Paramount just upset Star Trek fans with the Bluray of Star Trek Into Darkness

Fans of Star Trek have always been pretty vocal on their love for the franchise. Over the years the nickname of “Trekie” (while they will tell you that the name is derogatory and they prefer “Trekker”) has been used to describe them for their love.

Paramount may have just betrayed their love with the DVD/Blu-Ray release of Star Trek Into Darkness.

Thanks to the site The Digital Bits we have a great explanation of what Paramount has done:

Yes… the seven featurettes listed in the press release are basically everything you get on the disc, aside from the usual DVD copy, Digital Copy, UltraViolet copy, Xerox copy and what not.  The featurettes amount to about 42 minutes of EPK-style behind the scenes material.  There’s no commentary, no deleted scenes, no trailers… which would be bad enough.

Except…

It turns out that more extras were created for this release – more featurettes and even an audio commentary with director J.J. Abrams and members of his crew.  None of it is available on the wide release Blu-ray or Blu-ray 3D SKUs.  The commentary can only be found as an iTunes “extra” download.  And those extra featurettes?  Some are on a Target bonus disc.  Some are on a Best Buy bonus disc.  And some are only available via CinemaNow and VUDU downloads.

That’s right: More than half of the special features created for Star Trek Into Darkness were used by Paramount’s marketing team as retailer exclusives.

Yes, you read that correctly. Paramount has made the films special features limited to which retailer is selling it.

The article goes on to clarify more of the details:

Based on the German Blu-ray SKUs, it now appears that the list of missing content on the U.S. wide-release Blu-rays includes 5 more featurettes (The Journey Continues… Again, Rebuilding the Enterprise, Full of Wrath, Kirk & Spock and Visual Preferences), plus the commentary with J.J. Abrams and the crew and a theatrical trailer.  The featurettes and trailer are likely what’s on the Bonus Discs at Target and Best Buy and the CinemaNow downloads (Best Buy U.S. appears to have its content via CinemaNow download while the same content is on a Bonus Disc in Canada), and the commentary is obviously with iTunes.  What’s more, it now appears that each retailer (Target and Best Buy) has 30 minutes of exclusive content which, in addition to the 42 minutes available on all versions, means the grand total of all unique content is 100 minutes, not including the 2-hour commentary on iTunes.  THAT is damned irritating.  We’ll keep updating this as we confirm.  Thanks to Bits reader Peter H. for the German info.

So there you have it. Paramount seems to have limited most of the special features are limited to the stores Target and Best Buy, everyone else is getting a barebone film.

Star Trek Into Darkness will be released in the US on DVD/Blu-Ray on September 10, 2013.