Star Trek: Where did the Next Gen movies go wrong?

Honestly...my beef with First Contact was that it was Voyage Home in Next Generation form. (nothing against Voyage Home really...but rehash is a auto-degrader.

Earth...wow...there's an exciting setting for a space epic.

Time Travel...despise time travel, especially when it involves changing or RESTORING things...too much of the "Mr. I'm my own Grandpa" paradox stuff for my liking...and of course, this is generally ignored or dismissed by the writers or left on the editing floor.

 

The thing with the time travel in FC was that it was very confined. Little to no chance of grandfather paradoxes or whatever. Also, despite having restoring the time travel bit, it was nowt like TVH. TVH was rubbish for a start and secondly FC's primary theme was more to do with Picard confronting and overcoming his vengeful feelings towards the Borg.

 

Overcome? He overcame nothing! If he were REALLY vengeful, he would've blown up the Enterprise as soon as he knew the Borg had collected there. All that happened was that he recognized that he could never forget or detach what the Borg did to him...he gets his vengeance anyway.

And the primary plot was getting the ugly ship with the TNG "extra" into space. (Sorry Cromwell, you'll always be the bureaucrat who locked up soldiers to me)

 

Picard overcame his lust for vengence when he ordered that the ship be blown up and he stopped going around killing every Borg in sight. Blowing up the ship straight off the bat isn't getting revenge as it's far too impersonal. He wanted to kill them individually, which is ultimately pointless with a race such as the Borg. He acknowledged after his conversation with Lily that he'll never get revenge and that it would eventually destroy him, his crew and his ship (hence the Moby Dick reference).

 

A brilliant scene, I might add.

 

I'm only a casual Trek fan but one thing really bugged me about the movies. Data's emotion chip. First he had it, then he kinda had it, then it was gone. I thought it would be a sub-arc through the movie series, but instead they seemed to be afraid to make such a change. This was driven home when they killed him but game themselves that stupid out with B4. A series that is afraid to change their own status quo is hard to respect.

 

I thought it was pretty obvious why Picard didn't want to blow up the ship. If he did, how would they ever return back to their own time?

 

Which is why the vengeance had not consumed him...he was still rational enough not to want to blow up his means of returning his crew to the future.

Moby Dick, Smoby Dick...I saw a man scared to lose more ground to the Borg and even more scared to admit that they bothered him in an intimate way. What really happens is he overcomes the "fear" not the hate or "revenge" he seeks. When he stares down the Queen, it's as a collected commander of doom...not some tranquil "oh I'm not worried about you" hippie.

Problem with the Moby Dick analogy...Ahab never was gonna get the whale...his death or giving up the hunt were his only choices...Picard doesn't face that...he still gets his victory...and if you truly "like" that scene, then the way the film turns out is a slap in the face, because it plays out just as he wanted before the scene...they stop the Borg, restore history, and the Enterprise is safe. What happens in that scene is that Picard accepts another sacrifice in the hopes of stopping the Borg.

"this far, no further...and I will make them pay for what they have done." That's not vengeance...it's fear...fear of loss, fear of all those people he would have to tell can never go home because he couldn't beat the Borg.

It's a bad reference that is broken by the "happy" ending. If Picard dies, or they are stranded...then the Moby Dick thing works...instead we get the end result of a man who may have been overcoming something getting exactly what he wanted from the start.

Picard is afraid of the Borg...simple as that.

 

Picard did give up his personal vengeance in order to save data. Its data who secures the victory in the end.

 

I like the comment about the emotion chip, but it isn't the only dumb change.

The Series: "Well, I have this emotion chip I could install to be more human."
"What are you going to do with it?"
"Put it away. It's a cheat. I wish be become human by myself, not with a magic gizmo some writer cobbled together for me."
The Movies: "I installed my emotion chip today. WHEEEEEEEE!"
"Um, why? What about?"
"Oh, that was just me being juvenile and so that the writers for the rest of the season wouldn't have to worry about continuity. WHEEEEEEEEE!"

THe Series: "I don't want the ___ procedure. It might improve my natural vision, but it would interfere with my ability to use my visor."
The Movies: "I just had my eyes souped up! Coolness! That ___ procedure works great!"


Herman Mellville is one of the most bloated and over-rated authors of all time. If he were an operating system, it would make Windows Vista look like a smooth, easy-flowing, compact, efficient code structure.

Seems like the Spider-Man movies went the way of Batman: First movie, 1 villan; 2nd movie, 2 villains; 3rd movie, 5 villains... Constantly upping the ante while forgetting that the key to success is in the character interaction, not the FX or cameos.

 

You have a point about the emotion chip, but Geordi getting the optic implants (or whatever they were) is easier to explain. The technology could have advanced to the point where he wasn't losing any of the features the Visor had. Either that, or he got sick of losing fights just because someone knocked the Visor off.

 

One Word: Lasik!

 

Geordi was completely blind though without the VISOR or the optics in the last three films.

 

Didn't Insurrection say that the planet's healing powers allowed Geordi to see without the visor? Maybe he found a way to make that effect permanent.

 

Yep. It sure did.

The process reverses itself once he leaves Ba'ku and he has the implants put back in, as seen in "Nemesis".

 

I have a Nemesis question.

Why is everybody "ZOMG Picard clone!" when they first see Shinzon? The only resemblance I see is a bald head and pale skin. Also, why WAS Shinzon bald, since IIRC there was a TNG episode flashback with a young Picard who had hair?

 

I didn't make that connection until it was announced on screen. Shinzon's hair was likely a result of a personal choice, rather than a result of the cloning.

 

And actually in other pictures and such from the series, the young Picard was bald...I believe there is even an academy photo of him bald...which contradicts the episode you refer to where he gets into the bar fight right after graduating from the academy.

He's also been portrayed with "thinning" hair while commanding the Stargazer.

And of course, in the episode where the transporter makes him a little kid, he had more hair then Troi! (j/k)

Truth be told, it's the only visual reference they could make to say "Picard, meet Picard 2.0"...and it was a lame plan anyway.

 

Didn't they say something about yadda-yadda syndrome causing the clone to age and degenerate, even to the loss of hair?

 

I assumed he was trying to be more like the Remens, who were hairless.

 

Next Gen movies went wrong with Nemesis.

Nemesis failed as a movie because ... well because it was, simply, an absolute failure of a movie.

First of all, the concept was atrocious. A clone Picard? From the Romulans? And I thought Sela concept was bad. That has to be the most implausible plot of *any* ST film -- including Generations.

Plus, the execution was just as bad as the concept (the whole dune buggy chase sequence thing was entirely pointless, that Romulan ship was preposterous, the portrayal of whole "death" scenario, B4, Shinzon's medical issues, the violation of Troi, etc.)

And what was the point? If you are itching for a TNG flick, just throw in First Contact. And if you want to see a story *like* Nemesis, just put in Wrath of Khan. It's a far superior film. And it doesn't scuttle the entire franchise.

As for Insurrection ... I agree that it was little more than an extended two-part TV episode, but I rather enjoyed it. Plus, it was done with far more competence than Nemesis.

 

Care/Interest? I'd buy that.

Competence? Considering it's basically the same team doing it, competence could only improve by inevitability of experience.

Truth is, Insurrection was the last one they cared about...EVERYBODY dialed in Nemesis.