Hey, I'm pretty much in agreement with you about how nostalgia of Generations may cloud my opinion of it - I was all of six or seven when it came out and it's the first Trek movie I saw in theatres. Yes, it's got some fairly obvious flaws, but it's not the worst Trek movie by far. And that crash sequence was pretty damn impressive, though it hurt to watch the ship be destroyed. Though I liked the darker lighting for the bridge, personally...
Been rewatching Trek's 1-10 before XI comes out. My thoughts.
- Thread starter I am not Spock
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Hey, I'm pretty much in agreement with you about how nostalgia of Generations may cloud my opinion of it - I was all of six or seven when it came out and it's the first Trek movie I saw in theatres. Yes, it's got some fairly obvious flaws, but it's not the worst Trek movie by far. And that crash sequence was pretty damn impressive, though it hurt to watch the ship be destroyed. Though I liked the darker lighting for the bridge, personally...
The darker lighting was quite dramatic, and it made the TNG sets look quite different.
The FX (specially the saucer crash) still look pretty good, actually.
The FX (specially the saucer crash) still look pretty good, actually.
GEN was the first Trek I ever saw, but over time, and after watching the rest of the franchise, I realized it was truly crap.
I can get nostalgia talk, but... When something's bad, its bad. And thats more than apparent in GEN.
You know what the funny thing is about this tiny detail? I saw it coming the moment I heard that "Industrial Light and Magic" was not going to do the effects for Insurrection. My heart must have sunk a mile after that because ILM has been such a huge contributer to Star Trek since Star Trek II to First Contact and everything the movies that don't involve ILM (With the respectful exception of TMP) are usually inferior in all regards! Star Trek V couldn't have looked more 2-dimensional with the effects, Insurrection was so CGI it was glaring and Nemesis wasn't an improvement either even though that had Digital Domain.
Well, guess who's back to do the effects work for Star Trek XI? ILM!
If you're refering to the Borg Queen, I agree. Although I think she played the part very well and her make-up was absolutely gorgeous, the whole entire concept behind her role in the borg collective took away what made the Borg so dangerous in the first place. Take this conversation from the TNG episode "Q Who".
Troi: We're not dealing with a single leader. It's the collective minds of all of them.
Picard: That would have definite advantages.
Troi: Yes, a single leader can make mistakes which is unlikely with the combined whole.
Note the words "a single leader can make mistakes". The borg queen is a single leader who the borg respond to and she makes mistakes that pretty much cause her*and the borg their undoing three times over. First was First Contact, then the Borg dream episode from Voyager, and than End Game. They're not scary anymore.
I kind of got the feeling he was talking about Generations rather than First Contact, but got the name mixed up...although it's true, in my opinion, that the Borg Queen and the mistakes she makes do make the Borg less scary...until you read the TNG relaunch novels
I've always maintained that the Borg Queen is an embodiment of the minds of all of the drones in the collective, thus she does not directly contradict the idea of the Borg not having a leader - she's more of a conduit. Think of how Seven behaved in 'Infinite Regress' only the Queen is able to balance these voices into a single, unified will.
Of course, certain VGR episodes seem to contradict this notion, particularly her behavior in 'Unimatrix Zero.'
But with all those arguing voices in her head - schizophrenia much?
Of course, certain VGR episodes seem to contradict this notion, particularly her behavior in 'Unimatrix Zero.'
But with all those arguing voices in her head - schizophrenia much?
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Balderdash. Next to NEM, FC is the worst of the TNG flicks (which is saying a helluva lot), and down there with the worst-directed part of the Nimoy films in a lot of ways.
The humor and cutaways to subplots work against the film tremendously, plus squanders any number of good dramatic possibilities for no good reason at all. Post WW3 Earth? No clouds, no radiation, almost no signs of destruction. Why bother setting it in that era if you're not going to explore or exploit it? And the number of bits that are just 'we take this line from TWOK and that exchange from TVH and another line from TUC ... ' just pastiche and not good pastiche. And for an action movie, it really doesn't have much action at all. You can say the same thing to a slighter degree about ALIENS, but that is a better made movie, and the action is tons better when it is used. And none of this is getting into the psychotic testosterone levels of Picard and Worf, or Picard's tantrum, which ranks down with the worst of Shatner's excesses (and Stewart's unfortunate crying jag in SAREK) as some of the least credible stuff I've ever seen played by anybody pretending to be an Enterprise Captain.
FC is the last trek movie to have excellent spaceship effects scenes, and that is about all I can say I like about it.
^ Balderdash? ( love that word by the by) dude how old ARE you? The only person I have ever heard saying that word was my late Grandma! And don't you think your'e being a little HARSH to First Contact?
