Picard is 007?

[Starborn Dragon]

So, did you guys notice what the TNG movies have in common with the 007 ones?



All of the opponents Picard faces have died.

Just like all the opponents 007 faces. Most of them, except for perhaps Bloefield, are killed in the movie.

But I don't think we can be sure that Bloefield is truly dead, since there are so many incarnations of him.

 

[EnriqueH]

Friendly correction: it's actually spelled Blofeld.

 

[2takesfrakes]

The TNG movies went for over-the-top action, but nothing like what's in a Bond film. Nobody got kicked out of a shuttle's back door, as a practicle effect and shown plummeting to the ground (seemingly) with no parachute! Nobody jumped out of a ten-story window with the chord form the window blinds around his waste, to safety ... then walking the city streets like nothing happened. But there was alot of action and I feel it could've done with a lot more, actually. When we first met Picard, the TNG staff didn't really seem to know what to do with him, at first, so he was allowed to be fascinated with everything he investigated.

By Season 3, though, he sort of started channelling his Inner Vulcan and he came across as kind of aloof, I guess. Which he wasn't in the very beginning and I think it was a mistake to put too much starch in his uniform. The movies gave him a chance to cut loose, a little bit. But the TNG movies shouldn't have become so dominated by Brent and Stewart. TNG was blessed with an amazing ensemble cast, and they should've been utilised much more. But ... That's Entertainment! What we crave for, inside ...

 

[Christopher]

Most movie villains die. That's hardly specific to TNG. In TOS movies, Khan died, Kruge died, Sybok died, and Chang died. The only TOS movies where the villains didn't die at the end were the ones without villains per se. (And in TMP, both V'Ger and the Ilia probe left the corporeal plane, which is functionally similar to dying.)

It's just a particular flaw of the American movie industry that it all but requires heroes to dispatch their foes by lethal means, even in film adaptations of works that usually don't operate that way. Look at superhero movies -- all the heroes who generally refuse to kill in the comics but whose enemies usually end up dying in the movies. The movie industry just has this particularly vindictive and cruel sense of "justice" that demands bloodshed.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^Does Kirk's admiralty count as a villain? If so, it died in STIV.

--Sran

 

[Ithekro]

In Space Battleship Yamato, all the villains die, usually in a massive blast that vaporizes them...except one. One lived and came back to fight Yamato again, and again, though they did manage a heel-face turn for him in the middle of that. So he eventually became a friend of sorts. Though some would argue that would be like having Hilter as your friend because he decided he didn't want to kill you and your civilization anymore after seeing a better path. Mind you he nearly made your people extinct, but these things happen.

 

[Kor]

Most movie villains die. That's hardly specific to TNG. In TOS movies, Khan died, Kruge died, Sybok died, and Chang died. The only TOS movies where the villains didn't die at the end were the ones without villains per se. (And in TMP, both V'Ger and the Ilia probe left the corporeal plane, which is functionally similar to dying.)

It's just a particular flaw of the American movie industry that it all but requires heroes to dispatch their foes by lethal means, even in film adaptations of works that usually don't operate that way. Look at superhero movies -- all the heroes who generally refuse to kill in the comics but whose enemies usually end up dying in the movies. The movie industry just has this particularly vindictive and cruel sense of "justice" that demands bloodshed.

With that background in mind, it's understandable that certain viewers found the ending of ST:ID to be anticlimactic.

Kor

 

[Christopher]

With that background in mind, it's understandable that certain viewers found the ending of ST:ID to be anticlimactic.

Yeah, they didn't kill the villain, they just killed a bunch of random San Franciscans by dropping a starship on them.

Although, really, Admiral Marcus was the true villain of the film, and he died.

 

[locutus101]

^Does Kirk's admiralty count as a villain? If so, it died in STIV.

--Sran

Sometimes the villain is the audience.

 

[inflatabledalek]

The Living Daylights is an odd one in that the second of its two main villains survives and is carted off to jail at the end. Even with it being a Siberian jail it really does feel anticlimactic.

But then, Bond is an assassin, not actually killing his enemies would be a strange thing even if it wasn't the Hollywood norm.

I think the reason the death thing is so standard isn't necessarily because execs are bloodthursty, but because from a dramatic point of a view watching villains get a proportionate (and ideally ironic) fate to their villainy is always much more satisfying than a "Book 'im Danno" style conclusion. They could however be somewhat more imaginative in the types of ironic fate they come up with.

Oh, and Bond totally kills Blofeld in the completely insane opening to For your Eyes Only as "Fuck you" to Kevin McClory. "I'll buy you a delicatessen... in stainless steel!".

