Next best trilogy after TWOK-TSFS-TVH?

[FederationHistorian]

Even though films II-IV are the original Star Trek trilogy, the films series produced their own unofficial sequel trilogies; A Kirk trilogy, comprised of TFF-TUC-GEN. And an Ent-E trilogy comprised of FC-INS-NEM.

IYO, which sequel trilogy do you prefer, and why?

 

[Damian]

Hmm, I don't see much of a trilogy among any of the other films.

TUC is sort of tied to the original TWOK-TSFS-TVH trilogy more than TFF and Generations. I never really thought of it tied in any significant way to TFF or Generations, other than they take place in the same timeline.

The same for First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis. Sure, there are things that follow from one movie to the next, and you can add Generations to that mix. But they are pretty well self contained films.

Even the 3 Abrams films don't have enough to constitute what I'd call a trilogy. Maybe Star Trek (2009) and STID have a few more ties than usual, but even still, I don't think there's enough to call that a duology. And Beyond is really it's own movie that just takes place later.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Wasn't that TNG's big mistake was not have more storylines with the Borg? Seems like the Klingons were always in the shadows in TOS movies and I thought the Borg should've been with Picard. The story didn't have to center around the Borg but we could've seen stories where the Borg is considered a danger and may be an obstacle in the progression of the tale.

Bad Robot lost a huge opportunity to set Beyond by New Vulcan, work what the plot what they had to make it Vulcan related.

 

[Lord Garth]

"Q Who" (1 hour), "The Best of Both Worlds" (2 hours), "Family" (1 hour), and Star Trek: First Contact (2 hours).

I'm cheating, but that makes six hours' worth of content, thus three movies' worth of content, and there's your kind-of, sort-of, but not, TNG "Movie" Trilogy. The best TNG Movie isn't technically a movie, it's The Best of Both Worlds. I even went to see it at a theater screening back in 2013, when they did it for one night to cross-promote the release of TNG S3 and BOBW on Blu-Ray.

Just fast-forward through the Worf and Wesley scenes and what you get out of "Family" is effectively an extension of "The Best of Both Worlds", or Bonus Scenes. Whatever you want to call it. It reinforces the psychological scars Picard still has in First Contact.

 

[Smellmet]

"Q Who" (1 hour), "The Best of Both Worlds" (2 hours), "Family" (1 hour), and Star Trek: First Contact (2 hours).

I'm cheating, but that makes six hours' worth of content, thus three movies' worth of content, and there's your kind-of, sort-of, but not, TNG "Movie" Trilogy. The best TNG Movie isn't technically a movie, it's The Best of Both Worlds. I even went to see it at a theater screening back in 2013, when they did it for one night to cross-promote the release of TNG S3 and BOBW on Blu-Ray.

Just fast-forward through the Worf and Wesley scenes and what you get out of "Family" is effectively an extension of "The Best of Both Worlds", or Bonus Scenes. Whatever you want to call it. It reinforces the psychological scars Picard still has in First Contact.

I think that's a good shout.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I think that's a good shout.

You could probably add "I, Borg" to the mix.

 

[SithHappens]

Nemesis, ST09 and Picard sort of make a loose trilogy

 

[Qonundrum]

TFF-TUC-GEN is mostly bookends with TUC being a loose sequel to TWOK-TSFS-TVH of sorts.
The TNG-centric trio are too 4th wall or horribly scripted - not as much some of the ideas, but the overall layout has more plot holes so big that a dozen V'GERs could slink through, side-by-side, with ease. (not that 80s Kirk movies didn't have such boo-boos, but they're nowhere near as pronounced. The easiest comparison would be canonical disregard over Chekov's nonexistence vs the Borg not conceptually having a Queen in any form and it's far easier to twist and bend the former to make it work... of course, contriving to get the conflation of Klingons and Romulans for TSFS onward is a little more difficult, but thankfully "The Enterprise Incident" and other episodes allow enough wiggle-room with their (then-) alliance. The Borg were not just defined too sternly, the Queen comes in and spouts nonsense about small three-dimensional terms, which is the sort of flat nonsense even Q wouldn't bother with, not to mention it doesn't fit very well either. )

As much as I liked some of the TNG movies, they all missed something Kirk's 80s movies had. Or a bunch of somethings, since 80s Trek felt more authentic, or at least not trying as hard.

The fact TFF has Kirk saying he'll die alone and, two movies later, he's got Picard next to him at the time and all Picard's bothered to do is somehow hoist up a bunch of rocks for some neat shiny camerawork because he couldn't bury the bloody corpse anywhere, as if that's going to stop scavenger animals from getting the best happy meal in ages anyhow...