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I recently tried rewatching First Contact and found myself looking at the clock, as well. Personally, the beginning battle with the Defiant and Enterprise fighting the cube is cool and all, as are the opening scenes of Montana, but after that it quickly falls apart.
Because, since it IS Star Trek: The Next Generation, we are going to hear Picard and Co. droning on and on about how perfect the life in the 24th century is, and they'll preach and preach and make Cochrane and Lily look like self-absorbed assholes and eventually show them the errors in their ways so life can be just peachy. I mean, really. Did anybody expect Cochrane WASN'T going to fly the damn ship?
Because, since it IS Star Trek: The Next Generation, we are going to hear Picard and Co. droning on and on about how perfect the life in the 24th century is, and they'll preach and preach and make Cochrane and Lily look like self-absorbed assholes and eventually show them the errors in their ways so life can be just peachy. I mean, really. Did anybody expect Cochrane WASN'T going to fly the damn ship?
IIRC, in the first draft, Picard did it.
But seriously, it would have been interesting had it not happened. Whoops.
If there's one thing I've learned from IMDB (and the Internet in general), it's that no matter how great a movie is, there will always people who will hate it. Nothing I say can change your problems with the movie, and nothing you say can change the fact that I will always enjoy the humour and drama in this movie no matter how many times I see it, but I hope some things I say can encourage you to soften your stance and not be so hard on a movie that really doesn't deserve to be so harshly assessed.
The humour and subplots may have annoyed you because you didn't find them funny or interesting, but let's be objective here - that doesn't mean they didn't work in the story. I thought the story was structured and organized very well. You've got the Borg taking over the ship with Lily on board, the Borg Queen trying to crack through Data's defenses, and the rest of the crew dealing with Cochrane on earth. Three plots, all connected to each other organically, without becoming confusing. I personally found the earth stuff funny, and the ship stuff to be effective and suspenseful drama. This balance helped to make the movie more accessible to audiences. If the movie had maintained a dead serious tone in order to 'maintain drama' the whole time, it probably would have alienated people. A Star Trek movie that takes itself too seriously would most likely irritate a lot of the non-believers.
Picard's outburst with Lily and argument with Worf are understandable, as they grow out of the bitterness of the wounded pride he's been building up for years because of what the Borg did to him. The same goes for his scene in Sarek. I know exactly what you mean about it. When I first saw it, I thought it was an example of terrible overacting, but over the years I've come to appreciate it as it makes perfect sense in the context of the story. Picard has basically been possessed by the spirit of an old man who has been repressing his emotions for years and is now letting them out all at once. Of course that display is going to look melodramatic and sloppy. How else could it look?
PLEASE STOP CRITICIZING FIRST CONTACT, PEOPLE! You have four other Star Trek movies to pick on. Four movies that are very clearly flawed in many ways so that you really don't have to get all worked up over specifics to come up with reasons to dislike them. It is so hard for a good Star Trek movie or episode to get made. Each movie that isn't a disaster is a small miracle, especially when you consider the ratio of good to bad episodes. Let us TNG fans enjoy the one well-made TNG movie in peace, instead of challenging us to defend something that really shouldn't have to be defended!
The humour and subplots may have annoyed you because you didn't find them funny or interesting, but let's be objective here - that doesn't mean they didn't work in the story. I thought the story was structured and organized very well. You've got the Borg taking over the ship with Lily on board, the Borg Queen trying to crack through Data's defenses, and the rest of the crew dealing with Cochrane on earth. Three plots, all connected to each other organically, without becoming confusing. I personally found the earth stuff funny, and the ship stuff to be effective and suspenseful drama. This balance helped to make the movie more accessible to audiences. If the movie had maintained a dead serious tone in order to 'maintain drama' the whole time, it probably would have alienated people. A Star Trek movie that takes itself too seriously would most likely irritate a lot of the non-believers.
That's just nitpicking. None of these details were necessary in order to make the story work. You're just saying what you wanted to see personally, but the absence of these details didn't hurt the movie and their presence wouldn't have made a big difference.
They never blatantly stole anything from those movies. The similarities to those movies are merely superficial: a villain with a personal connection to the hero, crew put in 'fish out of water' situations interacting with people in the past for humour, and references to famous literature. Just because they tried to use elements that worked in those movies successfully doesn't mean it had no originality and was nothing more than a poor rip-off of superior movies. It only strived to be similar to those movies in spirit, not by obvious copying. If you think those elements worked in the other movies , but not this one, that's your perogative, but in my opinion they worked in those movies and in First Contact.
It wasn't simply an action movie. A more accurate term would be 'action/adventure', and I can't understand being disappointed with the amount of action. There's no ship against ship battle like in some of the other Star Trek movies, but there's plenty of exciting combat against the Borg aboard the ship.
