Would the TNG movies have benefited from a continuing story?

[Charles Trip Tucker III]

Re: Would the TNG movies have benefited from a continuing st

See, this is why the TNG movies aren't as good as the TOS movies. In the TOS movies, people grow and move forward. In the TNG movies, people are stagnant and regress. If someone does move forward like Data or Worf, they end up regressing within a movie or two.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Re: Would the TNG movies have benefited from a continuing st

I guess in one sense the TOS crew grew and moved forward, because they aged, and that aging was acknowledged (particularly in TWOK and TUC), and you had various promotions (Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Sulu).

But in general, though... at the end of the day, except for Sulu, they're all still at the same posts they'd been manning for the past 25 years, essentially on the same ship. What kind of growth is that? So personal growth sí, career growth not so much.

 

[Charles Trip Tucker III]

Re: Would the TNG movies have benefited from a continuing st

Character growth does not necessitate career growth. They all got promotions, but it's clear that they wanted to stay together on the Enterprise. Given that they saved Earth in TVH, it's not unreasonable for Starfleet to give the big seven special permission to stay together on the Ent-A despite three of them holding the rank of Captain.

 

[Tomalak]

Re: Would the TNG movies have benefited from a continuing st

cardinal biggles said:
Don't blame NEM, they started playing it safe from the get-go. In FC, Data can turn the emotions off at will; in INS the chip is no longer fused to his neural net, and he apparently leaves it in his sock drawer for the whole mission. So much for progression of character.

Does he even have it in Nemesis? That was the problem with Data in the movies - Moore and Braga handled it fine, but Piller obviously couldn't get a handle on it, so he decided to leave it out, as a naive Data fitted the 'jokes' better. I love Mike Piller, but that was a mistake.

The less said about Logan the better.

In hindsight, Insurrection was probably a mis-step. It was just so throwaway thanks to Stewart's demands for a lighter movie. I don't think any of that is Piller's, or even Berman's fault - I hate to bring back the Heart of Darkness pitch, but it could have been interesting.

Nemesis was too little, too late. If it had happened around summer 2000, it would probably have been better received. Naturally, the script would have needed to be completely different...


So in answer to the original question, yes, the TNG movies would have benefitted from more continuing threads in the films. Paramount seems to think audiences are stupid, and will be turned off by continuity within a film series - it certainly didn't hurt the TOS movies, or the Alien series, or Star Wars for example.

 

[diankra]

Re: Would the TNG movies have benefited from a continuing st

cardinal biggles said:

Hirogen Alpha said:

Charles Trip Tucker III said:

cardinal biggles said:
Don't blame NEM, they started playing it safe from the get-go. In FC, Data can turn the emotions off at will; in INS the chip is no longer fused to his neural net, and he apparently leaves it in his sock drawer for the whole mission. So much for progression of character.

I didn't mind the on/off feature in FC, but I agree that it was poorly handled in INS.

What's the problem with it? In Generations, he gets the emotion chip for the first time, and has trouble adapting to it. In First Contact, he's advanced to where he can turn it off if need be, and is still adapting to the emotions. In Insurrection, he's advanced to where he can remove the emotion chip. This is the same in Nemesis. Seems like a natural enough progression to me. It's not like Data was going to become human overnight.

Except that it defeats the point of Data's quest to be more human. Humans can't turn their emotions off at will, nor can they simply "not have them." If Data was to truly emulate humans, he wouldn't turn them off or take them out, but learn to live with them and manage them. It made for a cute bit in FC, but if anything the removal of the chip in INS and NEM actually regressed Data's character.

It was fitting the emotion chip in the first place that was the mistake - we'd seen Data progressing without it for seven years, then suddenly it's slotted into place and he's got emotions, as if everything previous was a waste of time.
Whereas the interesting aspect of the character (IMHO) was always that he clearly did have emotions, he just couldn't acknowledge that they were as valid as his those of his organic colleagues.

If they were going to use the chip, it should have been something like this:
Data fits chip in Generations.
It causes the problems we see.
Geordi removes it. Data goes very cold and logical.
Then, at the end of Generations Data cries in relief on finding Spot, WITHOUT THE CHIP, and realizes it was only ever a Wizard of Oz/Dumbo-style 'magic feather'.

Edit: Oops - always read to the end of the thread. You've said something similar later on...

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Re: Would the TNG movies have benefited from a continuing st

cardinal biggles said:
Maybe this is just because I'm looking back in hindsight, but the chip was stupid to begin with. It would have been better if Data's emotions were another group of programs that Soong had locked down until Data reached a certain level of maturity, similar to the dreaming subroutines unlocked in "Birthright."

I thought he had emotions to begin with. I mean, he basically told Armus he'd like to off him because that giant oil slick murdered the great love of Data's life.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Re: Would the TNG movies have benefited from a continuing st

Actually, a continuing storyline would have sucked if the story wasn't good enough to bring in the box office to finish it.

Standalone stories are better when the hunger for Star Trek isn't there. Treks 2, 3 & 4 were the only Trek game in town and each movie was an event. By the time Generations came out, we have free Trek back on TV and the TNG series just went off the air.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Re: Would the TNG movies have benefited from a continuing st

That doesn't mean a good arc couldn't work, though...

 

[Therin of Andor]

Re: Would the TNG movies have benefited from a continuing st

Charles Trip Tucker III said:
I agree that INS and NEM effectively regressed the character to how he was in the TV series. Besides, why would he take it out if it has an off switch?

Actually, by the last film, Data was doing some fairly emotional things - singing at a wedding; having compassion for a similar being who was unable to make the same achievements in its life; forfeiting immortality so save a colleague's life - all without the need for the chip. He'd already learned that he no longer needed the emotion chip to be more human.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Re: Would the TNG movies have benefited from a continuing st

And that's different from the fairly emotional things he did during the series -- feeling loss over Tasha's death, (almost) shooting Kivas Fajo in what could be considered revenge for Varria's murder, learning to dance for Keiko's wedding, advocating for the sentience of the Exocomps -- how?

Data didn't need the emotion chip in the first place, but once you introduce something you kind of have to deal with it.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Re: Would the TNG movies have benefited from a continuing st

cardinal biggles said:
Data didn't need the emotion chip in the first place

Sure, but he didn't know that for sure until he tried it.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Re: Would the TNG movies have benefited from a continuing st

Data was an emotional being, there is no doubt... Sure, he could be cool as a Vulcan, but Vulcans, as we all know, have emotions.