It wouldn't kill Paramount to make a 5th TNG movie, or will it?

[TroiFan4ever]

So, this is something I've been thinking about for the longest time.

Is there a reason Star Trek: Nemesis had to be the final TNG movie? I mean, it took place in 2379, so was that the end of the era? Did Paramount feel the need to make Nemesis the real TNG finale?

It kind of sucks that at the end of Enterprise's finale, we only saw Troi, Riker, and heard Data for the last time, but didn't see Picard, Geordi, Crusher, or Worf in that episode. Well, I'm sure there were a lot of complaining from ENT fans about Troi and Riker being there as is. But still. I'm sure Steward, McFadden, Burton, and Dorn were jealous of Franks, Spiner, and Sirtis.

Speaking of which, I've read about Patrick Steward and Brent Spiner saying they're too old for their roles or something like that. But I would love to see them all come back and I also read somewhere that LeVar Burton wants to reprise his role for a fifth TNG movie.

The only thing though, Brent Spiner won't be able to reprise his Data role, as he got blown up in the end of the Nemesis movie, but he can reprise his other role... as B-3.

I mean, think of this as Scream. After a set of movies, open it back up with a new decade, a new era or whateverhaveyou.

Well, I guess there is always fanfiction. Then, I decide what I want to happen, except that I don't know the 2380s too well and that I read somewhere that Riker left the E-Enterprise to command the USS Titan and took Troi with him and Worf became Picard's new number one.

If I do write this novel, I'm destroying the E-Enterprise in a more dramatic way than the D-Enterprise in Generations (I'll prolly even sit Troi at the helm)!

Thoughts? Opinions?

 

[BillJ]

No chance of a fifth TNG movie. Pocket is still publishing novels in the era, but they bare little resemblance to the TV series.

 

[Canadave]

Why would Paramount want to? Nemesis didn't make any money, and was poorly received by critics and fans alike. There's nothing in it for them.

 

[Oso Blanco]

The only thing though, Brent Spiner won't be able to reprise his Data role, as he got blown up in the end of the Nemesis movie, but he can reprise his other role... as B-3.

B-4 turned into Data and is now in command of the Enterprise, according to the Abrams future. And yes, I would love to see that! Riker and Troi on the Titan and Picard as an Ambassador ... all it would need is a decent story! I think they should have made "Countdown" the final TNG movie ... but hey, it's never too late ... they could still do some prequel to XI.

 

[Christopher]

Is there a reason Star Trek: Nemesis had to be the final TNG movie?

Of course there is. Hollywood isn't as complicated as people often seem to think it is. They ask if there's a reason behind decisions that they imagine to be arbitrary. But there's only one thing you have to remember: Hollywood is a business. Its goal is to make money. Making movies costs money, so if a movie doesn't make enough money back to earn them a profit, they have no incentive to make a sequel. It really is as simple as that.

Nemesis barely made enough money worldwide to offset the cost of making it. By Hollywood standards, that's a failure (because there are other costs involved in promotion and distribution and so on). It cost them money. Conversely, J. J. Abrams's Star Trek made nearly three times as much money worldwide as it cost to make. That's a definite success. Paramount would have no reason to abandon the very successful Abrams franchise and go back to the failed TNG film franchise.

Would it kill the studio to choose money-losing projects over money-making ones? If they did it often enough, yes. If you spent more money than you earned, you'd go broke, and the same can happen with a movie studio. Could the studio survive making just the occasional money-losing movie? Sure, it's happened before. But any executives who supported a deliberate money-losing strategy would probably lose their jobs. Because their job is to help the studio make money, not throw it away on movies that few people will bother to see.

I mean, it took place in 2379, so was that the end of the era? Did Paramount feel the need to make Nemesis the real TNG finale?

See, this is the thinking that throws people off. We look at these productions in terms of their creative content, because it doesn't matter to us how much they cost. But you have to remember that the studio, the folks who actually have to pay to make the movie and whose jobs depend on its financial success, have to look at it with a different set of priorities. If the last couple of TNG movies had been financially successful, then we'd still be getting TNG movies. Data would've been resurrected, Riker and Troi would've probably come back from the Titan, and the crew would remain in an unchanging rut for as long as the audience was there to see it. But Nemesis lost money, and that was what made it the end of an era. The creative preferences of the producers and the studio are irrelevant if they can't afford to make the films.

It kind of sucks that at the end of Enterprise's finale, we only saw Troi, Riker, and heard Data for the last time, but didn't see Picard, Geordi, Crusher, or Worf in that episode. Well, I'm sure there were a lot of complaining from ENT fans about Troi and Riker being there as is. But still. I'm sure Steward, McFadden, Burton, and Dorn were jealous of Franks, Spiner, and Sirtis.

