It’s going to get a bit easier to watch classic Star Trek movies in the new year as Amazon and Hulu will play host to six of them starting January 1st, 2020.
The movies that will be available include: Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and Star Trek: Insurrection.
That’s five movies with the original cast and one from the Next Generation cast. It would make for some great binging if the best TOS movie, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, wasn’t missing from the list.
It’s not clear why those haven’t been included as the messy rights structure of the franchise is no more after the Viacom/CBS merger. Whatever the reason, if you really want to do a full binge you’ll have to toss a Netflix subscription in there along with some digital rentals.
Star Trek is one of the rare franchises that has been pretty readily available on streaming platforms. Even in the midst of the streaming wars the classic TV shows are readily available on multiple platforms, though the films have shifted here and there.
This may be changing, however, as Amazon picked up the digital rights to stream Star Trek: Picard outside of the US, where CBS All Access isn’t a thing. Most likely, however, this is just an added bonus and the classic TV shows will stay readily available on multiple platforms.