I guess somebody took the term "underground movement" a bit too literally.
Generations: Worst Possible Crossover Idea?
- Thread starter Mr Light
- Start date
Bingo. And that is precisely what's so cringeworthy about it (using caves in "Unification").
As far as crossovers go, this is an awful idea of one. The saddest thing about this film's legacy is, its become the poster boy for dissapointing follow-ups - see Highlander: Endgame, a film that completely butchers Connor MacLeod in order for him to sacrifice his life to Duncan MacLeod. Its pathetic (though the film is surprisingly better than GEN).
When all things are said and done, GEN is the worst Star Trek film of all time. Insurrection and Into Darkness come close, but this one is just embarrasing to watch.
When all things are said and done, GEN is the worst Star Trek film of all time. Insurrection and Into Darkness come close, but this one is just embarrasing to watch.
I hate this stupid movie.
Up to ST IV every movie was better than the previous one, and although V and VI suffered by the reuse of sets etc, at least TNG (and most importantly its dumb producers) was contained in its own little pompous bureaucratic century and setting.
I-VI all were and seemed like great movies and not blown up TV episodes.
TNG broke Star Trek. This is My Humble Opinion of course, but after GEN I cant see how this can be disputed.
Up to ST IV every movie was better than the previous one, and although V and VI suffered by the reuse of sets etc, at least TNG (and most importantly its dumb producers) was contained in its own little pompous bureaucratic century and setting.
I-VI all were and seemed like great movies and not blown up TV episodes.
TNG broke Star Trek. This is My Humble Opinion of course, but after GEN I cant see how this can be disputed.
I'm not about to argue with anybody whose avatar is that cool.
GENERATIONS did not feel like an expanded television episode to me. This "observation" by some seems based on the presense and use of ENTERPRISE "D," interiors and all, as well as some bellyaching regarding the sillyness of the plot. True, this installment does play it surprisingly cheap ...
The interiors for the space station Soran's using are from some TNG set or another, I believe. And as they were already paid for and talk is cheap, we, the audience, get to spend a surprising amount of the movie there. The whole thing with Data's jokes had to go, I really hate it. But damn if they didn't $ave some coin in this picture. I believe Kirk's mountain retreat was actually Bill Shatner's Horse ranch, in fact. Both he and Picard have very budget-friendly fantasies within the confines of the NEXUS. The Enterprise "B" is, of course, the EXCELSIOR, with a beer gut added. The bird of prey blowing up, is lifted right off of TUC and the Duras sisters' head-molds were also quite a money $aver.
The economy of this movie goes on and on, but everybody's revered WRATH of KHAN was also made on the cheap and forget one ship's little explosion. Fully One Quarter of STAR TREK II is lifted, frame-for-frame right out of the previous movie!!!
So ... let's not be too heavy handed in our appraisal and, indeed, judgement of GENERATIONS. It had the scope of a major event movie, I feel. I love the cinematography, for example. Everybody looks great, except for Shat, who's complexion is strangely orange in this picture. And before anyone starts blaming my beloved STAR TREK: The Next Generation for the failure of this picture, may I remind you that First Contact was STAR TREK's biggest hit until the reboot came along?
So ... since TNG can't be at fault for the epic fail of this feature. And the budget does seem to have been at least adequate, as there are many well-executed, original effects in GENERATIONS, then the fault must be in William Shatner's involvement, somehow. Starting with his apparent laundry list of demands concerning how he and his character came off in this movie, that ended up ruining the entire script and spoiling all the fun for the entire cast of The Next Generation!
The interiors for the space station Soran's using are from some TNG set or another, I believe. And as they were already paid for and talk is cheap, we, the audience, get to spend a surprising amount of the movie there. The whole thing with Data's jokes had to go, I really hate it. But damn if they didn't $ave some coin in this picture. I believe Kirk's mountain retreat was actually Bill Shatner's Horse ranch, in fact. Both he and Picard have very budget-friendly fantasies within the confines of the NEXUS. The Enterprise "B" is, of course, the EXCELSIOR, with a beer gut added. The bird of prey blowing up, is lifted right off of TUC and the Duras sisters' head-molds were also quite a money $aver.
The economy of this movie goes on and on, but everybody's revered WRATH of KHAN was also made on the cheap and forget one ship's little explosion. Fully One Quarter of STAR TREK II is lifted, frame-for-frame right out of the previous movie!!!
