Did Insurrection kill the TNG franchise?

[los2188]

I was talking to my wife the other day and she brought up the question as to whether or not Insurrection or Nemesis killed the TNG movie franchise. I happen to think it was Insurrection. I mean after that movie, it was decided that basically they were going to make one more TNG movie, and that's all. For all the Nemesis hate we have (most of it justifiably so), Insurrection seemed to be the one that turned the franchise down the tubes so to speak. I do admit that it must have been hard for Insurrection to live up to the hype because it had to follow First Contact.

[NrobbieC]

Or the fans for not going to see them. I mean, people went to see TUC and that followed TFF!

[Jimi_James]

Insurrection may have been the film that decided TNG had only one more chance, but had that chance been successful, had Nemesis been a hit, you can bet that another TNG movie would have been made, despite the 'end of a journey' messaging that went along with Nemesis.

So Insurrection definitely didn't help, (I happen to like it more than Nemesis, but that's not saying much) but Nemesis ultimately killed the TNG movie franchise.

[King Daniel]

Enterprise played a part in Nemesis' box office failure too, I think. In 2002, they were in season 2, at their blandest and ratings were plummeting.

And of course, Insurrection was dull as ditchwater and probably had all the casual moviegoers who enjoyed the action and fun of First Contact vowing never to watch a Trek movie again.

[CorporalClegg]

TNG was just dying a slow death since season six.

Each film was progressively worse than the one it followed. It was a mix of actor apathy, studio interference and lack of talent at key positions that killed TNG. Insurrection was just a symptom.

[Dream]

The first two seasons of Enteprise being so bad is what killed the Star Trek franchise.

Insurrection made less money than FC, but it was still decent amount.

Years of bad ENT did more damage than any of TNG movies.

[BillJ]

Without a doubt.

Gave us a group of people no one cared about and a dumb moral dilemma.

"Pretty white people fight eminent domain!"

[billcosby]

yay, double post
[picard facepalm]

[billcosby]

Dream wrote:

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The first two seasons of Enteprise being so bad is what killed the Star Trek franchise.

This.
I still maintain they would have kept heaps more viewers with another opening theme. Lots of people who tuned out did so for that single reason... I'm just thinking of some people I know, Trek fans who did.

It's sad because I think near Enterprises' end, they were making some of the best Trek ever.

Insurrection was the only time I really feel TNG let me down. I can't say that it's aged well, either. That fountain of youth bullshit was just impossible to choke down. It simply seemed so phoney.... like I get it why they wanted to do something lighthearted after the moodiness of Generations and darkness of First Contact.
But the story was so dry on Insurrection, I would have preferred nearly anything else. Seriously. I would have watched LaForce delegate a scrub of the power conduits or something for 2 hours than watch Picard and Data embarrass themselves singing show tunes and placating the So'na.

I think I might prefer Nemesis to Insurrection. As poorly as it was executed, I could get into the Shinzon bits and it mattered more to me.

[SchwEnt]

Jimi_James wrote:

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Insurrection may have been the film that decided TNG had only one more chance, but had that chance been successful, had Nemesis been a hit, you can bet that another TNG movie would have been made, despite the 'end of a journey' messaging that went along with Nemesis.

I don't want to derail this, but if Nemesis was a hit and more TNG would have come... how could it be?

They made a point of splitting up the crew to go their different ways. Just toss 'em back again for the next movie? Like the thing they do with Worf, everybody just shows up again with no rhyme or reason?

Okay back on topic...

[Jimi_James]

How could it be?

Because more than anything, Star Trek is a business and Paramount likes making money, so regardless of how lame it was to keep bringing Worf back, if Nemesis had been successful, they would have found a way to bring the TNG crew back one more time, simply to make more money...even if it didn't make sense and was a terrible movie as Nemesis proved.

And creatively, it actually wouldn't have been too difficult to come up with a story that brings the crew back together and teams up the Enterprise and the Titan...TUC featured both the Enterprise and the Excelsior though the circumstances are vastly different and the Excelsior had substantially less screen time, the precedent for a two ship film was set right there....or even before then if you want to go all the way back to Wrath of Khan with the Enterprise and the Reliant.

And that's considering that Paramount would even bother to stop and take into account the creative aspect of making another movie. If Nemesis had been successful, they likely would have taken whatever elements of TNG were left and pushed forward to get another movie out.


Paramount's drive to make money on Trek by any means necessary, no matter the quality of the product they were selling, is what ultimately killed the franchise. And in the end, fan fatigue was partially correct. We were tired of Trek. We were tired of bad Trek and we stopped watching.

[teacake]

NrobbieC wrote:

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Or the fans for not going to see them. I mean, people went to see TUC and that followed TFF!

Those were much better movies.

[Dream]

SchwEnt wrote:

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I don't want to derail this, but if Nemesis was a hit and more TNG would have come... how could it be?

Patrick Stewart made it known that he was getting tried of playing Picard. I doubt there would have been more TNG movies after Nemesis even if that had done very well. Besides, there weren't more TOS movies after TUC were there?

[C.E. Evans]

It wasn't so much Insurrection as it was that TNG really couldn't hold its own as a movie franchise. Both Generations and First Contact had major draws--Kirk meeting Picard and the Borg on the big screen, respectively--but the subsequent films didn't and had only the TNG cast themselves as the big draw, and it wasn't enough.

Add to that a growing disinterest in Trek by mainstream audiences and too many cooks stirring the pot behind the scenes, a downward turn for TNG movies was probably unavoidable, IMO.

[DrCorby]

billcosby wrote:

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This.
I still maintain they would have kept heaps more viewers with another opening theme. Lots of people who tuned out did so for that single reason... I'm just thinking of some people I know, Trek fans who did.

Wow. That really surprises me, that some Star Trek fans stopped watching Enterprise solely because of the show's theme music. I was indifferent to the series due to the writing, especially in the first couple of seasons. But I'm stunned that fans of the franchise, with no other complaints about the series, stopped tuning in only because of a minute of music at the beginning of each episode. I'll take your word for it that they exist. Still. WOW.

Regarding Insurrection, I agree that the plot and execution had problems. It especially showed instances of distorted focus on Picard and Data, but that was far worse in Nemesis, in my opinion. It was blatantly obvious that Stewart and Spiner had major hands in script creation/revision, to the great detriment of the movie. Nemesis just left me with a far worse taste in my mouth than the merely-bland Insurrection did.