TNG Movies made Too Soon?

[Oceanborn_angel]

A thought had occurred to me, but I was thinking of how much time had elapsed between the length of time it took Paramount to make movies for TOS as compared to TNG's final episode. As opposed to TOS, the gap between the small screen to the silver screen was not as extended. I think this actually hurt the TNG movies because nostalgia for the series was not allowed to grow over time as with TOS. I'm not trying to say that this is the entire reason why the TNG series of movies were less satisfying on the whole as compared to the TOS based movies. Assembly line movie production and using scripts which really needed more refining are a part of the equation, but what do you think?

 

[Too Much Fun]

I thought about this too, and sort of wished they'd been able to wait longer. Then I realized they just couldn't have waited as long to spin-off movies from TNG as they did after the original series due to age. The TNG crew was a lot older when they started than Kirk and company.

Shatner was in his 30s during "Star Trek", so it was okay for there not to be a movie with he and his castmates until 10 years after they were off the air. Patrick Stewart, on the other hand, was already in his mid-forties when TNG started, so if they'd waited till 2004 for the first TNG movie, he'd already be way too old.

The TNG movies would have been mostly doomed no matter what anyway, because they'd already been on the air for seven seasons (compared to the original crew's three), which meant there were so few good ideas left for stories that could be done with that crew. I guess I should just be grateful that we got one good movie/story out of them.

 

[JarodRussell]

The TNG movies would have been mostly doomed no matter what anyway.

I keep asking myself what the hell is wrong with you people. Generations, First Contact and Insurrection were solid at the box office.

When those movies came out, nobody asked "is it too soon?". Nobody said "Are they too old?". Nobody said "TNG is the final nail in the coffin!"


You guys seriously should stop messing your memory up.

 

[Oceanborn_angel]

The TNG movies would have been mostly doomed no matter what anyway.

I keep asking myself what the hell is wrong with you people. Generations, First Contact and Insurrection were solid at the box office.

When those movies came out, nobody asked "is it too soon?". Nobody said "Are they too old?". Nobody said "TNG is the final nail in the coffin!"


You guys seriously should stop messing your memory up.

I don't know about messing with my memory, but I hadn't been as persuaded to see the TNG movies in the theaters when they had been unveiled aside from First Contact as much as I was persuaded to see the TOS movies. Concerning Nemesis I did see it in the theater, but it was not as enjoyable a final voyage for me as Undiscovered Country was.

 

[Kirk1980]

The TNG movies would have been mostly doomed no matter what anyway.

I keep asking myself what the hell is wrong with you people. Generations, First Contact and Insurrection were solid at the box office.

When those movies came out, nobody asked "is it too soon?". Nobody said "Are they too old?". Nobody said "TNG is the final nail in the coffin!"


You guys seriously should stop messing your memory up.

Well, I still don't think that's the real issue presented here. I think it has more to do with the fact that the OP is saying TNG movies were done too quick to allow any new ideas to really come through.

It was largely still the same producers/writers that were on TNG's staff that were still behind making Next Gen's movies.

 

[spaceballone]

The TNG movies would have been mostly doomed no matter what anyway.

I keep asking myself what the hell is wrong with you people. Generations, First Contact and Insurrection were solid at the box office.

When those movies came out, nobody asked "is it too soon?". Nobody said "Are they too old?". Nobody said "TNG is the final nail in the coffin!"


You guys seriously should stop messing your memory up.

I agree, making the movies when they did was a natural progression. Generations was a big anticipated event and First Contact was even bigger. Should they have waited 5 years and then made a movie? That would have made no sense. You don't have a hit show, end it and then plot to make a movie about it 5 or 10 years later when the general audience might not care anymore. You strike when there is a demand for it.
Next Generation was still doing really well in the ratings so this was a perfect time to strike with a feature before the show really burned out. The first 3 films all did solid at the box office like was said above.
Any comparison TOS movies is very flawed since NOBODY ever thought there would be a feature film made about TOS when the show was canceled in 1969.
TOS is kind of an exception to the rule where the show wasn't that big when it originally aired but became more popular through the years after it was canceled.

 

[JarodRussell]

Generations (94), First Contact (96) and Insurrection (98) did a lot better than Undiscovered Country (91) world wide.

Someone else said it somewhere, and I agree with it: Nemesis was TNG's The Final Frontier.

Problem is that TNG never got it's Undiscovered Country, and that 7 years later the fanbase blames the entire TNG series to be the reason of it's own destruction. It's really getting awfully silly. Sometimes it's like "Was the first season a mistake? Maybe we'd still have TNG movies without the first season!", "Should Picard have been a real French actor? Maybe TNG would have been more successful if it had been Gérard Depardieu!"

