Why was it so vital that "Generations" be a "bridge" movie.

So it's been 20 years so my memories of things may be a bit cloudy, but it seems to me that, when they announced they were going to make a TNG film that the creators, and some of the fans, felt it was absolutely VITAL that the film be some kind of "bridge" between TOS and TNG, with Kirk and Picard meeting being the most desired scenario of course.

I admit hindsight is 50/50 but I guess what I want I to know is WHY was it so vital to make the film a bridge between the two. Again, IIRC, it seemed to be something though that was more pressing to the filmmakers and studio rather than the fans, although I do remember a certain percentage getting all excited at the thought of Picard and Kirk meeting.

I ask why because of the following:

First, TNG was already a proven success that could stand on it's own. It had been a bigger success during it's TV run than TOS. It wasn't cancelled because of low ratings but rather for budget reasons and so they could move on to films. It had a significant number of fans who thought it was equal or better to TOS. So it wasn't like there was this pent up screaming demand for the first TNG film to include TOS in it. It could have been released as just a TNG film and everyone would have known who was in it.

Second, they had already "bridged" the two shows in the series. You had McCoy in "Farpoint" (albeit in a vary small roll), Scotty in "Relic" and of course Spock in "Unification". So it wasn't like it had never been done, but now that it was a film it was like they HAD to bridge them again or it wasn't going to work.

Finally I thought they had "bridged" the two series for good by actually not bridging them. Meaning when TUC ended it was basically TOS show saying this was the last ride and their time was over, they even flew off into the sunset for crying out loud. So it was in essence passing the torch to TNG as the main barer of the flame now and that it would lead to a film series.

But I guess it was vital that the first TNG film had a bridge to TOS despite all of this. I wouldn't have minded if it was any good, but the film seemed to be written with this central premise: How can we shoehorn Kirk and Picard meeting, and the plot was developed from there.....not very successfully I might add.

In unification it seemed like the thought of what is the best story we can write and then put the element of Spock into it after they came up with the story. As a result you had a great show and Picard and Spock's meeting actually had some emotion and depth to it.

In "Generations", despite the fact they tried to slip in some weak themes of mortality and hardship with Data trying to learn emotions. It all really seemed like that was just window dressing so Kirk and Picard could finally meet, have 10 minutes or so of cheesy dialogue, then have them get in a rematch of the fight with Soran where Kirk dies in a pretty weak way. They never really connect with each other and it was so forced.

Again hindsight 50/50 but I think the whole "We gotta bridge the two series" was just so misplaced. The emphasis should have been on writing the best story for a TNG film, not making sure Kirk gets in it. If they came up with a great story involving Kirk...great. If not, well try again in TNG II. I think that, given the success of TNG and the bridge thing being done before, that making it the central idea around which the film was made just wasn't the way to go.

 

My theory: the film series and the TV spin-offs had hithero been two seperate branches of the franchise. In terms of market recognition, it's possible that somebody at the top of the chain thought that the movies might have a wider audience than 'just' the Star Trek fanbase. There is a certain logic, therefore, in creating a bridge between the generations -- not for the benefit of Star Trek fans, who (as you've pointed out) had already pretty much come to terms with that whole thing, but more for the benefit of a broader audience who may have been following the movies, but not the TV show(s).

Yes, TNG was a successful show. But somebody at Paramount clearly wasn't willing to 'bank' on them carrying that success directly to movie screens. They wanted a way to soften the blow for any audience members who might feel a sense of "continuity lock-out" from not following TNG's adventures for 7 years. For better or worse, the passing of the baton achieved that.

(IMO it was a false perception, I agree with you that I think TNG would've done just fine without having a crossover, but I can understand the thinking behind the decision to run with it.)

 

Whenever a franchise exists in more than one medium, it's going to have different audiences in different media. Sure, there will be plenty of people who go to a Trek movie because they're fans of the series, but there are also plenty of people who go to a Trek movie just because they want to go to a movie that night and it happens to be showing.

Not to mention that TNG aired in syndication rather than on a network. It was widely syndicated, yes, but there was no guarantee that it would be showing in every market that had a movie theater. And then there were people who had access to TNG but just weren't interested in it, preferring TOS.

And then there are people who just aren't aware that there are multiple series in the franchise. Once I went out to Hollywood to pitch for Deep Space Nine and I stayed with my cousin. In the course of talking to him about my hope of pitching to Voyager too, I gradually became aware that he didn't realize the shows I was talking about were part of the Star Trek franchise.

Therefore, it was a given that a fair percentage of the people who'd seen Trek movies with the original cast were unfamiliar with the TNG cast, for any of a number of reasons. The makers of the film had to consider that portion of the audience as well as the existing TNG fanbase. These characters were new to a lot of moviegoers, so they needed an introduction.

