Troi is ridiculously off the rails too. She's damn near a bimbo suddenly I've seen them all more than a few times, but I can't sit through them anymore. They are just such big piles of dreck. They're everything the show wasn't. Flash over substance. It truly was the beginning of Star Trek feeling like a corporate product, almost as much as NuTrek does. I'd rather watch The Final Frontier & that's not a good movie at all, but at least there's some genuine connection with the characters & among them
I find the Next Gen movies much more rewatchable than the series, which in retrospect had a few fantastic episodes among lots of awful ones. The characters are more likeable and relatable, too.
GEN gets worse with each viewing. It had a few good lines and a few good scenes but much of the story is very weak. FC was strong from beginning to end; thank you Mr. Frakes. INS reminds me of a TNG episode, which is fine because I loved them. NEM was weakly written and directed. It's not the worst but it failed to bring movie-goers in, even Trekkers so it killed off TNG. That's unforgivable. I hope we see something for the 50th anniversary besides JJA's movie. I want a 24th century era story that includes the Titan, the Rikers, Picard, Bashir, Worf, O'Brein, Paris, B'Lana, etc. The story ties into the third JJA movie somehow and it is presented as a miniseries.
One of the TNG movie series' biggest downfalls, IMO, is that there are no story arcs through the series. They are all stand alone adventures with no sense of continuity, which is one of the strongest aspects of Treks II-IV. You feel like you're along for the ride with the characters, watching them grow. In the TNG film series, you don't feel as involved. Anyway, this is what I think of the films... Generations---This movie is a paradox. It's not a very good or well thought out story, obviously rushed into production. However, it's watchable and better than it has a right to be considering all the plot holes, lost opportunities, and half-baked ideas that are evidenced on the screen. Effective action scenes help. But the movie's best asset is the acting by the three leads: Stewart, Shatner and McDowell. I don't watch it often, because I don't like Kirk's death, but I would watch it. First Contact---Like many, this is the one to watch and I do rewatch it. At one point, I rewatched it a lot. Well done film. Insurrection---I've only seen it once. It's the only Trek film that I haven't seen more than once. I saw it in theaters back in 1998, and haven't seen it since. Feels like a bad TV episode, with no ingenuity. Nemesis---This movie has an out-of-gas feel to it. I've TRIED to see it a third time (I saw it twice in the theater when it was released), and can't get into it. One of its critical flaws is that I just don't believe Tom Hardy is a young Patrick Stewart. It's too damn obvious. This is an important plot point that requires a suspension of disbelief that the movie simply does not earn. Of course, it doesn't help that the movie's subplots all recycle stuff from previous movies/episodes.
I think the opposite - GEN for me has dated a lot better than the middle two films (NEM only gets a pass because of it's younger age) mainly on account of it's stunning lighting and cinematography, bar the daft scenes in the Nexus and the shitty ending the whole film has a sort of a mysterious feel to it upon watching it the other week for the first time in ages, which I simply didn't clock back in '94.
The TMP era movies are totally different in look and feel- you become involved in personal level with what is going on. The TNG movies are more stiff and formal- you feel like a bystander watching people go through uncomfortable moments. The more recent films have better SFX, but they lack that connection which makes a film great IMO.
And see, I'm the opposite. I really don't like how connected 2-4 are. 3 is such a bore to me, but to get the whole story, it's a necessary evil that connects the movies. If they were standalone, I'd probably enjoy 4 more as well, and I already really enjoy that one. It's one of the things I like about the TNG movies. You can pop in any of them at any time and get a full and complete story, beginning middle and end, and then I can go on with my day quite satisfied.
That's the same feeling I got, especially when it came to the obligatory references to Deep Space Nine, the holographic Doctor appearance and such. You knew it was coming, it was just a matter of what and when. I found it annoying. It was like the little blurb on the back of a potato chip bag 'try our other delicious snacks'. Who's going to be sitting in a theater watching a Star Trek movie, and suddenly become informed that there is also Star Trek stuff on tv? I think that's where much of the corporate feeling emerges from, doing the paint-by-numbers-tie-in-reference with no regard whatsoever to the intelligence of people. Corporations tend to share many of the same negative characteristic as politicians, existing in their own world where the public is merely a theoretical construct.
