What TNG episode would you pick?

[Admiral Shran]

Disaster

It gives Picard a chance to grow as a character by placing in a life and death situation with children.

It gives Troi a chance to do something heroic without crashing the ship.

It allows Riker and Data to be the "action" heros.

It allows Worf to play comic relief (something they seemed to love in the movies for some reason.)

 

[DonIago]

^The main problem I'd have with Disaster as a movie is that for the most part the principals end up separated from each other. I like my Trek movies to show the main characters working together. One of the things that irked me about the TNG films was that they tend to end up with Picard in one place and Riker in another...and paradoxically Picard tends to end up in the more dangerous area despite being the captain.

 

[Candlelight]

I would go for a combination of episodes so they flesh out and complement each other, for instance how would Relics and Pegasus mash together?"

 

[los2188]

When I started this thread my pick was also Yesterday's Enterprise, but I think it should have been the 1701-B just the way it was in Generations with Kirk and crew going into the future while defending the Klingons against the Romulans especially given that the last movie before Generations had to do with Kirk, the Klingons, peace, and to a smaller extent the Romulans. There would be so many continuity aspects that would be great to play off of like Worf's ancestor defending Kirk and McCoy, the Khitomer Massacre by the Romulans, the feud between the Mogh and the house of the Duras, etc. It would have been perfect!

 

[Gojira]

To me it's like, duh, Yesterdays Enterprise-- except with the original crew going back to save history. Not just Spock, but the whole crew sacrificing themselves to save the Earth, the Fed and galactic peace. The Ent-A going back into that anomaly phasers and photons blazing and convincing the Klingons that humans were better as allies than adversaries!

I like that idea!

 

[Atticus]

Redemption part 1 and 2 hands down in my books.

This

 

[Balrog]

All Good Things

Q should have been given a shot on the big screen. They could have done so much with this.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Contagion and Parallels would be my personal picks.

 

[Candlelight]

Cause and Effect.

How many loops can we get through...

 

[WNMHGB]

Cause and Effect and Parallels are neat episodes, but I don't see them having the broad appeal necessary for a movie. Redemption is epic, but requires knowledge of the back story. Again, these episodes illustrate the strength of episodic TV over movies for Star Trek.

The Chase stands out as having had potential for a great movie. I remember wishing it were a 2 parter when I watched it. The underlying story and idea are clever and strong enough to sustain a 2 hour movie. It's high concept, but also compatible with lots of action and adventure. It address a key mystery of Star Trek lore, but doesn't require one to be a hard core fan to understand.

A high profile actor could've been brought in to play Galen. Ocett could've been developed into a more menacing villain. In a nutshell, it could've been Star Trek meets Indiana Jones. Sean Connery, though landing him would've been a strech, as Galen would've been a nice hat tip. I would've made the Cardassians the main enemy and limited the Klingons and Romulans to cameo roles.

 

[RAMA]

The Chase is especially worthy. It has a mammoth storyline with immense implications and could have supported epic scale.

Yesterday's Enterprise would be second.

RAMA

 

[CaptainStoner]

"Who Watches the Watchers" would have made a much better feature IMO than INS.

 

[jgalley]

"Darmok"! It's my favorite TNG ep., and it very nicely captures what Star Trek is All About (TM)---reaching out to other lifeforms in order to better understand ourselves. And Paul Winfield was an amazing actor!

Darmok was a great episode but just wouldn't have worked...too "enemy mine"-ish.

All Good Things would have been good. with higher production values etc.

also I like the idea of Yesterday's Enterprise but replacing the E-C with Enterprise-A. They said they wanted a "transitional" movie when they started making TNG movies and that fleshed out into a 2 hour movie with Kirk's Enterprise being the one that defended the Klingon Outpost which brought about the alliance would have been a MUCH BETTER "passing of the torch" then Generations was. And we could have seen Kirk's et al's deaths not be cheaply done and/or gimicky...plus the Nexus..while a cool concept..just added too many holes in the plot.

So in the end...Yesterday's Enterprise, with Kirk commanding the Enterprise-A as the one that came through that Time-Rift. Expanded into a movie. That would have been an awesome flick.

 

[Anwar]

Yesterday's Enterprise

Best of Both Worlds

Descent

 

[Starbreaker]

Yesterday's Enterprise would have been phenomenal. Tapestry could have also worked.

 

[DonIago]

I would not have cared to see Tapestry as a movie. Not only is it essentially a reset button but it doesn't even involve the bulk of the TNG actors.

As for Descent...seeing the entire Enterprise crew involved in a full scale search-and-rescue operation for Data might have been pretty cool, and I'm sure the Borg battles could be nice to see with a big budget, but I think leaving Crusher in charge requires a larger suspension of disbelief than the average movie-goer is willing to undertake, and even as a two-part tv episode Part 2 was far from TNG's best hour...for that matter, Part 1 wasn't all that hot.
There's also the fact that Descent is contingent on "I, Borg". I think showing the more well-known Borg would be a wiser course of action than focusing exclusively on a splinter group.

Though, to borrow slightly from the novels, if a movie featured Hugh's group of Borg fighting against the Collective, that could be much more compelling. I believe I was actually hoping for that back when Descent first aired.

 

[doubleohfive]

(... and just to throw it in, if they were making a novel into a movie, I think Peter David's Vendetta would have been a way better Borg movie than First Contact, too!)

Oh Christ, no!

I just finished reading Vendetta for the first time since I was a little kid. I love Peter David's stuff, but this one was just awful. Sure, it's got lots of neat fanwanky interconnectivity to TOS, but it just reads like a bad episode script translated to prose.

Shelby doesn't do anything but roll her eyes and wish she were back on the Enterprise, Korsmo is an ego-maniacal blowhard with no sense of perspective or priorities, Picard spends the first half the book a horny, distracted idiot and the Rhianon subplot doesn't really do much to make the subplot itself worthwhile -- and continues the tiring cliche of Geordi being absoltuely pathetic with women.

Some of the cameos are nice -- seeing Pulaski again, Shelby ... but I wouldn't want to see this adapted as a film.

If you want to adapt a Peter David novel to film (and I'd certainly start with him if you're going to mine the novels) I'd suggest Q-Squared or perhaps the first Imzadi. Both were epic tales and Q-Squared especially seems ripe for the big screen.

 

[Anwar]

Wrath of Khan needed viewers to have watched "Space Seed" beforehand, didn't stop anyone's enjoyment.

Same if they made BOBW into a movie, since it would require "Q Who?" being seen before.

 

[DonIago]

I don't think TWOK is as difficult to understand without Space Seed as Descent is without I, Borg, especially if you assume the average movie-goer would be expecting the "Resistance is Futile!" Borg. I suppose flashbacks could be used to fill in the blanks, but technical considerations aside I'm not sure that wouldn't end up feeling a bit clunky.

I'd argue that BoBW is also easier to follow without Q Who? than Descent is without I, Borg.

Of course, without seeing an actual script we're just speculating anyway.

 

[TrekAlliance92]

"11001001" - Already an episode with cinematic scope, you could expand on the Bynars, have some great special effects with new Spacedock scenes and maybe add some action in as well--perhaps Picard/Riker having to fight off someone taking advantage of the fact that they are the only ones on the ship.

"The Arsenal of Freedom" - Expand the visual effects and add in one of the weapons going after the rest of Starfleet, maybe even Earth.

I also second the votes to "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "Parallels."