I agree except that the stakes should also be something different from Earth always being (directly) endangered.
When did the perception of Insurrection change?
- Thread starter Lance
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I agree except that the stakes should also be something different from Earth always being (directly) endangered.
I think TMP is an acquired taste. There's alot of good stuff in there but also soooo much bullshit.
If you look at any Star Trek film, or episode for that matter, with a critical eye then it's all a bunch of bull shit. But it's fantasy, and that's what it's there for 
That's why I turn off my critiques whenever I watch one of these. I just go "hey, it's Star Trek, your favorite TV show. Sit back and enjoy it and just don't give a damn."
That's why I turn off my critiques whenever I watch one of these. I just go "hey, it's Star Trek, your favorite TV show. Sit back and enjoy it and just don't give a damn."
TUC is very tied to the ending of the cold war between east and west, and as that recedes more into history the movie makes less sense. To my generation it's a relic of the past, equal to vietnam and korea.
Even a single scene where Admiral Cartwright and the other conspirators explain their motivations and reasoning really would have helped the movie.
Something more than "Gee, I don't trust the Klingons, I hope we never have peace."
As things like the cold war recede into history, the more important it is to teach that history and remember it.TUC is very tied to the ending of the cold war between east and west, and as that recedes more into history the movie makes less sense. To my generation it's a relic of the past, equal to vietnam and korea.
Even a single scene where Admiral Cartwright and the other conspirators explain their motivations and reasoning really would have helped the movie.
Something more than "Gee, I don't trust the Klingons, I hope we never have peace."
It may be seen as less relevant these days, but it's still important to know what happened and why. Those things are a part of all of us, and if we don't learn from the mistakes of previous generations, well, you know the rest ...
TUC is very tied to the ending of the cold war between east and west, and as that recedes more into history the movie makes less sense. To my generation it's a relic of the past, equal to vietnam and korea.
Even a single scene where Admiral Cartwright and the other conspirators explain their motivations and reasoning really would have helped the movie.
Something more than "Gee, I don't trust the Klingons, I hope we never have peace."
it's clearly a Cold War metaphor yes, but it can be applied successfully to a lot of long-term conflicts, from the Arab-Israeli one, to North Korea-South Korea, etc. The central issues of peace, security, the military-industrial complex, etc. are still as relevant as ever, it's just that the cutesy references like "only Nixon could go to China" are a little dated.
Because they expect better storytelling and production values from a movie than a TV show. Also, there's the whole progression of the franchise's sophistication, which made people have higher expectations from the movies than the show, especially when movies automatically mean you're getting a fewer long works instead of a long show made up a few shorter episodes.
Because the story wasn't worth being told on the big screen. That's the same problem with TFF. We only get one TNG movie every few years, and fans deserved better than a weak two parter with bigger budget. You can't blame the fans that were disappointed.
TUC is very tied to the ending of the cold war between east and west, and as that recedes more into history the movie makes less sense. To my generation it's a relic of the past, equal to vietnam and korea.
Even a single scene where Admiral Cartwright and the other conspirators explain their motivations and reasoning really would have helped the movie.
Something more than "Gee, I don't trust the Klingons, I hope we never have peace."
Sort of like Kirk's line "Don't believe them, don't trust them". Of course that was preceeded by the meeting where it eas mentioned that the Klingons were untrustworthy.
Then we have more at the end about people being frightened of change. That's as true today as it was then.
And not to diminish other wars but the end of the Cold War was a far more significant event in world history. The Vietnam and Koren wars are largely forgotten(in some ares of the world). WWII even though it preceded those wars is more remembered globally.
Actually the Korean and Vietnam wars were both Cold War motivated wars at that, so it just helps reinforce the idea that TUC was a great capper to an era of Trek metaphors/stand-ins for the world powers/nations of that era.
It occurs to me that pretty much all of the TOS movies tried to do something special that made them more than just a typical TV episode brought to the screen:
TMP brought back the original crew and threatened Earth itself!
TWOK killed off Spock! And gave Kirk a son!
TSFS blew up the Enterprise! And brought Spock back to life!
TVH: The end of the trilogy! And a brand new Enterprise!
TFF: Er, did we mention that Spock has a brother?
TUC: The final voyage of the original crew--and a new era of peace with the Klingons.
To be fair, the TNG movies started out with the same approach:
GEN: Picard meets Kirk! The Enterprise is destroyed!
FC: Picard vs. Borg, the big rematch! Meet the Borg Queen! And, hey, First Contact with the Vulcans!
INS: Er, these aliens we've never heard about before are getting a raw deal from Starfleet, and they're really nice and peaceful and enlightened and all . . . .
