Even if some in the audience weren't specifically familiar with TNG holodecks at the time, the concept of virtual reality was very much "out there" in the public awareness by the mid-90s. I think that such viewers would generally have gotten that.
Why was it so vital that "Generations" be a "bridge" movie.
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But the problem is that the movie doesn't explain that what Picard and crew are doing is, in fact, actually a virtual reality suite. We don't see the simulation go back to the holodeck grid, for example.
For anyone out there unfamiliar with the fundamentals of TNG (and, although the show was popular, you must always assume in a movie that there are people out there who haven't seen it before), then re-establishing how stuff like that works is Basic Storytelling 101.
It may seem silly to some of us that the visual dissonance between the Enterprise-B and the HMS Enterprise would be so stark to an audience member unfamiliar with TNG, but from their point-of-view it's as strange a cut as if a Brontosaurus suddenly, randomly, had appeared in a corridor shot. It was absolutely the wrong way to introduce the 24th century Star Trek crew to an audience which the movie otherwise presumes to be unfamiliar with 24th century Trek.
No, I can't get behind that. The soft introduction to the 24th century in a holodeck sailing ship is a good enough idea. If they'd just shifted from Enterprise-B to an establishing shot of the Enterprise-D, the scenes would have blended together; the ``78 Years Later'' (or whatever it was) wouldn't even register. The introduction to the 24th Century needs to be visually distinct from the scenes before.
Waiting so long for an establishing shot of the new ship, though, yeah, that's a problem, but transitioning to the holodeck isn't.
Good idea, but for that to really work as far as the casual audience is concerned, that establishing shot would have to focus on the "NCC-1701-B" registry on the saucer changing to "NCC-1701-D," and then pulling back for a reveal of the whole Ent-D. Like the mistake my gf made, the ships just look too similar in configuration for a quick ship-to-ship reveal like what you describe above. People would think it was the same ship, only 80 years later and upgraded.
Berman originally wanted a new filming model built for the Enterprise-B because the Excelsior class had already been seen too many times in TNG. And honestly, that should have happened. The Ent-B should have been designed to look absolutely nothing like the Ent-D (for the same reason why the four background ship classes in First Contact looked nothing like the Ent-E, to avoid confusion over which ship was the Enterprise).
^ I'll grant you that an establishing shot of the Enterprise-D might have helped to sell the time-shift. But I do think they missed a trick in failing to explain the holodeck at all to audiences presumably unfamiliar with TNG. Sure, the audience can infer that it's a virtual reality suite of some description. But the fact that we don't see (for example) the program shut off at the end of the scene, and a crossfade to the holodeck grid, just makes it all seem... rather bizarre. Although on reflection, maybe the point of showing the crew still wearing their 18th century uniforms on the subsequent bridge scene was supposed to underline the virtual reality concept...
If the intention was to provide a 'bridge' for casuals and new viewers, then basic things like that need to be taken into account. That's the kind of thing you can assume when you're talking about an ongoing TV series with a loyal audience, but if the whole point of Generations was to be a bridge for audience members who may have followed the movies but not the TV show, then the lack of explanations is something of a critical error of thought.
I kind of liked the way they introduced the D onscreen with no fuss, no grandstanding etc. just like there it is ...from behind (in a beautiful FX shot)...and moving on
and as for the high seas holodeck sequence, it was done as a respite from the trauma of the Ent B action/Kirk 'death', (as opposed to following that with another action sequence introducing the Ent D fighting romulans), the strangeness of it saying 78 years later yet they are now on the high seas on the HMS Enterprise, and of course to fully indulge in the Hornblower aspect of Trek (wonder if Meyer dug that scene). it was a cool idea IMO. of course to those with little to no knowledge of TNG I can understand how theyd be confused so it probably wasn't the best way to introduce TNG to the big screen (one of the pitfalls of having the tv writers do the movie without an impartial non trek scriptwriter to step in and say 'hold on a sec' )
and as for the high seas holodeck sequence, it was done as a respite from the trauma of the Ent B action/Kirk 'death', (as opposed to following that with another action sequence introducing the Ent D fighting romulans), the strangeness of it saying 78 years later yet they are now on the high seas on the HMS Enterprise, and of course to fully indulge in the Hornblower aspect of Trek (wonder if Meyer dug that scene). it was a cool idea IMO. of course to those with little to no knowledge of TNG I can understand how theyd be confused so it probably wasn't the best way to introduce TNG to the big screen (one of the pitfalls of having the tv writers do the movie without an impartial non trek scriptwriter to step in and say 'hold on a sec' )
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Don't forget that Riker ordered the computer to remove the plank. General audiences can be smarter than we give them credit for.
^ True. I had forgotten that. 
It would be fascinating to see more observations of how first-time TNG viewers reacted to the movie. I do know SFDebris (for his sins) has said he feels the movie suffers from some degree of continuity lock-out, the exact quote being "even the backstory has got backstory".
Which, of course, isn't necessarily that big of a problem, just so long as the backstory gets explained in a fresh context. Data's emotion chip is actually a good example of this being done right, as it gets raised in terms of the earlier Dr. Crusher/holodeck scene.
It would be fascinating to see more observations of how first-time TNG viewers reacted to the movie. I do know SFDebris (for his sins) has said he feels the movie suffers from some degree of continuity lock-out, the exact quote being "even the backstory has got backstory".Which, of course, isn't necessarily that big of a problem, just so long as the backstory gets explained in a fresh context. Data's emotion chip is actually a good example of this being done right, as it gets raised in terms of the earlier Dr. Crusher/holodeck scene.
