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Shinzon reminds me of Dr. Evil
and don't get me started on "young Picard".
I mean there already was a young picard. And he surely wasn't bald as a child.
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So I just watched Star Trek Nemesis
- Thread starter TheVampire
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Shinzon reminds me of Dr. Evil
and don't get me started on "young Picard".
I mean there already was a young picard. And he surely wasn't bald as a child.
Team Filler
Member
Nemesis is the nadir of Trek movies, what an awful and frustrating piece of garbage. Into Darkness, Insurrection, and Final Frontier all look excellent when compared against the turd that is Nemesis. The dark mirror motif only works in a meta-sense by comparing how low this movie is against how high of a high Undiscovered Country was for sendoffs.
Nemesis did nothing in that regard that the previous films didn't already do, unfortunately. I always thought that was a little shit, seeing as in the show they were an ensemble cast. There were fan favourites, sure, and Picard and Data both topped that list, but that didn't mean they had to push Beverly and Geordi so far to the side they had nothing to do. I see nothing wrong in a TNG film that would have a storyline focused on Crusher.
All of the actors were individually strong enough to carry a film based on them.
A thread about ST:N can't be complete without a reference to Plinkett's review.
Team Filler
Member
Whoa there, let's not get carried away. I understand and agree with needing more Geordi in their stories, but Gates McFadden never exactly blew me away with her acting on the show (I'm assuming you're not talking about Wesley). I don't know that I'd pay money to sit through 2 hours of story led by Beverly Crusher.
Really? I always thought she was very solid. Not that she was often given great scripts to work with. Though she was involved in production more before TNG.
Team Filler
Member
I'm not saying she's bad, and it definitely could've been a case of not writing her well enough, but I know I'd take a Geordi or Worf-centered movie before any of the other crew.
except for Barclay, maybe
In a film full of shite I did quite like the battle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx4yZBdSBsg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTPdWYo9zhQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTPdWYo9zhQ
I think we'd all take a Worf centred film, hehe. Geordi got a nice bit in Insurrection when he could see again, and during a sunset, but that's pretty much it for him otherwise. No character development at all for him, and most of the others when it comes to it. I'm not saying I'd see a film with a Crusher-centric storyline over a Worf one, I just mean to say that she, like all the others, were all solid enough actors that they could have pulled it off.
The ensemble cast of the films was ruined to make way for Action Picard and Data Has Emotions Now - Comedic Effect!.
Action was about all the TNG films did well on, for the most part.
Feel like there was just a fundamental disconnect with all of those TNG films. The original series had a fun kicky-punchy element which could withstand being dialed up a bit, but TNG didn't, so the action just seemed very strange. I think Worf was carrying a rocket launcher around in one of them. Not good for fans of the series and at the same time just TNG-esque enough to not be a good fit for people looking for a random action movie.
Everyone loses, let's make four!
Everyone loses, let's make four!
In fairness, there were a few assorted action-obsessive TNG episodes, such as the one where Picard channeled his inner Die Hard while making horse references. Turning TNG's four films into sequels to that episode was a questionable decision though to be sure. I think the fan favorite, First Contact, is pretty good, and Nemesis is significantly better than most give it credit for, but Generations is not a good movie and Insurrection is not a good movie either.
TNG's cinematic adventures definitely would have benefited from a bit more arc; the way Trek II-IV (and really, VI as well) all interlocked continues to fascinate me. Even nuTrek isn't clicking that well between installments thus far, and we live in an age where standalone filmmaking at the big-budget level is never a good suggestion among distributors.
TNG's cinematic adventures definitely would have benefited from a bit more arc; the way Trek II-IV (and really, VI as well) all interlocked continues to fascinate me. Even nuTrek isn't clicking that well between installments thus far, and we live in an age where standalone filmmaking at the big-budget level is never a good suggestion among distributors.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
First Contact was a great movie but it had a stupid set up (another single Borg vessel that just came out of nowhere) and I believe that Picard got the Borg trauma out of his system in "Family", "I, Borg" and "Descent". Having him suddenly go all PTSD on the Borg was totally out of character. Maybe you could argue that the Queen's presence was fucking with him, but even that was a massive retcon.
But yeah, Movie Picard == Action Picard and all that.
You learn something new every day.
Yeah, it was a pretty flimsy excuse to get the most exciting bad guys on the show - the Borg - up onto the big screen where they could shine. And they did, to be fair, but yeah the Queen and Picard going berserk was pretty stupid.
possibly the worst ST movie I've seen, it's just awful all around
also, I don't see how Picard going berserk against the Borg in First Contact was that far fetched. After all these guys got to his ship, extabilished their HQ right away and basically forced him to self-destruct. The Enterprise is everything for Picard, and seeing it being raped, pillaged and ultimately destroyed made him go out of his way. Completely understandable IMO
also, I don't see how Picard going berserk against the Borg in First Contact was that far fetched. After all these guys got to his ship, extabilished their HQ right away and basically forced him to self-destruct. The Enterprise is everything for Picard, and seeing it being raped, pillaged and ultimately destroyed made him go out of his way. Completely understandable IMO
It's really bad. The problems are numerous:
-The TNG films kept trying to create "Picard's Khan" and it never worked. Shinzon was probably their lamest attempt of them all. Honestly First Contact works much better as "TNG's Wrath of Khan" since at least their Picard is facing the enemy that hurt him the most (The Borg).
-Shinzon sucks as a villain. I love Tom Hardy and his performance isn't bad, but Shinzon plans/motivations make no sense, he goes about them in just about the most idiotic way possible, and he never once comes across as a "dark mirror" for Picard. More like Picard's bratty son.
