STV:TFF - How did this POS get made?!?

[RobertScorpio]

Wow. That looks appallingly bad.

It was co-written and directed by William Shatner. Did you actually expect something good from an idiot who has never once demonstrated the ability to comprehend any task more complex than that of walking, talking and waving his arms on cue in front of a camera?

TGT

Well...when you win your next emmy, let me know...when you make your first million let me know..when you are considered an Icon, let me know....You're just envious because of where your life is and where his life is...he has a song JUST for you...its called HAS BEEN....

Reality is a bitch, isn't it..

Rob

 

[trekkerguy]

I love TFF. It's one of my favorites. It's far, far, far superior to NEM, which was the first Trek movie I got to see in a theater.


J.

Nemesis was the third I saw in theatre, but the other two I saw as a little kid,
The Undiscovered Country and Generations.

But I love Nemesis and The Final Frontier... and well the other 8 Trek films
to this point.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

I quite enjoyed TFF simply because it felt like a longer than usual episode from TOS, so i can forgive if for its dire FX......its a fun romp.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Whilst I wouldn't say TFF is the best Trek movie, I certainly don't think it's the worst. The FX aren't the best but there's more to Trek than FX.

The "secret pain" bits are good and Kirk stating that we need our pain to be who we are is very like TOS, where Kirk makes speaches about what makes us human.

It also doesn't take itself too seriously - Spock neck pinching a horse for example.

The Klingons destroying the Voyager probe is also amusing and possibly aimed at TMP?

It seems to me that Shatner tried to make an action-adventure movie with more than just mindless entertainment behind it.

 

[Gepard]

Wow. That looks appallingly bad.

It was co-written and directed by William Shatner. Did you actually expect something good from an idiot who has never once demonstrated the ability to comprehend any task more complex than that of walking, talking and waving his arms on cue in front of a camera?

TGT

I gave no indication of my expectations. I just think it looks appallingly bad and said so.

 

[Tulin]

Wow. That looks appallingly bad.

It was co-written and directed by William Shatner. Did you actually expect something good from an idiot who has never once demonstrated the ability to comprehend any task more complex than that of walking, talking and waving his arms on cue in front of a camera?

TGT

Well...when you win your next emmy, let me know...when you make your first million let me know..when you are considered an Icon, let me know....You're just envious because of where your life is and where his life is...he has a song JUST for you...its called HAS BEEN....

Reality is a bitch, isn't it..

Rob

That's a bit harsh, doncha think?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Well...when you win your next emmy, let me know...when you make your first million let me know..when you are considered an Icon, let me know....You're just envious because of where your life is and where his life is...he has a song JUST for you...its called HAS BEEN....

So The God-Thing needs an Emmy before he can critique Shatner's achievements, but you don't need an Oscar to tell everyone that "Nemesis" is terrible?

And I thought TGT was an icon, at least around here...

 

[GalaxyX]

I have an Emmy, so I can critique Nemesis all I want

 

[Maurice]

The Klingons destroying the Voyager probe is also amusing and possibly aimed at TMP?

Ahem. Pioneer 10. Ahem.

Well...when you win your next emmy, let me know...when you make your first million let me know..when you are considered an Icon, let me know...

When there's a more cogent argument than "he's successful, so shut up", let me know.

 

[Lord Garth]

I've produced two (public access) series and I have a degree in Communication. I'm qualified too!

The "qualifications" game is a slippery slope because it's really just a stick-measuring contest whenever soemone tries to pull that card. How long is your rod? "All lesser people will be silenced!"

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Well...when you win your next emmy, let me know...when you make your first million let me know..when you are considered an Icon, let me know....You're just envious because of where your life is and where his life is...he has a song JUST for you...its called HAS BEEN....

Reality is a bitch, isn't it..

Rob

Reality is, Shatner did not become an icon because of his writing and directing skills

 

[Gepard]

I have an Emmy,

What for?

 

[Maurice]

I have an Emmy,

What for?

Bookend.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Well...when you win your next emmy, let me know...when you make your first million let me know..when you are considered an Icon, let me know....You're just envious because of where your life is and where his life is...he has a song JUST for you...its called HAS BEEN....