The TNG films are too much "of their time" to really get a "timeless" feel, which 80s Kirk's movies (comparatively) succeeded in building.

That, and Kirk didn't need to become McLane in Space(tm); his character had enough action background to work on both small screen as well as large, and even then he was never handled like a movie trope cliche either. Picard's movies segue to that trope as a crutch way too quickly. Not a bad effort to try to push him in that direction, but something doesn't seem quite right and it doesn't fit.

Which is not to say the TNG films are rubbish, and they do have some great moments, though depending on mood they don't do as much for me. YMMV.

 

[Bad Robot]

The Kelvin films make a far better trilogy than either of the options presented here.

I would even argue that they hold together better than the genesis trilogy, at least in terms of overall presentation. They don't switch composers two-thirds of the way through.

The TOS movies are mostly great films (compared to ST: Everything Else) because each film besides The Search for Spock wanted to be its own completely separate beast. That value is usually not conducive to claiming to be making a trilogy.

As much as I liked some of the TNG movies, they all missed something Kirk's 80s movies had. Or a bunch of somethings, since 80s Trek felt more authentic, or at least not trying as hard.

The TNG films are too much "of their time" to really get a "timeless" feel, which 80s Kirk's movies (comparatively) succeeded in building.

Which is not to say the TNG films are rubbish, and they do have some great moments, though depending on mood they don't do as much for me. YMMV.

I would agree with all these statements. I would even go a step further and say the TNG films are perhaps too Berman Trek for the 2.35 aspect ratio extravaganza of the big screen (what I interpret as being meant by saying they're too much of their time).

The TNG films are all producer's movies, save for the one that flopped most spectacularly. (But you can never make a great film if you're too afraid to flop. You can make a good film, a decent film, an adequate film, a producer's movie).

The TOS films, even the objectively bad Final Frontier, are all director's movies -- save for Nimoy's debut effort. Even if made by amateurish directors they're made by people who were hungry.

 

[ichab]

Hmm, I don't see much of a trilogy among any of the other films.

TUC is sort of tied to the original TWOK-TSFS-TVH trilogy more than TFF and Generations. I never really thought of it tied in any significant way to TFF or Generations, other than they take place in the same timeline.

The same for First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis. Sure, there are things that follow from one movie to the next, and you can add Generations to that mix. But they are pretty well self contained films.

Even the 3 Abrams films don't have enough to constitute what I'd call a trilogy. Maybe Star Trek (2009) and STID have a few more ties than usual, but even still, I don't think there's enough to call that a duology. And Beyond is really it's own movie that just takes place later.

Agreed with everything said. The only real trilogy in the Trek movie universe is 2,3 and 4. 2 was a fresh start, 3 begins by showing how 2 ended and 4 begins with the crew all agreeing to face the consequences for their actions in 3. No other group of Trek movies are tied together like that. The Kelvin films come close, but Beyond didn't wrap anything up, so I don't consider it a trilogy.

 

[Smellmet]

The Kelvin films come close, but Beyond didn't wrap anything up, so I don't consider it a trilogy.

Of course it's a trilogy.

 

[arch101]

I don't think of the TOS films as a trilogy because TWOK, TSFS, TVH and TUC are one fairly tight storyline. (TFF could be left out and have zero effect on the other films)
I don't think any of the other Trek films fit together as cohesively from a narrative pov.

 

[Vger23]

As much as I liked some of the TNG movies, they all missed something Kirk's 80s movies had. Or a bunch of somethings, since 80s Trek felt more authentic, or at least not trying as hard.

The fact TFF has Kirk saying he'll die alone and, two movies later, he's got Picard next to him at the time and all Picard's bothered to do is somehow hoist up a bunch of rocks for some neat shiny camerawork because he couldn't bury the bloody corpse anywhere, as if that's going to stop scavenger animals from getting the best happy meal in ages anyhow...

I agree with your statement about what differentiates the TOS films from the TNG films. There was just a feel...like those movies were in the right place at the right time and made with/by the right people...and that magic is pretty hard to re-capture.

With regard to TFF and the "I'll always die alone" prediction, I always took that as Kirk meaning that Spock and McCoy (his brothers / soulmates / whatever) would not be with him...not that he would be truly alone, without any other beings around.

 

[Damian]

Of course it's a trilogy.

You know, part of me wants to treat them as separate films, yet there is some definite carryover. It's a different kind of trilogy then TWOK-TSFS-TVH. But there are more closely aligned than the other films--and of course there is a bit more internal consistency between the three right down to the music score.

