"All Good Things..." vs. Star Trek: Generations

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yes, I'll agree with that BOTH the Federation and Romulan Empire send one ship; but after that viewscreen exchange, we NEVER SEE a Romulan ship show up in the area of the anomaly to ask Picard, "Hey, why are you firing a anti-tachyon bean into that thing?!!"; and perhaps add another wrinkle to the situation. It's like they forgot they set that up.

 

I don't have a problem with the stories of Leah and Geordi getting together or Riker and Worf getting on each others nerves, except that Deanna had passed away.
It looked like Data did have emotions when he said that his assistant made him laugh.

I think the story with Q was great, it connected the entire series from first to last episode and gave TNG "trial of humankind" storyline through the series.

There was really no need to change the bridge other than make it stand out as something different because it was a movie and all.. silly.

I wonder what huge fans of TOS thought about killing their captain.
Kirk was not needed in a TNG movie.

 

Generations was infinitely better, for several reasons.

• Production quality -- this was a movie, after all, and it shows.
• TOS tie-in -- we had some of this in the past, but now we have Kirk and Picard together. Brilliant!
• AGT scattershot -- I didn't like the editing on this. Sure, at first it was a bit novel how Picard gets to be "different versions of himself", but after a time it wears thin.
• Predictable Q -- In some ways I understand it. Q started in their first adventure, and now he'd be there for the last in AGT. Yet, given all we learned of Q, this was a very contrived and trite nitpick. Humanity being judged once more. Well, I for one found Q "devolved" from what we saw previously. It was another annoying "teachable moment" thing.
• The end of TNG? -- Yes, the "end of the series" feeling was best captured in Generations... as the NCC-1701D is finally destroyed. And you get this real "send off" closure. AGT did it halfheartedly, IMHO.

 

There are many things mentioned here which I totally disagree with.
But, we're both entitled to out opinions. However, I must say that..

- Does TNG need to look like a movie? It is a TV series. 176 episodes of TV and then 'Generations', one movie with "movie quality”, doesn't feel balanced.

- I don't think Kirk was needed, let TNG stand on its own.

- Q and the trial, it made sense that since Q was there at the beginnig, he would be there in the end too. The trial of humanity gives the entire series deeper meaning.

- Enterprise-D finally destroyed? Was it something that was supposed to happen from day one? I think destroying the ship was just something that the writers wanted to happen to differentiate from the series, series would have its own ship and the movies would have their own.

I wonder what do you mean by send off halfheartedly? That things stayed the same? I find it to be a good thing, the voyage continues, it doesn't have to end in the final episode.

 

I don't have a problem with it per say. It just has the flavor of being a rush job. Suddenly Riker & Worf have beef over Deana, when they specifically addressed that possible conflict prior, unless something new happened... which we never get any history on

& there's nothing wrong with Geordi & Leah getting together per say, but it just smacks of them scrambling into the character's history, last minute, to try to drum up some kind of future for him, like "let's give him a family with some girl he knows... Oh wait, he's a dork who never had a girlfriend... Eh well, we'll figure something out"

It was a solid attempt, but the actual trial was that we're a savage race, & I think it is kind of fitting that it becomes more about whether we're capable of broadening our horizons existentially, but time travel is his big test? He literally dumped him back in time once already, & gave him a lesson about tampering very recently. Plus the fact that Picard has already had more time travel & time traveler dealings than nearly anyone. It's a bit of a soft ball for him, as tests go, IMHO. Frankly, I'd imagine that the only reason he struggles with it at all is because he's suffering from a disorder that has weakened his mind some.

That said... The real reason the test was that setup specifically, wasn't so much as a reflection on the humanity trial, but as a way to physically feature the whole of the show in the episode, past, present, future, as a celebration of it, & in that sense, I do love it, because it's fun to see them trying to play back to day 1.

 

I love the Leah Brahms / Geordi thing because it adds a new layer to Galaxy's Child. That whole thing arc with them was maybe one of the best explorations of the holodeck in the series.

IMO the scope of the danger in All Good Things is far more epic than Generations where the main danger was only a planet or two. And somehow seeing Picard witness two Enterprises destroyed in front of him was more impactful to me than just the D crashing.

 

IDK - for me the follow up where Geordi meets the real Leah Brahms was pretty bad; as Geordi came across as a real sexual predator in that one (quite creppy in how he went about it too); and at the end where he tries to claim, "Oh, I was just offereing you friendship..." - yeah right, that's why when he called her into his quarters for a 'meeting' there was subdued light, her favorite pasta - (which he played off as innocent with 'oh really..' when she mentioned it) - wine, and soft music <--- Yep, that's always how I go to a casual 'dinner meeting'...oh, wait....

