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Generations was ok

I would have done it like this:

TUC: Sulu dies in the Excelsior at the hands of Klang's cloaked Klingon
It's KANG, dammit! :klingon:
3...2...1...

It's CHANG, General CHANG, godsfrakkindamnit! :klingon::klingon::klingon::klingon::klingon:


I enjoy Generations for the various scenes but I know that as a story it is an utter failure. I enjoy the bits on the E-B, I enjoy Picard crying about the loss of his family, I enjoy the scenes between Picard and Soran on the planet, I enjoy the thrill of the E-D's destruction, and I even enjoy the scenes between Kirk and Picard in the nexus. As a story it is awful, but as a series of disjointed scenes I find it highly enjoyable.
 
Well, as usual, the movie would have been more forgivable if they hadn't killed the biggest Star Trek character in the universe, Captain Kirk himself.

That was just stupid. It was needless and a lame attempt at emotion. If he had survived I'm sure more people would have forgiven the movie, myself included.
 
Having Kirk survive and then people wanting Shatner in more and more films...ugh. Killing off Kirk was brave and the right thing to do. He died a hero.
 
Having Kirk survive and then people wanting Shatner in more and more films...ugh. Killing off Kirk was brave and the right thing to do. He died a hero.

Spock survived and I didn't see anyone begging for more Spock in the TNG movies. People wanted to see TNG characters have a great adventure as an ensemble with good action. Having Kirk live would not have made a difference.
 
Well, as usual, the movie would have been more forgivable if they hadn't killed the biggest Star Trek character in the universe, Captain Kirk himself.

I couldn't agree more. This guy was my childhood hero, in fact I wrote a school paper on Kirk. This was a big FU from the studio to me, so fine you want to screw me over, I'll keep my dollars in my pocket. The only hope I had of seeing my hero alive again was through Shatner's novels. The only money Paramount has seen from me is what I spent on TOS dvds (movies and series). Screw you Paramount.
 
Thinking back if they'd used a Vor'cha instead of a Bird of Prey it would have been a LOT more realistic.
 
To be quite honest, I had a bigger problem with them sacking the D than killing off Kirk. Some things are just wrong. :)

But yes, it's actually quite a good movie, especially considering its constraints.
I'm really glad Guinan was in it. It was real turn of the page for TNG. We lose the old uniforms, the D, and Guinan.
 
I would have done it like this:

TUC: Sulu dies in the Excelsior at the hands of Klang's cloaked Klingon
It's KANG, dammit! :klingon:
3...2...1...

It's CHANG, General CHANG, godsfrakkindamnit! :klingon::klingon::klingon::klingon::klingon:

I am aware that Chang was the big villain of the movie. I was thinking of the Voyager episode that established how Sulu and the Excelsior were dealing with Kang (played by Michael Ansara) at the same time the other events of the movie were taking place. I don't know which Klingon Galaxy was referring to, though.
 
I liked it, but it was a bit too much like Insurrection where it was more of a 2 part episode rather than a movie.
 
To be quite honest, I had a bigger problem with them sacking the D than killing off Kirk. Some things are just wrong

Considering that the Galaxy Class is my favorite design, I too had a big problem with this. But as much as I hated the destruction of then Enterprise D, even worse was the death of the man that pretty much IS Star Trek. And to make matters worse, his sacrifice was so pointless. It almost sounds like the plot of a Simpsons episode: "He died saving an old man from another old man"
 
Why didn't you get to write them?
While by myself I probably wouldn't have been able to write better than TMP, TWOK and TUC I could have certainly grounded those movies to be more approachable and more fun.

I do however believe almost with certainty that I could have written a better TNG movie than ANY of the turds that came out, including FC, singlehandedly.

Honestly, I suspect you could've too. ;)

If they wanted to keep the same version of Generations, first they needed to keep Kirk alive. Second, they needed to do it like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blsYgnEgF6Y&feature=related

Even though that angle might have been bemoaned as repetitive of "Yesterday's Enterprise" I don't think I'd have minded.

I enjoy Generations for the various scenes but I know that as a story it is an utter failure. I enjoy the bits on the E-B, I enjoy Picard crying about the loss of his family, I enjoy the scenes between Picard and Soran on the planet, I enjoy the thrill of the E-D's destruction, and I even enjoy the scenes between Kirk and Picard in the nexus. As a story it is awful, but as a series of disjointed scenes I find it highly enjoyable.

Once again, you've more effectively summed up my feelings than I have. :D

Having Kirk survive and then people wanting Shatner in more and more films...ugh. Killing off Kirk was brave and the right thing to do. He died a hero.
Spock survived and I didn't see anyone begging for more Spock in the TNG movies. People wanted to see TNG characters have a great adventure as an ensemble with good action. Having Kirk live would not have made a difference.