Reality is a bitch, isn't it..

Rob

An infraction for trolling is a bitch, too.

When are you people going to remember that you attack the post, not the poster?

 

[The Grim Ghost]

As much as I dislike STV, at least McCoy got some good character development out of it. 3, 5 and 6 are the only movies where he really gets to do anything substantial. What a waste of a great actor!

 

[cardinal biggles]

Oh, you know what, I just thought of another thing.

They give Emmys for TV, not for movies. Nobody was discussing The Practice or Boston Legal (which is what Shatner won his two acting Emmys for); they were discussing his directing of a theatrically released motion picture.

Last time I checked, neither William Shatner nor The God Thing had won an Oscar. So I guess that means they're on the same level, and TGT can attack the Shat's career with abandon.

Carry on, my wayward sons. Carry on.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Last time I checked, neither William Shatner nor The God Thing had won an Oscar.

Would this be an opportune moment for me to reveal that I am actually Steven Soderbergh?

TGT

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Last time I checked, neither William Shatner nor The God Thing had won an Oscar.

Would this be an opportune moment for me to reveal that I am actually Steven Soderbergh?

TGT

Hey! More Sex, less Lies and Videotape, you artsy-fartsy hack!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Sorry..NEMESIS is the movie that killed the Golden Cow...ask Berman...V at least has some scenes most people can bare to watch..NEMESIS? What does it have? A plot that is lifted from Khan, even they admit to that. A villain that makes a Tribble look like a killer...and, sorry, Patrick Stewart comes off as bored in this movie, and it shows...

TREK V I have watched from time to time..I can say, beyond a doubt, I will never watch NEMESIS again...I used the DVD as a frisbee last year, and even then, it nosed dived (like its box office) and shattered into crumbs..

Sorry, but TFF could suck golf balls through a fifty-foot garden hose. I didn't think much of "Nemesis" but it was nowhere near as incompetently made a film as "The Final Frontier" was.

Of course, fandom has always been rife with rumors...at one Trek convention the February before TFF was released, folks had already heard enough discouraging stuff about the movie that people joked when they saw the promotional poster in the dealer's room - the one with the headline "Why are they putting seatbeats in the theaters this Summer?" - that it was to prevent the audience from getting up and walking out.

I saw ST 5 at a "preview night" showing in Baltimore - basically, local critics and a whole lot of Trek fans in costume. The critic for the Baltimore Sun got up and left fifteen or twenty minutes into the movie, and there was a lot of fan grousing to the effect that it made TNG look good (which was really saying a lot around the end of TNG season 2).

The OP got it right: TFF was a POS.

How did TFF get made and released? The studio didn't care. It was just product. Trek fans were expected to show up and lap it up because no one out there had any more respect for us than for people who turn out for movies like "Iron Eagle."

 

[trevanian]

As a 10-year old, I remember enjoying TFF immensely in the theater. As an adult, TFF comes across as extremely rushed, cheap, and careless.

Not the worst Trek movie (that's NEM by a mile - just flat-out boring!), but it's not very 'cinematic' either. It appears to have been made with a direct-to-video budget.

What's your notion of cinematic? TFF uses the widescreen better than any of the other TOS pics for the live-action, not harshing the eye with those diopter weirdnesses from TMP and miles ahead of Nimoy's simplistic blocking.

The Enterprise was so clearly the TNG set redressed, it was jarring. Let's face it, the Ent-D wasn't cinema quality (which is why they crashed the thing in GEN.)

The props and effects were cheap, too. What can I say? The majority of the movie looks like it belongs on the small screen where you can't see the flaws.

The bridge and lounge were built specially for the film and that is where most of the action takes place. Why not reuse some corridor and a sliver of sickbay? That's economics, and all trek films have to bow to that.

As for the props looking cheap, TFF has got the best looking props in the history of trek. The phaser looks like a real weapon, fer chrissakes.

As for scale and ambition, stuff that belongs in a theatrical movie, you've got stuff like a fullscale shuttle dropping out of the sky and unloading a crew of people in one take, w/o fx.