This is another example of a criticism that comes down more to personal preference, and therefore doesn't really work as a fair criticism against the movie. I can understand someone thinking these emotional scenes were over-the-top, but to dismiss them simply as the actor's being excessive is just mean-spirited and closed-minded. Whether you liked the performances in these scenes or not, the bottom line is that they were natural and organic to the story.
Picard's outburst with Lily and argument with Worf are understandable, as they grow out of the bitterness of the wounded pride he's been building up for years because of what the Borg did to him. The same goes for his scene in Sarek. I know exactly what you mean about it. When I first saw it, I thought it was an example of terrible overacting, but over the years I've come to appreciate it as it makes perfect sense in the context of the story. Picard has basically been possessed by the spirit of an old man who has been repressing his emotions for years and is now letting them out all at once. Of course that display is going to look melodramatic and sloppy. How else could it look?
Yeah, but I think it's got a lot more going for it than that. You obviously have a lot of subjective objections to the movie, which is fine. However, I think your bias against those things is causing you to overlook all the things that objectively do work in that movie. You may not agree with how the acting is done - but it is still more passionate and natural than that of Final Frontier, Generations, Insurrection, and Nemesis. The same goes for the storytelling. You may not think the parts that are meant to be funny are funny, but unlike those in the other four movies I've mentioned, they are at least not awkward and forced. The movie is well-made, well-acted, and coherent. You can criticize the specifics, but it should at least be granted that much. And I hope this is the last time I have to say this...
PLEASE STOP CRITICIZING FIRST CONTACT, PEOPLE! You have four other Star Trek movies to pick on. Four movies that are very clearly flawed in many ways so that you really don't have to get all worked up over specifics to come up with reasons to dislike them. It is so hard for a good Star Trek movie or episode to get made. Each movie that isn't a disaster is a small miracle, especially when you consider the ratio of good to bad episodes. Let us TNG fans enjoy the one well-made TNG movie in peace, instead of challenging us to defend something that really shouldn't have to be defended!
My opinions of the movies changed about three separate times over the years. Probably the two biggest are STVI and STTMP. Even before the Director's Edition, I had already decided STTMP was better than the movie I almost fell asleep to when I was 11 yrs old. The DE improves the pacing, look, and sound of the movie. STVI fares the worst to me, it simply looks low budget and badly paced now. It could have been an epic movie.
RAMA
RAMA
I wonder how much nostalgia influences peoples' enjoyment of Star Trek VI. The first time I saw it, I felt like crying during Kirk's monologue at the end, just because I was really into TNG at the time and was moved by how it sounded like he was passing the torch to them verbally, even though he never says that directly. On later viewing it didn't have as much impact to me, but I still think it's a good movie and one of the best of the original series.
To each his own, I guess, I quite like this scene. Too many space battles are fast paced and more of ships firing randomly than anything well planned out. This scene truly shows how Meyer was trying to make space combat similar to naval combat, instead of a free-for-all, which is what most recent space battles seem to be.
Again, I disagree. There is a theme of age in the movie (made painfully clear by Kirk and Carol's discussion in the Genesis Cave). McCoy argues that Kirk is not too old to command and the movie shows numerous times when this is so. But, it also has some moments were youth wins out, such as Savaak's warning to Kirk to raise the shields per Starfleet regulations (to which Kirk even responds that she needs to keep quoting regulations).
As far as Scotty, I don't recall him doing much heroic. But how did he come out looking better than the cadets? Foolishly so, yes, but I thought his nephew actually came out looking more heroic for staying at his post while the other cadets ran (and where was Scotty then, if memory recalls, he was one of the first to get out of there). Then later on, it's Spock who saves the ship, so Scotty doesn't even get credit for that.
Now if you wanted to argue that the movie began the precedent of bolstering the triad of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy while short-shafting some of the others (Uhura and Sulu don't really have much to do, Scotty I discussed, and Chekov only gets screen time because he was on the Reliant. After that, he falls back into the scenery), I would agree with that (though, really the movie is more about Kirk and Spock than anyone else, but McCoy is there to advise Kirk in key scenes, such as his apartment at the beginning and to debate Spock during the Genesis exposition).
Well, the movie does try to explain the confusion, but ultimately, you'd think they'd realize that the star system didn't match the stellar maps they had, assuming there wasn't any kind of satellite or telescope or something aimed at this area for research (and to keep an eye on Khan).
I am willing to go along with Terrell not contacting the Reliant and beaming out because of the sandstorm activity in the area. Chekov does mention they are in the "garden spot," which I take to mean the only spot they could safely beam into and out of. I figure by the time they got to the Botany Bay, they were out of an area where the transporter could get a clear lock.
There were decent effects in GEN, but the saucer crash was NOT one of them. I remember being jarred by how obviously a miniature it was as it did its crashing sequence.
Uggh!
Painful!
