'Trek Films: Your 'guilty pleasure'?

[dswynne1]

Okay, I know that there are a bunch of "polls" out there, so I do hope to bring something slightly different.

Now, we all have our favorite 'Trek film, and we all have an opinion on what we think is the worst, but what is your 'guilty pleasure'? Meaning, you know it's bad or okay by film standards, but you like it because you were either entertained by the film, or there are enough elements within the film to enjoy the film. So, what is your guilty pleasure?

Well, for me, it's 'The Final Frontier'. Besides being a train wreck, I did enjoy the cheese of that was the Klingons trying to get Kirk and crew, but we're practically ignored by Kirk and crew (kind of how the Road Runner all but ignored Wiley Coyote). Amusing.

So, what's your guilty pleasure? I have more, but I am. Curious as to what you guys think...

 

[trevanian]

I don't feel guilty about loving TFF at all. I do feel generally feel bad about enjoying TUC, because of all the character assassination, but there's nice contrast levels in some of the imagery.

 

[Smellmet]

I suppose it's Nemesis for me - for all it's many problems, I absolutely love it, especially the battle at the end

 

[Skywalker]

Definitely Nemesis for me. I think part of it is because if just a couple of scenes were removed and couple of deleted ones were added back in, it could have been a fairly decent movie.

 

[lurok]

As above, TFF and Nem for similar reasons. And I've always said the Frakes-Sirtis commentary version of INS is the only way to watch that movie.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Probably Generations. The movie sets up Picard's dead family, then hands him the means to save them on a silver platter, but seems to forget all about it in favour of a somewhat contrived crossover with Kirk. Despite this, I still enjoy the movie quite a lot.

 

[Amaris]

No guilt at all. I like all of the Star Trek movies to some degree, and am just about always in the mood to watch any of the films if one of them pops up on TV.

 

[AgentCoop]

Generations for me. I'm not blind to any of it's numerous shortcomings, but I absolutely love that movie.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I suppose my "guilty pleasure" would have to be INSURRECTION. Everyone hates this movie and I'm not unaware of the reasons why. However, Bev and Deanna look great, in it ...

 

[JarodRussell]

The movie sets up Picard's dead family, then hands him the means to save them on a silver platter

Well, not really. What was he supposed to do? Appear in France and save them from the burning house? Would there be two Picards then? Or would the Picard on the Enterprise vanish, and then not be around when they get the order to investigate the attack on the space observatory?

 

[Commishsleer]

The movie sets up Picard's dead family, then hands him the means to save them on a silver platter

Well, not really. What was he supposed to do? Appear in France and save them from the burning house? Would there be two Picards then? Or would the Picard on the Enterprise vanish, and then not be around when they get the order to investigate the attack on the space observatory?

Yes of course save them.

The other Picard would have been on ship not in France. No worries.

Some people have debated the ethics of Picard saving his own family. I have no problems with it. If I were Picard I would even beg Q to save them.
But dealing with Q always come with a hefty price to pay.

Why not save his family before he deals with Soran. In fact why not just arrest Soran. Sorry, sorry I'm going to start my GEN rant again.

 

[JarodRussell]

But how does he get from France to the Enterprise, and how would the original Picard deal with a "clone" that wants to play with the timeline?

 

[Commishsleer]

But how does he get from France to the Enterprise, and how would the original Picard deal with a "clone" that wants to play with the timeline?

Can't you just jump around to any time and any location while in the Nexus?

 

[inflatabledalek]

But how does he get from France to the Enterprise, and how would the original Picard deal with a "clone" that wants to play with the timeline?

Whilst I fully agree there should be two Picards, there should also be two Picards present at the point he does go back in time in film, but past Picard just sort of... vanishes? And Picard doesn't seem surprised by the absence of his younger self so he was clearly expecting it (indeed, a two Picards team up would be just as much use as a Kirk/Picard one). Presumably the same would apply no matter when he went back.

