Lower prices on Star Trek sets?
 

Has anyone heard anything about Paramount lowering the prices of all the Star Trek sets? $700 for a series is just way too expensive. I'd collect all of them if the season sets were $40 a piece like most season sets.

Never going to happen. ST fans are some of the most loyal around. They'll pay whatever. Paramount isn't going for the casual fanbase. It's not necessary to. And seasons sets are all over the place price wise. If you want a real disparity, check out HBO sets. $100 retail for 13 episodes!! At least you get 22 or more for that with ST, AND collectible packaging.

$100 for 20+ hours of classic Star Trek material = Worth it! :)

I'm also waiting on lower prices.. I'd like to get The Next Generation and the Original Series, but price is way too much! I wouldn't think twice about it were they $40 a season. ...But I admit to buying Deep Space Nine at close to $100 a pop.

At Future Shop they are 99 CAD each.

You could also try amazon marketplace. I got seasons 1-5 of DS9 for between $50-$60 apiece. I paid around $75-$80 for seasons 6 and 7.

Next Gen season sets went for slightly more on Amazon Marketplace and ran me anywhere from $75-$95 a set.

With Voyager, I've cheated and purchased them outright as they are released.

agree with OP, $100 a season is just too much. I also think $30 for 4 spisodes of GITS:SAC is too much as well.

Star Trek:TOS season sets are selling for about $82 each. That *IS* the lower price! It was originally released on 2 episode discs at $15 a pop!

But then again, TOS is the only ST show I'm interested in.

I believe FS only ships to Canada

True, true. I know someone who bought the original 2 disc-ers and isn't very happy about it.

And I know it's blasphemy for most Star Trek people, but TOS is the one I'm least interested in. But I'd still buy it. For the right price.

Well, that explains why you consider $82 a season a high price. :) I would feel the same way about $40 a season for TNG. :lol:

Yeah me too. Even though I grew up on its syndicated re-runs in the late-'70s, I feel it just doesn't hold up to today's Trek standards as far as visual style goes. Hard to get past that '60s look, even though some early TNG stuff screams late-'80s.

This is why I kinda wished they'd make a Trek series based on either the TOS era or at least the movie era. Love to see a weekly series using Constitution class and Exclesior class vessels as the mainstay of the fleet. I'd like to see a series based around the Klingon Academy PC game.

Hopefully after ENT does its run, Paramount will consider a series based on the movie era, or somewhat of a remake of TOS with slightly updated ships more in line with what ENT has established.

I bought all 40 of the original discs, but when I heard that the sets were coming, I sold them. I listed them on half.com back in May or June and sold all 40 for $382 (net after paying shipping and commission). I haven't started getting the sets yet, but I should be able to get them for $70 each, so by the time it's over I will have gained about $172 on the upgrade.

I grew up with TOS in syndication, and watched every series - TNG, DS9 and Voyager - from debut to finale, and am currently watching Enterprise.

But my take on it is different. TOS is the only Trek TV show I've felt has been worth buying on DVD.

I've seen every episode of every series. TNG got drilled into my head thanks to the endless reruns on TNN/Spike. With the later series, I just can't picture myself selecting a season, selecting a show and sitting down and watching it.

But with TOS, it's different. Yeah, it's on SciFi, but I don't get SciFi anymore, so I don't see TOS on TV. And with the DVDs, besided better picture quality, you also get them complete and uncut - which is big considering what they've got to do to fit in today's quota of commercials.

It also helps that there's only three seasons. Less costly than seven each of TNG, DS9 and Voyager.

TOS is classic TV and classic Trek. It's what started it all. I say much of it still holds up. I can watch this and still feel it's in the future, not the 60s just because of dated hairstyles and such.

Yeah I'm one that enjoys Kirk and crew the best. I have bitten the bullet and bought season one and two of the original series. I got them for $70 from DDD with the 20% off sale. But I would gladly buy all the other series if they were lower. Fox lowers the price on the X-Files, so why not Paramount? They lower the prices of their movies and the prices of their other season sets aren't that high. $40 and I'm there!

