Ron Moore: Episodes are morality plays that don't always translate well to the big screen. https://www.cinemablend.com/news/25...or-the-big-screen-according-to-tngs-ron-moore
Which would be why he said "doesn't always". He's not shitting on all the movies, he's saying that the "hyped up and over-amped" approach is one he has little interest in.
The movies, at least prior to J.J. Abrams, were essentially reunion specials put on the big screen. That was a big part of their appeal, to see the cast you've watched for several seasons reunite for another adventure and the kind you wouldn't have possibly gotten on TV. TNG fumbled it partly by making their stories too episodic. Then the Bad Robot films tried to stand on their own but fizzled out. At this point, I don't think Trek belongs on the big screen anymore. If Ron Moore ever returns to Trek, I really hope it's for a TV series rather than a movie.
He's right that television allowed more character/story themes rather than the expectations/hopes for, specifically, big blockbuster films, big spectacle and big simple conflict, thrill ride.
I think his perspective is largely correct. I also think that the stakes in the movies tend to be raised too high — destruction of Earth, etc. one reason that TWOK works for me is they wove a personal story with a high stakes adventure without making the stakes feel artificially high or redundant, while also including some (albeit only lightly explored) moral stakes involving both the marooning of Khan and his followers in the series and the Genesis device itself. It played on multiple levels.
I think Moore is not entirely accurate in his wording. When he talks about things like morality plays, or character pieces, or slice-of-life stories, and them not making for good movies -- what I think he was referring to was them not making for good blockbusters. And I think that's true. The Star Trek series has only had one hit blockbuster -- the 2009 film. Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond tried to follow in its shows but weren't as successful. The majority of Star Trek films -- TWOK, TSFS, TFF, TUC, GEN, FC, INS, and NEM -- have been mid-budget action movies. Some of them were more successful than others -- TWOK, TUC, and FC in particular. But they've all followed a set of action-movie conventions. What Moore says suggests to me that future Star Trek films might work better if they're not forced to function as action films. Indeed, besides ST09, the two most successful ST films (TMP and TVH) are very decidedly not action movies! If Paramount made a Star Trek film that genuinely fit into a different genre altogether, that wasn't trying to be an action movie in space, then I suspect the idea that Star Trek doesn't lend itself well to film might not be thrown around so much.
That was also...like Trek’09...a very mainstream movie. Which now must take place around the current FOR ALL MANKIND timeline...I forgot that. Makes that carrier break in even more of a tripline than Able-Archer 83
Well, maybe The Next Generation films didn't work as action blockbusters because the series wasn't an action adventure. It was a Sci Fi drama series with more discussion than movement. The Original Series was an action/adventure SF show. The second pilot ended in a fistfight. There were lot of fisticuffs and space battles (as the budget and stock footage would allow) and phaser fights. Lots of violence and death. If anything, Generations was the one TNG film that was anything like the series since it had so little action and Picard got his ass beat by an old guy and needed Kirk to do the fighting. The next three films made Picard an action hero, which was something he never was. That's what Riker was for. Insurrection was kinda close to the series but nobody seemed to like that either. Making Star Trek action films isn't the problem. It's making them DUMB action films that's the problem. Star Trek Beyond tried to balance the two, but by that time people were over it. I felt it was the most successful of the reboots at capturing what I loved most about the series while still giving us epic thrills. It was just a little over the top. Star Trek was never really a mainstream attraction and only got big box office when 1) returning to the fans after a 10 year begging marathon for new adventures 2) making it different enough to appeal to the normals: which either meant full on comedy, time travel or promising blistering action with young leads. Anything but traditional Star Trek. And I love how people still jump up and say "Star Trek is a morality play" like it's a frigging new discovery after 55 years of people saying those exact words.
I've observed this as a problem for the TNG films as well. Something like TMP actually would have been appropriate for them while it was a disappointment for TOS because people wanted to see them fight Klingons or whatever. Something like All Good Things could have been a great movie for them, bigger FX budget for the "future" stuff and they could have done the "stealing the Enterprise out of a museum" idea that was originally proposed. Beyond was also the only of the new films I really liked. It just captured the feel of the show a lot more and used the characters better especially in the Spock/Bones interactions.
Trying to do the perfect Star Trek film isn't very easy considering the fact that you have a core fan base that you have to please. If it doesn't feel like a 90 min. or 2hr. Star Trek episode then you're going to loose a your audience that you're trying to please. If you get filmmakers that also don't know the source material and were never fans of it, trying to put their own spin on it, then you end up with film that looks more like an average sci-fi film with Star Trek cosplayers. IMHO the only Star Trek film that seems more like a episode of Star Trek is TMP.
I can only partially agree with this. Insurrection was like a 2 hour episode and it was all the worse for it and is frequently ranked near the bottom of most people's lists. I think Star Trek Beyond also suffered from this but to a much lesser degree as it had some big set pieces and some flashy visuals to fall back on. Nicolas Meyer put his own spin on the film he directed and had never seen an episode of Star Trek before being approached to direct TWOK, which as we all know is frequently cited as the very best trek movie. I kind of agree that TMP felt like an episode of trek because that's exactly what it was - a big budget remake of 'The changeling'. I would also add TSFS, TVH and TFF as films that felt like TOS episodes. I do however agree that it is extremely difficult to make the perfect big screen trek outing. For me, the ones that have come closest to achieving this are probably the 2009 movie and TWOK.
Still, Star Trek II was at least produced by a guy who sat down and watched every episode and was very concerned with the fanbase. There was an emphasis on character and was in the space opera vein of the original series. It wasn’t trying to be a blockbuster. Just the opposite, it was a modestly budgeted film that just wanted to be an entertaining story. New York critics of the day actually called it “an overblown TV show.” So it wasn’t a Big Summer Tentpole Blockbuster. It made less money than the first but made a larger profit (or so it’s been said) and was a critical improvement over the first. Arguably, the second, third and fourth films were the most successful critically as well as in how they captured the essence of the series without bending the format to appeal to the normal or having to shoehorn studio mandates. It was “Star Trek before it became a franchise.” Star Trek doesn’t require blistering action and lots of yuks to be good. Look at the best of Star Trek: how much action was in City on the Edge of Forever? Did Mirror, Mirror require 51 minutes of space battles? At the same time, The Doomsday Machine and Balance of Terror aren’t great episodes because of the combat. They’re exceptionally well written character pieces with a semi-subtle commentary. There needs to be content, not simply pyrotechnics. Something has to separate Trek from Wars other than "the guy with the ears" or whatever. Even The Wrath of Khan wasn’t an “action movie” per se. It was a movie with action sequences – and not even that many. After the simulation, the first ship confrontation 45 minutes in, then the climax – much of which was a “seek and destroy” submarine type sequence. Star Trek's 2 and 4 were repeatedly used as templates for box office success, but the studio kept looking at the wrong things. It wasn't simply the battles, the laughs, the time travel and Khan like villain that made these films work. Without good writing, content and character, that's just bullshit.