Do the Next Gen Films Feel like motion pictures or TV.

[ConRefit79]

I've seen every Next Gen film and they always feel like TV episodes to me. I enjoy them(First Contact more than the others), but they lack the departure from TV to motion pictures that I feel the TOS films have. I'm not sure if this is due to 7 seasons of TNG or producers being TV series. Maybe it's having only 3 seasons of TOS and a long break.

Anyone think that TNG movies aren't much different from the TV show?

 

[Tosk]

I wish the TNG movies were more like the TV show.

 

[Capt. Ben Sisko]

Insurrection definitely feels like a two part episode. I think by having the E-E and new uniforms in FC they started down that path, but lower budget for INS and then undermining themselves by using the same uniforms in DS9 didn't help. Don't get me wrong, those uniforms worked marvelously in DS9, probably moreso than they did in the films.

 

[Lance]

I think by having the E-E and new uniforms in FC they started down that path, but lower budget for INS

Not true. INS actually had a bigger budget than FC, but it all got used for location shooting (which doesn't come cheap).

The money is there on the screen, all of those beautiful vistas when Picard and co are leading the Baku up into the mountains. That's where the money went. But part of the problem, acknowledged by the film-makers themselves, is that only a fraction of what they shot actually ended up in the movie, because it was decided at the eleventh hour that all those widescreen panoramic views that Frakes shot loads of film of while they were all out at the location slowed down the movie too much. So, it all got lopped out in the editing room. In the event, they might as well have shot it cheaper and used the money for other things.

First Contact feels like a bigger movie, but it was shot on a considerably smaller budget than either Insurrection or Nemesis.

 

[Orphalesion]

I wish the TNG movies were more like the TV show.

^This. This times infinity.

With TOS I hate the show and like or even love a good chunk of the movies. Why? Because the movies finally recognized that they had seven characters there and not just three.

With TNG I love the show and dislike or hate the movies. Why? Because here the movies forgot that they had eight characters and not just Picard and Data.

Ofcourse there are more reasons why I feel that way, but this is one of the most glaring points.

 

[F. King Daniel]

First Contact and Nemesis felt like films to me, Generations and Insurrection TV specials.

 

[martok2112]

For me, the first three films (Gen, FC, INS) looked and felt like overblown 2 hour episodes. Nemesis (in my very humble opinion) was the only one that looked like a big screen film.

I've cited my reasons probably ad nauseam in other threads.

 

[MacLeod]

Insurrection definitely feels like a two part episode. I think by having the E-E and new uniforms in FC they started down that path, but lower budget for INS and then undermining themselves by using the same uniforms in DS9 didn't help. Don't get me wrong, those uniforms worked marvelously in DS9, probably moreso than they did in the films.

The new uniforms were designed for FC so it would be more accurate to say that DSN sued the movie uniform rather than the other way around.

But I think in terms of cinematic I think I might rank them as INS being the most like a TV episode then NEM, GEN with FC being the most cinematic but tha just me.

 

[Lance]

It's not about the budgets, but about how they are used.

GENS feels like a TV episode because it largely was. They commenced shooting not more than a few weeks after TNG ended (in fact, there was a crossover in filming, but that's because the Enterprise-B segments were going in front of the cameras at the same time TNG were filming their last handful of episodes), and therefore it carries a momentum from the series. They did what they could to differentiate it, like the changes to the bridge and the lighting, but given the short ammout of prep time they had, it was never going to be quite as cinematic as one might hope.

FC remedied this, but in many other ways it was shot like a TV episode. Not for nothing was the director nicknamed 'Two Takes Frakes' for his ability to get footage in the can with an effeciency bordering on the miraculous in movie-making terms (in reality, this 'miracle' was simply that Frakes was used to shooting television, and carried that methodology over to the big screen). Where FC "feels" more cinematic is in the script. The stakes are high, the Borg are a suitably gruesome cinematic villain, and there are some terrific set pieces, like the Borg cube battle it opens with or the space walk on the hull of the Enterprise. So, while it was cheap to make, it looked much more expensive on screen.

INS is the obverse of this. It was given a bigger budget, a much bigger budget than First Contact, and yet many people think it feels less cinematic. Why? Well, the reality is that the budget went on extensive location shooting and the hiring of hundreds of extras. While that does mean the budget is spent effectively, it's hard to really grasp the enormity of that in the finished product, because the script is much more low-key. It's filmed with these grandiose locations and in big gestures, but the story itself could have been told in a 42 minute episode and shot on Paramount's 'planet hell' set, and still not felt like it was missing anything...

