes their way elsewhere.