In fact, that's one thing I think Generations didn't do right -- they didn't introduce the Enterprise-D well at all. We didn't get a full exterior look at the ship until it fled from the supernova midway through. And the initial scenes starting on the holodeck and then going out into the corridors of the ship would've been confusing for people who didn't watch TNG. The producers made the mistake of rushing into production on the movie immediately after finishing the series, and they were too much in the habit of making the series with the assumption that the audience was coming back week after week and knew what they were seeing.

 

^It's interesting to compare how TNG was introduced in the films compared with how TOS was introduced. In TMP, the characters were introduced one at a time (or most were), and the Enterprise was shown in her entirety so that fans who'd never seen Star Trek before could get an idea of what the series was about.

--Sran

 

Kind of wishing Generations was a bridge movie, because I liked what they did with that set...

 

Hindsight has never been 50/50. It however has been known to be 20/20 on occasion.

 

Oh. Oh! I thought this was about the movie taking place on the bridge predominantly, like a technobabble-heavy episode of TNG or VOY

 

Exactly my point, but much more eloquently phrased as always Christopher.

The reality is exactly as you say, TNG had certainly come into its own. But the provision of easing in any people who may have been casual followers of the previous movies, but who may not have been entirely 'au fait' with TNG, was, on paper, a sensible precaution to take.

But I also agree with the last point you made. In fact, I think the TNG segments actually shot themselves in the foot a little: there's a lot of continuity there, whether it's Data's emotion chip or whatever, and a kind of unfortunate assumption that everybody in the audience knows the 1701-D crew and their relationships with each other (I can imagine a neophyte TNG viewer, without any emotional investment in the TNG characters, being completely non-plused at the Worf promotion scene and its significance; as a first-time introduction to these characters it's a bit of a failure ). Frankly I think they had the right idea when, in earlier outlines, they introduced the Enterprise-D by having her coming to the rescue of the Armagosa observatory, but from the point-of-view of the observatory itself. That would have been a much better way of establishing straight away who these people are and how they fit together as a unit, whereas I've always wondered if the "H.M.S. Enterprise" scenes assume just a little bit too much of the audience, in terms of how up to par they are with the TNG crew.

 

Not only did none of the TNG characters get a proper introduction, but Picard (to a first time viewer) appears as grief striken, weepy, grumpy and morose, not exactly the strong leader type. Compare this to Kirk in TMP or even Picard in EAF, both were fine introductions to our bold captain character.

Actually, Data ("hey, it's the robot dude") does get a more accessible introduction and arc. But he's not (supposed to be) the central character.

 

Whoops.

Well I'm talking about hindsight on Krypton. They have much stronger hindsight there.

I guess this only reinforces my belief that I'm getting dumber as I'm getting older.

I used to laugh when my mom would forget where she parked the car at the mall because I always knew exactly where it was.

I don't find it so funny now and thank god for the key fob chirp I can use to track it down.

 

Well, since visual acuity is a ratio, you can use any numbers you want as long as the ratio is the same. 20/20, although it's generally used to mean perfect vision, really just means average vision, the ability to see something 20 feet away as well as the average person can see it 20 feet away. Something like 20/50 vision would be below average, having to be 20 feet from something to see it as well as the average person could at 50 feet, and conversely 50/20 would be seeing more than twice as well as the average person. But 50/50 would mean exactly the same as 20/20, average vision.

In short, enterprisecvn65, you didn't make a mistake at all, you just chose an atypical way of putting it.

 

I agree with you that I can understand the thinking behind it, but again I just seem to remember Paramount being so fixated on it that a bridge film was the ONLY way to go.

I understand the thinking that TNG was a not a network show so there might have been a sizeable base that wasn't familiar with it, hence the need to connect it with TOS to make it more recognizable to some.

But really, despite the fact is was syndicated only I really think there was a big enough base to make it successful and if the first priority had been to make the best TNG film possible, then word of mouth might have spread to people to the non TNG folks and they would have gone to see it.

As it was though it seemed like the whole premise was "Get Kirk in at any cost, no matter the story" and that is generally not a good way to plan a film.

So as a result people who weren't really familiar didn't see the characters as we knew them.....Picard seemed emotionally and physically weak getting his ass handed to him by Malcom McDowell when Picard had handled himself against much stronger opponents in the show. Data was a clown. Riker seemed semi incompetent when placed in command, and the other characters got no background intro.

All of this might not have mattered if the meeting between Picard and Kirk had worked really well, but IMHO it didn't. They just had an awkward scene with Picard basically begging Kirk to help him and Kirk being reluctant, along with the obligatory "I was doing such and such when" (make some reference to how much older you are than the other person). Kirk finally caving, the two getting in a fistfight with Soran, a person neither really had any personal reason to hate they just wanted to stop him from something bad and Kirk dying lamely and Picard trying to seem all broken up about it, like they had been lifelong friends.

Again, you just compare how this measured up against TWOK and Unification. For those stories it seemed like the train of though was "OK we want a character from the past to return, but don't want it to seem contrived and forced" So they seemed to take their time and come up with great stories and adding Khan and Spock was one of the final pieces of the puzzle that fit neatly into place.