So ... let's not be too heavy handed in our appraisal and, indeed, judgement of GENERATIONS. It had the scope of a major event movie, I feel. I love the cinematography, for example. Everybody looks great, except for Shat, who's complexion is strangely orange in this picture. And before anyone starts blaming my beloved STAR TREK: The Next Generation for the failure of this picture, may I remind you that First Contact was STAR TREK's biggest hit until the reboot came along?
So ... since TNG can't be at fault for the epic fail of this feature. And the budget does seem to have been at least adequate, as there are many well-executed, original effects in GENERATIONS, then the fault must be in William Shatner's involvement, somehow. Starting with his apparent laundry list of demands concerning how he and his character came off in this movie, that ended up ruining the entire script and spoiling all the fun for the entire cast of The Next Generation!
The concept of a crossover is overdone, so the movie has a fundamental problem. TNG was its own show - it built on the original, of course, but the characters were their own. Furthermore, TOS already handed off to TNG in the very first episode. Bones talking to Data - a scene of about a minute, we don't even hear his name, with poignant dialogue. Less is more.
Of course, we also had Scotty come back via technobabble, although babble that was less convoluted than a time-travelling Nexus. And we had Spock come back, because Vulcans live so long.
That's plenty of crossovers.
Any more and we end up with what I think is called the "small universe" problem. All the adventures in this huge galaxy and the same handful of people are always involved? How much can happen to so few people. It strains credibility.
In short, there was no dramatic need for another crossover.
Of course, we also had Scotty come back via technobabble, although babble that was less convoluted than a time-travelling Nexus. And we had Spock come back, because Vulcans live so long.
That's plenty of crossovers.
Any more and we end up with what I think is called the "small universe" problem. All the adventures in this huge galaxy and the same handful of people are always involved? How much can happen to so few people. It strains credibility.
In short, there was no dramatic need for another crossover.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I don't know where you get the idea that FC was biggest hit. Take a look at budget vs returns and overall gross and any number of other factors and you'll see it might be in the top third at best.
TNG is utterly the reason this movie fails. The TNG folks writing it wrote a terrible script, then had it cheapened down so it was missing some of its spectacle (by Jeri Taylor telling them to lose the Romulan fight open, by the line producer (an outsider, not Berman) being a dick with the director, and by the budget not accomodating the film's scope (which falls directly into the TFF trap.) Berman always wanting a Data B-story works to the film's detriment (I think it may work better in INS than any of the others, but I don't really like Data's stuff in any of the movies.)
Cinematography is very very good, ILM's work is very good, and I actually wish Carson had done another film. The score is just another one of those 'graduation day'-sounding things that seems like JURASSSIC JR to me, I really don't like those much, but the Kirk-goes-to-engineering cue is nice, I work to it a lot. Production design is a very mixed batch, the E-B bridge being the basis for Amorgosa is okay, but the 'build lal/deBorgPicardhere' gadget being there is way too obvious. Too many ideas, too diffuse in ways that keep me from ever engaging with it, and of course the huge huge aspect of Kirk's death carrying ZERO emotional weight, like that is the best you can do after two major attempts?
yes the whole passing the torch thing had been done at the 25th anniversary with Star Trek VI (how peace with the klingons emerged...Worf...Kirks final log entry) & had nimoy passing the baton in Unification...They didnt really NEED to do a crossover film after that...just a full on TNG movie as TNG was popular in its own right. Anyway when they realised they wouldnt be able to get the 2 enterprises on screen with the 2 complete crews in (a Star Trek Avengers type deal - the ultimate culmination of all the previous little interactions - which I guess STG was supposed to be) the crossover film should possibly have been scrapped. (one of the writers of Generations even said that as soon as the crossover film was suggested the image that came into his head was a movie poster with the 2 enterprises and Kirk, Spock plus Picard and Data).
That being said I actually quite like Generations as it is but believe a crossover movie would only have been really great (im talking TWOK great) if it had been the 'Yesterdays Enterprise' storyline (yeah it had already been done but certain TOS eps had been ‘remade’ as movies before – TMP/TVH/TFF) so maybe the Ent D finding themselves in the 23rd century not the Ent A in an altered 24th Century
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Politics play a heavy hand in how movies are made, that much is clear. What I find really interesting is that STAR TREK was not a "new" idea and TNG, in particular, had a very successful run on television. This whole thing of throwing people's weight around was so unnecessary and ended up ruining the thing, obviously. If they had just let TNG do its thing, as evidenced in First Contact, Generations would've played out as much more credible. Would that have given us a better death scene for Kirk? I don't know ... personally, I don't see how Kirk's death could've played out to anyone's satisfaction, really.