Not necessarily. After all, they have careers and lives of their own beyond Star Trek. Especially Patrick Stewart, who was already an accomplished stage and screen actor before he got cast as Picard, and who has gone on to even greater success in those capacities since then.

I'm sure the makers of "These Are the Voyages" offered everyone from TNG the chance to return, and Frakes and Sirtis were simply the ones who agreed to do it (along with Spiner, though he only had to record a few voiceover lines, a quick and easy thing to do). The others presumably had other responsibilities that mattered more to them.

B-4 turned into Data and is now in command of the Enterprise, according to the Abrams future.

No, according to a comic-book tie-in to the movie which the film's own screenwriters (who plotted the comic) have acknowledged is not canonical.

 

[sonak]

Nemesis was a disaster at the box office which, because it was the last TNG film, leaves the impression that the Next Gen movie series was a failure, but actually the first two were solid hits, and INS was a disappointment financially, but not a bomb.
Nemesis' failure had a lot to do with the state of the Star Trek franchise itself by 2002, which was struggling, rather than just the film itself.

I think they'll go back to Next Generation someday as a reboot, just as they did with classic Trek. Just not anytime soon, as they're just at the start of a new, so far successful movie series.

 

[BillJ]

No, according to a comic-book tie-in to the movie which the film's own screenwriters (who plotted the comic) have acknowledged is not canonical.

That's pretty bad when a writer works on something then waves it off, "hey, don't pay attention to that".

 

[Oso Blanco]

B-4 turned into Data and is now in command of the Enterprise, according to the Abrams future.

No, according to a comic-book tie-in to the movie which the film's own screenwriters (who plotted the comic) have acknowledged is not canonical.

Countdown is supposed to be a prequel to XI, written by the same people that wrote the movie. As long as there is nothing on screen that contradicts the comic prequel, it IS canon!

 

[Cyke101]

I'm sure Steward, McFadden, Burton, and Dorn were jealous of Franks, Spiner, and Sirtis.

Seeing as how Stewart is getting more work, critical acclaim, and money post-Trek than he did as captain, I doubt that's the case. Similarly, Dorn's outlasted every single Trek actor in terms of Trek episodes and films, so I doubt he's jealous, too. Additionally, Burton's gotten plenty of work behind the cameras (which seems to be his calling now) and the occasional guest spots when time allows, and McFadden's a professor and artistic director -- two very esteemed professions in the arts community.

Last but not least, they're also friends that maintain at least semi-regular contact and hang out. They've been friends for 25 years.

People move on from experiences. While they'll no doubt say they had tons of fun and the experience of a lifetime, they also have lives and other creative and financial endeavors they'd want to explore.

B-4 turned into Data and is now in command of the Enterprise, according to the Abrams future.

No, according to a comic-book tie-in to the movie which the film's own screenwriters (who plotted the comic) have acknowledged is not canonical.

Countdown is supposed to be a prequel to XI, written by the same people that wrote the movie. As long as there is nothing on screen that contradicts the comic prequel, it IS canon!

Personal canon, sure. But Paramount traditionally has had the decree that only filmed material is canon. Other Trek figures like writers, staff, and actors have also written novels and comics, but they're not considered an official part of the Trek canon, just in their own canon. With that said, the comic has a few inconsistencies with the film (for example -- how can the Kelvin outlast the far-more-advanced Enterprise-E and the Klingon fleet against the Narada?), and since the film outranks the comic, the comic is rendered non-canon.


(also: correction -- Orci and Kurtzman only laid down the plot, but the comic was written by their staff)

 

[Christopher]

Personal canon, sure. But Paramount traditionally has had the decree that only filmed material is canon.

"Personal canon" is a contradiction in terms. "Canon," by definition, means that which is official. Referring to one's personal choices as canon is like referring to one's own taste in food as USDA regulations. It's a misuse of the word. In the context of fiction, a canon is the core body of work as distinct from derivative works. One can have a personal continuity, but the term "personal canon" is an oxymoron.

And there doesn't have to be a "decree." Canon is not a value judgment or a seal of approval. It doesn't mean "real" or "correct." It's simply a description. The core body of work is the canon by definition. A canon can contain elements that are deliberately ignored or contradicted by later works in the same canon (for instance, "The Alternative Factor"'s treatment of antimatter or The Final Frontier's treatment of the speed of galactic travel), or it can incorporate ideas from outside the canon (for instance, the first names of Sulu, Uhura, and Kirk's parents, which all came from the novels). There are no "decrees" involved, just creative choices. People have this ridiculous notion of canon as some dogma imposed on Trek's creators by some office at Paramount (or CBS now), but the studios don't care about minutiae like continuity. They just want to make money. Keeping track of continuity is left to the people actually making the shows and films. And those people can make whatever creative choices they want about the shape the Trek universe will take. If they want to ignore what past shows have established or incorporate ideas from books or comics -- or vice-versa -- there's no higher authority that would prevent them.

