What sunk the TNG movie franchise: Insurrection or Nemesis?
What sunk the TNG movie franchise: Insurrection or Nemesis?
- Thread starter The Overlord
- Start date
Nemesis, but it was already over before it tanked. I could be wrong, but I don't think they planned on making more TNG films. Would have been hard to do without Riker being Picard's first officer.
And I'm one of the few people that actually like Insurrection.
And I'm one of the few people that actually like Insurrection.
Insurrection took all the great press of First Contact and threw it down the drain.
And Star Trek 11 would have had Riker as the main character because I rememeber reading Patrick Swewart wanted to return to the stage.
The problem with Insurrection was that the story wasn't worth doing as a movie.
It was a big "WHO CARES"?
I don't understand why they just didn't dump it and start over with a new story.
Well the problem is the writer was Michael Pillar, who is a TV writer, not a movie writer, that is why the film seems more like an episode. The movie reflected ideas that Pillar was interested at the time.
Pillar's "Best of Both Worlds" two parter is more epic and cinematic than Insurrection ever was.
Both films. They went big with First Contact, the story felt smaller with Insurrection, but then again there were a lot of changes to the script. Nemesis was their last shot to get it right again. There was a 4 year gap to get fans hungry for a new movie and a story that was supposed to be TNG's TWOK was envisaged. I think if it had been a success we might have gotten at least one more movie from the TNG crew.
The irony is that Insurrection feels smaller than First Contact, even though FC was actually much cheaper to produce, and was confined to sets and a limited amount of location shooting (whereas Insurrection had quite extensive location shooting). I still can't work out why it is that FC just feels so much more epic. It's gotta be the script. Something in that story just helps to pull the audience along for the ride more. Insurrection always loses me early on and never quite manages to get me back on side again.
I know I've said it on here before, but I still believe that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the conception of Nemesis. It all really went south in the directing/editing, imo. Some of the best bits were left on the cutting room floor.
I know I've said it on here before, but I still believe that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the conception of Nemesis. It all really went south in the directing/editing, imo. Some of the best bits were left on the cutting room floor.
For me it was Insurrection. I lost quite of bit of interest in the franchise after that debacle.
Well, there were two things that were completely out of Piller's control:
1) Stewart and Spiner had creative input.
2) Paramount had locked in a release date before Piller was ever hired to write the movie.
Star Trek: Insurrection was a total team failure as far as I'm concerned.
The problem with Insurrection was that the story wasn't worth doing as a movie.
It was a big "WHO CARES"?
I don't understand why they just didn't dump it and start over with a new story.
Well the problem is the writer was Michael Pillar, who is a TV writer, not a movie writer, that is why the film seems more like an episode. The movie reflected ideas that Pillar was interested at the time.
Well, there were two things that were completely out of Piller's control:
1) Stewart and Spiner had creative input.
2) Paramount had locked in a release date before Piller was ever hired to write the movie.
Star Trek: Insurrection was a total team failure as far as I'm concerned.
Both.
Insurrection did, because the movie series was doing well up until that point. INS made more than $20 million less than FC. It practically disappeared from theaters after a few weeks, and didn't make an impact in fandom. Its performance was why there was a four-year gap before the next movie, at that time the longest such gap.
By the time Nemesis came out, the movie series had been sunk by INS.
By the time Nemesis came out, the movie series had been sunk by INS.
I really liked Nemesis. Insurrection, not so much.
How about Enterprise? It was in the middle of a wave of fan negativity and plummeting ratings. Now, from the people who made this crap - the sequel to that other crap!
How about Enterprise? It was in the middle of a wave of fan negativity and plummeting ratings. Now, from the people who made this crap - the sequel to that other crap!
I didn't mind Insurrection in the slightest, but it did feel like an enormous anti-climax after the relative high of First Contact. I think the rather "meh" feel of Insurrection, combined with it's limited impact on Trek fandom, and complete lack of impact on the general public doomed Nemesis before the terrible script had even been written.
The biggest thing that sunk the TNG movies, in my opinion, was growing creative and studio indifference to the franchise. It had become a cash cow to be milked for $70-90 million every few years, and Paramount never really cared about or invested in the production.
The blueprint for profitable, mass-appeal Star Trek was established successfully when First Contact grossed $146 million worldwide, but Paramount never saw fit to capitalise on it in any meaningful way. Insurrection and Nemesis were both products of creative burnout and studio indifference.
