Starring:
Leonard Nimoy as Cmdr. Spock
William Shatner as Capt. James Tiberius Kirk
DeForest Kelley as Lt. Cmdr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, M.D.
Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura
George Takei as Lt. Hikaru Sulu
Majel Barrett as Additional voices
James Doohan as Aleek-Om
Special Features:
“Drawn to the Final Frontier – The Making of ‘Star Trek: The Animated Series'”
“What’s the Star Trek Connection?”
Audio & Text Commentaries
Storyboard Gallery
Show History
Other Info:
Fullscreen (1.33:1)
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Spanish Mono Sound
Portuguese and Spanish Subtitles
Running Time: 526 Minutes
Synopsis:
The following is from the DVD cover:
“Boldly continuing where ‘Star Trek: The Original Series’ left off, these animated adventures chart the progress of Captain Kirk and his crew in a universe unconstrained by ‘real-life’ cinematography! With all characters voiced by their original actors, join Kirk, Spock, Bones and the crew for 22 new adventures: to boldly go where no animation has gone before!”
The following episodes can be found on this DVD:
Season 1 (1973-1974)
101 “Beyond the Farthest Star”
102 “Yesteryear”
103 “One of Our Planets is Missing”
104 “The Lorelei Signal”
105 “More Tribbles, More Troubles”
106 “The Survivor”
107 “The Infinite Vulcan”
108 “The Magicks of Megas-tu”
109 “Once Upon a Planet”
110 “Mudd’s Passion”
111 “The Terratin Incident”
112 “The Time Trap”
113 “The Ambergris Element”
114 “The Slaver Weapon”
115 “The Eye of the Beholder”
116 “The Jihad”
Season 2 (1974)
201 “The Pirates of Orion”
202 “Bem”
203 “The Practical Joker”
204 “Albatross”
205 “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth”
206 “The Counter-Clock Incident”
“Star Trek: The Animated Series – The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek” is not rated.
Mini-Review:
As a “Star Wars” geek, I can totally understand why “Star Trek” fans would be excited to get this DVD. For “Star Wars” fans, there’s the rarely seen Holiday Special which contains the first ever animated “Star Wars” footage. It featured the first appearance of Boba Fett and all the original actors reprising their roles in cartoon form. In much the same way, the animated “Star Trek’ is worth getting excited over. It features almost all the original cast reprising their roles, episodes written by the original TV series writers, and a number of firsts for the series (such as Uhura taking command of the Enterprise). The final result is a number of episodes that expand on the original “five year mission”.
The animation medium allowed the storytellers to do things that were not possible on the live action series. The aliens were more exotic, the locations were more surreal, and the special effects were more impressive than anything ever seen on TV. They were also able to tell unusual stories such as an encounter with the actual Devil, a sequel to the Trouble with Tribbles, and other cool stuff. And with Gene Roddenberry supervising, the show was up to his high standards.
If you have a friend on your Christmas list that is a “Star Trek” fan, this is a required addition to their collection. The DVD includes a great set of bonus features including some audio and text commentaries, a fantastic and detailed ‘making of’ video, storyboard gallery, show history, and more. Unfortunately the original actors don’t appear in the ‘making of’ documentary, but all the other key players in the making of the series do.