Canon is merely a descriptive label. It's not a doctrine that restricts the creativity of the producers. It doesn't have a fraction of the importance that fans insist on ascribing to it.

With that said, the comic has a few inconsistencies with the film (for example -- how can the Kelvin outlast the far-more-advanced Enterprise-E and the Klingon fleet against the Narada?), and since the film outranks the comic, the comic is rendered non-canon.

Also, the comic establishes a prior friendship between Nero and Spock, whereas the film seems to indicate that Spock Prime had never met Nero prior to their meeting at the supernova.

(also: correction -- Orci and Kurtzman only laid down the plot, but the comic was written by their staff)

And as I already said, Orci & Kurtzman themselves (or at least Orci) are on record as acknowledging that Countdown is non-canonical because it's not onscreen. They understand that's how it works.


The way I like to put it is, if you treat the screen canon as the "history" of the Trek universe (with the proviso that even real history is subject to revision and contradictory interpretations depending on who's telling it), then tie-in books, comics, and games represent historical fiction. At best, they're things that might have happened, that are consistent with the "history" we know but shouldn't be taken as anything more than possibilities. Although, like much historical fiction, sometimes they take liberties with established facts for the sake of the story.

 

[arch101]

If Nemesis had been the only flop, there might have been one more. But, since Insurrection and Nemesis both underperformed, Nemesis was the death knell. One flop might have been excused, but not two.

 

[Mr Silver]

I see no reason to make another TNG movie. We all know that "24th century Trek" is still ongoing. There is room for new tv shows and authors are always writing new material. (and like Christopher mentioned, its up to the reader to choose their own continunity, although most Trek novels now follow an agreed rule of continunity)

I am disappointed with the way Nemesis was handled, I disliked the obvious attempts to create a "TWOK feel" and I didn't like the way in which the plot developed. There was no need for the Data subplot (I think it was just meddling from Spiner's camp) and Data should never have been killed off, especially in the way it happened. It really served no purpose from an original narrative perspective, he had no personal connection to Shinzon and was doing "The Spock" in respects to saving his Captain from making a life or death decision. I liked Shinzon as a character but I disliked the fact they had to bring in the whole cloning story, especially since any dramatic elements between him and Picard were lost within the movie (none of it really worked, Patrick Stewart and Tom Hardy had no real screen chemistry). I think if they decided to make Shinzon a normal Human who was captured and put into slavery and who blamed the Federation and his own people for never bothering to rescue him, it would have made for a much better movie.

Countdown was glorified "fan wank" at its finest. Worf was a Klingon general, Data had succesfully transferred himself into B-4 and was now captain of the E-E, Picard was the Federation ambassador to Vulcan, Geordi designed the Jellyfish and the E-E despite being roughly 15 years old was still in active service, despite not showing any signs of refit, etc. Despite this, its a good read and does fill in a lot of Nero's missing motivations from Star Trek, especially his personal grudge against Spock. For even more "fan wank", see the Star Trek: Nero comics where such stuff as Nero meeting V'Ger in the JJ-verse and using it to locate the exact time of Spock's emergence.

 

[Yevetha]

And as I already said, Orci & Kurtzman themselves (or at least Orci) are on record as acknowledging that Countdown is non-canonical because it's not onscreen. They understand that's how it works.

I think they ignored because the explanation confused the heck out of their audiences.

I dont really see why an another TNG movie needs to be made.

I am truly sorry that they never made a DS9 one.

But who cares i like the Abramverse.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

No good money after bad.

 

[Christopher]

I see no reason to make another TNG movie. We all know that "24th century Trek" is still ongoing. There is room for new tv shows and authors are always writing new material. (and like Christopher mentioned, its up to the reader to choose their own continunity, although most Trek novels now follow an agreed rule of continunity)

Not a rule, just a voluntary consensus. Nobody has to make us keep the books consistent with each other; I think it's something most of us just prefer to do by default. Although if an author or editor wishes to do something in a separate continuity, they're free to do so.

I liked Shinzon as a character but I disliked the fact they had to bring in the whole cloning story, especially since any dramatic elements between him and Picard were lost within the movie (none of it really worked, Patrick Stewart and Tom Hardy had no real screen chemistry).

I couldn't disagree more. I think they had excellent chemistry and the relationship between them was by far the strongest, most compelling part of the film.

Countdown was glorified "fan wank" at its finest. Worf was a Klingon general, Data had succesfully transferred himself into B-4 and was now captain of the E-E, Picard was the Federation ambassador to Vulcan, Geordi designed the Jellyfish and the E-E despite being roughly 15 years old was still in active service, despite not showing any signs of refit, etc.