NEM... is a movie. It's maybe more cinematic than any of the others, both in terms of how it was shot and in terms of it's story. Most of what it does is BIG BIG BIG, but to many people this meant that it felt too far removed from the subtle intimacy they loved so much in the TV show. Go figure.

 

[martok2112]

Yes, that was my big issue with the first three movies is that they were shot like television episodes, meant for a 4:3 framing, even though the aspect was 2.35:1. When the first three TNG films came to home video, the action looked much better since it filled the 4:3 aspect nicely.

 

[Cyke101]

First Contact and Nemesis felt like films to me, Generations and Insurrection TV specials.

Same here.

I showed my bf -- a non Trekkie when we first started dating -- the TNG movies. He's more of a fan of the TNG show than TOS, but felt that the TOS movies did a better job of feeling more cinematic, at least on average.

 

[Amaris]

I think by having the E-E and new uniforms in FC they started down that path, but lower budget for INS

Not true. INS actually had a bigger budget than FC, but it all got used for location shooting (which doesn't come cheap).

The money is there on the screen, all of those beautiful vistas when Picard and co are leading the Baku up into the mountains. That's where the money went. But part of the problem, acknowledged by the film-makers themselves, is that only a fraction of what they shot actually ended up in the movie, because it was decided at the eleventh hour that all those widescreen panoramic views that Frakes shot loads of film of while they were all out at the location slowed down the movie too much. So, it all got lopped out in the editing room. In the event, they might as well have shot it cheaper and used the money for other things.

First Contact feels like a bigger movie, but it was shot on a considerably smaller budget than either Insurrection or Nemesis.

My opinion, of course, but I think the cinematography in INS is better than any other TNG film. The locations were just gorgeous. I also enjoyed the overall look of Insurrection, even though I think the story fell short. It was also fun to see our heroes on screen again, so INS isn't as bad for me as it seems to be for others. For me, that "honor" goes to NEM, which just looks too dark and muddled for me, and the story falls short.

 

[urbandefault]

Do the movies feel like tv episodes? To me?

In a word, no.

Maybe it was when I saw them. I'd watched TNG in first run from the premiere to the finale. So watching the movies on the big screen was a different experience. TNG hadn't been there before. Sets and lighting were different, more and better locations, overall a better look.

TNG on a 19" CRT tv was not the same as TNG movies on a huge screen in a theater.

I think that people who couldn't have had that same experience missed out. Just like growing up watching TOS on a small screen, maybe in black and white, then seeing the refit Enterprise in the theater in 1979. It's an experience that can't be reproduced.

 

[drt]

I think almost all of the first nine movies (I'll exclude Nemesis, since I haven't seen it in over ten years) have a TV feel to some extent or another.

TMP is definitely the most "cinematic" but it's hampered by it's Phase II TV pilot script, that ultimately gives us a "bottle show". The rest of the original cast movies are so painfully low budget affairs that they feel more like TV movies than a true theatrical effort (note: I don't consider this a bad thing), and to be honest, the low budget actually helped TWOK, because Meyer was forced to focus on the characters instead of spectacle. And similar to the Frakes observation, Nimoy's directorial style was pretty "TV" as well, particularly SFS, but with notable improvement for TVH (which also featured the best location shooting). I think Shatner burned a lot of his budget on location shooting, but it never really felt like the characters were actually in Yosemite, and the Nimbus and God Planet sets seemed like they were filmed using the same Paramount backlots/southern California desert locations the original series would have used. TUC was too soundstagely, and "hey, let's pretend these aren't the Ent-D sets". And as pointed out above, the TNG movies were hampered by really being made by TV people (which at the time, was more of an issue then than it would be today).

 

[Lance]

Yes, that was my big issue with the first three movies is that they were shot like television episodes, meant for a 4:3 framing, even though the aspect was 2.35:1. When the first three TNG films came to home video, the action looked much better since it filled the 4:3 aspect nicely.

Nah, they were certainly framed for (and intended to be viewed in) widescreen ratio. No movie ever looks 'better' in 4:3.

I think almost all of the first nine movies (I'll exclude Nemesis, since I haven't seen it in over ten years) have a TV feel to some extent or another.