If you don't mind used, you can find them a little cheaper. I often see the ST:TNG sets for 49.99, the ST;DS9 for 39.99, the ST:VOY set for 59.99, and the St:TOS are 79.99.

I forgot to mention that I too am an TOS fan and have picked each of them up at about $90-$99 a set. Yes, it is a lot of money but, I held off on the s disc sets released first and really to me, $100 for each season of this show is not that bad a deal.

Well, I hear ya, but after seeing the DS9 episode, "Trials and Tribbulations", it hit me just how old and retro looking the original series was. I mean the Klingons are all wrong...er, different.

Granted it's classic TV and Trek, but I'll take modern production values over nostalgia anyday.

There was rumors a while back that there was some consideration to going back and rendering all the TOS space shots in CG. Today with the power and ease of use of Lightwave 3D, those few scenes wouldn't take all that long to do (especially will all the scene reuse) and it would make the series a little more bearable to watch.

Also has anyone bought the asian discs? I see those for sale on ebay and they say the only differance is the box art.

I would stay far away from those. They are bootlegs and from what I gather, are missing the ends of the episodes. Just a bad deal all around..

I'm wanting to pick up the TOS, but I'm holding off - not because of the price, but because of the horror stories I've heard about the packing.

Generally, I also think they'll priced too high.

I got all the Next Gen and DS9 sets for about 80.00 a piece, and consider that a bargain. I had collected my favorite episodes on VHS before and knew that I would never own an entire series (at least not for a long time) because of the 14.99 price sticker on each tape. Hell, even on sale for 9.99, imagine collecting an entire series for that at that price per episode. Suddenly I had a way to get each episode for $3.00-$4.00 each, and how could anybody say that was overpriced?

What spoiled me, however, was when FOX dropped their X Files sets in price once the entire series was out. And the huge price break I got on season two thanks to BBV also spoiled me for Voyager. And, for the most part, I am having difficulty finding Voyager for 80.00 or less, but BBV and Deep Discount DVD helped me out tremendously on those I needed. I still have to find a good place to get the last two seasons.

I haven't bought TOS yet because of budget limits and too much Trek on DVD at once is not a good thing. Doubt I will pick up Enterprise, either. It is interesting to me that is the least wanted series but is packaged in the most desireable style of case, the same style fans in America pined for when they saw our friends over seas getting similar packaging.

I bought all the DS9's over the course of a few months online (and B&M) trying to save as much as I could (DDD 20% off sales, gift certificates, gift cards from holidays, etc) ..wasn't really in that much of a rush so it took awhile, but it only ended up costing me like ~$43 each I think over the course of like a year.. I started to get Voyager through ebay, 5th one I bought from amazon with a GC+stl (was still expensive.. have to wait a few months for new releases to go cheap on ebay ..avg price for 1-5 for voyager was ~62.52..7..I think there was a thread about this a few weeks ago ..pretty much people said the same think I think

Why that's just blasphemous.:whofart:

Well, they are too expensive to buy on impulse, so when you have multiple sets coming out too close together, it's hard to get them.

The closeness of release dates does tend to wear on the wallet. I'll be happy once Voyager's out, then I can take a break. I've never seen Enterprise (don't get TV stuff).. but I'd consider buying it if it were under the typical (ha!).

Has Paramount ever considered lowering prices that anyone has heard of? I can't believe they'll keep trying to shove Trek down peoples throats at $100 average. I'm sure once the first wave of releases are through, that'll be the bulk of their sales, and after Enterprise, they'll have to find a whole new way to milk some more money out of Trek.

Does anyone think the lower price on Voyager during the Amazon sale was a testing of the waters? I contemplated ordering the set, but didnt' jump on it fast enough. $40 a set is reasonable, but a $100? No way!

I'm hoping they come down eventually. I've been wanting Next Gen for 3 years, but I can't justify paying the asking price. I'm hoping Paramount lowers these eventually to be more in line with other genre shows like Buffy and B5. At this point, I'd settle for featureless editions that simply get the show down to a cheap price.

I got Season One of TOS during the last DDD sale, but I'm holding off on the other two seasons until the price comes down. Classic series and I love it, but I'm not paying $100 for each set.