 

As a kid I always felt bad for Geordi and thought, man all these women suck! As an adult, after learning that women are actually people and not mission objectives, a lot of things Geordi does is super cringey and down-right uncomfortable to watch... The 90s were a weird, weird time... well as opposed to our currently weird-but-for-crazier-reasons time.

 

Poor Worf. He didn't get the girl at the end of either TNG or DS9. He lost out to Riker with Deanna in TNG. In DS9, Worf literally lost Jadzia, and then he didn't get Ezri either.

GEN had a different aura because it was a movie. It had a big screen quality. No question the production value was good. I was impressed when I saw TNG on the big screen.

But for me, GEN was its own thing, it was obviously of the TNG franchise but also apart from the series. If GEN's story was more compatible with the series, I could have overlooked the different qualities between the movie and the tv series.

Also, GEN didn't have enough nostalgia to make me feel like it could have been a fitting finale. I actually liked that Shatner/Kirk was in GEN. I was very happy to finally see a face off between the two captains of the Enterprise. But I thought Shatner/Kirk sort of stole the show towards the end of the move. And ironically, Kirk being in the movie brought up nostalgic feelings for TOS, not TNG.

 

For me, TNG ended with All Good Things. I thought it was fantastic.

 

This is the correct way to go.

 

Generations did feel a bit more close-ended than AGT, AGT quite open-ended, and yet both still felt pretty open-ended (and both styles are fine). Obviously destroying the ship felt like more of an ending but there was still a sense that there would be a next Enterprise and giving Data emotions somehow felt both conclusive and a new beginning, so much that it would have felt a bit disappointing if there was nothing else after.

To me the stakes felt a lot higher (multiple timelines including the distant future and saving all existence) and the conflict stronger (even though Q was actually a helpful antagonist or malicious helper) in the episode and more importantly it had a strong focus on Picard while also giving strong reviews and analysis of the other characters. The movie felt lower-stakes with Veridian III/IV feeling relatively abstract, the destroying of the Enterprise feeling kind of forced (the Klingon villains pretty uninteresting and unimpressive otherwise), Picard and Data's stories being pretty unrelated and Kirk being in the film but not that impressive.

 

Moore & Braga weren't actually rushed while writing Generations but they started and continued writing it between TV seasons and then while working on a whole TV season so from that it would feel pretty standard/routine rather than exceptional, then it was a surprise to them that they got to write the series finale too. I don't know if they felt more excited about writing the finale but they may have, at least it may have felt more personal to write it than the film in which they had to satisfy studio story demands.

 

I prefer an ending like 'All Good Things....' had, things stay pretty much the same.

If everything changes, for example like in the end of DS9, it just makes one want to know more, how are things moving along after final episode. And those questions aren't answered.
In endings like 'All Good Things...' situation stays the same and the show is left in a situation where things continue on as usual, there's no feeling that "we need to know more". Voyage continues as it has been going on for 7 years.

 

BTW, AGT was intended and described as a Valentine's to the fans, maybe by Braga himself, and that's one time where trying to do that absolutely worked, worked wonderfully; it probably should be remembered and considered as a time when specifically trying to do something the fans would love resulted in a great episode, trying to do that doesn't always backfire.

 

Now that this thread got me thinking about AGT, I wonder how Troi dealt with the knowledge that in a different timeline, she died in the next 25 years. She must have lived in a state of paranoia, not knowing if the timeline had changed enough yet to prevent her death.

Maybe in the original timeline, she went with Worf to DS9, and died instead of Dax, and that's why Dax is present in the Visitors future? And when Worf went to DS9, she thought breaking up with him there was the best way to be sure she had changed the timeline.

 

Like the crew talked in the final scene of AGT, their future would be different from the future Picard experienced. So maybe Deanna would not need to live under the assumption that she would be gone in the next 25 years. Especially if Picard didn't tell her how her death happened, maybe he didn't even know?

 

Troi: OMG I'm going to die?! How?

Picard: ...I didn't really bother to ask. Sorry.

 

according to the authors notes in the novelisation of Generations, the plan was for the 1701D to be destroyed at the end of Season 6 in a similar manner (star drive goes boom, saucer goes crash) and the crew would be scattered to different positions but they realised they couldn't do those things on a tv budget.

 

Fortunately that never happened.