Generations 1st hour..

[Vger23]

First contact is just plot all the way.

I don’t think I agree with this. FC has some fantastic character stuff for Picard in particular, who really gets put through a ringer.

-He has to face the Borg and come to terms (finally, unlike the TV series which brushed it off) with the trauma, fear, and hatred he has built up over the years.

- He has his high-and-mighty worldview and self-image challenged and rightfully shit upon by Lily Sloan. Stewart and Woodard’s scenes together are the best thing in the entire TNG movie franchise. Absolute electricity.

-He shows his absolute loyalty and love for Data, far more than at any other time, when he resolves to stay aboard and potentially even re-join the collective just to ensure Data’s freedom.

Additionally, it’s a great character study of Data and Cochrane. Data we get to see being truly tempted and having his loyalty tested. Cochrane is a cool twist in the Star Trek universe, a guy who is responsible for the “evolved humanity” of Roddenberry’s dreams, who ironically was basically a very flawed, cynical, cowardly guy interested only in money and naked women.

I think FC has some great character stuff.

 

[Qonundrum]

I don’t think I agree with this. FC has some fantastic character stuff for Picard in particular, who really gets put through a ringer.

-He has to face the Borg and come to terms (finally, unlike the TV series which brushed it off) with the trauma, fear, and hatred he has built up over the years.

- He has his high-and-mighty worldview and self-image challenged and rightfully shit upon by Lily Sloan. Stewart and Woodard’s scenes together are the best thing in the entire TNG movie franchise. Absolute electricity.

-He shows his absolute loyalty and love for Data, far more than at any other time, when he resolves to stay aboard and potentially even re-join the collective just to ensure Data’s freedom.

Additionally, it’s a great character study of Data and Cochrane. Data we get to see being truly tempted and having his loyalty tested. Cochrane is a cool twist in the Star Trek universe, a guy who is responsible for the “evolved humanity” of Roddenberry’s dreams, who ironically was basically a very flawed, cynical, cowardly guy interested only in money and naked women.

I think FC has some great character stuff.

After "Family", TNG decided Picard was able to move on without being haunted by his ex every two episodes. That said, you still raise a good point - there could still be underlying trauma or issues. And yet I kept thinking "Dang, this is like a reversal of TWOK except the Borg is now the big ol' whale that Captain Picahab wants to spear. Given their moves in this flick and how convenient Picard's plotting were, who am I supposed to cheer on again?" Even in overlooking everything else and focusing on Picard, the joke of disobeying orders* combined with simply sending a communication over with the tender area they all need to hit in unison could have saved a boatload of lives. Several boats. Picard delayed and did all that shizplop on purpose. And speaking of cynical:

The take on Cochrane is definitely cynical, if not a take on Roddenberryisms.

Data's subplot is just dumb. The Borg could easily reprogram him. Their mistake was using the android as a lab rat for a bizarre cheap thrill that's antithetical to the Borg, and after Data and Lore who else would get the same-- what the heck would that treatment be called... then again, the Queen and her order to do this is reminiscent of a certain WW2 adversary, but even then it still doesn't make sense because their experiments are on a robot for which the design exists for only 2 units (or 3 including B4) and after that... are they turning toasters into Borg now?

The Lilian/Picard scenes were indeed electric and were genuine movie highlights. Picard was already off his rocket, a la Kirk in TMP over a big bad causing him to lose his marbles and to the point she could see he wasn't walking his talk. Sorta like Cochrane...


* the same trope being used in the next movie, played utterly straight this time - and against plot contrivances that shriek "FORCED MELODRAMA!" no better than how FC was doing it, just from the opposite end of things. Yeah, NEM > INS by an increasing margin, the more I think about it. I should watch both this weekend; even I would be shocked if I reevaluate them so much that I'd find NEM to be better than FC.

 

[ananta]

The one thing FC did wrong for me was the Borg Queen, specifically her naff sexualisation and apparent seduction of Data (didn’t they even give her the line “was it good for you?” I still cringe). I understand why they felt the need to have a spokesperson for the Borg but the Queen was just the beginning of the end for me when it came to the Borg. Alice Krige herself was good, but this is the sole female big bad in the Trek movie cannon and, unlike any of the males, they had to sexualise her, a decision I still find a bit annoying. If Khan, Kruge, Chang, Soran or any of the others had been super horny and practically humping peoples’ legs, they’d have been laughing stocks.