I agree with your statement about what differentiates the TOS films from the TNG films.

Yeah, there's very little carry over among the 4 TNG films. They are definitely sequels, and a few threads carry from one film to the next. But a first timer can watch them in any order and it probably wouldn't make much difference. Whereas if you watched TSFS before TWOK you're going to miss a couple of things.

With regard to TFF and the "I'll always die alone" prediction, I always took that as Kirk meaning that Spock and McCoy (his brothers / soulmates / whatever) would not be with him...not that he would be truly alone, without any other beings around.

Yeah, I read it like that myself. And in Generations, there are two things going on. The first time he 'died' on the Enterprise-B he really was alone. But in typical Captain Kirk fashion he cheated death and got a 2nd chance thanks to the Nexus. Normally he would have died there when the deflector was breached, but through happenstance he was at the right place and was taken into the Nexus. Then on Veridian III he died without his two closest friends. In TFF what he was saying that as long as Spock and McCoy were with him, he felt he wouldn't die. Well, they weren't with him on Veridian III and he died. Technically he wasn't totally alone, but his only companion was a man he just met. I'm sure he considered Picard a friend of sorts at that point, but he still only just met him and hardly knew him.

 

[Smellmet]

You know, part of me wants to treat them as separate films, yet there is some definite carryover. It's a different kind of trilogy then TWOK-TSFS-TVH. But there are more closely aligned than the other films--and of course there is a bit more internal consistency between the three right down to the music score.

I mean, the story isn't strictly linked in the way TWOK-TVH is, but everything else makes the grade IMO. Kirk certainly has an arc that spans the three movies, as does Spock, to a slightly lesser extent. There are also other beats than run through them with Pike in the first two movies, the loss of Vulcan etc. To me it's a trilogy, no question. No less than say, the first three Indy films, and certainly more than any three consecutive Bond movies you could mention (but I guess they are an exercise in standalone movies by their very nature)

 

[Paul755]

Maybe the reason the TNG films feel “off” compared to the TOS stuff is because for a majority of the TOS run, that was Star Trek. They were the only game in town.

by the time TNG got to the big screen there was a whole huge universe that TNG expanded exponentially, not to mention DS9 and Voyager. And aside from a few references and the uniforms they felt totally disconnected from the weekly stuff. I get that that’s how Berman and the studio (apparently) wanted it. But always having to come up with a reason for Worf being on the Enterprise or avoiding the war, etc…seemed disjointed.

 

[dupersuper]

With regard to TFF and the "I'll always die alone" prediction, I always took that as Kirk meaning that Spock and McCoy (his brothers / soulmates / whatever) would not be with him...not that he would be truly alone, without any other beings around.

I'm always perplexed when people treat that as a prophecy.

 

[Vger23]

I'm always perplexed when people treat that as a prophecy.

Same- it's just a little line that shows Kirk has pondered his own mortality, and it was written to facilitate a nice little payoff with Spock coming to save him in the end. Otherwise, it's pretty much meaningless. That doesn't mean I don't like it in the film...It just means that it's not like just because Kirk said it...it now MUST come true.

 

[Damian]

I'm always perplexed when people treat that as a prophecy.

Same- it's just a little line that shows Kirk has pondered his own mortality, and it was written to facilitate a nice little payoff with Spock coming to save him in the end. Otherwise, it's pretty much meaningless. That doesn't mean I don't like it in the film...It just means that it's not like just because Kirk said it...it now MUST come true.

Yeah, I don't think that line was meant to be taken so literally as it has been.

And you have to look at it in the context of the whole scene. It's not so much Kirk thinks he can always cheat death. Just that there was something to the friendship between he, Spock and McCoy that as long as they were together, they make the impossible possible. But I don't think it was meant to be taken as a religious edict, that it must happen that way.

At the same time, I've never really seen an inconsistency with that in Generations. On the Enterprise-B he really was alone when they thought he died, and on Veridian III, Spock and McCoy were not with him. That triad was broken. He was separated from his two closest friends. They couldn't help him make the impossible possible.

So unlike other fans who scream "BUT HE WASN'T ALONE WHEN HE DIED" I actually see the opposite; his death in Generations supporting what he said in TFF. It doesn't contradict what he said...it actually confirmed what he said in my eyes.

Now was that the intent originally of the writers of Generations? Probably not. But it works for me. But whether it did or not, Kirk was just expressing his gut feeling...it doesn't mean it had to happen that way.