The Star Trek film series is the cinematic branch of the Star Trek media franchise, which began in 1966 as a weekly television show on NBC, running for three seasons until it was canceled in 1969 because of poor ratings. Reruns of the series proved to be wildly successful in syndication during the 1970s, which persuaded the show's owner, Paramount, to expand the franchise.
Paramount originally began work on a Star Trek feature film in 1975 after lobbying by the creator of the franchise, Gene Roddenberry. The studio scrapped the project two years later in favor of creating a TV series, Star Trek: Phase II, with the original cast. However, Paramount would change its mind again, scrapping the new TV series and adapting its pilot episode into the first Star Trek feature film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. Five more films featuring the original cast followed. The cast of the 1987-1994 spin-off series Star Trek: The Next Generation starred in a further four films. A reboot and prequel to the original television series, simply titled Star Trek, was released in May 2009, and a sequel has been announced as in development.
The Star Trek films have received critically mixed reviews, and received 14 Academy Award nominations (winning one in 2010), largely for sound, make up or music. The latter was commonly for scores by Jerry Goldsmith, who orchestrated several themes before his death.
The early Star Trek films were originally released on VHS; competitive pricing of The Wrath of Khan's videocassette helped bolster the adoption of VHS players in households. Later films were also released on LaserDisc as well. For those films that did not receive an initial DVD release, Paramount released simple one-disc versions with no special features. Later, all ten films were released in two-disc collector's versions, with The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan branded as "director's cuts", followed by later box set releases. The films are now available on Blu-ray high definition discs.