 

[DonIago]

I didn't think the Queen had any real interest in Data; she simply felt the proper way to his brain and those yummy, yummy decryption codes was through his robo-shlong.

For me the real question is whether, if Data had been female, we would have instead seen a Borg King.

I agree though that introducing a personification of the Borg was a dubious decision, made more dubious by VOY as they increasingly made her seem less like an avatar and more like an independent entity that went so far as to verbally issue orders.

 

[Nombrecomun]

This is probably gonna fall under the "name one controversial Star Trek opinion". I think the movie degrades quickly once the time changes to Picard and crew.

There are plenty of problems with the beginning on the Ent-B(an outlandishly poor captain, stuff going to be ready Tuesday, etc...). However, to me, it feels and looks like a movie. Or at least I should say a traditional Star Trek movie. Once they go to Ent-D it looked like the tv show. The uniforms, the set, lighting, the pacing, etc....

Overall, it's just not a good movie but for a moment I did think we were going to get a grand adventure. Oh well...

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

For me the real question is whether, if Data had been female, we would have instead seen a Borg King.

If the Borg are supposed to be like bees/ants, those insects don't have a king, IIRC, only a queen and drones.

 

[DonIago]

That the Borg are supposed to be "like" bees/ants, which was speculation to begin with, doesn't preclude them being unlike bees/ants in significant ways. For instance, they're not insects.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Organizationally. But yeah, I guess so.

 

[STEPhon IT]

If only one hour of a two-hour film is good, it’s a bit of a stretch for me to buy it as the best of the series.

I thought Generation was just as bad as the rest of those movies; they were not well executed stories and felt dictated by the two stars. Everything felt out of place and out of character, it was a complete mess of narratives.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I'll say this:

...I saw TUC three times in 1991
I saw GEN twice in 1994
In 1996, I walked out a third of a way into my second viewing of FC.
In 1998, I saw INS twice...

Are you me? My numbers on those four films are, respectively, 4, 2, 1, and 2.

This is probably gonna fall under the "name one controversial Star Trek opinion". I think the movie degrades quickly once the time changes to Picard and crew.

There are plenty of problems with the beginning on the Ent-B(an outlandishly poor captain, stuff going to be ready Tuesday, etc...). However, to me, it feels and looks like a movie. Or at least I should say a traditional Star Trek movie.

That's the thing about the prologue on the B--it feels like the next Star Trek movie. If you watched Khan through Undiscovered Country, then watched the Generations prologue, they all feel of a piece. And, yeah, it's because of the visuals (production design, uniforms, the B being familiar as an Excelsior) and the cast, but there's a sense of continuity.

The film's transition to the D is... jarring. Everything you watched the first ten minutes is gone, and now you're watching an entirely different movie with a different cast.

The more the years pass, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced a script doctoring by someone outside of the Star Trek offices would have made a real difference on the film. I think there are some sound ideas in the film, but it was written and produced by people too close to the material and too used to doing things a certain way.

Overall, it's just not a good movie but for a moment I did think we were going to get a grand adventure. Oh well...

I still think the trailer kicks ass.

 

[JamesRye]

I too like the first half of this movie, in fact, I'd go so far as to say it was the last time that a Trek movie felt like a Trek movie to me. But it's so weird to watch that opening scene on the Enterprise B, knowing that the writers were so lazy / pushed for time that they literally just gave the lines meant for Spock and McCoy to Scotty and Chekov.

 

[ED-209]

It's easy if you try.

 

[fireproof78]

The film's transition to the D is... jarring. Everything you watched the first ten minutes is gone, and now you're watching an entirely different movie with a different cast.

Agreed. I think what makes it so jarring is the use of the sailing ship set. We are being introduced to characters in the middle of something that is appealing...to them. If this is the first or second time seeing these characters you would have a far different interpretation of their relationship than what was presented on TNG. It's a clumsy set up for the remaining plot, and unfortunately the film doesn't fully recover.

 

[Smellmet]

I think that Generations first hour is excellent, it's when the Nexus comes into play it all goes to shit.

 

[suarezguy]

It's pretty good but even then Data is at least a bit misused and Geordi and some other characters too underused/not-focused-on. Still at least decent but FC was a lot better, it may be pretty plot focused but with a strong story and with the character moments and roles fitting and not seeming uneven or unbalanced.

The film's transition to the D is... jarring. Everything you watched the first ten minutes is gone, and now you're watching an entirely different movie with a different cast.

