Am I wrong in saying that Generations is the only TNG movie to LOOK like a movie?

[Iamnotspock]

I think First Contact. Generations might have with Alonzo doing his thing if they weren't using sets made for tv in the 70's and props and uniforms made for the shows in the early 90's.

Agreed.

Worst mistake was reusing the Bird of Prey explosion from Trek 6. How could they have been so foolish to think nobody would notice.

I suspect they were foolish enough to think no one would care, like when TWOK re-used footage from TMP or TFF reused ILM footage from TVH. I guess the explosion bothers people because it's harder to rationalise away - as in, why would the two explosions be exactly the same? - but I find it less egregious than TUC itself sticking a few curtains in Ten Forward to stand in for the Federation President's office.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I suspect they were foolish enough to think no one would care, like when TWOK re-used footage from TMP or TFF reused ILM footage from TVH. I guess the explosion bothers people because it's harder to rationalize away - as in, why would the two explosions be exactly the same? - but I find it less egregious than TUC itself sticking a few curtains in Ten Forward to stand in for the Federation President's office.

Well, as I said, it's not just a standard ship explosion. It was set up, filmed and presented in TUC as the action and emotional climax of the film. It was the end of the main villain and his super weapon and a huge fist in the air moment that was earned.

Meyer dollied in on Takei:

"Target that explosion and FIRE!" (cheers from the audience)

Meyer dollied in on Shatner:

"Fire!" (more cheers)

The music SWELLS. The ship is pummeled. If they just did a simple superimposition of an explosion over the model in the TUC, it may not have been as bad, but the ship blew up in stages. It was meant to be a very cathartic release at the end of a long and arduous journey for the characters. I have my share of issues with TUC but that climax is one of the best in the series.

Then GEN repurposed it for a second act defeat of a secondary antagonist. Audience groans...there isn't even any music. Then they cap it with a Data gag.

 

[JamesRye]

The Duras sisters really ought to have had a Vorcha Class Cruiser at least.

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[Jayson1]

Yeah, super cheap. They wasted a ton of money on the orbital skydive sequence that was never used, a bottle of champagne floating through space that was completely unnecessary, and even a few million dollars on a re-shoot that wasn't REALLY an improvement...but yet they couldn't be bothered to make a good sequence of the BoP exploding.

I think a bigger waste of money was stellar cartography. All that money for a singe scene between Picard and Data.

 

[Vger23]

I think a bigger waste of money was stellar cartography. All that money for a singe scene between Picard and Data.

True, but at least it looked cool and expensive!

 

[Oddish]

Are you wrong that the other TNG movies didn't look like movies?
IMO, yes. You're wrong.

 

[SpockOfNine]

I think the cinematography, higher budget, amount of extras in use and the better lighting in Generations is more noticeable because it uses many of the same sets as the show did. So it feels like a big upgrade over a normal TV episode.

 

[Timby]

Then GEN repurposed it for a second act defeat of a secondary antagonist. Audience groans...there isn't even any music. Then they cap it with a Data gag.

They literally didn't have the money. ILM took a look at the script and said, "You can have a kick-ass space battle, or you can have a kick-ass crash sequence. You can't afford both."

Note that there are only like four external shots during the battle, because that's all they could pay for.

 

[Jayson1]

Perhaps they should have killed Kirk in a different way than a falling bridge and not make the lab set. Spend that money on making a BIrd of Prey explode.

 

[suarezguy]

I see a lot but really don't like the idea that TV-ish is, at least necessarily, much different and worse than movie-ish, I can see that there can be differences and movie-ish particularly nice but they also often are not that different and regardless both can be really good.

And in particular, yes Generations did have some nice grand, sweeping moments/elements but I think First Contact at least did so too but I think it had them more and better.

 

[Vger23]

The location shooting stuff, particularly with Picard and Kirk in the Nexus (horseback riding, etc) looks amazing.

A lot of the location stuff in INS is really impressive as well.

 

[Qonundrum]

David Carson's TNG TV entries had quite a cinematic feel to them. When he moved to the big screen and without the 4:3 aspect ratio to feel crowded with, it's genuinely glorious.

The 1701-D never looked better as well, with its sleek and graceful moves.

And yet @Vger23 brings up rather a great point - the skydive should have been decided at an earlier stage* and, more importantly, the reshoot was way too hasty and in a film that was hastily done because they were also juggling TNG's 2-hour finale and DS9 at the same time. I'm grateful TNG's finale was as robust as it was, and how DS9 easily could have faltered significantly.

Test audiences for GEN were wrong, IMHAGO**. Kirk's final moment via being shot in the back by "Yes he really is supposed to be a villain, DOCTOR SORAN" was genuinely shocking and saddening***. They reshoot the thing to have a feeble shot at the bridge he's on, with enough time for a ridiculously long speech, and the line from audiences about how "Kirk died on the bridge", which was probably unintentional... and in either case, with the power of the Nexus and Picard couldn't be bothered to deus ex machine it all away with the most obvious reset button in cinematic history not being used? Not sure whether the audience should be impressed or insulted. I'll say the former because of how often shows, especially VOY, use the reset button as a cheap cop-out...


* I really liked the idea and it definitely suits Kirk, but what caused the filmed material to be dropped; what was finally filmed didn't look as expected? Or cut for time, in which case it should have been dropped a long time earlier...