-Plotholes.
-It's the Picard and Data show again, how original.
-The dune-buggy scene was really stupid, and the "mind rape" scene was unnecessary, gratuitous, and stupid.
-Data's death falls completely flat, and it's basically undone like five minutes later (so it's also pointless).
-They finally had the chance to use the Romulans as the villains in a movie, and they go for these lame Nosferatu-rip offs instead.
-It feels very phoned in. The cast and crew just didn't seem to have anything left in the tank.
Honestly this film, combined with Star Trek: Enterprise's failure, showed that the "old guard" just didn't have it anymore. A (kind-of sort-of) reboot was necessary.
-The TNG films kept trying to create "Picard's Khan" and it never worked. Shinzon was probably their lamest attempt of them all. Honestly First Contact works much better as "TNG's Wrath of Khan" since at least their Picard is facing the enemy that hurt him the most (The Borg).
-Shinzon sucks as a villain. I love Tom Hardy and his performance isn't bad, but Shinzon plans/motivations make no sense, he goes about them in just about the most idiotic way possible, and he never once comes across as a "dark mirror" for Picard. More like Picard's bratty son.
-Plotholes.
-It's the Picard and Data show again, how original.
-The dune-buggy scene was really stupid, and the "mind rape" scene was unnecessary, gratuitous, and stupid.
-Data's death falls completely flat, and it's basically undone like five minutes later (so it's also pointless).
-They finally had the chance to use the Romulans as the villains in a movie, and they go for these lame Nosferatu-rip offs instead.
-It feels very phoned in. The cast and crew just didn't seem to have anything left in the tank.
Honestly this film, combined with Star Trek: Enterprise's failure, showed that the "old guard" just didn't have it anymore. A (kind-of sort-of) reboot was necessary.
The problem is that Picard has encountered the Borg post-Best of Both World's before this, and he's NEVER been that psychotically obsessed with them. Hell he turned down the opportunity to wipe them out for moral/ethically reasons. So him being almost frowthing at the mouth insanely vengeful here feels really ooc.
It's a problem with the TNG films as a whole, you sometimes have to wonder if the filmmakers even watched the show. And they certainly didn't seem to truly understand it a lot of the time because they kept missing the point. Also, the characters have either regressed (Data being the most prominent of these) or act ooc a lot of the time (Picard). Plus "Picard the action hero" just doesn't work and the show was set up NOT to do that. So the movies trying it was doomed to fail.
I actually hate Insurrection most of all, but that's more for personal reasons.
-TFF is at least enjoyable on a "lets have some drinks with friends and laugh at it's stupidity" level.
-Into Darkness, I actually thought that that was pretty decent. It had flaws to be sure, but it was hardly terrible.
-Nemesis was just blah.
Nemesis being a poor TNG sendoff is largely negated in my mind by TNG's excellent series finale, to say nothing of the many fine "novelverse" adventures post-Nemesis. For me, so long as there's a delightful ending somewhere, I'm never really bothered by further continuation. If it's bad I just ignore it and go about enjoying life to the fullest. If it's good, all the better. If, as is the case with Nemesis, I find it decent-ish but neither appalling nor incredible in the slightest, I just... don't have much to say about it.
The only really jarring thing in my mind is how "Star Trek X" depicted the promise of a brighter future in Federation-Romulan relations, whereas "Star Trek XI"... well, took a different direction with the subject.
The only really jarring thing in my mind is how "Star Trek X" depicted the promise of a brighter future in Federation-Romulan relations, whereas "Star Trek XI"... well, took a different direction with the subject.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
The Borg were also essentially turned into "Zombies In Space" by First Contact.
Before First Contact their motives for assimilation were essentially "this is how we learn about stuff" with a greater focus on technology than flesh.
In First Contact they actively sought to assimilate people, and their assimilation process took literally one-touch and a few seconds to take hold. That and they had a darker, more "rotting" appearance rather than the techno-albino appearance in the series.
So yeah, zombies in space.
I don't mind this as much as it made them more threatening. That scene where some officers forced their way into a dark room with the red lasers suddenly appearing was great. But I can't help but feel that converting the Borg from a near-unstoppable technological menace into a more flesh-and-blood enemy paved the way for Voyager to completely neuter them.
Final Frontier had some good interactions between Kirk, Spock and McCoy. But the entire movie was a William Shatner fanfic with some Z-grade special effects.
Into Darkness was a vacuous popcorn movie that followed a scriptwriting formula to a tee.
Nemesis was so bad it killed the movie series, and it left a giant pile of shit as the TNG crew's legacy.
Insurrection, as already noted 1000 times, felt like a glorified feature-length episode. But they'd already covered this angle with their episodes regarding removing settlers from the Cardassian border. That and the entire conflict in the movie seemed incredibly forced.
This thread inspired me to watch the Plinkett review again.
http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-trek/star-trek-nemesis/
http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-trek/star-trek-nemesis/
Lucky Forward
Member
The TNG episode "Inheritance" (7th season) had already made reference to Data having an aging program.
That was one of my biggest problems with most of the Trek movies -- nearly all of them had a villian they had to kill in the end, which was so unlike both TOS and TNG. Those series had so many instances of Kirk/Picard reaching out to an adversary and trying to come to an understanding. In the movies it was just "blow up the bad guy at the end." People nowadays might laugh at the production values of "Arena" where Kirk fought the lizard-man Gorn, but for me it was one of the defining moments of the series when he refused to kill his fallen enemy.
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