Leaving aside the rest, I don't see why you'd think it unbelievable that a ship could be in service for 15 years without major refits. Picard commanded the Stargazer for 22 years. The Galaxy class was designed with a 100-year life expectancy and 15-year missions in mind. There were Miranda, Excelsior, and Oberth-class ships in service for a century or more.

 

[Mr Silver]

Not a rule, just a voluntary consensus. Nobody has to make us keep the books consistent with each other; I think it's something most of us just prefer to do by default. Although if an author or editor wishes to do something in a separate continuity, they're free to do so.

Yeah I gathered that, but like you said, its something most of you prefer to do and therefore its become an unwritten rule if you like

I couldn't disagree more. I think they had excellent chemistry and the relationship between them was by far the strongest, most compelling part of the film.

From your point of view, yes. But we all have different tastes and that was my opinion. I was left cold with some of the scenes between Stewart and Hardy and felt the only real things that mattered from a dramatic sense was the dinner table scene where they discussed the Picard family and of course, the final scene between them.

Leaving aside the rest, I don't see why you'd think it unbelievable that a ship could be in service for 15 years without major refits. Picard commanded the Stargazer for 22 years. The Galaxy class was designed with a 100-year life expectancy and 15-year missions in mind. There were Miranda, Excelsior, and Oberth-class ships in service for a century or more.

Yes there were ships that had a long shelf life, but they underwent constant refits to keep up with the technological advancement of the federation (and perhaps more importantly, the federation's enemies). As I stated, it didn't really look as if the E-E had undergone any kind of real refit(the bridge looked the same, external design looked the same, no different nacelle's, etc granted we didn't see anywhere else in the ship so maybe my initial opinion on this is unjust), despite the fact the technology in Countdown was considerably more advanced than what we saw in NEM. The Galaxy class for example, had several refits, particulary when vulnerabilities were established. As we saw throughout the run of TNG, there were a few design flaws evident (which became the main storylines in some episodes), in Season 2, the E-D underwent a pretty extensive computer refit, that enhanced onboard systems, including the holodeck (which made it more realistic).

There is nothing wrong with what you are saying, however I cannot accept the idea that a starship would remain at the forefront on active service with no refits or upgrades for 15 years.

 

[Christopher]

Well, just because the artist used photo reference from the movies as the basis for drawing the interiors, that doesn't mean there weren't refits. You can't always take the visuals too literally in Trek, because sometimes, whether in live action or in comic-book form, the folks creating the sets just use what's available to them at the time. So we get things like the Stargazer bridge from 2355 having consoles that look like those from the 2280s, while the Hathaway in "Peak Performance," a ship of the same class that's called "archaic" in its technology and was implicitly decommissioned decades earlier, has bridge consoles resembling those of a 2360s Galaxy-class ship. Because none of this represents a literal reality where technology progresses in a logical way. These are the creations of artists who are using the resources at hand to simulate a fictional universe, and different artists have different resources available or make different creative choices about how to use them. So you can't read too much into the way things look. It's more representational than literal.

And heck, sometimes comics artists just pick the wrong references and make mistakes. There's a panel in DC's Mirror Universe Saga that shows the Excelsior when it's supposed to be the mirror Enterprise. There's an issue illustrated by Carmine Infantino that has a frame story in the TOS movie era and a flashback in the 5-year-mission, and even after the flashback ends, the Enterprise-A's bridge and crew uniforms are still being drawn to look like 2260s vintage.

 

[Mr Silver]

Yeah, visuals in Trek are plagued with discontinunity. When Countdown was planned to be an official part of the canon, I was hopeful that continunity would be respected, however this wasn't the case obviously. The only thing that has really changed from a visual perspective is the uniforms. I'm glad that Countdown was not included in official canon, not just for this but because of the reasons I aforementioned too.

Just out of nitpicking, whats to say that the Hathaway wasn't given suitably workeable technology, but left in a messy and inoperable condition, in order to simulate the idea of being "archaic"? I only mention this because theres bound to be a lot of rules and regulations on safety in the 24th century and it doesn't seem right that starfleet would provide an unsafe (without the possibility to make it safe) vessel. I'm sure they could have easily reused the Stargazer bridge sets otherwise, it wouldn't have made sense to destroy them so early, since the ship was such a pivotal location for the series lead.

 

[number6]

I don't think TNG deserved another film. They ran out of good ideas around season five, and slugged through a few more seasons before rushing it onto the big screen. We got two descent films, one lackluster film and one underwhelming one.
Frankly, I'm more disappointed we didn't get a DS9 or ENT film while the timing was right.

 

[Yevetha]

DS 9 film would had been much better.