I prefer NEM to GEN. Although I disagree its the best TNG movie, its IMO the second best. So I agree in the regard that its not terrible.
And of course, GEN sucks balls. His review is spot-on.
Star Trek: Generations Review
- Thread starter Trekker4747
- Start date
And of course, GEN sucks balls. His review is spot-on.
True - though I have always thought that the fundamental point, that confused matthew makes well, is that TNG as we saw it on TV, is NOT a good show to convert to a movie. Quite simply those changes were necessary to make a good semi-blockbuster which rightly or wrongly is what trek IS in the cinema.
It does not need to be pure action, but it always should be adventure. Plinkett also has a point when he says that Nemesis is too damn dark and nasty, what happened to Trek as a family thing?
That applies in Best Of Both Worlds as well - far more so in fact - but no-one writes online reviews saying it was a shit episode, because it wasn't.
The FC review I thought was pretty trite, YES, FC is in places a bit contrived but name a movie that isn't. TWOK relies entirely on Kirk being deeply stupid to get going after all.
doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
This no colon in the title of this movie. It's not "STAR TREK: GENERATIONS" it's "STAR TREK GENERATIONS.
Just a little FYI for you all.
THat, and Red Letter Media's review of Generations is brilliant.
Just a little FYI for you all.
THat, and Red Letter Media's review of Generations is brilliant.
My main problem with "STAR TREK 7: GENERATION", was that it had no scope or interest to it whatsoever.
The first half of the film took place on the Enterprise, the last half took place on a barren, empty, depressing sand planet with 3 old guys bumping into each other.
Boring.
The first half of the film took place on the Enterprise, the last half took place on a barren, empty, depressing sand planet with 3 old guys bumping into each other.
Boring.
Yeah, that's hilarious and also quite on the mark.
For some reason I thought I'd do a random search of Red Letter Media and found this thread. I just watched all his TNG movie reviews and now I realize how much I hate them all. 
I think my favourite bit was the end of the Generations review, where he goes into the whole bit with Picard tossing away that SUPER RARE artifact given to him by his FAVOURITE teacher.
I also never noticed that they reused the Bird of Prey shots from TUC. Talk about cheaping out.
I think my favourite bit was the end of the Generations review, where he goes into the whole bit with Picard tossing away that SUPER RARE artifact given to him by his FAVOURITE teacher.
I also never noticed that they reused the Bird of Prey shots from TUC. Talk about cheaping out.
Even the first time I saw the movie I recognized the shot.
I remember thinking "did the entire plot of this movie get written like this so the climax would be a scene they could blatantly recycle from the Trek movie right before it?"
Absolutely. Why do you think they use the Bird of Prey in almost every movie that involved the Klingons? And it wasn't just that exploding shot they used from TUC, they also used the shot where the BOP soars past the screen and cloaks, cutting out just before you see the planet where the conference took place.
At least in the game Star Trek Generations, the writers gave Soran a Vor'cha-class ship. That would have been a cruiser worthy to put the Enterprise down.
doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
Man, I forgot how seriously some of you guys take these things... how do you enjoy anything?
I freakin' loved Star Trek 5 man, probably my second favorite movie after TUC, what do you think about THAT!
doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
Good for you. I like aspects of TFF as well.
Back on topic -- I don't see what the big huff and puff is all about with regard to the reused footage of the Bird-of-Prey explosion in Generations... it's hardly the first time it's happened in the Trek films.
Wrath of Khan reused all kinds of footage from The Motion Picture -- Enterprise in drydock, the Klingon battlecruisers...
Search for Spock has the recap at the beginning, the Genesis tape (albeit with Kirk recording --word for word precisely what Carol Marcus says in the video in II) and the flight-recorder footage of Spock's death.
Voyage Home has flight recorder footage of the stupid Klingons who beamed over to the Enterprise, and footage of the Enterprise exploding (who was taping that? And how did it get back to Earth, anyway?).
Final Frontier has footage of Enterprise in spacedock, lifted from the end of Voyage Home.
Undiscovered Country is the first film -- well, not including Motion Picture -- that doesn't re-use stock footage from the previous films.
Bitch and moan all about how the Duras sisters' bird-of-prey looks and explodes just like Chang's, but do it with a measure of sensibility -- all these things happened, these editing choices were made, because of the budget. So what?
Back on topic -- I don't see what the big huff and puff is all about with regard to the reused footage of the Bird-of-Prey explosion in Generations... it's hardly the first time it's happened in the Trek films.
Wrath of Khan reused all kinds of footage from The Motion Picture -- Enterprise in drydock, the Klingon battlecruisers...
Search for Spock has the recap at the beginning, the Genesis tape (albeit with Kirk recording --word for word precisely what Carol Marcus says in the video in II) and the flight-recorder footage of Spock's death.
Voyage Home has flight recorder footage of the stupid Klingons who beamed over to the Enterprise, and footage of the Enterprise exploding (who was taping that? And how did it get back to Earth, anyway?).
Final Frontier has footage of Enterprise in spacedock, lifted from the end of Voyage Home.
Undiscovered Country is the first film -- well, not including Motion Picture -- that doesn't re-use stock footage from the previous films.
Bitch and moan all about how the Duras sisters' bird-of-prey looks and explodes just like Chang's, but do it with a measure of sensibility -- all these things happened, these editing choices were made, because of the budget. So what?
