Fifth Movie

[BigJake]

I prefer entertainment that grapples with precisely those things that are inescapable universals, death among them. Which is not to say that everything should be dark and apocalyptic (I was burnt out on zombies years ago), but especially in shows based around characters who do mortally dangerous stuff for a living, yeah, I expect it to be there. Heck, Baywatch could manage it.

 

[Goji]

I was really down on Enterprise when it was new, but checked it out years later and thought it was fine. Not wonderful, not bad. A decent addition to the franchise, and I'm more likely to want to watch an episode of Enterprise now than either TNG or Voyager. But I'm also not super bummed that it ended when it did. Seven seasons really tends to be overkill for most series.

Based on Insurrection and Nemesis, a fifth TNG feature would have been disastrous.

 

[Kor]

I prefer entertainment that grapples with precisely those things that are inescapable universals, death among them. Which is not to say that everything should be dark and apocalyptic (I was burnt out on zombies years ago), but especially in shows based around characters who do mortally dangerous stuff for a living, yeah, I expect it to be there. Heck, Baywatch could manage it.

Exactly.

I like films, literature, TV dramas, etc. that make us sit back and really think about these things, not plug our ears and go "lah-dee-dah" as if they don't exist.

Mad Men was an excellent example of such thought-provoking television, especially with

Spoiler: Mad Men

Lane Pryce's death, and later on Betty Francis (formerly Draper)'s diagnosis of terminal lung cancer right at the end of the series.

Kor

 

[Squiggy]

no trip dying was stupid and insulting

Hoshi should've died. always hated her

I'm shocked you didn't get consulted before hand.

 

[AdmiralBruno]

Yes, I too am shocked that a 15 year old was not consulted. What were they thinking?

 

[Greg Cox]

FIRST CONTACT is far and away the best of the TNG movies and one of the best TREK movies overall. It's easily one of the top five TREK movies. IMHO.

As to whether it's THE greatest sci-fi movie of all time . . . well, let's not get carried away here.

There are a lot of contenders for that title. And, honestly, I'm not sure I could name a movie that was definitively the best.

Metropolis? Forbidden Planet? 2001? Planet of the Apes? Star Wars? The Wrath of Khan?

I mean, where to begin?

 

[BillJ]

Yes, I too am shocked that a 15 year old was not consulted. What were they thinking?

So that made you about one year old when the show premiered?

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Did this alleged 5th movie ever get so far as having a storyline? If so, does anyone know what it might have been?

Anyway, I agree with an earlier poster whose personal canon has TNG ending with "All Good Things". There was no need to follow up the perfect finale with "Generations" (and everything else). It was purposefully a bookend to "Encounter at Farpoint".

 

[BillJ]

Did this alleged 5th movie ever get so far as having a storyline? If so, does anyone know what it might have been?

Just the Justice League of Trek idea. That is the only one that I know of. Then there was the idea floating around of doing a new film series starting with Star Trek: The Beginning.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/34635

 

[Mudd]

The lead actors on Enterprise were better than most of the core casts of the previous two Trek series - neither of which, BTW, did a thing to extend the popularity of the franchise; both started well and inexorably declined in numbers of viewers. Why do you suppose?

 

[AdmiralBruno]

I was 15 when the FINAL EPISODE WAS FILMED.

 

[Lance]

I enjoyed Enterprise more than the previous two series, particularly for the characters.

It was not, however, a successful series.

Indeed. Especially upon rewatching all the various Trek series, I found Enterprise, while suffering from significant and obvious flaws, was much better than I remembered and also had aged quite well -- better than, say, DS9 even.

In short, I feel Enterprise gets an undue amount of shit from fans largely because it had the misfortune of coming last. Some of the criticism is not unwarranted or unfair, but the larger negative perception and opinion of it most certainly is.

I concur on all counts, gentlemen.

Enterprise got shit-canned a lot in it's day, and there is some justification for that. But I think that in hindsight it's easier to look back on it and truly appreciate how big a shift it was from the cookie-cutter approach that the previous three spin-offs had shown. For better or worse, ENT exhibits it's own distinct identity, and in retrospect it arguably holds up all the better for it.

