I officially began my journey through all Star Trek on October 9th...

[Isolinear]

TNG's my favorite series, but the movies didn't do it justice.

First Contact and Nemesis are action movies featuring Action-Picard and Data. They are nothing like the series.
Generations and Insurrection do actually feel like TNG episodes. Mediocre ones unfortunately.

I still like First Contact though. Excellent movie, just out of place in TNG. But so were most of the TOS movies if you think about it. The only really TOS-like TOS-movie was The Final Frontier.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Generations and Insurrection do actually feel like TNG episodes. Mediocre ones unfortunately.

TMP feels like a TNG episode--a bad one from season one.

 

[Arpy]

First Contact and Nemesis are action movies featuring Action-Picard and Data. They are nothing like the series.
Generations and Insurrection do actually feel like TNG episodes. Mediocre ones unfortunately.

I still like First Contact though. Excellent movie, just out of place in TNG. But so were most of the TOS movies if you think about it. The only really TOS-like TOS-movie was The Final Frontier.

They churned out a dozen great episodes over the course of a season with, what, a month's prep time? With two years they have little excuse. Furthermore, taking a series to the movies is not doing a two-parter. Does the tone have to be different? Yes. Does it have to be dumber? No. Do you have opportunity through time and budget and lack of series constraints to do intelligent, spectacular, and definitive things? Yes.

GEN looked mediocre, let alone being written so. They upped the visuals for FC, but they didn't do so in a visionary Roddenberryan way. The uniforms were dour, the ship was emaciated and stretched like it spent a year with a team of Son'a surgeons, and you kind of felt you were in a darker alternate universe with familiar beloved faces but not necessarily sure you'd care if the Borg assimilated the Federation.

Spoiler: INS/NEM Spoilers

INS was the worst example of complacency I've seen Trek.

NEM was the rouged but desiccated remnant of the Berman TNG era. Reman Vampires, mind-rape of a middle-aged newly-married Troi, cliched and comically-armed mega ships, a fat old unfunny child android begging to be shoved out the nearest airlock, and totally getting the main cloning story philosophically wrong. Oh, and killing Data for false weight at the end of the movie.

...forgive the hate. This was the period when my fandom waned in earnest.

 

[Tracy Trek]

The uniforms were dour, the ship was emaciated and stretched like it spent a year with a team of Son'a surgeons, and you kind of felt you were in a darker alternate universe with familiar beloved faces but not necessarily sure you'd care if the Borg assimilated the Federation.

You've summed it up exactly. It didn't seem to fit with what was IMO, the bright optimistic feel of the series.

 

[Griffeytrek]

Sure, but one can expect an action film to not have giant plot holes either, no? That's not being too cynical.

It's gonna be so much fun when you get to Nemesis. I'm not gonna spoil anything. Just make sure you have a copy of the Dukes of Hazard theme music downloaded and queued up ready to go. It helps.

 

[Arpy]

I haven't often visited Reddit. Are there Trek specific pages I should watch out for?

 

[Griffeytrek]

TMP feels like a TNG episode--a bad one from season one.

There's a reason for that? It is. Or rather both TMP and the first season of TNG came from the stockpile of unused scripts for Star Trek Phase II. Which were by and large fairly awful. If you are familiar with tropes of mid 70's era Pre Star Wars SciFi, as epitomized by things like Rodenberry's Genesis II it becomes very easy to spot which scripts and stories come from this pool.

 

[Isolinear]

Both TMP and the first season of TNG came from the stockpile of unused scripts for Star Trek Phase II.

As far as I know only The Child and Devil's Due were Phase II scripts.

 

[jaime]

But Dax in swimwear! Just saying...

Worf has issues around bum cheeks. Look at what happens when Q magics up the Klingon female in series 1 of TNG.

 

[jaime]

As far as I know only The Child and Devil's Due were Phase II scripts.

Riker and Troi were also basically Decker and Ilia.

 

[Griffeytrek]

Riker and Troi were also basically Decker and Ilia.

And for those that have never seen it Data is lifted wholesale from another Rodenberry project. 1974's The Questor Tapes. (With Robert Foxworth, DS9's Admirral Leyton in the Data'like role of the Android Questor.) It's worth a watch if you ever want to get some idea of where Rodenberry was likely going with Data and Noonian Soong. At least when he first conceived of them.

 

[Seven of Five]

I love those episodes. Season 5 is really the best season for me, though there is still so much good stuff to come for you.

I was going to watch Voyager next in my own big 50th Anniversary rewatch, but my husband might kill me so I'm burning through some other things on my list on Netflix.

In nothing to do with anything, I highly recommend Don't Trust The B**** in Apartment 23, but in the correct viewing order. I'll do that if I ever watch it again.

 

[Griffeytrek]

The Wrath of Khan, First Contact, For the Uniform...

This franchise really loves writing Captain Ahab, doesn't it?

Oh yeah. Plus a touch of Dante every now and then. Trek writers loves them some Melville. Although Khan really was the deliberate pinnacle of it. Quoting lines etc. Heck Khan had both Moby Dick and Dante's Inferno on his bookshelf.

For the Uniform stands as one of those truly great "Sisco is Not Picard" moments. Up there with Sisco punching out Q, and another, coming next season, that often competes with The Visitor for series best episode.

Oh and keep your eyes on Martok. You will like him. He redeems a lot of the flaws that have built up in Klingon characterization over the seasons on DS9. There is something a touch more Old School about him.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

For the Uniform stands as one of those truly great "Sisco is Not Picard" moments.

It's also one of the episodes in which Dax earns her pay.

 

[wayoung]

That twist with Bashir's character (genetically engineered) seems kind of gimmicky or strange, but it makes so much sense. It almost feels like they were planning it from the beginning when you look back at those early episodes.

"

They weren't, and Siddig REALLY hated it.

 

[Griffeytrek]

That twist with Bashir's character (genetically engineered) seems kind of gimmicky or strange, but it makes so much sense. It almost feels like they were planning it from the beginning when you look back at those early episodes.


"Sisko is not Picard" is exactly what I was thinking while watching it

The Bashir twist seems kind of ham handed contrived at first. (Which honestly it really was.) Though as you noted it does explain a lot. Plus it finally gives him some backstory. (Not good backstory... But backstory finally after 5 years.) Where they go with this thread eventually is rather however interesting. As they use it to explore a subject they likely never would have gotten away with on TNG.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

A couple of my favorite episodes revolve around Bashir and his genetically alteration backstory.
Two words: Jack Pack
How did you like Robert Picardo's take on Dr Zimmerman?

 

[eyeresist]

The Bashir twist felt a bit gratuitous at the time, and subsequent eps with his fellow augments felt like filler. But the way it influenced his life on DS9, particularly with Miles, was good.

 

[wayoung]

Any reason why the Defiant has "NX" in its registry rather than "NCC"?

Is/was this ever explained?

It was a prototype, they are designated NX

 

[wayoung]

Ah, okay, thanks.

BTW, love your username. Weyoun is awesome

He is, but my user name is my initials and last name, not a reference to him.

BTW, I've noticed fewer posts from you in this thread - slowed down on watching or just not much desire to discuss the episodes?