15 years, 7 seasons and 4 movies, 2 spin offs with 7 seasons each, but everyone only wants to see failures, mistakes and death.

It's like an obsession. TNG was fine, guys. Nemesis was a really bad failure. But that's it. The rest was fine.

Insurrection was fine. Insurrection did fine. And it certainly was not the reason for TNG's end. Everyone who says otherwise is borderlining nuts.

Generations and First Contact were good, and they also did well. When those came into the cinemas, there was NO indication that TNG was going to die. The majority was happy about those movies, especially about First Contact.

And I remember EXACTLY that Insurrection was also received well by the fans. It was a light-hearted movie, something fun between First Contact and yet-to-be-made "Star Trek X", which was supposed to be epic.

But Star Trek X wasn't epic, and it failed at the box office. And at that point, the fans, and Paramount, went totally nuts. Blaming EVERYTHING about the TNG series as being the reason for the eventual end. That's silly.


Now it's "maybe the movies were too soon."

Get a grip. TNG was successful. Nemesis stopped it.

Had they given TNG yet another movie, directed by JJ Abrams maybe, with a huge budget and that kind of visual effects, with that kind of aggressive promotional campaign, it would have been a big success.

And nobody would be bitching about Nemesis or Insurrection anymore.

 

[seigezunt]

They should have waited just a little longer on the first one. Maybe the story would have improved.

 

[spaceballone]

They should have waited just a little longer on the first one. Maybe the story would have improved.

I like Generations as is but do you really think the story would have magically been better if they waited another six months, a year, or two years to make it.
Some scripts are bashed aout in a matter of weeks, some are developed over a period of several years. There is no magic formula to it.
I'm not saying it couldn't have been better but there is no logical reasoning to say they would have changed it for the better with more development time.

 

[JarodRussell]

And the TOS movies were also produced in that "assembly line production".

TMP: 79, TWOK: 82, TSFS: 84, TVH: 86, TFF: 89, TUC: 91

 

[KingstonTrekker]

In hindsight, it would have been nice if TNG had continued on TV for a couple more seasons.

 

[seigezunt]

They should have waited just a little longer on the first one. Maybe the story would have improved.

I like Generations as is but do you really think the story would have magically been better if they waited another six months, a year, or two years to make it.
Some scripts are bashed aout in a matter of weeks, some are developed over a period of several years. There is no magic formula to it.
I'm not saying it couldn't have been better but there is no logical reasoning to say they would have changed it for the better with more development time.

Maybe Shatner might have had time to reconsider agreeing to let Kirk die in such a stupid manner.

 

[DivineSugar]

I don't think it hurt anything for the movies to come out when they did. They were still fresh then, so they should have done it instead of waiting for a couple years to go by. Why wait?

 

[Too Much Fun]

I keep asking myself what the hell is wrong with you people. Generations, First Contact and Insurrection were solid at the box office.

When those movies came out, nobody asked "is it too soon?". Nobody said "Are they too old?". Nobody said "TNG is the final nail in the coffin!"


You guys seriously should stop messing your memory up.

But I don't think we're talking about box office success, we're talking about quality. The movies (other than "First Contact", in my opinion) were poorly conceived and I would argue that was natural coming at a time when the people behind TNG were burnt out creatively, as evidenced by the fact that so much of season seven was bad compared to the others (except "All Good Things..." and a handful of other episodes).

Taking more time might have lead to the writers being able to relax long enough to come up with better ideas for movies, or possibly bring in someone new (i.e. Nick Meyer with the original movies) who would contribute a fresh perspective to keep those characters and their stories interesting in the big screen transition. Like I said, though, they didn't have as much time to delay the movies because of the cast's aging, so they were in a tough position. Do it right away while the cast is still young, or give everyone some time to recharge their batteries creatively, at the risk of the cast being too old by the time that's happened.

 

[spaceballone]

I keep asking myself what the hell is wrong with you people. Generations, First Contact and Insurrection were solid at the box office.

When those movies came out, nobody asked "is it too soon?". Nobody said "Are they too old?". Nobody said "TNG is the final nail in the coffin!"


You guys seriously should stop messing your memory up.

But I don't think we're talking about box office success, we're talking about quality. The movies (other than "First Contact", in my opinion) were poorly conceived and I would argue that was natural coming at a time when the people behind TNG were burnt out creatively, as evidenced by the fact that so much of season seven was bad compared to the others (except "All Good Things..." and a handful of other episodes).