That was the point to be a crossover and transition, not sure how it could have been much different or better. Although while I like the promotion scene the earlier idea of going to the Observatory battle, showing the Enterprise-D crew fighting for, saving it (maybe even from the perspective of people from the Observatory) could have been better transition (rather than the promotion scene with the new crew kind of just relaxing more as if the viewers already know them), particularly for newcomers.

The more the years pass, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced a script doctoring by someone outside of the Star Trek offices would have made a real difference on the film. I think there are some sound ideas in the film, but it was written and produced by people too close to the material and too used to doing things a certain way.

That could have easily gone to the worse extreme of making the film feel too much primarily for newcomers, it is a big challenge regardless to try to have 12+ characters in a film and I think Moore and Braga did convey and provoke affection for both captains/crews/eras.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I fully admit to crying when Data finds Spot.

God, I fucking HATED that moment. All I could think was, "After 30 years, you just killed off Captain Kirk... badly. I don't care about Data finding his fucking cat."

And yet, by *not* being McCoy and Spock, it fulfills Kirk's line in TFF that he can't die if those two are with him.

I don't know why people treat that line like it was supposed to be gospel. Kirk isn't psychic. He was just having a melancholy moment.

Eh, if the only person present at my death were some guy I only met twenty minutes earlier, than as far as I'm concerned, I'm alone.

Heh. Ages ago, I made a Captain Kirk MySpace profile for fun. One of the lines I put on the profile said, "I've always known I'll die alone. Well, sometimes there's a bald British guy with me, but I good 75-80% of the time, I'm alone."

Hmm... Data, all of a sudden, can turn the chip on and off on command. [...] The TNG flicks simply put in zero attempt at consistency.

I think it was just that they realized that giving Data the emotion chip in GEN was a mistake, as it essentially took TNG's most popular character away. So the subsequent films got rid of it as quickly as possible.

The more the years pass, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced a script doctoring by someone outside of the Star Trek offices would have made a real difference on the film. I think there are some sound ideas in the film, but it was written and produced by people too close to the material and too used to doing things a certain way.

I absolutely agree. The TNG franchise desperately needed a fresh pair of eyes on it at that point, the way that Nicholas Meyer, Harve Bennett, and Robert Sallin gave a fresh perspective on the TOS crew in TWOK. But Berman had too much control over the franchise at that point for that to ever happen. So we essentially just got TNG season 8 instead of a TNG movie.

 

[Jeyl]

The first hour of Generations certainly does a lot. Personally, the issues begin when we enter the TNG ear. When Star Trek was king back in the 90s, there was always that comparison on who was the better Captain. Kirk or Picard? With Generations, we now have an unintended comparison. Picard or... Harriman? Despite Moore and Braga's best efforts to make him look like a bad Captain, he does show some semblance of competence, isn't afraid to ask the experienced Kirk for help, and was willing to modify the deflector array without hesitation. His crew were also competent and headstrong throughout the entire incident despite being in an understaffed and ill-equipped ship.

The Enterprise D on the other hand? The flagship of the Federation with seven years of galaxy saving experience under it's belt, yet they're somehow worse at their jobs than the Enterprise B crew were almost a century before. This feels like a repeat of how TNG started with the early episodes making everyone look like idiots. At least in The Naked Now they managed to escape total destruction, but here the Enterprise D and her crew couldn't save themselves or an entire solar system from being destroyed. The Enterprise B may not be as iconic as the Enterprise D crew, but my gosh were they much better at their jobs. I would have preferred it if the movie stayed with the Enterprise B crew instead of throwing a whole bucket of TNG jargon that doesn't work on it's own.

 

[DonIago]

This may be a weird question and may send us down a scientific and/or technobabble rabbit hole, but was Worf's explanation of the difficulties Our Heroes would have shooting down Soran's missile realistic given what we know of the E-D's capabilities, or did it seem to be more to add dramatic tension than to be consistent with what we'd seen the E-D manage to do in the past?

 

[Tango]

This may be a weird question and may send us down a scientific and/or technobabble rabbit hole, but was Worf's explanation of the difficulties Our Heroes would have shooting down Soran's missile realistic given what we know of the E-D's capabilities, or did it seem to be more to add dramatic tension than to be consistent with what we'd seen the E-D manage to do in the past?

The RLM Plinkett review on YouTube discusses this problem.