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Generations had a bigger budget than ST6, so why...

Kirk and Spock always went down to the planet together, Scotty is the one who had to stay on the ship and make sure it didn't fall out of orbit or whatever long enough for the big three to solve the episode.
Save for in TUC, which would have been the most recent adventure and most on their minds.

The entire franchise is a cashgrab.
Yes, yes it is.
 
I'm thinking Nimoy wanted Spock to be more directly important to the plot; I could see them try giving him a line to Kirk that would later be echoed by Picard and having it be instrumental in Kirk deciding to help save the universe one more time, but who knows if that would've appeased him."
Since TNG and Nimoy did "Unification" the producers could've had that version of Spock in the movie than him on board the 1701-B. Spock could've been crazy enough to have tried to stop Soran from destroying worlds in the 24th Century?
 
In any case, the suits cared enough about the quality of the production they ponied up the cash to send Stewart, Shatner, and McDowell right back to the desert to reshoot the ending, so whatever else you can say about the production, I don't think anybody involved just thought "who gives a f--k

McDowell mocked the producers for asking him to read for the role (“This isn’t Shakespeare”) and later told Alexander Siddig he thought the script was bad and did it only because he got to kill Kirk, so he at least may not have been overly concerned at its quality.

I recall from the DVD commentary that many of the problems for the producers came from them essentially being given a whole list of things to cover by the studio, which invariably interferes with the creative process.
 
I recall from the DVD commentary that many of the problems for the producers came from them essentially being given a whole list of things to cover by the studio, which invariably interferes with the creative process.
This is why I always describe Star Trek Generations as a film that was made with a check list and not a script. And while I'll always credit Moore and Braga as competent writers, the fact that this was their first film showed how they were all too willing to take a producer's advice on what to do no matter how bad it was (Jeri Taylor calling their opening with a competent Ent-D crew 'predictable' thus resorting to a totally random and idiotic Ent-D crew instead).
 
McDowell mocked the producers for asking him to read for the role (“This isn’t Shakespeare”) and later told Alexander Siddig he thought the script was bad and did it only because he got to kill Kirk, so he at least may not have been overly concerned at its quality.
McDowell was right about the script. I can see why he did it, though. "I killed Kirk!"

I recall from the DVD commentary that many of the problems for the producers came from them essentially being given a whole list of things to cover by the studio, which invariably interferes with the creative process.
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This is why I always describe Star Trek Generations as a film that was made with a check list and not a script. And while I'll always credit Moore and Braga as competent writers, the fact that this was their first film showed how they were all too willing to take a producer's advice on what to do no matter how bad it was (Jeri Taylor calling their opening with a competent Ent-D crew 'predictable' thus resorting to a totally random and idiotic Ent-D crew instead).
I think that's why they wanted inexperienced (to film) screenwriters. More experienced writers, who weren't in their 20s, and had more films under their belt, would've pushed back.
 
I'm thinking Nimoy wanted Spock to be more directly important to the plot; I could see them try giving him a line to Kirk that would later be echoed by Picard and having it be instrumental in Kirk deciding to help save the universe one more time, but who knows if that would've appeased him.
I believe he refused because he felt that his presence wasn't sufficiently important to Spock's character, and that he could have been replaced by anyone. Given that that's exactly what they did, he was probably right.
 
I believe he refused because he felt that his presence wasn't sufficiently important to Spock's character, and that he could have been replaced by anyone. Given that that's exactly what they did, he was probably right.

Correct. He felt that Spock was completely extraneous and just had a few generic lines, and beyond that, he felt he had already had said goodbye to the character, what with TNG's Unification airing just a few short weeks before The Undiscovered Country hit theaters.

And because Berman / Paramount wouldn't acquiesce to a page-one rewrite of the script (Paramount was insistent that the movie hit theaters while the iron was still hot from TNG's finale), Nimoy had no interest in directing the movie, either.
 
Yes the film was rushed and contrived but I think doing pretty much any crossover any time would necessarily feel pretty contrived, doing it to do it, and given that lower expectation I think the filmmakers did at least decent in both doing a crossover and also introducing the series characters to more general viewers.

And as part of crossover of eras I think it actually does make sense to use Klingons as villains one more time, though now pretty different kind of Klingons, rogues/outcasts of the Empire with limited resources, and them also being only some of the villains. Though they still could have felt a little more significant and personal rather than succeeding so much based on just luck.
 
Paramount really could have left it a year or two before they jumped into doing TNG movies.
I wish Berman had had the vision, or maybe the political capital, to say, "Suits, I want to do TNG movies right, I want to do the franchise right. 1996 is the 30th-anniversary and I want to do that right. Let's hold TNG in the movies to 1996. We do the big crossover, passing-the-torch movie then, we get the script right, and we do a movie in 1994, maybe an original movie, maybe one with some of the original cast, to hold up interest." I don't know what Berman would have put in 1994, but maybe picking up Bennett's "Starfleet Academy" would have worked as a bridge between VI and a 1996 crossover.

However, that wasn't going to happen.
 
Doing another full original cast movie (let alone *after* they had their film finale) just to fill the time, make that date does feel quite a bit artistically worse and doing a one-off prequel with recasting could maybe work but feels a lot commercially worse.
 
I know the film was made as a "passing the torch" eve, my question is why?
TNG was on for seven years, had it's following and was strong enough to have a film without any TOS spliced in.
ST6 had a good farewell to the original cast, leave it there and let's move on with the TNG movies
 
Paramount really could have left it a year or two before they jumped into doing TNG movies.
"Strike while the iron is hot."
They had the cast, crew, and writers already in place. Most importantly, they had a rabid fan base. If they had left it for a year or two, it would be harder to get everyone back together, and harder to regain the fans.
 
Keep in mind that most "TV Show: The Movie" films (with the same cast and crew and all) typically get released while the TV series is still running, because that's of course when they're at their most relevant (when was the last time this happened, anyway? Last one I can think of is The Simpsons Movie).

Also, crossovers might not seem as exciting today, but "Kirk Meets Picard" was the nerd dream of the early 90s, and if it was ever going to happen, this was the time to do it. That decision was a no-brainer.
 
I know the film was made as a "passing the torch" eve, my question is why?
TNG was on for seven years, had it's following and was strong enough to have a film without any TOS spliced in.
ST6 had a good farewell to the original cast, leave it there and let's move on with the TNG movies
Because, as others have noted, Kirk meeting Picard was a huge opportunity. Here were the two biggest captains in the franchise history (at the time), and even Shatner felt it so important to continue on that he wrote novels on it. It was a big deal, much like TUC overlapped with TNG's episode "Unification."

It's not a matter of strengths, but the appeal of the large crossover in Star Trek history, and made sense for a film.

What the film didn't need was all the TNG plot thread follow ups (Duras sisters, emotions chip, trilithium, Picard's family, etc.).
 
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