Taking more time might have lead to the writers being able to relax long enough to come up with better ideas for movies, or possibly bring in someone new (i.e. Nick Meyer with the original movies) who would contribute a fresh perspective to keep those characters and their stories interesting in the big screen transition. Like I said, though, they didn't have as much time to delay the movies because of the cast's aging, so they were in a tough position. Do it right away while the cast is still young, or give everyone some time to recharge their batteries creatively, at the risk of the cast being too old by the time that's happened.

Like the 4 year gap they took between insurrection and Nemesis? Like bringing in fresh blood of John Logan and Stuart Baird? That worked real well didn't it?

There were 2 years between Generations and First Contact and another two years before Insurrection came out. Then 4 years before Nemesis. There was plenty of gap time between each to come up with one story for a movie.

Come on, The show ended while it was still on top of it's game in the ratings so demand was high for a movie. Should they have just not done anything for 3 years and hoped demand was still high for a movie then? Even then it's really hard to say they would have come up with something "better" More development time or more down time is not a sure fire way to a better story.
Also, since TNG finished very strong in the ratings it would have made no sense to turn the films over to someone else creativly for new blood. Why take a chance with someone who doesn't know the franchise when you have a team with a proven track record of success.
Star trek 2 was given to Nick Meyer and Harve Bennet because of the problems with The motion Picture. TNG was not in that kind of situation.

I also happen to like the first 3 TNG films quite a bit.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I've wondered what might've happened if Paramount had ended TNG with "All Good Things..." in May '94, done another Classic Trek film for late '94, and then done the "crossover" film to pass the baton in '96 for the 30th-anniversary.

 

[Grant]

Not too soon, but too blandly written.

They didn't take any chances in the transition to the big screen.

They gave Data the chip but then played that down. Nobody died and then when Data finally did---it was a TWOK rip-off with good old B-9 holding his 'Katra'.

Geordi gets rid of his visor but still has the implants--so big deal.

They wimped out on the story for Insurection by having it be one misguided admiral instead of a real rift between the Enterprise crew and Starfleet.

And the "Nexus'
Worst idea ever. And people complain about Nemesis when Generations blew every aspect of the story
Bad story
bad motivation by villain
bad execution of villains plan--just fly into it.
bad team-up of two of Trek icons
bad Kirk death
bad logic to Nexus
bad space battle etc etc

 

[Too Much Fun]

I keep asking myself what the hell is wrong with you people. Generations, First Contact and Insurrection were solid at the box office.

When those movies came out, nobody asked "is it too soon?". Nobody said "Are they too old?". Nobody said "TNG is the final nail in the coffin!"


You guys seriously should stop messing your memory up.

But I don't think we're talking about box office success, we're talking about quality. The movies (other than "First Contact", in my opinion) were poorly conceived and I would argue that was natural coming at a time when the people behind TNG were burnt out creatively, as evidenced by the fact that so much of season seven was bad compared to the others (except "All Good Things..." and a handful of other episodes).

Taking more time might have lead to the writers being able to relax long enough to come up with better ideas for movies, or possibly bring in someone new (i.e. Nick Meyer with the original movies) who would contribute a fresh perspective to keep those characters and their stories interesting in the big screen transition. Like I said, though, they didn't have as much time to delay the movies because of the cast's aging, so they were in a tough position. Do it right away while the cast is still young, or give everyone some time to recharge their batteries creatively, at the risk of the cast being too old by the time that's happened.

Like the 4 year gap they took between insurrection and Nemesis? Like bringing in fresh blood of John Logan and Stuart Baird? That worked real well didn't it?

I figured someone might bring that up. But just because it didn't work with those people doesn't mean it was a bad idea. Those were just the wrong people. Clearly Berman wasn't as smart in picking people to breathe new life into Star Trek as Harve Bennett was.

 

[JarodRussell]

Well, Berman got talked into hiring John Logan by Brent Spiner... and I believe it was Paramount's executive decision to make Stuart Baird the director.

 

[Lord Garth]

I don't think the TNG movies came out too soon. I do think that INS brought the momentum generated by FC to a halt. Four years later, no one cared about NEM.

Star Trek did become oversaturated in the mid-'90s but that had to do with "striking while the iron is hot".

Nostaligia, IMO, doesn't have as much to do with it as one might think. There were fans of the original movies who weren't fans of TOS itself. The original Star Trek managed to transcend its time. It was a '60s TV series, an '80s movie series, and now a millennial movie series.

Bringing back TNG in 2004 after a 10-year hiatus, IMO, wouldn't have worked. It probably would've gotten the same response as the second X-Files movie. TNG will have to be re-invented for the 21st Century just like TOS.