St: Tng

[Airdave817]

Okay, so a few months ago, my wife and I are in Sam's - where you can find really good deals on some things like movies and box sets. We found all seven seasons of ST: TNG. Seemed like a pretty good price on all of them, so we got them. We just finished the last episode of the last season and the four movie marathon over the weekend.

And now I can say it...

(I've read a lot of thoughful, insightful, thought-provoking debate here on this topic, so this is probably the millionth post on this...)

I get it now why the four movies turned out the way they did. TNG pretty much wrapped up all the cool storylines before going to the bigger screen. They still had the Borg, but other stuff, like Lore, or Sela, or the Maquis - which was probably over on DS9, was never touched. Generations was what it was because they had already done at least two Classic Treks with Spock and Scotty. Bones had cameo'd in the pilot.

I liked the films, don't get me wrong, but taken in context, viewed back to back after the series, they were just a little flat. Generations gave me a headache off the holodeck with the lighting and the staggered uniform changes. Soren was an awesome villain, Guinan was cool. But it didn't seem to gel or come together...like the earlier Spock or Scotty episodes.

(I know this is probably the millionth post...)

Thoughts?...Snark?...

[Mikey]

I think Next Gen's movies were lousy for 1 main reason.
Before they were even cancelled, they were already filming their first movie.
Not a good idea.
It made them look like primadonnas that thought they were owed the passing of the Trek movie torch.
I'm not saying it couldn't happen someday, but it was too soon.
Doing this made their movies just look like big screen TV episodes.
A TV episode is way more forgiving if there happens to be a few clunkers.

IMO, they rolled the dice and lost because they didn't give the public a little time to WANT to see them reunited.

They took us (the fans) for granted.

[Hector]

First Contact was great...all the others sucked.

[Mikey]

First Contact was great...all the others sucked.

But, was First Contact really that good ? .. Or did it just not suck ?

First Contact was decent, but I seen a lot of Next Gen episodes that were a lot better.

I think First Contact is over-rated only because of what it's compared too -- ie, the rest of the Next Gen movies.

[Seeker]

First contact..... Shudder...... It still boggles the mind, Borg can be easily killed by 1920s machine guns. The zephran Cochran from TOS (Even if the alien made him young again) was actually a hippy??!!???.

The BORG. Whoes whole premise of being a hive minded collective now have a Queen???????????????

If your going to write a screen play at least scan the source material

[huedell]

I think Next Gen's movies were lousy for 1 main reason.
Before they were even cancelled, they were already filming their first movie.
Not a good idea...
I'm not saying it couldn't happen someday, but it was too soon.

IMO, they rolled the dice and lost because they didn't give the public a little time to WANT to see them reunited.

I never even considered a plus side to a pregnant pause between the
end of the NG series and their big screen debut.

I think that's a very insightful point.

They were greedy in my opinion because a year or two year pause
would've mostlikely helped more than hurt.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I don't think the Next Gen movies work well due to the characters, and the chemistry (or lack there of) with the actors. The series writers figured out ways to do plot-driven stories that put the characters through their paces most of the time. When they were moved to the big screen, audiences expected spectacle with some emotional ups and downs. I don't feel the characters were ever interesting enough for anyone to deeply care about them. To me, the tv series seemed to be more about a Starfleet crew and not THE Starfleet crew, which is the feeling you got from TOS. TOS was a personal look at the lives of space explorers in the future, not a somewhat exciting procedural featuring the same characters every week, like TNG. ST:TNG sometimes seems like Dragnet in Space. Not to say TNG didn't have some exciting episodes, but it was almost like they were the exception, not the norm. DS9 took this to new levels of boredom for me.

Even though Picard, Data, and Worf had countless episodes to flesh out their characters, to me, they never seemed as interesting as the barely explored Bones, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov. I think it was combination of minimal chemistry between the actors, the writing, and the characters themselves.

Chris

[Captain]

I think Next Gen's movies were lousy for 1 main reason.
Before they were even cancelled, they were already filming their first movie.
Not a good idea.
It made them look like primadonnas that thought they were owed the passing of the Trek movie torch.
I'm not saying it couldn't happen someday, but it was too soon.
Doing this made their movies just look like big screen TV episodes.
A TV episode is way more forgiving if there happens to be a few clunkers.

IMO, they rolled the dice and lost because they didn't give the public a little time to WANT to see them reunited.

They took us (the fans) for granted.

Exactly!!

They just rolled from tv, into shooting the movie, literally the next day. Berman didnt even want to have any kind of a "passing of the torch" movie, as he felt TNG was the end all and be all of Star Trek, but Paramount insisted, so Berman--a notorious hater of the good old Star Trek---came up with a lame script, and refused to work with Paramounts choice of director (Nimoy) on a better one. Nimoy jumped out of the production, taking DeForest Kelley with him, and we ended up with a lame movie neither classic no TNG camp really wanted to make.

[Captain]

I don't think the Next Gen movies work well due to the characters, and the chemistry (or lack there of) with the actors. The series writers figured out ways to do plot-driven stories that put the characters through their paces most of the time. When they were moved to the big screen, audiences expected spectacle with some emotional ups and downs. I don't feel the characters were ever interesting enough for anyone to deeply care about them. To me, the tv series seemed to be more about a Starfleet crew and not THE Starfleet crew, which is the feeling you got from TOS. TOS was a personal look at the lives of space explorers in the future, not a somewhat exciting procedural featuring the same characters every week, like TNG. ST:TNG sometimes seems like Dragnet in Space. Not to say TNG didn't have some exciting episodes, but it was almost like they were the exception, not the norm. DS9 took this to new levels of boredom for me.