Spock's dying had a lot more going for it, including the reality of Nimoy's wanting "out" basically. Kirk's death was in this movie just to be in this movie, so that shallowness was going to taint the "reality" of it, no matter what. You know what, though, even when politics aren't involved, like with the STAR WARS prequels, that doesn't necessarily help the product, either. In fact, as complicated as movies are and always have been to make, it's a wonder that more of them don't turn out as an incoherent mess, actually ...
^Here. So, the initial idea wasn't worst. Two prominent crews in one battle - that should be the true "Meetings of generations".
I wonder, why Picard & Data and not Picard & Riker? Spock and Riker were #1 in the crew.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I've said more than a couple of times that THE CHASE (which I fell asleep on last night; I've been rewatching TNG on 'flix a lot lately, first time this century I think) could have been the first feature, perhaps with some of the flavor and action of GAMBIT tossed in.
But after semi-watching it, I thought that it could have been clever to do it as the TOS/TNG meld, but instead of just setting things up in the 23rd and going to century 24, you could have the scenes in the centuries intercut and wind up with a different tension emerging, since you don't know at what point the TOS aspect will hang up and require the TNG part of the story to take over, assuming some of the TOS history isn't known to the TNG folk.) Gonna think on this somemore ... TREK goes INTOLERANCE.
But after semi-watching it, I thought that it could have been clever to do it as the TOS/TNG meld, but instead of just setting things up in the 23rd and going to century 24, you could have the scenes in the centuries intercut and wind up with a different tension emerging, since you don't know at what point the TOS aspect will hang up and require the TNG part of the story to take over, assuming some of the TOS history isn't known to the TNG folk.) Gonna think on this somemore ... TREK goes INTOLERANCE.
http://confusedmatthew.com/star-trek-generations.html
Watch this and you'll see why the more I watch GEN the less I like it. Confused Matthew has some excellent insights as to why the story is so weak. A pity. The novel ST:TNG:Crossover was a much better story for mixing generations, sans Kirk, though.
Watch this and you'll see why the more I watch GEN the less I like it. Confused Matthew has some excellent insights as to why the story is so weak. A pity. The novel ST:TNG:Crossover was a much better story for mixing generations, sans Kirk, though.
I didn't know that. But the video from the guy from Redlettermedia did that for me. Enjoy if you already haven't: http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-trek/star-trek-generations/
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It does seem that by that point, Data had become the Fonzie of The Next Generation.
By which I mean there's no way a poster for a Happy Days movie would have featured Ritchie and Potsie.
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I don't think a crossover film was necessary but if it had to be, I do think it was better to not try to have a 14-member main cast, I don't think that could have worked (and it's also hard to think of a Kirk death that wouldn't feel underwhelming).
It's true that TNG didn't work very well in films and the original cast films did feel like films rather than episodes (although I would disagree that III-V felt like great movies), pretty easy as they were made at least a decade after the television series ended, but if you think ST is and should be only the original series characters then they couldn't have made more films with them and I doubt a new crew (in either the 23rd or 24th century) or a reboot right after TUC would have been better, instead ST must be broken if it tries to do anything aside from the original characters.
It's true that TNG didn't work very well in films and the original cast films did feel like films rather than episodes (although I would disagree that III-V felt like great movies), pretty easy as they were made at least a decade after the television series ended, but if you think ST is and should be only the original series characters then they couldn't have made more films with them and I doubt a new crew (in either the 23rd or 24th century) or a reboot right after TUC would have been better, instead ST must be broken if it tries to do anything aside from the original characters.
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Incredible that they did that and then went and blew the damn budget on a pointless holodeck sea voyage.
IMO, this movie is garbage. Kirk was killed like a punk (twice!), and the Enterprise-D suffered an embarrassing death, and both were killed for no purpose other than for filler. Oh, and Picard's brother and nephew were offed for good measure too, so that Picard could feel bad along with Data, puh-lease.
It's so bad that as far as I'm concerned, the TNG crew ended with All Good Things. It got things off to such a bad start, that it's hard to enjoy First Contact. I'm not a fan of retconning the queen into BOBW.
It's so bad that as far as I'm concerned, the TNG crew ended with All Good Things. It got things off to such a bad start, that it's hard to enjoy First Contact. I'm not a fan of retconning the queen into BOBW.
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