I'm not saying that the first TNG film absolutely shouldn't have been a bridge film, but it just seemed like the edict from the powers that be was that was the ONLY option so make it happen no matter what it takes and this seemed to pigeonhole the people making the film as far as what they could do.

But hey...it made money so I guess it was a success as far as Paramount was concerned. Noone has ever accused the film industry of profits reflecting the measure of how good a piece of art work a film is.

George Lucas seemed to follow this approach with the prequels. The whole thing was all built around getting Anakin into the damn Darth Vader suit at the end, and making silly connections to the originals........the path on how to do this didn't really seem to matter.

 

Thanks.....that'll keep me hoping my mind will last for while longer

 

I never really thought about it this way, but 'Generations' would have been an incomprehensible mess to someone who was not a already familiar with the show.
They just assumed that everyone in the audience knew these characters and if you go by first impressions none of the cast displayed anything which made them look good. Having an intro scene like TMP would have helped a lot....

 

in a way Gen felt like a bridge from the TNG tv series to the movies. i.e we start off with a sort of continuation of the movies (with the same 3 TOS characters who destroyed the Enterprise in III - an unintentional clue to the Ent Ds fate later in the movie?) before we go into like a traditional TNG episode with an A/B storyline and gradually the episode gets bigger and bigger and more Trek movie like (Klingon BOP, Stellar Cartography, the Ent destruction) until it merges/bridges with the movie series (Kirk and Picard) so by the end the tv show has been trashed (the Ent D) and fully 'moviefied' with Kirk passing the torch to Picard for TNG to be the torchbearers of the movies series (until Spock passes the torch from TNG era back to TOS..kind of)

but yeah a bridge had already been done for Trek VI/25th anniversary (how peace with the klingons emerged, Worf, Kirks final log entry) & had nimoy passing the torch in Unification. so in a way the movie series had become 'TNGified' - I guess they felt the need to do the same for TNG

 

Back in the day, I felt that the first TNG movie SHOULD include TOS characters as a bridge film.

I know people had casually wondered what happened to Kirk.

We had McCoy, Scotty and Spock.

Never dealing with Kirk kinda would've left a hole in the mythology, but that could've also made Kirk a sort of ghost over the franchise. Kinda like how Brando's absence from Godfather II kinda made him an even more, what's the word, elevated presence despite his absence.

Well, we all know what happened.

We did find out what happened to Kirk, but we didn't like the answer to the question.

It was a half-baked movie, made more frustrating by the fact that the way you can improve it is so easily analyzed.

 

Because otherwise they'd have to find a new title.

What, dropped it off a cliff with Kirk still on it?

Don't feel bad, enterprisecvn65. You're fine as long as you don't get to the state of some people I've heard about. They hire a taxi to cruise the perimeter of the mall looking for their car....

 

So if you're right about Generations being a total mess to someone who wasn't pretty familiar with TNG already, and I think you can make a pretty strong point that it would have been a mess to the uninitiated, then I think it would have made far more sense to say "OK for the first TNG film we have to assume a fair number of the audience aren't very familiar with TNG and, while we don't have to reinvent the wheel, it would probably be a good idea to come up with a strong story that also informs people of necessary information.

I will admit it might have been too much do this for all seven characters, but at least establish maybe 4 (Picard, Riker, Data, Worf) as they'd been in TNG. Instead Picard came off as weak all around, Riker kind of clueless, Data as a clown and Worf was non existent. Yet having Kirk at the begining and end was supposed to rectify all of this. Don't think it would have worked even if they had made Kirk's part a strong one instead of just shoehorned in like it was.

If they'd done "Unification" in season 1 or 2 I don't think it would have been as good because the TNG characters were still developing. But when they did do it the characters were pretty fully developed and the relationship between them, especially Spock and Picard, was clear and believable. They didn't rush to get Spock into season 1 of TNG just so they could use it as a promo stunt. They waited and thought it out and it was a great episode.

I think the same principle should have gone for the films. Don't get Kirk in just to say "Hey Kirk's in this one with Picard" let TNG get it's sea legs as a film series and then maybe bring in Kirk in the 2nd or 3rd film. Apparently some people in charge I don't know who, thought it couldn't wait and having Kirk was vital to the success of the first TNG film.

 

I don't know that GEN needed to be a "bridge" movie.
That is, the film needed a "baton passing" or that TNG couldn't stand on it's own or the public needed some contrived franchise continuity help.

The first TNG movie would want a big story, a big star, something extraordinary and special for the big screen.
Bringing Kirk and Picard together seemed to fit the bill.
It's a suitable big historic event worthy of a movie.
A better bet for their first time out than, say, an INS Alien of the Week idea.

And I suppose the precedent had already been set by Spock's appearance during the series. But bringing Kirk back and teaming up with Picard was a good big idea for a TNG movie (not because it was "needed" in any kind of creative or financial way).

 

Totally.

The problem was that it didn't work out.

Unfortunately.