Wow, isn't that something? Talk about IDIC! I dunno, I (and others I'm sure) can enjoy Treks II-IV as standalone films. I'm a bit biased as I've been watching these movies repeatedly for 30 years. Star Trek III was the second movie I watched in theaters (Return of the Jedi was the first). I'm pretty sure I saw Star Trek III before Star Trek II, and I loved, loved, loved Star Trek III. (Of course, I was 8 years old then.) Months later, I had a copy taped from HBO and that I rewatched like crazy. (I still indelibly remember, sitting in thea theater, and the earthquake in my chest watching the Enterprise blowing up and thinking it was a dream or that they would somehow fix it, but when it turned into a fireball and started streaking towards the atmosphere of the Genesis planet, i knew it was over...)
Totally agree, and it's something that I'd long come to the same conclusion about myself. The TOS Treks all had an ambition about them; a drive to present us with an experience that for want of a better word was truly 'theatrical', something new that we hadn't seen before in the TV episodes. Suddenly, the episodic nature of Star Trek was being blown wide open. The fact that the narrative spilled over into the next movie and then the next and then the next was a key factor to giving them a shot in the arm. It felt like an ongoing story rather than a set of arbitary stand-alone adventures. In so doing, the TOS movies all built upon each other, and together they added up to a much bigger whole than just the sum of their parts. By complete contrast, the TNG movies always felt like mere supplementary adventures in an ongoing franchise. They never had the same weight. They seemed to lack the same ambition to do genuinely big things with the 'verse, and to take Star Trek (forgive me) where no one has gone before. Which is ironic, as TNG as a TV series had been completely the opposite, always adding new layers to the mythology, which was in my view a big part of its appeal. The TNG movies also contrasted horribly with what Deep Space Nine was doing at the same time on television as well. With every passing season, DS9 felt important. Like TNG before it, DS9 was never keen to run on the spot, all the time it was escalating situations and exploring new aspects of the Star Trek universe. The TNG movies felt by comparison... low-key. Irrelevant. Inconsequential. Insubstantial. It isn't co-incidental (in my opinion) that the movie franchise lost its way when the keys to the movies were handed over to Rick Berman. Before 1994, Movie Trek and TV Trek were treated as seperate productions. But suddenly, we had the creative reigns of the Star Trek brand as a whole being placed in the hands of a single set of individuals, who were to produce it across every version of Star Trek, TV and Movie alike. And I think quality control went south as a result.
I saw GEN on opening night in the theater. I was so anticipating it. I walked out terribly disappointed and I've never seen it, since. The one fanboy thing about me is I hated how they treated Kirk, and I hold Berman responsible for it. The way they killed off that iconic fictional character was just plain disrespectful (yes, I warned everyone I turn into a fanboy on this one). He falls off a bridge. And that's the best they could come up with on the second try. FC was by far the best of the lot. It's the only TNG movie I own. I still can't remember the last time I watched it, though. INS had an interesting theme, but was poorly executed. It had no business being a feature film. NEM is the only Trek movie I didn't go to see in a theater, and to this day, I've never seen it all the way through when it's on TV. I really wish they'd have found a way to adapt "All Good Things" to the big screen. That was one of the best episodes of any Trek. Going out on that high note with the characters actually acting like a family and truly working together (rather than just sitting together at a conference table throwing around ideas) made the movies seem even more flat.
When I saw GEN the first time in the theater, I thought it was absolutely great. And then I went back for a 2nd viewing, and the flaws starting to glare at me. I think I was so pumped up about seeing the new Star Trek and being caught up in the anticipation of sorrow of Kirk's death. Seeing the movie with a more relaxed and objective frame of mind, I still think it's an entertaining movie. But I think it's a miracle it's as watchable as it is considering how flawed it is. GEN had the potential to be the very best Trek movie of them all, but they really blew it.
I do watch them even though I liked the series very much. I just don't know what everybody's complaining about. These movies are very good. So what if they changed a few details? They did that for TOS too and yet people didn't go crazy about it, did they?
Once in a great while, I watch all the series and movies, IE TOS, TOS movies, TAS, TNG, TNG movies, DS9, VOY, ENT and the new movies... It takes months, but I find that quite enjoyable.
It must. Even at a pace of two episodes/one film per evening, it'd still take the better part of a year. And that's a pretty hefty pace to maintain. I've been actually thinking of proposing something like that for next year, like a whole board-wide re-watch/review thread. Basically, work it out so that we would start New Year's day and finish as close to September as possible. I've even thought about being crazy and starting with STID and working backwards so that we'd finish with "The Man Trap" right on the 8th.
In FC, Picard finally realized that his years of BS about humanity having "evolved" were just that. Thus he instantly becomes 50x more likeable. Also, this evil goatee is itchy.