That is true. Though I admit that I'd have liked to have a scene on DS9 where Chief O'Brien sees the Enterprise towing the Defiant to the docking ring and groans, "What did they do to the Defiant?! It'll take me weeks to patch her up again!" Worf comes back onto the station and says, "We were ultimately victorious. The Defiant served us well."
We know that Worf showing up in Season 4 takes place awhile after Star Trek Generations, while that episode of O Brien commenting about the Defiant being in bad shape thats probably right after First Contact but makes you wonder if Picard set ground rules for everyone to not to tell anyone else that they time traveled to the past to give Cochran a little nudge while stopping the Borg
Werent there some minor Deep Space Nine crew members with Worf on the Defiant when Picard helped them in the beginning of First Contact? Bet they had a hard time trying to explain to Sisko what happened to the crew he gave to Worf for the beginning of First Contact
This thread title popped back up to the top today. I was about to post pretty much this same thing as what I wrote back in May (having completely forgotten about it)...but fortunately I looked back through the thread a bit first and realized that would have been awkwardly repetitive.
Not a huge TNG fan. So just watching INS as a move, and not a shoulda-been, and not a let-down to FC, I think it’s pretty dece. I’ve seen FC too many times, so I’d say it it is the TNG I like the most. Ppl complain it is not epic enough, but I don’t really like summer blockbuster movies. With its ethical conundrum it feels very Star Trek to me.
I like Insurrection the best out of the TNG movies, but I still don't like it a lot. I like Generations in much the same way. Don't like Nemesis much and I think First Contact is just about the worst Star Trek film there is, so yes, with a low bar to clear, Insurrection is my personal best of the four.
I honestly don't like any of them. It's more a case of disliking by degrees. First Contact for me represents the worst excesses of what these movies turned the TNG characters into. Data's riding high on emotions, Picard becomes an action chump and I'm in the camp that's not a massive fan of the Borg and even less so the Borg Queen. I understand First Contact is liked by many, but not this poster. It's a zombie runaround with a TNG skin. It's just so generic underneath all the bells and whistles.
I've just watched Insurrection again for the first time in years, and I must say (echoing @Richard S. Ta), I think it's the best TNG film - because it is the most like TNG. I like the attempt at a TNG moral-of-the-week story (even if it all falls apart if one spends any time thinking about it) - much more preferable to the more action-packed, adrenaline-fueled 'blockbuster' types like First Contact and Nemesis (although, I have a soft spot for Nemesis - well, bits of it, anyway). Data is not too annoying (although "saddle up, lock and load" was cringeworthy), and neither is Geordi. In fact, Geordi's 'sunrise' scene is very moving. Crusher and Troi don't have an awful lot to do (neither does Geordi, really), but Crusher proves she's a crack shot yet again when shooting down those drones, and I enjoy Troi's flirting with Riker in the library, and his reciprocation afterwards. I most enjoyed all the Worf moments! You know what I've just realised? I like seeing these characters just doing their thing. I couldn't care less about the main story, it's just nice to see our crew again
Yeah, I always found it a little funny that the least liked movie for each cast (STV and INS) were arguably the ones most like an actual episode of their respective series.
Perhaps the issue isn't that they're the most like actual episodes, but that (for some) they're not the most like actual episodes they would consider to be good episodes? Being the most like DS9's "The Muse" or VOY's "Threshold", for instance, wouldn't really be an accomplishment. And if the movie is like an average episode of the series, then perhaps that's even worse...
I guess it depends what one expects from a TNG movie. FC would definitely fit in with the blockbusters released today. But even GEN feels like a film and not a tv episode. And so does NEM, even if its not a great film. I just think that TNG had better two partners during its run than INS. But to each his/her own.
That’s one of the big issues with the TNG movies. With the exception of NEM, all of the movies were written and directed by people who wrote and direct episodes of the show. I recall reading or watching an interview with Rick Berman where he said this was done deliberately. His thinking was, because episodes of the show were thematic in presentation and scale (for a tv show). Using the same teams for the films would be an easy transition. GEN - Looks like a two part episode. But with the galaxy traversing adventure, shooting on different locations and enhanced special effects (they broke the bank for that stellar cartography scene). All this really hypes its presentation. FC - Braga, Moore and Berman learned a hard lesson from GEN and turned in a thematic movie with scale and stakes. They almost sunk back into a TV mindset though. Where early drafts involved the Borg traveling back to medieval times and wreaking havoc there. INS - Michael Piller had never written a movie before. So, like with GEN under Braga and Moore. Piller turned in a two part episode movie. With the pace of a tv show, the stakes of an episode and the camp from the show. The biggest fault with INS, is that it was a bad two part episode. It has very little charm or “price of admission” scenes that merit a rewatch. NEM - This film was written by a Hollywood writer, John Logan (who had just written Gladiator) and directed and edited by Hollywood director, Stuart Baird. Berman stayed on as producer. Berman and the studio were really trying to up their game and make Trek stand out after INS lost all momentum of the franchise. In one of the worst environments at the time. INS coming out one year after Titanic broke the BO and one year before Star Wars The Phantom Menace. NEM had it just as bad. With Spider-Man 1 and Star Wars AOTC in the summer of 2002 and LOTR The Two Towers and Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets releasing in the winter with NEM. NEM isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But no one ever says that they can’t see the money on the screen and that the film doesn’t feel cinematic.
Actually I thought there were parts in NEM where there seemed to be some pretty obvious penny-pinching. The 'conference room' scene with Data and Picard immediately before the battle, for instance.
First Contact was the match that lit my interest in all things Trek. After seeing it on the big screen, I did a deep dive into the whole franchise (thanks, Blockbuster). By the time Insurrection went into production I'd consumed everything Trek and was brimming with anticipation. I recall reading interviews in sci-fi rags discussing the Heart of Darkness influence; what was hinted at was very encouraging. When I walked out of the theater after Insurrection, I was despondent. Here I was - a newly minted Trekkie ready for their first big screen Trek experience *as* a Trekkie - and that's what they followed up First Contact with? Looking back, it was a classic case of over-hype - something that would bite me in the arse again after Star Trek Into Darkness. I've re-watched Insurrection on a couple of occasions and the viewing experience is little improved. It's the weakest TNG feature outing. So far as Nemesis - I think Nemesis had the worst individual moments and was a terrible movie as well, but Nemesis's best scenes topped anything in Insurrection, which was flat throughout. Maybe Picard's ready room confrontation with Admiral Zerbe had some meat to it, but beyond that, it was pretty weak sauce.
And? TMP was between Superman, Alien and Star Wars: ESB. TWOK was between Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars: ROTJ TSFS was between ROTJ and Back To The Future. TVH was between BTTF and The Running Man. TFF was between The Running Man, BTTF2 & Die Hard. TUC was between BTTF3 and Terminator 2. GEN was between Jurassic Park and Apollo 13. Star Trek films being produced in between bigger films is unavoidable and a sheer certainty.