I have a rule that I will never pay money to see TFF or NEM ever again… TFF - I remember excited after TVH, and was sorely disappointed by TFF. It was like a completely different group of people did the movie and the regular cast just it phoned in… NEM - The worst TWOK ripoff until STID perhaps? The ship ramming and death of Data didn’t make any sense.
What's funny about NEM and STID being Khan knock offs is the simple fact that each of these two respected movie franchises (TNG & JJ) already did their Wrath of Khan movie. TNG with First Contact JJ with Trek09 Having the folks in charge decide they need to do their 'Wrath of Khan' even though they already did it comes off as very shortsighted. Triple the case for the JJverse since all three films feature villains who come from a different era and are driven by revenge against Starfleet.
Sometimes at the detriment to it's own franchise. A lot of franchises usually fall into the trap of re-telling stories in a very 'copy and paste' sort of way. The 'Back To The Future' sequels lean heavily on retreading the first film, Return of the Jedi hits the same beats as A New Hope (As does The Force Awakens), Ghostbusters 1 & 2, every Indiana Jones movie except for Temple of Doom, Die Hard 1 & 2, ect. Funny how the one director who never fell for this kind of trap was the writer and director of Star Trek II himself, Nicholas Meyer. What's not funny is how instead of giving Nick the keys to do his own new Star Trek thing, the studio instead gave the keys to the whole franchise to the guy who's only previous work in Star Trek were essentially stories that copied Nick's work.
Not a bad idea to bring up, chastise Picard for doing that underestimating (or, better, have him remember that and and not be so underestimating) but I don't see it as something that could have easily been fitted in or a huge flaw that it wasn't. The films just took a different focus/approach, that TNG cast just don't feel as bad about the loss of the ship as Kirk does about the loss of Preston and that's understandable and OK.
It's interesting the extent to which the series parallel each other. First-Grand cinematic debut Second-Revenge (with an old established enemy)- & action-focus Third-Crew turning rebels PLUS a lighter, more comical approach and focus kind of as if III & IV were combined [Then V skipped, aside from actor having input on the story] Last-Crew's last voyage and chance to make peace with old enemies. BTW, if the studio really wanted V to be another comedy, how do you think it could/should have been done without having time travel again?
That's a hard one. TFF was a huge letdown largely because it came right after TVH. In retrospect, it's not as terrible as all that. At the time, the humor just seemed so forced and the cast looked so tired. They look older than they do in TUC. Generations was a disappointment because I did not like at all how they killed off Kirk, and this plot took away time from the TNG characters. While I'm a TOS fan first, I felt that they didn't need a "pass the baton" movie. It just went though some weird motions that felt disconnected from where the TNG characters were going in the series. But I think Insurrection was probably the disappointment that stands the test of time. FC was such a fun ride, and to be followed by what could basically have been an episode of the show, and not a very memorable one, was a waste. They should have done a DS9 movie or something. To this day, I've never been able to make it all the way through INS without falling asleep. is it the worst? maybe not. But definitely the most disappointing. I never bothered to see Nemesis in the theater because of how boring INS was. As for Nemesis, it's bad, but at least it has some excitement. Data's death, like Kirk's, left me cold, though. It was so great that Trek films would be fun again a few years later: Beyond is one of my favorites.
I guess my issue with that whole Picard/Klingon bit has more to do with the disconnect that Generations has with what it wants to do vs what it ends up doing. The first line is meant to establish that Picard has had years of experience with both Worf and other Klingons, but it winds up being totally pointless bit of info dump because Picard would do the exact opposite in later scenes. It's bad story telling form to set the expectations of your audience one way and completely do the opposite the next. ... I guess that's the movie in a nutshell.