 

[Franklin]

Most movie villains die. That's hardly specific to TNG. In TOS movies, Khan died, Kruge died, Sybok died, and Chang died. The only TOS movies where the villains didn't die at the end were the ones without villains per se. (And in TMP, both V'Ger and the Ilia probe left the corporeal plane, which is functionally similar to dying.)

It's just a particular flaw of the American movie industry that it all but requires heroes to dispatch their foes by lethal means, even in film adaptations of works that usually don't operate that way. Look at superhero movies -- all the heroes who generally refuse to kill in the comics but whose enemies usually end up dying in the movies. The movie industry just has this particularly vindictive and cruel sense of "justice" that demands bloodshed.

Well, you can't have Batman killing the Joker in every issue of a comic book, but what is likely to be a one-off self-contained story in a movie is different.

It isn't just Hollywood with bloodlust common in its stories. It's in everything from works by Shakespeare to Grimm's fairytales. Even in "Casablanca", the audience cheered at the end when Renault let Rick get by with shooting Major Strasser.

Movie goers just love to see villains get their comeuppance. So, I'd say the audience demands it, and Hollywood delivers. Even in TSFS, when Kirk finally realizes that Kruge would rather kill them both rather than be saved, Kirk's response ("I have hand enough of you," followed by kicking him so he falls to his death) got cheers from the audience where I saw the movie.

 

[Kor]

^ and if the story ends with the villain in jail, then everybody expects a sequel where he gets out and then dies.

Kor

 

[locutus101]

^ and if the story ends with the villain in jail, then everybody expects a sequel where he gets out and then dies.

Kor

Unless the story IS about the Villain as in Fantômas, one of the best stories with a recurring Villain.

FYI: Fantomas is the villain so if you kill him, you kill the story.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

Jaws never died....although I guess he technically became "good" at the end.

I think someone pointed this out but, even though he was never identified by name, Moore offs Blowfeld by dropping him down an industrial smokestack from a helicopter in the opening of "For Your Eyes Only".....Which was done intentionally by Cubby Brocolli to Kevin McElroy who was claiming copyright infringement over elements like SPECTRE and Blowfeld and led to him making "Never Say Never Again" to basically say....you know what? fuck Blowfeld, fuck SPECTRE and Fuck you and Sean Connery. I've made the Bond franchise successful enough to stand on its own.

Brocolli backed it up too because Octopussy beat Never Say Never Again head to head at the box office despite the latter having the original and, to many, ONLY James Bond with Connery.

Ironic the next Bond film coming out is called SPECTRE.

 

[Christopher]

I just don't understand the double standard. If we think less of the villains because they kill people, why should we think more of the heroes when they do the same? Logically, if killing makes bad guys bad, then shouldn't we admire and celebrate the heroes more if they manage to avoid sinking to the villains' level? If they profess to stand for nobler values but end up reluctantly "making an exception" for the archvillain, or trying and failing to save them, then doesn't that failure diminish their achievement rather than amplifying it?

Sure, yes, you can say it's cathartic to see the villain die. But if we celebrate the death of someone we hate, then why aren't we rooting for the villains, whose whole MO is killing people they hate?

For myself, I root for heroes because they're different from the villains, because they fight for life instead of death. I hate it when fictional heroes are portrayed as casual or frequent killers. Sure, I get that it's make-believe, that nobody's really being hurt so we can indulge the fantasy of violence without guilt. We can ignore the grieving widows and families of all the hapless security guards who were just doing their jobs when the action hero mowed them down, or disregard the thousands of harmless maintenance workers and IT guys that Luke Skywalker blew up with the Death Star, because none of it really happened. But I like it when my fiction stands for something more than that. And when heroes claim to be fighting for life or peace or the rule of law, I want them to succeed in living up to those ideals rather than being forced to "compromise" them out of grim necessity, or being hypocrites with crap like "I don't have to save you." True heroism isn't just triumphing over the enemy, it's triumphing over your own weaknesses and limitations. So if everybody tells the hero he has no choice but to kill his enemy, I want that to be a challenge he manages to rise above by finding a better way that nobody else was smart or brave enough to think of. I'll take Kirk in "Arena" or "Day of the Dove" over Kirk in The Search for Spock. It was Star Trek that taught me that finding a better way is the real definition of heroism.

 

[locutus101]

Jaws never died....although I guess he technically became "good" at the end.

I think someone pointed this out but, even though he was never identified by name, Moore offs Blowfeld by dropping him down an industrial smokestack from a helicopter in the opening of "For Your Eyes Only".....Which was done intentionally by Cubby Brocolli to Kevin McElroy who was claiming copyright infringement over elements like SPECTRE and Blowfeld and led to him making "Never Say Never Again" to basically say....you know what? fuck Blowfeld, fuck SPECTRE and Fuck you and Sean Connery. I've made the Bond franchise successful enough to stand on its own.

