Good point. Too bad when they did that, it wasn't too good. Sona Shinzon Whale Turd Sybok? All new, and not very good. Of course, same old stuff could be mishandled as well.
I went for 'Other' (though I don't know who) as none of the options there appealed. Lore is deactivated and dismantled (and I'd assumed melted down) so there's no way he'd realistically be back. I never really saw Q as an antagonist (except in EaF), more just a pain in the ass after a while. The less done or said about Section 31 the better, they are supposed to be a super-secret organisation after all. We sort of had the Romulans in NEM, though it would've been nice for them to have had a proper film where we really got to see what they could do. The Mirror Universe is ok in small doses, as a break from reality, don't see what kind of good plot could be created around them as the big-bad. The Pakleds
The Conspiracy Aliens sort of evolved into the Borg once they realized the difficulties of maintaining them on the show's budget. But one unexplored idea is those creatures could have been advance scouts working for the Borg or somehow affiliated with them.
At least then parts of the movie would make sense. Lore's a schemer, and he'd be the mastermind behind the whole thing, which would set up the plot-convenient times when the Enterprise just happened to be in the right place at the right time (the desert planet; the Bassen Rift). Plus, it would strongly add to the fact that Spiner really likes making the movies about him (I kid) As for having new villains, I'm completely down for that idea, but for some reason Trek -- and Trek movies in particular as Marsden points out -- can't seem to quite grasp the villain just right. He's always got to be EEEEEEEVIL, but without nearly the same amount of character development that our heroes get. (Though, I wouldn't count the Whale Probe as a villain per se -- it's more like a force of nature, as if we're naming hurricanes as bad guys).
But why? Isn't less expansive to simply stick a bug nail on the neck of the actor than making Borg costumes?
I would've liked to see: Q Romulans Dominion Ferengi (or at least a D'Kora class ship on the big screen)
You know what? Earlier I said I wouldn't want Q in a feature film, but I'm going to amend that: I wouldn't have a problem with Q appearing in a film...*IF* he makes his appearance *WITH* Trelane. And ONLY if it's with Trelane. Of course, it's too late for that now.
I don't see the link between the Consipiracy parasites and the Borg? How could they be advance scouts?
The original idea in the show was that, since the little parasites were scouts in Conspiracy, the signal that they sent would summon a much larger and very powerful force to invade the Federation, but trying to come up with the right concept proved to be difficult with budget concerns and the Writers Strike. That concept ended up being the Borg, but the writers stopped trying to come up with a connection. The thing is, the concept of the Borg as we know it was made much after Conspiracy and Q Who. The parasites were concerned about living beings, while the Borg were originally concerned only with technology (that's a major reason why Picard's assimilation was such a surprise -- BoBW even states the retcon outright when the crew says they thought the borg were interested only in technology). So it could have been that the parasites and the Borg entered a mutually beneficial relationship where one gets the people and the other gets the tech.
I selected "other" thanks to... Lore: Enough of anything from the Data end of the pool. That was abused to death on TNG, and the films were already too Spiner-centric. Q: Like the Dataverse, Q was used on the TV series enough, and of all of the omnipotent characters ever created for the Star Trek franchise, Q was more of a pest, than antagonist outside of "Q Who?"--where his "preview" of the Borg was more of a sinister move, than one for the purpose of instruction. Section 31: No. an entire film around that group threatens to be less ST, more M:I. etc. Romulans: I'm not certain the film audience would find them such a challenging antagonist. Probably not vile enough for the kind of conflict/resolution expectations of movie audiences. Mirror Universe Empire: What originally started off as a fantastic spin on a sci-fi archetype would lead to return visits, with its final story (ENT) being a nice send off. No need for yet another trip to a well-explored concept. Pakleds: ...er....no.
Q. He even told Picard in All Good Things that he expected to see Picard again. I was expecting to see Q appear in one of the TNG era films. There were rumours swirling around through the years that Q would appear, perhaps in the follow up to FC (which ended up being Insurrection). Section 31 , however, appeared in Star Trek Into Darkness, and Romulans appeared in Star Trek V, VI, Nemesis, and Star Trek (2009)
To be fair, the Romulans weren't necessarily villains in V. The ambassador was a minor (MINOR) villain/used car salesman in VI, and they were victimes/red herrings/and then turncoats by the end. Other than that, they were never primary antagonists until 2009, and even then it was only a group of miners. Though I agree that I wouldn't want to see Romulans as villains any time soon. In hindsight, it's weird that Trek movies seem to go to such lengths to make the nation of Romulan Empire as non-enemies.
I think there were lots of ways they could have tied up loose ends in a good way for the movies. So I'm assuming that we can all agree that Insurrection is boring and that Nemesis has a terrible and pointless plot. Rather than simply referencing the Dominion War and putting Janeway in a cameo, they could have resolved more of Janeway's return and how it could affect the Federation. Tie in something with Section 31 if you must. It really makes no sense that they wouldn't follow up on a lot of the things that would be big enough for movies. The Breen and their mysterious ways could lead to some kind of big reveal for the movies. I don't mind that they went back to the Romulans, because they were always an implacable foe and the other military empire (Cardassia) had an obvious future of rebuilding. Rebuilding after the war could have been the perfect setting, and they could have used any or all of the ideas above. I've never watched Babylon 5, but I always heard that the best thing about it was how the post-war parts of the show were planned already and therefore just as good as the story of the war itself. Tying in all of the series should have been the issue instead of just making a 'TNG movie.' Generations wrapped up them as a crew, and First Contact brought them back to have good interactions again. So why are we getting the crew back together to fly around in the Enterprise instead of using them in newly established roles?
I think a good unused movie antagonist would be using any of the TOS bad guys of the week. We could find out more about Gorns, have to fight against a Gangster planet takeover. The Nazi planet could become even more militant and start taking systems from everyone...annexing, invading, blaming the Feds for everything. Have them go down the Eugenics path and instead of Khan you have Nazi clone troopers. Something with the Guardian of Forever would be good too. From TNG you could maybe do some more with the Ferengi. Have them try to convert a Genesis device to create latinum. It works but it needs living biomatter (Populated planets). Maybe have the Cardassians just so there can be a battle where their crappy ships get curbstomped. You could have Lore find out about the Dyson Sphere, then since he's a robot he reactivates it for the creation of ships/robots/cyborgs. You could have also done something with Bajor, if for no other reason than to have Winn Adami die in a more horrific fashion and to have rebel Kira running around doing specops/GI Jane stuff.
I feel like we needed a TNG movie with Romulans as the main villain properly used unlike Nemesis and ST9, which, yes, had Romulan villians, but neither of them (Shinzon and Nero) were acting within the confines of the Romulan Star Empire but were, essentially, renegades. Speaking of Nero, why did Starfleet never try to contact the Romulan Government to find out more about Nero (to the extent that they had a way to contact them -but they clearly knew of the Romulans) There are some well-regarded Romulan-centric episodes of Star Trek TNG and DS9 that could have made for more interesting movies (i.e. Redemption- which had both Romulans AND Klingons, Unification, Inter Arnim Silent Leges) IMHO.
I always thought the first TNG film should have been a continuation of All Good Things. At least a continuation in regards to humanity on trial. You still could have had the Kirk/Picard dynamic, since it is Q after all. And I think with humanity on trial, they could have developed a more interesting co-plot for the protagonists to solve to prove humanities potential. That to me would have made a much more engaging movie, with much higher stakes.
I would have loved to see that! A TNG/Voyager crossover movie that deals with the aftermath of Voyager's return and the extent of the destruction of the Borg.