Last edited:
A key difference here is that a lot of that footage was used at the beginning of the film. Once the Reliant comes into contact with the Enterprise, it's essentially all new material. The only reuse that came up was the shot of the Enterprise just after it shot Spock's coffin to the Genesis planet. They didn't reuse the Klingon cruiser footage for the final fight, they made all new material. Here they reuse a BoP explosion from the climax of the last movie for the climax here. So it's easier to forgive TWOK's usage of old footage because where it was used wasn't a big part of the story, and they were able to save their budget to make new material when it mattered. Here? Not so much.
doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
Fair enough ... but again, so what? They also re-used footage of Klingons pointlessly running away from the fireball inside the bird-of-prey as well; no one seems to be irritated by that.
I don't know that I'd agree that the Klingon bird-of-prey exploding in Generations was the climax of the film; rather I would submit it was one of many other pieces in the rising action to the climax -- the climax being the ultimate confrontation between Picard & Kirk vs. Soran.
That said, it's true if you watch Star Trek VI and Generations back-to-back, you will notice the acute similarity between the explosions ... but again, who cares? How many different ways should a bird-of-prey explode? We all know WHY it was done that way, so why do people get so hung up on it?
I don't know that I'd agree that the Klingon bird-of-prey exploding in Generations was the climax of the film; rather I would submit it was one of many other pieces in the rising action to the climax -- the climax being the ultimate confrontation between Picard & Kirk vs. Soran.
That said, it's true if you watch Star Trek VI and Generations back-to-back, you will notice the acute similarity between the explosions ... but again, who cares? How many different ways should a bird-of-prey explode? We all know WHY it was done that way, so why do people get so hung up on it?
Because using stock footage in a big budget sci-fi extravagaza gives the movie a serious case of the cheaps.
Generations has been reviewed at The Agony Booth. Enjoy! 
http://www.agonybooth.com/movies/Star_Trek__Generations_1994.aspx
http://www.agonybooth.com/movies/Star_Trek__Generations_1994.aspx
Funny recap, but a minor gripe on it.
The Reccaper criticizes the movie for making the Enterprise-B an Excelsior-class vessel. This critique is silly for a couple of reasons. First of all, that the Enterprise-B was an Excelsior-class had already been established, or at the very least suggested, by the lineage wall in the E-D Observation Loung/conference room. Secondly any "cheaping out" decision on the part of the filmakers would be negated by it being a modified Excelsior-class and the new SFX shots used with it (excluding, of course, the Warp effect.) So it seemed like a needless critique to make and not one I've ever heard before in regards to this movie.
And I still don't think the reuse of the BOP shot was all that bad.
The Reccaper criticizes the movie for making the Enterprise-B an Excelsior-class vessel. This critique is silly for a couple of reasons. First of all, that the Enterprise-B was an Excelsior-class had already been established, or at the very least suggested, by the lineage wall in the E-D Observation Loung/conference room. Secondly any "cheaping out" decision on the part of the filmakers would be negated by it being a modified Excelsior-class and the new SFX shots used with it (excluding, of course, the Warp effect.) So it seemed like a needless critique to make and not one I've ever heard before in regards to this movie.
And I still don't think the reuse of the BOP shot was all that bad.
As said above several times. Stock footage usually is not a bad thing. However, using the exact same footage from the climax of the previous film as the climax of your next film truly reeks of cheapskateness (is that a word?
)This was supposed to be the entrance of TNG into the movie world. It was supposed to be epic and grandiose, but ended up flat and boring, like one of the bad TNG 2 parters.
If Braga and Moore were complaining that they were given a laundry list of stuff that "had" to be in the movie, then they should have fought it. It seems the very cliches they didn't want to do are almost the exact same ones they fell back to in the next movie, and it turned out 10 times better. Go figure.
I don't deny that they bungled the movie overall and they should fought certain stuido requirments, but the whole "you can use footage from the previous movie in the climax" thing strikes me as just moving the goal posts or setting them up un-necessairly.
Was a cheap move? Sure. But when you're making a movie on a budget you've got to make cuts in some places so other places can benefit. I find it more stupid and cheap that they had two different kinds of uniforms being used in the movie on the same ship and that Frakes had to be melted down and poured into Avery Brook's uniform from DS9. Nothing would've been gained from building a new BOP model and blowing it up just for the climax scene. Why go through all of that, spend all of that money when you've already got usable footage of the ship blowing up.
And I know the Duras sisters were supposed to be in a new Klingon vessel, making it a more even match with the -D, but that was changed, likely because of the footage/budget deal. But, really, of all the problems Generations has reusing a piece of footage from the previous movie is the very least of them.
Was a cheap move? Sure. But when you're making a movie on a budget you've got to make cuts in some places so other places can benefit. I find it more stupid and cheap that they had two different kinds of uniforms being used in the movie on the same ship and that Frakes had to be melted down and poured into Avery Brook's uniform from DS9. Nothing would've been gained from building a new BOP model and blowing it up just for the climax scene. Why go through all of that, spend all of that money when you've already got usable footage of the ship blowing up.
And I know the Duras sisters were supposed to be in a new Klingon vessel, making it a more even match with the -D, but that was changed, likely because of the footage/budget deal. But, really, of all the problems Generations has reusing a piece of footage from the previous movie is the very least of them.