See what I mean? Nothing that particularly cries out for exclamation points on that last one.
Later on, NEM was at least trying to think big: Picard's clone! Remans! Riker and Troi get married! Data dies . . . sorta.
TMP brought back the original crew and threatened Earth itself!
TWOK killed off Spock! And gave Kirk a son!
TSFS blew up the Enterprise! And brought Spock back to life!
TVH: The end of the trilogy! And a brand new Enterprise!
TFF: Er, did we mention that Spock has a brother?
TUC: The final voyage of the original crew--and a new era of peace with the Klingons.
To be fair, the TNG movies started out with the same approach:
GEN: Picard meets Kirk! The Enterprise is destroyed!
FC: Picard vs. Borg, the big rematch! Meet the Borg Queen! And, hey, First Contact with the Vulcans!
INS: Er, these aliens we've never heard about before are getting a raw deal from Starfleet, and they're really nice and peaceful and enlightened and all . . . .
See what I mean? Nothing that particularly cries out for exclamation points on that last one.
Later on, NEM was at least trying to think big: Picard's clone! Remans! Riker and Troi get married! Data dies . . . sorta.
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The TOS movies were (for the most part) genuinely theatrical experiences. The TNG movies were (for the most part) genuinely not. 
See, this "TNG movies are just two-part episodes on the big screen" thing is a hard thing to shake. Even the lauded First Contact suffers to some degree. I can't help feeling it was the mentality of the production team. TOS movies were made by 'movie people', and even when TNG was off and running from 1987 onwards, the TOS movies were still their own beast, entirely seperate from the television production pack. There was a line in the sand between the two iterations of Trek. However, starting in 1994, Rick Berman was put in charge of both movies and television, and I wonder if he brought a television sensibility (the "sausage factory" approach to working out a story) to the movie series. The way the scripts were structured, the way they were shot, it was a completely different world because the people behind the scenes were coming from a completely different school of thought to the 'movie people' who had helmed Treks I-VI. One can't help wonder if it might have been better to have had TNG move to the big screen, but still maintain a seperate production team rather than trying to amalgamate everything 'Star Trek' under one banner.
See, this "TNG movies are just two-part episodes on the big screen" thing is a hard thing to shake. Even the lauded First Contact suffers to some degree. I can't help feeling it was the mentality of the production team. TOS movies were made by 'movie people', and even when TNG was off and running from 1987 onwards, the TOS movies were still their own beast, entirely seperate from the television production pack. There was a line in the sand between the two iterations of Trek. However, starting in 1994, Rick Berman was put in charge of both movies and television, and I wonder if he brought a television sensibility (the "sausage factory" approach to working out a story) to the movie series. The way the scripts were structured, the way they were shot, it was a completely different world because the people behind the scenes were coming from a completely different school of thought to the 'movie people' who had helmed Treks I-VI. One can't help wonder if it might have been better to have had TNG move to the big screen, but still maintain a seperate production team rather than trying to amalgamate everything 'Star Trek' under one banner.
I could certainly see that. It would indeed be interesting to have seen what would happened if they had more separation.
I think this actually dovetails nicely with the discussion about ENT and it's undoing by the network suits who just wanted to keep doing what was working previously. I think we started to see this mentality with the TNG movies first, and the UPN shows shortly thereafter.
You can see the corporate suits "logic" about the TNG movies:
The Trek movies were a cash cow.
TNG has become a well respected show and a cash cow in its own right.
So of course in corporate-land taking the successful TNG production + Trek movies must equal major cash cow, right?
Of course it did take a TV person (Harve Bennett) to help the TOS movies, so there is some precedent in the Trek movies that having a TV person as producer might be beneficial.
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I really don't.
Especially with the JJ movies, I wish they'd stop trying to be soEPIC/KEWL and just tell a Trek-like story. I think I need to just start reading the novels.
Lots and lots of very good films have been made that didn't try to blow your socks off. I am not the normal American moviegoer in 2013, I admit.
come on, say what you will about TFF but it does have ambition and an attempt at epic scope.
"the Enterprise goes to find God," flawed as a premise though it may be, is not small-scale.
INS, on the other hand, doesn't even try, and may be the only film in the entire movie series not to.
I'd say INS tried a lot harder than NEM and STID, which just looked at the most popular Star Trek movie and tried to remake it.
INS is a case of too many people pushing in different directions. I enjoy it, but it's a mess. First Contact is flawed, but has a clearer direction to it.
INS is a case of too many people pushing in different directions. I enjoy it, but it's a mess. First Contact is flawed, but has a clearer direction to it.
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