Indeed. Why not simply assume Kirk had died in the interim and avoid the fan backlash by actually trying to depict a worthy end?

It's like Dr. Claw on "Inspector Gadget." All you saw of him was the claw and the cat, plus Frank Welker's voice. Come to find out, he was just a dude with a claw. Lame.

Imagination does wonders where reality fails to deliver...

To be quite honest, I had a bigger problem with them sacking the D than killing off Kirk. Some things are just wrong
Considering that the Galaxy Class is my favorite design, I too had a big problem with this. But as much as I hated the destruction of then Enterprise D, even worse was the death of the man that pretty much IS Star Trek. And to make matters worse, his sacrifice was so pointless. It almost sounds like the plot of a Simpsons episode: "He died saving an old man from another old man"

We reach.

The death of the D really killed the TNG feel for me. None of the subsequent films really felt like TNG for me without the D. One of the things latter-Trek got wrong was the notion that the ship was dispensable. As a man who flew planes, Roddenberry knew different. Roddenberry knew that men and women who work closely with machines and depend on them for their lives tend to grow irrationally attached to them, no matter what. Consider the recent modern-day news items about soldiers becoming attached to their battlefield robots, simple bomb-detonators. Or your average person's attachment to their car. (I note GalaxyX that you, too, are a Mustang man. ;))

I still can live with Kirk dying for principle, especially since he was a man who, all through his life, adhered to principles rather than rules.

But like I was saying, it didn't really need to happen. We didn't need to see it. It was a cheap substitute for a better story.
 
I don't know why people are complaining about the Enterprise D being replaced so much. It just didn't look good onscreen. I loved it on TV, just like the original Enterprise on "Star Trek", but they were TV sets. I think the reason there was a new Enterprise in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" is that the people behind the movies knew the original sets would look lame onscreen. The same goes for the TNG Enterprise. Okay, maybe they didn't need to destroy it onscreen for there to be a more sleek looking ship in the sequels, but replacing the TV sets (which would have looked laughably claustrophobic on the big screen) was definitely the right choice.
 
I don't know why people are complaining about the Enterprise D being replaced so much. It just didn't look good onscreen. I loved it on TV, just like the original Enterprise on "Star Trek", but they were TV sets. I think the reason there was a new Enterprise in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" is that the people behind the movies knew the original sets would look lame onscreen. The same goes for the TNG Enterprise. Okay, maybe they didn't need to destroy it onscreen for there to be a more sleek looking ship in the sequels, but replacing the TV sets (which would have looked laughably claustrophobic on the big screen) was definitely the right choice.

Eh, I thought they looked fine in GEN.

I would probably be more okay with them destroying the Enterprise-D if I didn't think the Enterprise-E was so ugly.
 
The death of the D really killed the TNG feel for me. None of the subsequent films really felt like TNG for me without the D.
Same here. Generations was TNG, but baaaad TNG, and the movies afterwards was bad something else.
One of the things latter-Trek got wrong was the notion that the ship was dispensable. As a man who flew planes, Roddenberry knew different. Roddenberry knew that men and women who work closely with machines and depend on them for their lives tend to grow irrationally attached to them, no matter what. Consider the recent modern-day news items about soldiers becoming attached to their battlefield robots, simple bomb-detonators. Or your average person's attachment to their car.
Absolutely. People get attached to their tools, no matter how irrational it is, but it's human nature.
(I note GalaxyX that you, too, are a Mustang man. )
Yes, yes I am :) :)
I still can live with Kirk dying for principle, especially since he was a man who, all through his life, adhered to principles rather than rules.
But like I was saying, it didn't really need to happen. We didn't need to see it. It was a cheap substitute for a better story.
I agree. We know everyone dies, and it's the same for characters, but we don't need to see it really. Me personally I would have just done a time travel story. They were saying they had a laundry list and time travel was out, but then in FC, guess what, they used Time Travel again. It's absurd that one movie was ruined because of it, while the other one is allowed to fall into the same cliche.
 
I don't know why people are complaining about the Enterprise D being replaced so much. It just didn't look good onscreen. I loved it on TV, just like the original Enterprise on "Star Trek", but they were TV sets. I think the reason there was a new Enterprise in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" is that the people behind the movies knew the original sets would look lame onscreen. The same goes for the TNG Enterprise. Okay, maybe they didn't need to destroy it onscreen for there to be a more sleek looking ship in the sequels, but replacing the TV sets (which would have looked laughably claustrophobic on the big screen) was definitely the right choice.