** In My Humble and Gaudy Opinion


*** Soran's another prime example of too many recipes being rushed and botched in 1994. Deleted scenes show Soran as being more decidedly villainous, which was desperately needed. Yes, Trek wants to show sympathetic baddies but the material in the script wasn't as much uneven as it was feeble for the most part. Having Soran spout metaphors to Picard as coincidental happenstance didn't add much weight or nuance to the guy. You know, the one who helped elevate "A Clockwork Orange" with quite the performance and without going nuts****... some 24 years later... now reduced to... whatthehelldidwejustsitthroughonscreen?! Wasted talent, and if he did start drinking judiciously on set while filming GEN, I wouldn't have blamed him either, but I digress. And speaking of digressions, here's more:


**** pardon the dilettante video editing techniques and lame swoosh sound effects involved, but:

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Damn. McDowell was inspired casting and they threw it down the toidy. Oh well, at least they made up for it with that Andy Robinson chap:

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(...of all the scenes with him in it, I wasn't going to use the oft-used one at the end - which is a marvel, but before I blabble on too much...)

Wait, 2160p? That movie***** finally got a proper 4K remastering and nobody told us?!!!****** Good grief!! What is it with 70s movies being so oddball yet so cool? Oh well, pass the cider.

***** the only movie ever to add some emotional depth to "Row row row your boat", even though the funky part is that it's horrific! SING IT!!! Part of me also loves to think that Garak could have been a backup singer for The B-52s...


****** just checked. Nope, not from a 4k disc, looks more like some half-baked upscale of the blu-ray. Oh well. Still an amazing and shocking movie with some terrific casting...

 

[Dee1891]

Putting the quality of Generations aside, am I alone in saying that out of all the TNG movies Generations is the only one that has movie-like cinematography? The lighting, the camera angles and shots.....everything about it makes it feel distinctly different from a regular TNG episode. The movie feels very epic and grand in scope because of its cinematography alone. Despite its budget not being all that much more than the most expensive TNG episodes, it feels much higher budget.

Now I know that for FC and INS, they were directed by Frakes and since he has directed a lot more TV episodes than movies at that point in time, that explains why FC and INS feel very TV-like. Even NEM (despite being directed by a movie guy) still feels very TV-like to me despite the final battle between the Enterprise and the Scimitar looking really fantastic.

I cannot honestly answer this question. I just don't remember. The only TNG movie that really appealed to me was "First Contact", which is why I have better memories of it than the other ones.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I think it looks like a well-lit version of the TV show. David Carson's direction and staging is still rather pedestrian, IMO.

But if you get the guy who shot Chinatown (John Alonzo) to be the cinematographer of your movie, it's going to look good.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Worst mistake was reusing the Bird of Prey explosion from Trek 6. How could they have been so foolish to think nobody would notice.

Well, as I said, it's not just a standard ship explosion. It was set up, filmed and presented in TUC as the action and emotional climax of the film. It was the end of the main villain and his super weapon and a huge fist in the air moment that was earned.

Meyer dollied in on Takei:

"Target that explosion and FIRE!" (cheers from the audience)

Meyer dollied in on Shatner:

"Fire!" (more cheers)

The music SWELLS. The ship is pummeled. If they just did a simple superimposition of an explosion over the model in the TUC, it may not have been as bad, but the ship blew up in stages. It was meant to be a very cathartic release at the end of a long and arduous journey for the characters. I have my share of issues with TUC but that climax is one of the best in the series.

Then GEN repurposed it for a second act defeat of a secondary antagonist. Audience groans...there isn't even any music. Then they cap it with a Data gag.

It boggles my mind that nobody involved with the production thought to flip the shot, at the very least. There was no writing on the Klingon Bird of Prey that would've shown up backwards, so they easily could've just reversed the shot to make it look different.

When you can spot a recycled shot during your very first viewing of the film, that's bad.

 

[herofhyrule]

I mean, I didn't notice it. I didn't even know the shot was reused until reading this thread. Maybe they thought that most fans wouldn't nitpick it because they wouldn't have the explosion memorised, and if they did notice, they wouldn't care.

 

[suarezguy]

There is something to be said for the weirdness of using (now rogue) Klingons as movie villains one more time, right after the last time, now for the last time, and I think doing that actually worked pretty well. And yeah if you're going to do that also reusing an explosion scene isn't that big a deal.

 

[herofhyrule]

There is something to be said for the weirdness of using (now rogue) Klingons as movie villains one more time, right after the last time, now for the last time, and I think doing that actually worked pretty well. And yeah if you're going to do that also reusing an explosion scene isn't that big a deal.

I've only just realised that Generations was the third film in a row to have rogue Klingons as villains. If it weren't for The Voyage Home it would have been the fourth. I wonder if back in 1994 people were getting a bit sick of it.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I mean, I didn't notice it. I didn't even know the shot was reused until reading this thread. Maybe they thought that most fans wouldn't nitpick it because they wouldn't have the explosion memorised, and if they did notice, they wouldn't care.

I'd already owned TUC on VHS for a couple of years by the time GEN hit theaters in the fall of 1994, so it was immediately noticeable to me on my first viewing.

I'm fine with Trek reusing stock footage here & there (establishing shots, the Enterprise leaving Spacedock, whatever) for stuff that's going to look more or less the same every time you see it. But something as distinctive as an exploding ship drawn from the climax of the film right before this one... It was just WAY too obvious.

I've only just realised that Generations was the third film in a row to have rogue Klingons as villains. If it weren't for The Voyage Home it would have been the fourth. I wonder if back in 1994 people were getting a bit sick of it.

Yes, I was.

Imagine how I feel how them still using rogue Klingons today.

 

[AntonyF]

Finding this an interesting thread. I love Generations and watched it in 4k recently and Insurrection.

It's ironic that the made it dark as the sets were not good enough for a movie and to hide the issues, but it's what's getting the praise here. I like it too and it feels like an upgrade from the TV series and the darkness really aided the scenes with the star.

Perhaps these days we are more conditioned to darker sets and higher contrast with the advent of HDR.

Whereas the other movies are very much the Voyager era of sets and lighting. There's a real 90s twang to them.