With all three, (TFF, INS, NEM) they don't feel like movies. There's just something missing that makes them feel like repurposed TV scripts or something that's a TV two-parter. With INS it really sticks out cause the same sort of story had been before in Trek--and done better.
I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but this kind of statement bugs the hell out of me. It's basically like saying that all criticisms of all works are invalid because you can always excuse any work by saying "it is what it is". That doesn't really leave much room for intelligent discussion of...well, anything, really. Rant over.
I think I'll take a middle position here. For instance, there's Army of Darkness, which is hardly the greatest film ever made, but given the right set of circumstances is quite an enjoyable romp. Then there's INS, which...I might watch if I wanted a pretty mild and mildly annoying romp.
Please don't misunderstand. It's not you, it's me. I just don't see past the surface on these things. If you do, fine. Congratulations, even. More power to ya. Some people can, and some can't. I'm one of those who can't.
^I get your point, I know that the likes of Generations, Insurrection and Nemesis can be pulled apart piece by piece by any number of people on here and I won't disagree with their criticisms on the whole, but it doesn't stop me enjoying all 3 films, immensely in parts - all of Generations until the Nexus scenes where the film falls flat on it's arse, Insurrection as a light-hearted 2 hours of entertainment and a lot of Nemesis if I don't think about it too hard (much like STID). Bottom line is I'm being entertained which ever way I spin it, hell there's even some fun to be had with the first half of TFF, some great big 3 moments, but they don't save that particular movie IMO
Fair enough. For what it's worth, I wasn't singling you out, either. It's been a pet peeve of mine since my tour in the trenches of the Star Wars Prequel Wars.
I'm too lazy to look, but has anyone mentioned "the thing that irks me about Insurrection is that the Quark scene never leaked out"?
I would have tossed my empty popcorn bucket at the screen had that scene actually ended up in the movie.
One nice thing about INS is that it's probably the only TNG film that captured some of the lighthearted aspects of the TNG crew, instead of being a broodfest filled with all sorts of heavy handedly presented negative emotions. WOK may have dealt with classically intellectual themes and featured a lot of destruction and death, the film didn't feel emotionally heavy all over; a lot of people enjoyed the film because of the lighthearted and/or hopeful tone that counterpointed said destruction and death. That aspect didn't seem to exist in any of the TNG films save for INS. Of course they didn't execute it properly at all...
It is mentioned in the film that the Son'a didn't want to set up a colony inside the Briar Patch where they would be isolated. They always wanted to take over, extract the radiation and play the game with interstellar powers. And by the point they reached an arrangement with the Federation (which gave them the means to return to the place in secret), they were too old, so they didn't have much time left. It's all in the film.
The consequences, at the end of the day, are not very strong in STiD. It comes across more as flimsy plotting than an actual consequence. It is literally 17 minutes in the movie that Kirk goes from being Captain of the Enterprise, to Cadet, to First Officer, back to being Captain of the Enterprise. It's hard to not solve a problem when you can. It's hard not to stay out of the conflict of other worlds when you have a heart, but it must be done. As for why this is in the Insurrection thread, I will never know. The Prime Directive doesn't apply; that is what Dougherty says. I believe that is splitting hairs, it's more about destroying land we annexed. We seem to forget that there is other life on the planet besides the Bak'u. The bird, the little pet of Artim's, etc. They would die without an evacuation. It's an ecological nightmare. It's exactly what we do to have computers and electricity. I think that's why they show so much life on the planet that isn't the Bak'u. So it saves ourselves, makes our lives better, but it ruins an entire planet worth of life.
There's more than 100 years between that and the events of Insurrection. Maybe they did still use their technology to greater levels than that. The Son'a didn't develop those psychic abilities the Ba'ku had developed, for instance. So there's reason to assume that the Ba'ku evolved even further in their "mind over muscle" attitude. AND the Ba'ku didn't realize who the Son'a really were until it was to late. Picard only told them when they were all inside the Son'a ship. You and I don't know how they would have reacted had they recognized who the Son'a were to begin with. Then it wouldn't have been a fight between them and some offworlders. Maybe then they would have dusted off some of their space ships and weapons. No way to know. What we DO know is that they could take a look at Data's positronic brain in an instant, and the statement that they can have warp drive any time when they feel like it. And that the Son'a didn't reveal their true nature. And that they had to rely on Federation cloaking technology to return to the planet. Sounds to me like they were pretty afraid of the Ba'ku.
I think the problem is in the directing and the music, not the script. I think they tell you "this guy is bad" from the first scene we see with them in the duck-blind. And even with what we have on-screen, I think there is a difference between how Gallatin is treated and how Ru'afo is portrayed. Gallatin is always suggesting how to solve the problem. Ru'afo just wants revenge and is annoyed that the Federation is making him wait for his magic potion. "It's simple. Just get rid of them so we can get on with this." Gallatin eventually does something against Ru'afo. The other members of the crew are just following orders. This is Starfleet's holy grail. This is taking exploring and technology too far, as outlined in the movie, something also done in WoK. It's a very interesting moral dilemma. And if you wanted a Dominion War movie, this is a reaction to the Dominion War. Why wouldn't there be xenophobes in the Federation now? Why would we continue to think that space travel was worthwhile? We found the Borg in one quadrant and The Dominion in another. Wouldn't it be nice to go to some planet somewhere and get rid of all this destruction? Are we any better than the Borg, searching for "perfection" at the expense of the culture the people already have? People are getting lost in the minutia of the movie's logic instead of considering the moral dilemma. The Federation isn't worried about what this will do to the Ru'afos of the galaxy. This is purely about a technological advancement that will give them an advantage and appeal over the other powers in the Quadrant. It is a miracle cure and this asks the question: Is doing a little bad worth a big good? This movie gets better the more I watch it, the more I put it into the rest of the Trek universe. I wish people would lay off and appreciate it.
I think that the revolutionary medical benefits to billions and billions of sentient Alpha Quadrant species outweighs the loss of some unique species of birds and fish.