‘Star Wars,’ ‘Star Trek,’ Star Sets for Christmas

Home video companies are zeroing in on a concept that record companies discovered long ago for CDs: collectors’ packages. Now that we’re in the middle of the Christmas shopping season, video outlets are pushing numerous sets.

The problem, though, is that the sets are aren’t cheap. They’re $50 and up.

Here are some of the more interesting sets:

* “Star Wars” (CBS-Fox, $59.98). Featuring “Star Wars,” “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi,” this is still the finest video collection. As good as the sequels are, however, they don’t match the original.

* “Star Trek” ($74.75). Any Trekkie would love to have a set of the first five “Star Trek” movies, particularly now that “VI” has arrived in the movie theaters.

* “The Godfather” (Paramount, $150). The only problem with this set, featuring three two-cassette movies, is that it includes the inferior Part 3. It takes a real fan of the series to sit through that one.

* “Dirty Harry” (Warner, $99.92). For your own “Dirty Harry” festival, here are all five of the movies featuring Clint Eastwood as the violent San Francisco cop. If you like Eastwood or sneering heroes or expensive B movies, this is an exceptional series. “Sudden Impact” (1983) is the best of the lot.

* “The Lone Ranger” (Rhino, $149.95). There are 10 volumes of the early ‘50s half-hour TV series that would please those fixated on TV Westerns--or on heroic masked cowboys. If you grew up with these shows, they have terrific nostalgia value.

* “The Bette Davis Collection” (MGM/UA, $49.98). For fans of ‘30s and ‘40s dramas--or just Davis devotees--three of her classics are included: “Jezebel,” “Now Voyager” and “Dark Victory.” Davis does some of her best suffering in “Now Voyager” (which features the famed dual cigarette lighting scene), and “Dark Victory” is one of the great tear-jerkers.

* “The Gene Kelly Collection” (MGM/UA, $49.98). One of the screen’s top hoofers in three musicals. “Singin’ in the Rain” (arguably the best musical ever made) and the Oscar-winning “An American in Paris” are excellent, “On the Town” just so-so.

New This Week: LIVE’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” arrived in video stores Wednesday, greeted by a mob of renters that many retailers said was equal in size to the crowds for “Ghost” and “Dances With Wolves.” There should be plenty to go around: LIVE reported that it shipped about 700,000 copies, breaking the record set earlier this year Orion’s “Dances With Wolves” by Paramount’s “Ghost.”

“Hercules in New York” (MPI, $59.98). Those in need of another Arnold Schwarzenegger fix might try this 21-year-old B movie. The acting by the baby-faced muscleman is atrocious but that’s part of the fun.

“Straight Out of Brooklyn” (HBO, $92.99). Fledgling, 19-year-old director Matty Rich got a reputation as the black Boy Wonder of films after making the low-budget, gritty drama with a cast of unknowns. It’s about a young man (Lawrence Clifford Jr.) who’s fed up with ghetto life and looking for a way out.

“Without Warning: The James Brady Story” (HBO $89.99). Beau Bridges was lauded for his performance in this made-for-cable TV drama about the press aide who was shot and paralyzed during John Hinckley’s attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan.

“Uncaged” (Columbia TriStar, 1990). A low-budget, bloody thriller about a lunatic pimp killing prostitutes on Sunset Strip.