TOS can sometimes be found cheap at Fry's B&M, if you have one in the area. Just a month or 2 ago, they had it down to around $80 or less for S2. Once in awhile their online site will also put them on sale.

Hopefully they'll be released on the new format.

All I want is TOS 1-3 and TNG Season 1-7. I also want all of the Collector's Editions sets of Star Trek movies. After TNG they lost me completely

Try Ebay folks. I bought the entire VOY set over Ebay. I bought the other sets as they came out, at $100 a pop, but with VOY's less than stellar, shall I say, "classical-ness", I wasn't about to pay the $100, especially for the 16-episode first season. I think I paid $125+shipping for the first two seasons. I got the last three seasons for $225 total. I just happened to have just up through the 4th season, and I found an Ebay auction for the least three seasons for $209 + 16 shipping in a Buy It Now auction. Needless to say, I jumped on it. Did this back in early January, just got done watching the 7th season last week.

For the ENT sets, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with those. Probably buy them new, but not necessarily on release date. Depends on what other purchases I have that month.

Glad to see this thread!! I am like most of you in that I balk at the high prices for every Star Trek season!! I went cold turkey on Star Trek for a while until season 4 of Enterprise started up and started to hear about how much the writing had changed for the better!

Out of all of them I really want DS9! I noticed on Best Buy's web that they had all seven seasons together for around $620.00. Saving about $80.00 bucks.

I am on the fence with this. I may go ahead and take the plunge but probably as soon as I do Paramount will announce a price drop on all of them!

Take care all!!

I wonder if anyone from Paramount reads these threads? At least start lowering the price on TNG. Its been out for a few years now. I think everyone who is going to buy it for $100 a season has already done so. It's now time to hit the other fans up. I'd be willing to pay $50 a season.

As far as E-bay. I don't like used DVDs, and I don't like sitting on auctions watching them ,and then getting bit out at the last minute. It's just a personal preferance.

DVD Josh hit the nail on the head - the studio knows that Trekkies will pay any price, and they take advantage of that. Same with things like Farscape, The Sopranos, etc.

There are other shows with seasons of 22-24 hour long episodes that have as many if not more extras as the Star Trek releases, yet they can be found for half price for the sole reason that there isn't a rabid fan base that will pay insane prices for them.

It's just like anime on DVD. There's no ultra expensive process involved in making the discs... they just know that the fan base is willing to pay an inflated price.

If people would stop paying the price, the price would go down. But it's impossible to drive that desire for instant gratification out of enough people.

Funny, I'm a big Star Trek fan and I do not own any TOS, TNG, DS9 or Voyager. I'm just not going to spend $2,600 on all of those. For that price I can get

ALL of:

Buffy
Angel
Stargate SG-1 (+ Atlantis Season 1)
B5
Farscape

and still have ~$1000 in pocket!!

Thing is, nobody likes any of that. It's just that E-bay (and other used places; I saw TOS #1 for $50 and #3 for $60 at Gamestop a week back) is the only way to get a reasonable price on the 'Star Trek' sets.

IIRC columbia's dv2 program (check out the columbia thread in bargains) had ds9 and next generation for approximately 75 - 80 per season. i started buying both series there in the fall (but got sidetracked). YMMV.

kms

This is undoubtedly true, but it really comes off to me as greed from the studios, and makes me not want to support their product. Not only that, it doesn't even make sense to me. Because if they priced them reasonably, they could get rabid fans as well as a lot of average-Joe fans. Wouldn't their profits come out ahead if they did this? (Not to mention, they would no longer look like greedy blood-suckers.)

I'm a casual fan who would LOVE to own these season box sets, but I'm not going to ever spend that kind of money. I therefore have to search for used DVDs of TOS and create my own box set so-to-speak of all the episodes that are the must-haves. I've even been doing the same with laserdiscs of TNG. So what does Paramount get from me out of all this? Not a penny.

Hopefully, they will at least release more collections on DVD like they did recently with the seven episodes featuring Captain Picard. (I'm holding my breath for a Borg collection.)