We’re still finalizing our review of the brand-new Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Blu-ray set, but wanted to quickly make sure that our readers were aware of an error that was identified overnight on the new release, involving the use of an incorrect visual effect shot.
September 6 Update: This is an issue involving an incorrect edit of the episode making it onto the Blu-ray disc, not a visual effects production issue. Our article has been amended to more accurately express that.
In the opening moments of the series finale, “The Last Generation,” the Enterprise-D is racing towards Earth to stop the Borg attack on Starfleet — and just before the camera cuts to our heroes on the bridge of the Galaxy-class starship, we see the resurrected Enterprise warping past camera.
On Paramount+, the ship dynamically flies away from a blue nebula, passing close to camera before leaving viewers behind. On the new Season 3 Blu-ray discs, however, that scene features a less-interesting view of the Enterprise at warp speed — this may have been an alternate visual effects shot used during post-production before the “nebula” version was completed.
The ten-second error occurs on Disc 3 at timecode 2:06 on “The Last Generation.”
As Trek visual effects production manager Shawn Ewashko rightly points out, this isn’t a VFX production issue — our speculation that the incorrect version of the episode was provided to the disc production group for the home media release.
Hey Trek blogs! The VFX dept doesn’t have anything to do with what’s dropped into a blu ray release. Thanks.
— Grand Admiral Shawn (@shawnvfx) September 6, 2023
The same thing happened when the episode first debuted on Paramount+ back in the spring; certain European regions saw this version of the episode which contained the no-nebula shot in initial “Last Generation” streams — before it was corrected across the service using a final master of the episode.
A fan captured that back in April, and shared a comparison on YouTube at the time:
While this mistake doesn’t impact the story or cause any playback issues when watching “The Last Generation,” it’s an unfortunate matter that will likely require corrective action from Paramount Home Entertainment.
This isn’t the first time that Star Trek Blu-rays have been affected by issues like this one; back in 2012, the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation required replacement of three Blu-ray discs because of audio errors (and a missing VFX shot in “Heart of Glory”), and the remastered Wrath of Khan Blu-ray needed a replacement in 2016 following an accidental repeated shot of a starship viewscreen.
We’ve notified our contacts behind the Blu-ray release about the situation, and as soon as we have their feedback, we’ll be sure to update you all right here.
Watch for our review of the full Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Blu-ray set in the coming days.