Insurrection is disappointing on the grounds that it doesn't do anything to challenge the characters or the audience. There's a bad guy, we must stop him, we did, the end. Definitely a far cry from FC that challenged our main hero of the story for making a terrible mistake in letting revenge dictate his actions at the cost of his crew. Insurrection could have taken that great moment from First Contact and actually improve on it by having the argument be between all the main characters. As much as I love that scene between Lilly and Picard, It's still a bit disappointing that all the TNG characters were overshadowed by a character who only exists in that one storyline. To take the whole TNG crew and have them split on what the correct course of action is would have gone a long way to make them feel like actual characters rather than Picard's blindly devoted sidekicks. And unlike First Contact where Picard was in the wrong, no side of this issue would be completely in the right. Gah... Could have been so good, but we were cursed with those four words in the opening credits. 'Associate Producer Patrick Stewart'
Criticism that it was just a TNG episode does often seem to go with the idea that it should have been more Deep Space Nine-ish (should have been a Dominion War movie), I think doing that would risk making it instead just a Deep Space Nine episode. OTOH, It definitely could have been better. More admitting and focusing on that the Federation had gone wrong, was at least becoming the bad guy, could have been strong, at least interesting. Probably the worst part of the film is not showing how Riker was able to convince the Federation Council to stop the mission.
He used the Riker Maneuver…Oh wait… Frankly, I have should have stopped watching ST movies after ST09. The 2 Kelvinverse sequels were not very good. They were entertaining and fun, but not very good ST. I still recall the ST09 or STID staff was saying Kirk was the hardest character to write, and I don’t blame them. It is hard to strike a right tone for Kirk as he is not yet the hero we love and trust. But I feel that the writing quality of the recent movies have declined. Maybe it’s the desire to have more action and set pieces? I also sometimes wonder, would things have been different if the TNG movies had it’s own “Genesis Trilogy” meaning the sort of thing like the 3 movie arc that the TOS movies had? I think the episodic TNG movies robbed its scope and scale?
I think TNG just ended so satisfyingly that moving into bigger stories felt really off. The Kelvin films still are more satisfying than the TNG.
I think the biggest mistake with the TNG movies was not turning them over to a different creative team. The TOS movies benefited from having 10 years of distance between "Turnabout Intruder" and TMP. And, having new creative minds writing and directing those movies, rather than the same dudes from the TV show, gave the TOS movies the fresh and unique feel they needed to differentiate themselves appropriately. There simply wasn't enough change in tone, visual style, special effects, or character development to appreciate the TNG movies as "films" or "events." The TNG movies all felt like...well...the TNG show. And that's fine all by itself, but if you wanted to make more TNG episodes...then don't go making $50M major motion pictures. Make TNG S8 and I'll stay on my couch and watch Picard go through annoying time ribbons, deal with the Borg again, and fight the injustice of forced relocations before tackling pesky clones and more evil Soong-type androids. ZZZzzz Zzzzzz zzzzzzz...... The TOS movies all had the advantage of moving the characters along in life because of the natural time gap. And most of them did things that the series never dared touch: 1. Promoting Kirk to Admiral and making him face the consequences of that 2. Killing off Spock 3. Becoming renegades and putting their careers at risk 4. Destroying the Enterprise etc. etc. etc. At the time, those were all major deals for the franchise...things that had never really been touched upon in the series. Not only did the TNG films not break new ground...but some of them tried to re-purpose these TOS movie elements, and it came off as repetitive and rip-offish.
I wonder whether the best thing that ever happened to the TOS films was Nimoy threatening to leave...
Threatening to leave? After TOS, he was already gone. Phase 2 was planning to move along without him and when TMP was being done, Robert Wise's wife convinced him that you cannot make TMP without Nimoy. After successful negotiations were made to give Nimoy his owed royalties from his time on TOS, he came back for TMP. When The Wrath of Khan was being made, everyone believed it would be their last outing since and Nimoy liked the idea of what the producers offered him which was an emotional send off to the character. He did NOT demand Spock be killed off as a condition to joining the film. Thankfully nimoy experienced something he hadn't felt since the days of TOS. Making Star Trek II was actually a great experience for him! Something that was wholeheartedly lacking when making TMP. So when the opportunity came to do another Star Trek after the success of 2, he said he would return to Spock on the condition that he would direct the next movie. They said yes and Nimoy got to direct two movies which wound up being some of the most successful Star Trek movies made. I'm not convinced that Nimoy threatening to leave was a thing for the six movies.