Brocolli backed it up too because Octopussy beat Never Say Never Again head to head at the box office despite the latter having the original and, to many, ONLY James Bond with Connery.

Ironic the next Bond film coming out is called SPECTRE.

The Inspector Gadget's permanent enemy is also based on Blofeld and SPECTRE.

 

[Nebusj]

Sometimes the villain is the audience.

OK, that is the greatest movie tagline ever. Now somebody go make a movie to fit it.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

I just don't understand the double standard. If we think less of the villains because they kill people, why should we think more of the heroes when they do the same? Logically, if killing makes bad guys bad, then shouldn't we admire and celebrate the heroes more if they manage to avoid sinking to the villains' level? If they profess to stand for nobler values but end up reluctantly "making an exception" for the archvillain, or trying and failing to save them, then doesn't that failure diminish their achievement rather than amplifying it?

Sure, yes, you can say it's cathartic to see the villain die. But if we celebrate the death of someone we hate, then why aren't we rooting for the villains, whose whole MO is killing people they hate?

For myself, I root for heroes because they're different from the villains, because they fight for life instead of death. I hate it when fictional heroes are portrayed as casual or frequent killers. Sure, I get that it's make-believe, that nobody's really being hurt so we can indulge the fantasy of violence without guilt. We can ignore the grieving widows and families of all the hapless security guards who were just doing their jobs when the action hero mowed them down, or disregard the thousands of harmless maintenance workers and IT guys that Luke Skywalker blew up with the Death Star, because none of it really happened. But I like it when my fiction stands for something more than that. And when heroes claim to be fighting for life or peace or the rule of law, I want them to succeed in living up to those ideals rather than being forced to "compromise" them out of grim necessity, or being hypocrites with crap like "I don't have to save you." True heroism isn't just triumphing over the enemy, it's triumphing over your own weaknesses and limitations. So if everybody tells the hero he has no choice but to kill his enemy, I want that to be a challenge he manages to rise above by finding a better way that nobody else was smart or brave enough to think of. I'll take Kirk in "Arena" or "Day of the Dove" over Kirk in The Search for Spock. It was Star Trek that taught me that finding a better way is the real definition of heroism.

It's the same thing in war. Germany has had to apologize countless times, and I'm not talking about the death camps here, for the fact its soldiers killed, raped and pillaged at will as they invaded countries in WWII
Yet the Soviet Union and Russia never have and never will apologize to Germany that the Red Army did the same thing on a similar scale when they were driving towards Berlin. Why? Well because Russia didn't "start it" and they were just paying Germany back and they weren't the bad guys. Plus the USSR won

Hell the other day the Japanese PM apologized to the U.S. Congress personally for WWII. I don't think a U.S. President will ever go to Japan and say sorry for the 2 A bombs that just killed indiscriminately (I'm not saying he or she should)

Again why? Because the U.S. Didn't start it.....so we were ok to do it. Plus we also won

The British were even worse in that regard. The U.S. Bombed Germany in day because they felt it was the best way to hit vital targets and limit collateral damage. Of course this made the bombers easier to shoot down and they often suffered heavy losses.
The British didn't want those kind of losses so they bombed by night which was a lot safer. Supposedly they were aiming for strategic targets too, but with everything blacked out they really didn't know what they were aiming for so they pretty much just dropped their bombs anywhere close enough and if it was a school instead.....shit happens.

It's a cold hard fact that if you're the side that doesn't strike first and fights back in response you're usually given a lot of leeway that your actions were necessary and justified no matter how bad they may be.

It usually helps if you win too.

 

[Avon]

nemesis is about as bad as die another day

 

[enterprisecvn65]

Jaws never died....although I guess he technically became "good" at the end.

I think someone pointed this out but, even though he was never identified by name, Moore offs Blowfeld by dropping him down an industrial smokestack from a helicopter in the opening of "For Your Eyes Only".....Which was done intentionally by Cubby Brocolli to Kevin McElroy who was claiming copyright infringement over elements like SPECTRE and Blowfeld and led to him making "Never Say Never Again" to basically say....you know what? fuck Blowfeld, fuck SPECTRE and Fuck you and Sean Connery. I've made the Bond franchise successful enough to stand on its own.

Brocolli backed it up too because Octopussy beat Never Say Never Again head to head at the box office despite the latter having the original and, to many, ONLY James Bond with Connery.

Ironic the next Bond film coming out is called SPECTRE.

The Inspector Gadget's permanent enemy is also based on Blofeld and SPECTRE.

Good call.