Star Trek movies featuring the characters from the classic series, as well as the ones featuring characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation, have a new streaming home for the second time since they first left Paramount+. In recent days, the movies relocated to MGM+, the streaming service formerly known as Epix. Of the ten films, all but two — Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek: First Contact — are available on Prime Video. Prime, of course, shares an owner (Amazon) with MGM, so (as noted in a story at TrekMovie), it’s difficult to imagine why those two seem to be outliers.
The ten movies involved in the move include all six classic movies made between Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979 and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country in 1991. The four The Next Generation movies — Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek: Nemesis — continued the original timeline from 1994 until 2002.
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At present, the JJ Abrams-led “Kelvin Timeline” reboot, which launched in 2009, is not part of the deal.
The Star Trek franchise was once viewed as one of the crown jewels of CBS All Access/Paramount+, particularly since the streamer was the home of all new Trek, including Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Prodigy, and other TV series. Right around the time Paramount+ cancelled Prodigy in 2023, they also started toying with the idea of giving up their exclusive hold on Star Trek. A new season of Prodigy is coming to Netflix soon, and in early 2024, the ten “classic” movies moved to Max, splitting the series between two different streamers. They returned to Paramount+ in June, but that obviously didn’t last long.
So far, the Kelvin Timeline movies have remained at Paramount+, meaning that no other streamer has successfully hosted all 13 Star Trek movies. Excepting Prodigy, Paramount has also maintained control of the Star Trek TV shows, which have mostly been critical and commercial successes.
Of course, as much as any other franchise, Star Trek is fairly insulated from the whims of the streaming market. One of the biggest fandoms in entertainment, many Trek fans likely own the movies, either on digital marketplaces like Apple and Fandango at Home or on physical media. Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation received new box sets not long before Picard launched on Paramount+, and there have been two new box sets featuring that character since — one collecting the Picard streaming show and another titled Picard: The Movie and TV Collection, which packaged some key TNG episodes along with the four TNG-era movies.