TMP is definitely the most "cinematic" but it's hampered by it's Phase II TV pilot script, that ultimately gives us a "bottle show"). The rest of the original cast movies are so painfully low budget affairs that they feel more like TV movies than a true theatrical effort (note: I don't consider this a bad thing), and to be honest, the low budget actually helped TWOK, because Meyer was forced to focus on the characters instead of spectacle. And similar to the Frakes observation, Nimoy's directorial style was pretty "TV" as well, particularly SFS, but with notable improvement for TVH (which also featured the best location shooting). I think Shatner burned a lot of his budget on location shooting, but it never really felt like the characters were actually in Yosemite, and the Nimbus and God Planet sets seemed like they were filmed using the same Paramount backlots/southern California desert locations the original series would have used. TUC was too soundstagely, and "hey, let's pretend these aren't the Ent-D sets". And as pointed out above, the TNG movies were hampered by really being made by TV people (which at the time, was more of an issue then than it would be today).

Tbh, my own opinion sways closest to this viewpoint. The Trek movies were all shot on the cheap... heck, the often acknowledged 'fan favorite' The Wrath Of Khan was produced by Paramount's television division. The only two Star Trek movies that were truly theatrical were the two JJ Abrams ones.

 

[suarezguy]

They do feel intermediate between television and other films, not a bad thing when the television format largely worked; indeed one of the worst aspects was making the films a little too cinematic in focusing too much on Picard (especially as more of an action hero) and Data.

 

[Aldo]

I think one of the biggest reasons they feel like tv episodes at times is because they are beholden to the idea that they need to have an A story and a B story. And in the case of First Contact, a C story that involves Data and the Borg Queen.

 

[martok2112]

The area where I feel the strongest that they look and feel like episodes is in the visual effects.

I mean, it was said that STTNG (especially by its latter seasons) was already up to "feature film" quality visual effects for a television show.

The leap in visual effects quality between the end of TOS in 1969, and the premiere of TMP in '79 was far greater (largely because of the effect Star Wars had on cinematic sci-fi/space fantasy) than the transition of TNG to the big screen, which happened in only a year. There were a couple of big screen moments, visually, in both Gen and FC, and Insurrection did have some beautiful location shooting, but beyond that, they really just looked like eps on a visual level.

It was a reason why I was disappointed with the big screen viewing of Serenity. The series, Firefly, already had top notch visuals, and when Serenity hit the screen a few years after Firefly went off the air, I just didn't feel that " leap" to the big screen. It also looked and felt like an overblown, lost episode.

Personal opinion only.

 

[Lance]

It was a reason why I was disappointed with the big screen viewing of Serenity. The series, Firefly, already had top notch visuals, and when Serenity hit the screen a few years after Firefly went off the air, I just didn't feel that "leap" to the big screen. It also looked and felt like an overblown, lost episode.

Personal opinion only.

Ironically, Joss Whedon had done interviews at the time of Serenity's release about wanting to avoid exactly this scenario, and although he didn't 'name' his examples, he did mention past TV-to-movie translations that he felt dropped the ball by failing to suitably change out of TV mode. I've always felt he was making a veiled comment about Star Trek when he said that...

EDIT:

I think one of the biggest reasons they feel like tv episodes at times is because they are beholden to the idea that they need to have an A story and a B story. And in the case of First Contact, a C story that involves Data and the Borg Queen.

Along similar lines, another problem in my personal opinion is that each TNG movie was formulated as being "self-contained". Think about it this way: each of the TOS-Trek movies built upon each other to create a grander sense of their universe that hadn't previously existed in the TOS tv show, creating a sort of 'arc' (if you will) throughout the movies which rewarded the viewer for persisting with them. The TNG movies, on the other hand, almost did the exact opposite: the tv show had a rich universe that frequently expanded and developed as time went on, whereas the movies took the approach that every story had to stand on its own, and 'cross-pollination' from one movie to the next was to be limited. So, the net effect is that the TOS movies had a sense of grandeur and a flow of continuity that the TOS tv show lacked, while the TNG movies all feel somehow smaller than the TNG tv show.

 

[inflatabledalek]

In slight mitigation to the TNG films, television itself changed quite drastically during the eight years they came out. It not only moved into widescreen but the way most series were directed became much more cinematic and impressive than the old "Point at the set and hope it works" techniques. Throw in the fact that CGI made it much easier to do bigger stories (the battles in later DS9 are way ahead of anything we saw in the films) and it was much harder for the films to create an identity that made it feel as if it was worth paying to see them.

That doesn't excuse a lot of the other small scale thinking though, including as other's have said firmly keeping the characters (or even regressing them in Data's case) in episodic TV mode with zero development of acknowledgement of their ageing over the years. Compare that to the TOS films- where V is the only one to open with the status quo the same as in the TV series- and that's an obvious ball drop.