Star Trek The Animated Series - The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek | 
 enlarge | Director: Bill Reed
Actors: William Shatner, Majel Barrett
Studio: Paramount
Category: DVD
List Price: $54.99
Buy New: $41.96
You Save: $13.03 (24%)
New (21) Used (5) Collectible (1) from $34.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  107 reviews
Sales Rank: 17023
Format: Box Set, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Items: 4
Running Time: 526
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.5 x 1.5
MPN: 031674
UPC: 097360316742
EAN: 0097360316742
ASIN: B000HEWEJ4
Theatrical Release Date: September 8, 1973
Release Date: November 21, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW sealed shipped daily.100000s of DVDs, Cds, Blu-Ray, HD-DVDs in stock!
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Product Description
This animated series continues the adventures of the U.S.S. Enterprise taking advantage of the visual freedom of animation to present stories with more alien elements.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY Rating: NR UPC: 097360316742 Manufacturer No: 031674
Amazon.com
Star Trek: The Animated Series is often referred to as Star Trek's "fourth season" because it was created in 1973, four years after the third and final season of the original series, and because most of the original cast provided the voices. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, and Majel Barrett reprised their characters, and some contributed other voices as well. The only major omission was Walter Koenig's Chekov, who was replaced at the navigation console by Lieutenant Arex, the three-armed alien who most prominently represented the series' freedom to create non-humanoid characters. (Koenig did write an episode.) And while the animation is crude at best, the stories are solid sci-fi (penned by some of Star Trek's veteran writers including DC Fontana and David Gerrold, all of whom received prominent opening credits), explored the Star Trek mythos, and elevated the series above typical Saturday-morning fare. For example, "Yesteryear" goes back to Spock's early years on Vulcan, continuing some explorations from the original series' "Journey to Babel," and offers the familiar voice of Mark Lenard as Sarek. "One of Our Planets Is Missing" raises some interesting philosophical questions about the value of life, and "More Tribbles, More Troubles" and "Mudd's Passion" revisit favorite characters. Star Trek: The Animated Series lasted just barely over one season, but it won the franchise's only Emmy (for Outstanding Entertainment Children's Series in 1975) and some of its ideas were embraced by future series. Trekkers who know it only by reputation will find it a valuable part of the Star Trek canon. In addition to the series' 22 half-hour episodes, the DVD set includes "Drawn to the Final Frontier: The Making of Star Trek: The Animated Series," a 24-minute featurette including interviews with the producers and writers (but not actors) on how the series was created and why it still holds up; "What's the Star Trek Connection?", a glossary of characters and themes common to the animated series and other series; a storyboard gallery; and a brief text history. Writer David Gerrold and producer David Wise contribute audio commentaries on three and one episode, respectively, and the ever-reliable Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda provide text commentary on three other episodes. --David Horiuchi
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| Customer Reviews: Read 102 more reviews...
 One of Filmation's finest! September 25, 2008
No collection of Filmation cartoons is complete without their version of Star Trek. Like many Filmation projects from the seventies through the early eighties, the emphasis was on creating "realistic" animation focusing on well-drawn characters with live-action sounding voice acting. Of these projects, Star Trek is one of the best, right up there with their version the Adam West-Burt Ward Batman show, the Flash Gordon series from 1978 and their William Conrad Lone Ranger series from 1980 (I also love their classic Superman - the show the company was founded to produce - and Justice League cartoons from the sixties, but Filmation was still not as refined an animation house in those days, and their classic Zorro 'toons were really farmed out to Japan, so they don't count as real Filmation shows).
Of course, Filmation is known for their repeated use of stock animation that was reassembled to tell many different stories. This is something that bugs a certain group of fans, but I prefer to look at the creativity behind manipulating the stock footage into new stories in creative ways, with some doctoring for specific story scenarios. On Star Trek it worked particularly well because they were emulating a TV show that used a set number of stock effects shots repeatedly anyway (Enterprise in orbit, the one long ship-length shot of the Enterprise from it's side, etc). These techniques allowed Filmation to be the last bastion of TV animation in the United States, and I find the feel of old Filmation cartoons to be very endearing.
 A gift for my friend September 9, 2008
I got this item as a gift for a friend who Loves Star Trek. He was thrilled to get it!! It added a piece to his collection that he was missing.
If you like Trek, and enjoy the classic stars of the original series, you'll like this series.
The artwork is pretty good too! Not the new animation way of making a cartoon, but old school, that, in my opinion, looks Better!!
Enjoy!
 Not quite the fourth season July 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As a big fan of the original series I had hoped that with many of the original voices and scriptwriters, this animated series of Star Trek would in essence be the fourth season of the original series. Unfortunately this isn't the case, which I believe is as a result of two main factors. First of all each episode is half the length of the originals, which dramatically reduces the amount of time spent for character and story development. Having watched all the animated episodes, many of them seemed like they rushed though the story. Secondly since this series was aimed at children as apposed to prime time general audiences the stories and themes seemed simplified and less edging, even by 1970's standards.
While an animated format does allow writers more freedom to create much more elaborate science fiction environments and aliens, this was offset in the series by the average level quality of the animation of the time. I'm sure diehard fans will most likely not be put off from buying this series by my review. I'd just want to make sure that fans know what they're getting is not quite the same thing as the original series.
Better than they say. July 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
From what I had read in various places around the internet, I was hesitant to buy the Animated Series. I am not a true Original Series fanatic, but I truly love Star Trek - in all of its incarnations.
So let me tell you, Star Trek the Animated Series belongs in the canon. There, I said it. I cannot think of any reason why it has been excluded, many of its stories are excellent, and as a whole it has the tone of the live action series and in many cases is just as serious. As for those who don't like the wackyness of TAS, I remind you of "The Omega Glory" from the original series. I can tell you, from flying Aztec gods to ornery entities, there was NOTHING in the Animated Series half as ridiculous as when the Yangs hauled out Old Glory and the U.S. Constitution (up until that point it was a fairly well-done and compelling episode.)
I can only assume the exile that TAS has lived in has been caused by Gene's dislike of trek that he did not directly control combined with the seeming snobbery of stewards of modern trek toward anything predating the current era (TNG, DS9, VOY).
Aside from the animation, which is on par with other seventies animation, the show has great production values with good paintings, voice-work and music. The best part is, most of the stories easily beat out the first few seasons of Voyager and Enterprise. This is probably because it really is the "fourth season" of Star Trek.
In conclusion, it is good, it is great, and any hardcore Star Trek fan that hasn't seen it, should.
Love it! June 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I watched these when growing up, and wanted my 9 year old daughter to see them. They are great! Some are better than others (of course), but overall they are very enjoyable. The drawbacks: the animation isn't the best, and they tried to use as few voices as possible. Plus the actors weren't quite as "animated" (pardon the pun) as they were on the original series. Other than this, though, the story lines are mostly quite good and I enjoy most episodes as much as my daughter does.
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