This weekend, the third installment of the Star Trek reboot – Star Trek: Beyond – lands in cinemas across the UK.
Chris Pine returns as Captain James T. Kirk alongside the familiar faces of Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana and Simon Pegg as the crew of the USS Enterprise. Set during the first leg of the ship’s five-year mission, the crew wind up in an unchartered area of space, before becoming stranded on a remote planet with a crippled ship and no means of communication.
To get you in the mood for Star Trek: Beyond, we’ve listed three of our favourite space frontier movies currently available to buy on Blu-ray:
Galaxy Quest
Galaxy Quest is a hilariously brilliant sci-fi spoof based on the original Star Trek series, starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman and Sam Rockwell.
Allen and co play the crew of a fictitious spaceship – the NSEA Protector – who travelled around the galaxy saving the lives of countless civilisations on TV in the 70s. However, when a r eal alien race comes to Earth in search of their aid, the crew aren’t quite ready to face the real thing, and a hilarious battle across the galaxy ensues.
Bonus extras include a Galactopedia – an interactive look at various aspects of the film during playback, a documentary about Galaxy Quest’s place in the sci-fi world, and a number of other behind-the-scenes features.
Interstellar
Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending sci-fi epic Interstellar takes a look at the not-too-distant future of humanity, which is struggling with a dying Earth and diminishing resources. Matthew McConaughey plays Cooper, a former pilot and engineer who is chosen to captain the Endeavour, a ship designed to fly through a wormhole and explore a number of “alternate Earths” for humanity to colonise.
However, the wormhole takes Cooper and his crew further than any human has ever been before, stretching space and time beyond recognition.
The Blu-ray features a wealth of special features, including almost two hours of featurettes which look at the making of the film, and a documentary in to the science behind the fiction.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
This list wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Star Wars, the other huge sci-fi franchise, which recently had its own reboot with Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Set around thirty years after Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, the last remaining Jedi, Luke Skywalker, has disappeared. A new and terrifying force has risen from the ashes of the Galactic Empire, known as The First Order and led by the fearsome Kylo Ren. In an attempt to stop The First Order from taking total control of the galaxy, the Resistance begins a search for Skywalker – their onlyhope to stop the spread of evil in the galaxy.
Special features include a making-of, documentaries and deleted scenes, as well as an exciting look at the first table read of the script.