It's possible Moore and Braga were thinking of a Quantum Leap style thing with Picard entering his younger self (there's one for the slash fiction crowd), but that doesn't really make sense of Kirk being able to come out without anyone to leap into...

I agree your thinking makes more sense, but basically the rules of the Nexus boil down to "It does whatever the fuck we want and let's hope no one is paying too much attention".

Of course, all Picard really needed to do to save his family and stop Soran was go back to the Enterprise a few days before (replacing his younger self as he wound up doing anyway...somehow), send a message off to Earth warning them about the fire and then place Soran under arrest when he comes onboard.

Hell, he doesn't even need to be all that avert with that last one, if he'd just refused the Doctor's request to go back to his lab (as he seemed to be about to do before all the "Time is the fire in which we burn!" stick) most of the problems would have been avoided.

If Picard is prepared to break the Temporal Prime Directive thingey in order to save a planet full of strangers (quite rightly as they only die because of his slightly embarrassing failure in his fight with Soran) he'd definitely do everything he could to save the family the film goes to such great lengths to say he loves so dearly as well.

Especially coming right after All Good Things where he cheerfully told his crew the futures he'd seen for them specifically to try and avoid the various nasty or just plain dull fates awaiting them.

The annoying thing is, the "Making up the rules as we go along" thing could have been used to have him simply ask Ghost Guinan about going to rescue his family and her coming up with some handwaving reason as to why he can't- Say, the Nexus can only spit you back out within a certain distance and time of places it has travelled near.

That would actually have the bonus of dealing with why he decides to go back at possibly the worst single moment he could have picked (whilst crawling under a rock being blasted by Soran).

Either way, with the film having made such a fuss about how much the death of his family has hurt him, when an obvious way of saving them comes up it should have at least paid lip service as to why he doesn't.

[Generation definitely falls into this category for me, I can rip it apart with the best of them but fond memories of seeing it as a kid- and liking it, I think it's repeat viewings it doesn't stand up to- carries it through].

 

[DonIago]

I don't even own a copy of TFF at this point, so instead of calling it a guilty pleasure I'd have to just call it guilty.

I'll say the first "half" (as I think of it in my head) of TMP. I kind of get into everything up to the part where the E enters V and the viewscreen staring contest begins, and then my interest level just plummets.

Does anyone else feel the first "half" of the film is better-paced than the rest, and that if the film had maintained that pacing it might have a better reception in general? Just curious.

 

[sonak]

I don't even own a copy of TFF at this point, so instead of calling it a guilty pleasure I'd have to just call it guilty.

I'll say the first "half" (as I think of it in my head) of TMP. I kind of get into everything up to the part where the E enters V and the viewscreen staring contest begins, and then my interest level just plummets.

Does anyone else feel the first "half" of the film is better-paced than the rest, and that if the film had maintained that pacing it might have a better reception in general? Just curious.

the first half is better paced than the second half yes, but it's still pretty slow. There's a long period of just loving, indulgent shots of the refitted Enterprise while Scotty and Kirk stare at it.

 

[Alrik]

I suppose my "guilty pleasure" would have to be INSURRECTION. Everyone hates this movie and I'm not unaware of the reasons why.

This would probably be mine as well. I know it's largely loathed by many, but I simply don't care. I guess that's why it would be a guilty pleasure.

 

[Mycroft Maxwell]

Same here. Insurrection is my favorite TNG movie. Definatly the most in spirit to Star Trek. Definatly a guilty pleasure because a lot of people bash the heck out of it. But at least it made #1 at the box office its opening weekend...

 

[Melakon]

The closest thing I have to a guilty pleasure regarding Star Trek movies is I still can't figure out how they did Spock's beam down to disintegrating Vulcan with a moving camera shot in ST2009. I'm guessing a digital double is in there somewhere.

 

[BillJ]

I can watch any of them except Insurrection. It simply doesn't work for me on any level.