Yes. I have watched it countless times with the commentary! "Who are the pink people, Johnny?" "I don't know what a digital compositor is at the end of the day."
'Trek Films: Your 'guilty pleasure'?
- Thread starter dswynne1
- Start date
The Frakes/Sirtis commentary on "Insurrection" is great. Even they bash the movie and groan over horrible writing. My favorite bit is when they make fun of Patrick Stewart's "associate producer" credit.
But that defeats the entire theme of the movie, that of accepting loss as a part of life, reconciling with this and moving on. Picard saving his family would undercut this completely as a giant reset button, nothing is learned or gained and the loss is never felt by Picard. It's a difficult and mature theme to have in your Star Trek movie, but it's damned important as it's a real fact of life. People close to us die unexpectedly and sometimes tragically and no magic wand or Nexus can do anything to make it hurt less or not feel that loss. Picard learns this lesson by the end of the film, bolstered by the loss of Kirk as well. If you don't understand the importance of this, then the entire theme of film escaped you.
That's pretty much it. Soran went crazy because he could not let go of his dead family, and was ready to kill millions just to get to a fantasy place where he could meet them again. Picard on the other hand realized that he had to move on. He learned that by losing his family, dealing with Data's inability to handle emotions, the death of Kirk and eventually the destruction of the Enterprise.
Actually, come to think of that, that part of the script (the triangle of Soran, Picard and Data) is really well done.
Actually, come to think of that, that part of the script (the triangle of Soran, Picard and Data) is really well done.
I understand that if Picard had saved his family it would have been trickery (and we weren't really that close to his family) so thats why the film didn't do it.
It doesn't explain why Picard the character didn't do it.
If I had the magic wand or Nexus like they do in Star Trek I would save my family. Just like Janeway saved her 'family' in VOY.
I need the Guinan hand-waving suggested by someone else. Or something. The butterfly effect. It happened so recently that no great harm would have been done. Otherwise Picard seems just a guy who obeys the rules no matter how arbitrary they are. That he has no heart. Sure he cries for his nephew but when a solution is in hand he's not going to disobey Starfleet rules except say in INS when a good-looking girl is involved.
The only problem I see with it is how could then Picard preach to Soran it was wrong to use the Nexus to save his family when Picard had just done the same thing.
Then it escaped me. I think this film sucks.
But back on topic, my guilty pleasure is TNG. I don't think it's good Star Trek, I barely consider it Star Trek at all, but I watched it all. And bought some books.
Actually, Picard didn't HAVE to move on. He'd made it to the Nexus, and unlike Soran, didn't murder millions to do it. He could have sat back and enjoyed his fantasy family in the Nexus.
Agreed. I especially like the subtext in the Stellar Cartography scene. Data is struggling with his first experience with negative emotions and Picard is trying to help him even as he is struggling with his own grief. It's mostly unspoken, but it's there and it's pretty powerful.
Yes, in real life it's important that we move on from loss precisely because we don't have the opportunity to travel back in time to change things. Picard does have a way. So does Soran, for that matter, whose own obsession to getting to the Nexus shows us he has never moved on from his tragic loss. So why doesn't he go back and change things? The story was so poorly thought-out, I'm amazed the movie even got made. The crappy script undercuts its own theme.
Still don't get how he was supposed to do that.
Let's say he leaves the Nexus in France to save his family from the fire. Then he's on Earth with no means to get to the Enterprise. He would go to Starfleet and they would go "What the fuck are you doing here?" and he says "I, err, time travelled" and they call Sculder and Mully to arrest him.
Or he leaves the Nexus aboard the Enterprise. He contacts his brother and advices him to watch the candles (or whatever caused the fire) and his stubborn brother is like "Yeah right, Jean Luc." And then he moves on to arrest Soran for no reason (because he didn't do anything yet). Explain that to the crew who don't know anything about the Nexus at that point.
Well, if we assume trilithium is a controlled substance, which seems likely, then Picard would just need to take the Enterprise to Veridian, where Soran had a rocket all ready to blast into the sun. That's assuming there wasn't enough evidence at Amargosa to hold him. I imagine Guinan would be willing to provide testimony if it came to that.
There are no more significant plot holes in Generations than there are in any other Trek movie, and actually LESS than in the other ones with time travel.
Ask yourself why the Borg don't just travel back in time from the Delta Quadrant rather than coming near Earth to do it?
You might just as well say that First Contact is so poorly thought out that it's amazing it got made.
I ask that question about FC and if the Borg can travel through time why not just do it again when Picard is busy romancing Anji?
Yes every Star Trek film and every film has its flaws.
However in GEN the central plot device was the Nexus - a plot device that kept on giving and giving. When the writers couldn't think of how to solve a problem they just gave the Nexus extra capabilities. Not only could you use it to travel through time (by thought waves?), you could travel through space as well. And you didn't age. And it fulfilled your greatest (lamest) fantasy. And even when you weren't in it, it still affected you.
Even if you blindly accept that a natural phenomena like the Nexus had all these great powers how is Picard not figuring out just to go back and arrest Soran before he caused any trouble is less stupider than the Borg actions in FC?
A-hah, I've never thought of it like that! Hopefully one day some youtuber can just string together all the Klingon scenes to further the point.
I would think that if such a plot device, if used that way, would defeat the entire theme of the movie, then the theme of the movie itself would have to change or the plot device needs to be scrapped, and in both cases necessitates another draft to be written. But as I understand it, with the writers stretched thin between this movie and "All Good Things", as well as deadlines imposed by the studio to meet the Thanksgiving theater rush, there was simply no time to address these issues. As such, the theme of the movie and the major draw of the movie don't exactly jibe together, if Kirk's being used merely as a prop in Picard's story.
If Paramount hadn't already pre-sold it for Winter of '94, they might have gone back to the drawing board and tried to fix it. Nimoy and Meyer both turned down directing it, citing script issues, with Meyer being particularly unkind. Paramount either didn't agree, or felt the deadline was more important.
The character set-ups don't match the payoff and the entire story falls apart as a result.
Kirk's setup: He can't stand a quiet retirement; what he really longs for is to be back in the action. If only there were some way to get what his heart truly wants.
Kirk's payoff: He's now in the Nexus, which gives him what he really wants, and what his heart truly desires is... a quiet retirement? Huh?
Picard's setup: He's pondering the life he sacrificed, the family he forsake, the fact that there will be no more Picards.
Picard's payoff: He gets a family in the Nexus, the life he never had. But he very quickly leaves it behind and goes off to convince Kirk to go back with him, to makes difference, to get back in the action... which is what we were told Kirk wanted at the beginning of the film and so shouldn't require convincing.
The way each character was set up, it should have been just the opposite. Each character was given the other character's payoff. It should have been Kirk trying to convince Picard to go back. Obviously, the writers want their main hero to take the active role, but then if that's the case the writers needed to rewrite the setups instead of changing gears in the middle of the script and writing a totally different story. You can get away with a lot of stupidity in movies as long as the payoff matches the setup.
The sad thing is that I feel "Generations" had the most potential of all the TNG films.