Even though Picard, Data, and Worf had countless episodes to flesh out their characters, to me, they never seemed as interesting as the barely explored Bones, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov. I think it was combination of minimal chemistry between the actors, the writing, and the characters themselves.

Chris

More excellent points.
What character dynamics TNG did have, were thrown completely out the window in First Contact, and the following movies as well. They tried to turn Picard into an action hero, and with the exception of Data, pretty much ignored the rest of the cast.

[Mikey]

I will give Next Gen credit for one thing -- but this is not necessarily a good thing ..

I think the Next Gen crew were more REALISTIC then the Classic cast.

Picard was basically a boring stuck-up Captain that don't want to get his hands dirty-- which is more realistic then Kirk

Worf always has a bug up his *** and nobody knows why or cares -- (I know a lot of people like that)

Geordi is the ultimate Captain's asskisser

Troi secretly can't figure out why a Starship needs a counselor, so she's always pushing herself on others to make herself look and feel legit.

Riker is about the only Character that's interesting ... I think because he's basically Captain Kirk.

Data is a Harry Mudd robot ... He should only be on the show for a quick laugh.

Crusher is a very realistic character ---which makes her very boring ...... Give me Pulaski anyday...

Yar wasn't bad -- see Geordi

All these charcters are TOO realistic for good and interesting story telling.

[huedell]

I will not bust on TOS too much Mike ---I feel bad enough about the other Trek threads going on----but I always liked TNG much better than TOS
because I felt that TOS was more dry while TNG had suspense, humor
and "character soap opera" relationships that TOS didn't seem to
employ in excess until their movie outings.

If I was to describe the NG characters it would be as follows....

PICARD---to me was like "Frasier Crane In Space". His stuffiness
was key in making for conflict with just about everyone in the
show and I thought that was awesome.

RIKER- Fun at times. Nice to have a ladies man around---and it was importnat
to have that one "hero stud" aboard, but really what else did he have to
offer except as a good back up for Picard when Picard was in some kind
of jeopardy major or minor.

DATA-The most fun character on the show. It was like having
a naive Superman on the bridge.
The fact that he was an android with a wacky history (family etc.)
added a huge amount to the show and the potential for intersting plots
that TOS could never have touched on as they had nothing like Data
as part of their regular crew.

GEORDIE- Nerd. And really they could have played on that more but didn't in
my opinion.

CRUSHER---MOM IN SPACE! She bored me.

TROI-JUST as I said above about Data,the fact that she was an empath
added a huge amount to the show and the potential for intersting plots that
TOS could never have touched on as they had nothing like Troi as part of
their regular crew. Plus her previous relationship with Riker was a boon
to plotting as well.

WORF-Perfect character decision---a Klingon on a Federation bridge. Nuff said. (That and the fact that how he hated ever backing down
made for great drama again and again)

YAR---just like Wesley I never really gelled with her character and she (they)
were gone pretty quick anyway.

[Earth 2 Chris]

DATA-The most fun character on the show. It was like having
a naive Superman on the bridge.
The fact that he was an android with a wacky history (family etc.)
added a huge amount to the show and the potential for intersting plots
that TOS could never have touched on as they had nothing like Data
as part of their regular crew.

No offense Hue...but...uh...Spock?

GEORDIE- Nerd. And really they could have played on that more but didn't in
my opinion.

One thing I did appreciate was the fact that they didn't make the characters necessarily likeable. Geordi had a nasty underbelly, like many nerds. The episode where the engineer comes on board he admires, and she finds he had a holgram copy of her...that raised some interesting questions about Mr. LaForge.

But over all I'd rather spend an hour a week with characters I like, rather than ones I find intersting due to their flaws. Esp. in a sci-fi fantasty/adventure show.

Chris

[huedell]

No offense Hue...but...uh...Spock?

I can't nearly take offense as I DID consider Spock when I said this---

Spock has the mindmeld and the neckpinch---and he had the
wacky dramatic family--

but being an A.I., Data is entirely more superpowered than Spock
AND his family is that much more of trip for me.

Point taken though.

The episode where the engineer comes on board he admires, and
she finds he had a holgram copy of her...that raised some interesting questions about Mr. LaForge.

That's cool, because I love that episode for Geordie's character too.

Sadly, it's the only one I can remember that really does well by the
character in that regard.

[Airdave817]

Boldly going...?

I think Next Gen's movies were lousy for 1 main reason.
Before they were even cancelled, they were already filming their first movie.
Not a good idea.
It made them look like primadonnas that thought they were owed the passing of the Trek movie torch.

Interesting.

I love TOS much more than TNG. I think characters like Q, The Borg, Lore, Sela, The Klingon Empire and some of the other characters introduced in TNG were pretty cool. But, I noticed how they completely ignored The Mirror Universe - until DS9; and Time Travel wasn't touched until near the end of the series. I liked the Holodeck, but it was handled more like a drug, or an escape - that more often than not didn't work right - to be worthwhile. Or, worse, the crew didn't know how to interact with holodeck characters...

I don't know so much that there was a crying need for a TNG movie right away after seven seasons. I would have enjoyed a torch-passing adventure more than Generations.

Probably the rush to the big screen or box office cash register hurt the movies...

[Gorn Captain]

Everybody's jealous because Data is fully functional, and can keep going for hours....

Seriously, I still love TNG. It had some weaker episodes, yes, but it was a pretty serious take on the whole Trek phenomenon. Klingons became more than guys with shoe polish on their face and a goatee. They had a whole culture.
They tackled some serious issues. Like prisoner torture (great episode with the Cardassians), dementia (with Sarek slowly losing his mind), rape (with Troy undergoing a forced mindmeld).
I have to applaud them for being brave enough to put this in a SciFi show.

So as far as I'm concerned, my hat's still off...