Except the ship models on the wall of the observation lounge throughout the run of TNG established the B as an Excelsior-class ship or something with the same general shape. So they couldn't have made it too different from that, not without drawing the ire of the fandom continuity police.
Well, aside from the plank disappearing, we saw the arch materialize, we heard a comm voice say "Bridge to Holodeck Three," and we saw Picard walk into a corridor that appeared in thin air.
Then again, just hearing the word "holodeck" isn't necessarily enlightening. I think it was my father who went for months or longer before he realized that it was "holodeck" as in holography rather than "holideck" as in holiday.
I didn't find it a beautiful shot at all; it was just one of the stock establishing-shot angles we'd seen dozens of times in the show. I assume they reshot it for the movie, but it could've just been a stock element of the ship. It was boring.
And they didn't even show the whole ship in that shot, just part of it. At the very least, it's a good idea to start out by giving the audience a look at the entire ship.
"Computer, locate Captain Picard."
"Captain Picard is on the fiesta deck."
"Captain Picard is on the fiesta deck."
I'm not sure if I was in a theater full of fans or not, but when Picard first exits the Holodeck and you see the normal hallways, that got a huge laugh in my theater. I remember at the time wondering why that was. I think it was because of the huge contrast between being out at sea to someone walking into a normal looking hallway.
Insurrection did the Holoship much better. They were at least able to explain it to the audience in a way that didn't feel too stilted (the old "Character as a cypher for the audience" routine). It's worth noting that Generations didn't have such a character for the audience to experience the movie with.
Insurrection did the Holoship much better. They were at least able to explain it to the audience in a way that didn't feel too stilted (the old "Character as a cypher for the audience" routine). It's worth noting that Generations didn't have such a character for the audience to experience the movie with.
If they really wanted/needed to change the design of the Enterprise-B, then a gold silhouette of an ill-proportioned Excelsior class seen hanging on a wall in a conference room for the first few seasons of TNG and then discarded would hardly have stopped them. I mean, just look at the Enterprise-C. (Granted there's minimal differences between the overall general shape of the Probert and Sternbach "C's," but my point still stands.) Heck, there was more of a continuity problem between Generations and "Relics" as far as Scotty was concerned, and fans didn't show up at the Paramount studios with pitchforks.
Despite the discussions and justifications in this thread, I think the reality is that Generations was written for and sold purely to TNG fans. People like your girlfriend would only see the movie because you (the Trek fan) took her to it. Left to their own devices, they'd never have gone otherwise.
Generations was clearly designed as if it was the first episode of the "8th season" of TNG. There was never an attempt to translate it for the mass audience. It was completely assumed that you, the viewer, knew everything about these characters, the ship, and the plot even before you saw the film. The story opens 'in medias res' because it was written that way without a second thought. The bulk of the revenue was guaranteed to be coming from Trek fans who were suffering TNG withdrawal. Shortsighted, sure, but it did its job.
Sorry, I just can't believe that. Superman has been in the public consciousness since the 1930s, and Smallville itself was touted as the beginnings of the legend even before the show started. What you're suggesting certainly can't be true (at least not for "fans" of the show).
I would argue the opposite, actually. By catering solely to the TNG fanbase and not the casual viewing audience, they set themselves up for the inevitable crash and burn that eventually happened. Sure they made some money off the fact that this was the last time we were going to see Kirk, and then bringing in the Borg, but that simply wasn't sustainable in the long run.
I'm not saying it was common, but I gather it did happen in a few cases. It's easy for those of us who are familiar with pop culture to forget that lots of people in the general public have no idea about it. Yes, everyone has heard of Superman, but not everyone has actually read a Superman comic or seen a Superman episode or movie, and so while they might have heard the name "Clark Kent" before, they wouldn't be familiar enough with it to recognize it out of context. Heck, there are tons of people out there who don't realize that Batman and Spider-Man are in separate universes, or who don't know the difference between Star Trek and Star Wars.
You can never assume that everyone knows the same things you know. Just recently in another thread, someone (I think it was The Old Mixer) made a joke about how a couple of guest stars in an old Adventures of Superman episode shared names with two members of the Rolling Stones, but I didn't get the joke because he just assumed I'd recognize the names without him needing to mention the Stones. But I didn't recognize them. I knew the name "Keith Richards" sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it off the top of my head, because the context wasn't there.
Possibly, but I also think the Enterprise was shown head to tail so that the fans could get a detailed look at the new (rebuilt) ship. In my opinion, the Enterprise is the main star of the show and showing it in detail after the refit is something I definitely wanted to see.
As far as the Enterprise-D not getting the same treatment in the movie, no time passed between the end of the series and the filming of the movie. The ship didn't change and maybe nobody thought about "introducing" the ship to people who weren't familiar with it.
Plus, I think the D is the ugliest version of the Enterprise to date. It just seemed so out of proportion, the huge saucer compared to the tiny nacelles. Some of the screenshots weren't flattering at all, epecially the ones from underneath the ship. I was glad to see it destroyed.
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I think we actually agree. I'm not saying it made a lot of money -- just that the bulk of what it did rake in came from TNG fans (and yes, this move ultimately doomed the movie ventures).
if they hadn't rushed out the movie as soon as the series ended and instead had it for 1996 (30th ann) the script problems could've been ironed out and the movie would've had a more movie like structure (less like a big episode) taking pains to introduce TNG to the big screen, new uniforms, more modification to Ent D.. perhaps then Nimoy or Meyer would've directed and maybe had a hand in the script (and GEN would've had all of TOS cast in it with a more effective death for Kirk). but then there would've been a 5 year gap between movies..