The biggest thing that sunk the TNG movies, in my opinion, was growing creative and studio indifference to the franchise. It had become a cash cow to be milked for $70-90 million every few years, and Paramount never really cared about or invested in the production.
The blueprint for profitable, mass-appeal Star Trek was established successfully when First Contact grossed $146 million worldwide, but Paramount never saw fit to capitalise on it in any meaningful way. Insurrection and Nemesis were both products of creative burnout and studio indifference.
After FC, INS was a pretty big letdown but it still felt like a ST:TNG story. Nem, aside from a few parts, was a mess IMHO, particularly given the continuity issues (Romulans, Data/B4). After having so many stories over the years about Klingons and other species, I was pleased that they had finally decided to have a movie featuring Romulans.......except it didn't really. It primarily featured a human Picard clone (who wasn't really a clone-Patrick Stewart playing both roles would've been better IMHO) and a whole other race that we hadn't heard about as the primary adversaries. Next up we have ANOTHER Data clone that isn't Lore (what a wicked twist it would have been if it was) that we had never heard about before either. Had integrating the story and characters into it not been too difficult, Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges into a full-length movie would've been a better Romulan story IMHO. A post-Dominion War storyline involving the Romulans (one of the few remaining AQ powers following the DW as Sloan correctly predicted) was a good idea but executed terribly, unfortunately.
What's funny is that we get a Romulan adversary for the NEXT movie as well but, again, he is an outcast as well. The political intrigue stories on TNG/DS9 were what made the Romulans so interesting and would've helped make NEM better IMHO.
What's funny is that we get a Romulan adversary for the NEXT movie as well but, again, he is an outcast as well. The political intrigue stories on TNG/DS9 were what made the Romulans so interesting and would've helped make NEM better IMHO.
Nemesis, but Insurrection but it in a vulnerable position.
There was the four year gap to try and build up anticipation, and if it was a good film it could have worked. Also, I remember the old joke of "it's a even number so it'll be good" going around, so fans hoped the series could be saved.
But then it came out. Introduced the weird sister race to the Romulans, which lost a lot of the impact of using them. Tom Hardy as a young Picard cloen could have been brilliant, and by the look of the test footage, it very well could have been. We know from his more recent work he can be amazing, but whether it was his serious drug problems or the director it went wrong. Costume designer didn't help either.
That said, Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner did want off. Spiner in particular was getting very aware that he couldn't be an un-ageing android any more. That's why Data died, though why they then introduced B4 never made any sense to me. I always assumed it was a Get Out of Jail Free Card that some execs insisted upon.
There was the four year gap to try and build up anticipation, and if it was a good film it could have worked. Also, I remember the old joke of "it's a even number so it'll be good" going around, so fans hoped the series could be saved.
But then it came out. Introduced the weird sister race to the Romulans, which lost a lot of the impact of using them. Tom Hardy as a young Picard cloen could have been brilliant, and by the look of the test footage, it very well could have been. We know from his more recent work he can be amazing, but whether it was his serious drug problems or the director it went wrong. Costume designer didn't help either.
That said, Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner did want off. Spiner in particular was getting very aware that he couldn't be an un-ageing android any more. That's why Data died, though why they then introduced B4 never made any sense to me. I always assumed it was a Get Out of Jail Free Card that some execs insisted upon.
Yes! I don't understand why they didn't just do this. Perhaps the studio, writers or somebody believes for movies there always needs to be a guest star villain? Perhaps to draw in a wider audience? Who knows. That seems to be the pattern for the most part. Anyway, I also think the film would have been much improved with Stewart as the clone.
This too!
From what I remember locally (in the UK) when Nemesis came around there was very little interest in a Star Trek movie, I went to see it a couple of days after it came out and there were very few people there (3 and then myself and my friend). Compare this to a Star Wars movie or most other films and you see that no one cared.
If you want to blame one of the films you have to blame the film before it, people went to see it and didnt enjoy it, so why go and see a sequel?
The Star Trek franchise had run its course and become stale as well as having a massive stigma attached to it...I enjoyed the last 2 movies, they werent amazing Trek but good Trek, the general audience plus many other Star Trek fans didnt agree and from what I saw didnt bother to even see Nemesis at its release.
If you want to blame one of the films you have to blame the film before it, people went to see it and didnt enjoy it, so why go and see a sequel?
The Star Trek franchise had run its course and become stale as well as having a massive stigma attached to it...I enjoyed the last 2 movies, they werent amazing Trek but good Trek, the general audience plus many other Star Trek fans didnt agree and from what I saw didnt bother to even see Nemesis at its release.
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