Not quite. Now, a lot of this is personal preference and I freely admit that, but there are SPECIFIC reasons why TOS/TMP situation was different from the TNG/GENS situation.

True, the TOS miniatures and sets were built on a relatively small (yet then-impressive) television budget.

The sets had been demolished, of course. The TOS Enterprise was redesigned/rebuilt for TMP partly because the TOS "miniature" (which was 11 feet long) was in a state of disrepair to begin with, and second of all wasn't designed for motion control shooting. (IIRC, when they filmed it, they could only move the camera sled and had to do the effects in one pass.)

Even in the intervening ten years, miniatures and special effects tech had advanced a lot. With "Star Wars" for example, they could use a computer to recreate multiple effects shots, and with smaller miniatures could achieve greater detail. I have a feeling that the desire to redesign the ship was therefore partly based on a desire to keep the ship "current" in the real world and in the Trek world. (Remember, it was ostensibly the same ship and maintained largely the same configuration.)

With TNG, you already had a terrific six-foot filming miniature which was built by ILM at movie standards, and which, by the time it was seven years old, could be augmented easily by CGI. True, the sets were built for television, but consider that most of those sets were the very same sets originally built for TMP and upgraded subsequently.

In other words, there was a smaller technology gap between when TNG went to the movies compared to when TOS went to the movies. They blew up the ship because they wanted to "offer something different" from what you got on TV, and what they offered felt a lot different from what I personally liked about what was on TV.

Eh, I thought they looked fine in GEN.

I would probably be more okay with them destroying the Enterprise-D if I didn't think the Enterprise-E was so ugly.

That too. It wasn't even that the E was ugly, it was just... awkward. No, maybe over-detailed would be a better description.

The death of the D really killed the TNG feel for me. None of the subsequent films really felt like TNG for me without the D.
Same here. Generations was TNG, but baaaad TNG, and the movies afterwards was bad something else.

Agreed.

I agree. We know everyone dies, and it's the same for characters, but we don't need to see it really. Me personally I would have just done a time travel story. They were saying they had a laundry list and time travel was out, but then in FC, guess what, they used Time Travel again. It's absurd that one movie was ruined because of it, while the other one is allowed to fall into the same cliche.
Also agreed. It might have been interesting to have the Enterprise-D go back in time for a change.
 
In other words, there was a smaller technology gap between when TNG went to the movies compared to when TOS went to the movies. They blew up the ship because they wanted to "offer something different" from what you got on TV, and what they offered felt a lot different from what I personally liked about what was on TV.

Exactly. Let me expand on that a little bit.

I know that they wanted to show (at least in Generations) the baton being passed from TOS to TNG. Killing Kirk, in their minds was like telling the audience "TOS is done for and TNG is now taking over the reings of the franchise". But then they went on to kill a very important part of TNG, the ship itself.

In TOS, they really had no choice but to build new indoor sets, and personally, other than Engineering, the rest of it is pretty forgettable.

TNG had great sets, and they didn't even need to switch the lighting. All they needed to do was do the staging and the filming in a typical movie style (like ST IX for example)

Also agreed. It might have been interesting to have the Enterprise-D go back in time for a change.

That would have been interesting. Personally they needed to get away from all this "fight the 1 evil villain" stuff, and needed to do something on an epic scale, I really don't know what that would be, but something on the lines of "Where no one has gone before" would have been amazing on the big screen.
 
My only problem with Generations is the Nexus. The view inside (given it's hard to put something extremely addictive and debilitating on screen but they could have done better) but especially getting out. If you choose, you can just go out anywhere, at any point in time? That's just ass-stupid and completely breaks it for me. And even if, just for the argument's sake, you would choose to go back 20 minutes instead of going to the first station to prevent the other star from blowing? It just doesn't make any sense.

So remove that, yes the movie is fine. It has good pace, good humor, good visuals. But that's it.
 
I don't know why people are complaining about the Enterprise D being replaced so much. It just didn't look good onscreen. I loved it on TV, just like the original Enterprise on "Star Trek", but they were TV sets. I think the reason there was a new Enterprise in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" is that the people behind the movies knew the original sets would look lame onscreen. The same goes for the TNG Enterprise. Okay, maybe they didn't need to destroy it onscreen for there to be a more sleek looking ship in the sequels, but replacing the TV sets (which would have looked laughably claustrophobic on the big screen) was definitely the right choice.

Eh, I thought they looked fine in GEN.

I would probably be more okay with them destroying the Enterprise-D if I didn't think the Enterprise-E was so ugly.

Same here.
 
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