I'll never defend 'These Are The Voyages...' as an episode, though.

 

[Trekkin]

I probably could have if it wasn't the Finale.

I like the 'Space...' monologue though. Though I wish Bakula had a chance to say it on his own at some other point. Or even if they switched him with Picard so his voice lead in and it sounded like we were hearing some of his speech.

 

[BigJake]

The lead actors on Enterprise were better than most of the core casts of the previous two Trek series

Meh. Not so much. Not that the core casts of DS9 and VOY were necessarily DeNiro-esque masterclasses or anything, but I'll take Avery Brooks or Kate Mulgrew as convincing commanders over Bakula any day of the week, and Tim Russ' Vulcan runs rings around Blalock (as does, well, almost anyone's). DS9 in particular had no shortage of interesting characters or solid actors, especially with Auberjenois and Shimerman in the mix.

neither of which, BTW, did a thing to extend the popularity of the franchise; both started well and inexorably declined in numbers of viewers. Why do you suppose?

Hewing to the familiar. Uninspired stories. Inability to commit to interesting premises that rotted away into the same-old (or, in DS9's case, into an imitation of a grand-scaled good vs. evil space-war schtick that B5 was doing better on a smaller budget -- DS9 did best when it was at least intermittently tackling actually interesting drama at a depth that Trek hadn't touched before or since, that was what the show really had to offer that B5 couldn't match but nobody seemed to realize it). It was nothing to do with the casts for my money; ENT had similar problems but having the core crew be largely nothing characters (Dr. Phlox excepted) constructed to convey Sensawunda was a unique innovation in a suboptimal way.

OTOH I actually liked the TATV finale -- economically gave the sense of the ship's historical importance and yet, paradoxically, far less weighed down with treacly sentiment than, say, DS9's virtually unwatchable finale -- so I'm as outlier as it gets.

 

[BillJ]

Meh. Not so much. Not that the core casts of DS9 and VOY were necessarily DeNiro-esque masterclasses or anything, but I'll take Avery Brooks or Kate Mulgrew as convincing commanders over Bakula any day of the week, and Tim Russ' Vulcan runs rings around Blalock. DS9 in particular had no shortage of interesting characters or solid actors, especially with Auberjenois and Shimerman in the mix.

Bakula was wrong for the role (Brooks was more suited), but I really liked Blalock (Russ was about as interesting as paint drying).

 

[Nerys Myk]

Russ's Vulcan was like nails on a chalkboard to me.

 

[Goji]

Tim Russ was miles better than Robert Beltran or Garrett Wang, I'll give him that. I am a fan of Robert Picardo from things outside of Trek (mostly Joe Dante movies) so I was glad that he got a pretty good part on what was largely a disappointing series. Ethan Phillips was not so lucky.

 

[BigJake]

To each their own. I kept waiting to see Blalock exhibit acting ability and never felt like it happened. Russ for my money had a gift for painting in an interesting way inside the lines of "Vulcan logic" without compromising it; he played an alien character and not just a pointy-eared human with a stick up the arse. Much as I was annoyed by Neelix, I have to admit Tuvok's interactions with him brought this ability out beautifully and made Tuvok recognizably Vulcan without making him a low-rent Spock; just a shame there weren't better stories for them to play it out in.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Tim Russ was miles better than Robert Beltran or Garrett Wang, I'll give him that. I am a fan of Robert Picardo from things outside of Trek (mostly Joe Dante movies) so I was glad that he got a pretty good part on what was largely a disappointing series. Ethan Phillips was not so lucky.

Beltran was like the chalkboard.

 

[Nerys Myk]

To each their own. I kept waiting to see Blalock exhibit acting ability and never felt like it happened. Russ for my money had a gift for painting in an interesting way inside the lines of "Vulcan logic" without compromising it; he played an alien character and not just a pointy-eared human with a stick up the arse. Much as I was annoyed by Neelix, I have to admit Tuvok's interactions with him brought this ability out beautifully and made Tuvok recognizably Vulcan without making him a low-rent Spock; just a shame there weren't better stories for them to play it out in.

And for my money Russ played it like a bad Nimoy impersonator with a sitck up their arse.