^It's an episode of TNG in which Riker watches a fictional holo-novel about Trip's death, because it was supposed to teach him morals so he'd divulge the secrets of the Pegasus.
Well I think the idea was to give him further reason to want to escape into the fantasy world of the Nexus later on. It's a significant point in the plot that, unlike Soren, he doesn't give into that temptation, and accepts living in the real world despite his losses. Maybe his pain over lack of family of his own would have been enough motivation by itself, though. The writers seemed to want to throw in a dramatic reminder of how he's alone.
It's a "valentine to the fans" from Berman and Braga, which will curl your hair, curdle your blood, and make you swear off touching yourself.
It's the truth. I was familiar with the synopsis, had read posts about it, but didn't see it myself until January 2013 in a Fan Collective. I bought the complete series in February, and didn't watch it then. Eventually I'll do a review of it in my thread. For that, I know I'll be watching it 3-5 times in the days before the review. So there's no desire to watch it again for now.
This is where it all goes wrong, though. I totally agree with teacake, here. It's not even plausible. The Picard family doesn't live on a deserted island, in a straw hut. They're in France, where, by rights, there should be a 24th Century Fire Department. But whatever, I don't care about all that ... my question is: why be so LAZY about writing this kind of death, in the first place? I mean, it would've made MORE sense, dramatical sense, too, to have Robert and Marie die taking their son on his first shuttle ride through the universe, to support and encourage his dream(s), only to be torn apart by The Nexus. But again, just killing off these people is such a hateful idea, to begin with, it's very hard to be supportive of it, knowing it's just a very cheap excuse to soup up the emotional drama. Gotta give Stewart his Emote Moment ...
ENTERPRISE, however, handled the fate of Elizabeth so very well and to such great effect ... I was moved, emotionally. When Phlox quietly tells Archer, "make some good come out of this, Captain," I had to turn away. Just for a moment. And it was so underplayed, which made it awesome, as a result. Nobody's running around, screaming bloody murder, under a harsh spotlight, looking at the screen, as if it were our fault. Mind you, Terra Prime is NOT my favourite episode, it has its flaws ... but this aspect of the show was quite inspired and effective ... I must say.
I respectfully disagree. Killing Elizabeth was just as cheap as killing Robert and Rene in Generations. Cheaper perhaps, because at least viewers of TNG had already met those two. Elizabeth was a non-entity, whom we're supposed to care about only because she was Trip's sister. Lazy writing again.
You might expect me to argue your point, perhaps, but I won't. I happen to agree with you, because, certainly, there was some emotional manipulation going on. It follows, doesn't it, I mean ... even naming her Elizabeth, just to milk this whole "Trip loses another female family member" thing. I guess I am mostly talking about the direction, the way her last moments are handled. I don't know ... I just expected them to pull something else out of the hat, at this stage, just to keep an open thread, or something like that.
I keep forgetting about Baby Elizabeth, which was just supposed to be an Awwww moment remembering the sister. Shoot, we never even saw sister Elizabeth until Trip started having nightmares about her. Then with killing Trip off, I guess we're supposed to feel sad because it's the end of the Tucker family tree. Geez, TATV must be the one single episode in all of Star Trek I genuinely despise.
Oh, man...this whole Elizabeth thing... I liked Trip at first, but after his sister was killed, I wasn't so sure anymore. I could understand and sympathize at first, but it got a little strange. Time heals all wounds, but I swear he just got worse and worse. It led me to think there was something seriously wrong with this guy. I don't know...maybe I just missed the point.
Trip definitely had a problem accepting things, did he not? He was always in denial about his feelings, partly to himself, but mostly to T'Pol. She would hand him these Golden Opportunities to lay it on the line and he'd just pussy out. But yeah, when the Xindi killed off Elizabeth, he just would not let it go. Would not accept it. Would not move on. Worse, it was like the rest of the crew kind of acted as an "enabler" as far as those ill-effects went, just to be "supportive." It's one thing to make him "emotional" to throw T'Pol's (supposed) self-control into sharp relief, but it's quite another to stunt his emotional growth, besides.
I don't think either Elizabeth death was cheap. IF you're going to have a whole season about an attack on earth it makes sense that someone on the NX-01 would have suffered a personal loss in the attack. It makes even more sense to make that someone be a main character, from a writing perspective. Then you effectively have the voice of the disaster on the ship. As to baby Elizabeth, yes I did care about her because of the sweetness of the response both Trip and T'Pol had to learning of her existence. The way T'Pol obviously cared about her and sought to bond with her. Not everyone is going to have that personal level of response to being presented with an infant that was manufactured out of their DNA outside of their knowledge. T'Pol is already a wreck because of the trellium (as Old T'Pol says, she will never recover) and she is awash in feelings in a very real way in these scenes, GOOD real feelings not just junkie trellium freak outs. It's a good story for T'Pol.
I can't dispute the cheapness of killing off Robert Picard and family so as to give Patrick Stewart the chance to weep on the big screen, but to call it implausible? There are always going to be fires, and however well-developed a system is, there are always going to be ways that it just flops, sometimes. Obviously it wasn't merely a fire but something that kept detection and/or suppression and/or rescue operations from working. One of the grand things in Arthur C Clarke novels is he usually has a plot beat where a reasonably well-engineered and well-implemented system nevertheless has that awful alignment of mishaps, accidents, bad timing, and missed communications that opens the crack just wide enough for a tragic event. We don't know what string of little things built up to catastrophe --- it would be unconscionable to spend the couple minutes of screen time explaining how it could happen, given that the total relevant information is ``there was a fire'' --- but I do believe that even in the 24th century people will die in fires.
Pft, have you seen Picard's dad in Tapestry? His brother in Family? It explains so much about him. I could easily see Robert going, "Fire alarms? I don't need your infernal technology in our family's house. A real man would endure the fire and not hide behind his pansy gadgets. Now get back to your Starship where you're seated next to a therapist daily."
Again, once Stewart suggested the Picard family not only die, but die in this manner, so that he could be seen weeping in a bucket, then ... the die was cast! "They" committed to it, included it and never looked back on it. But movies are very hypocritical, by nature, are they not? T.V. too, of course. On one hand, everything shown, no matter how impossible, has to be "believable" in appearance. And yet, makes no other attempt at a documentary-type truth, unto itself, whatsoever. In this case, in Roddenberry's STAR TREK, everything works. Once something comes out of the factory, if you don't screw around with it, by penetrating it with alien beams, of have some mad-man reprogram the thing with an axe, it will always work and work very well. I like Arthur C. Clark, but there's very little of his philosophy in Roddenberry's STAR TREK universe.