The Star Trek The Next Generation movies

[Deja Q]

Poll question: The Star Trek The Next Generation movies

'Generations' and 'Insurrection' are intellectual-oriented.

'First Contact' and 'Nemesis' are action-oriented.

All four have elements of intellectualism and action, but the general themes are more prominent in one group rather than the other.

Which do you prefer?

[YankeyMCC]

1. I prefer a good story

and that requires a balance between action and intellectual (I'm taking that to mean, character development, exploration of ethical conflicts and of aspects of society)

When I think of the best of Star Trek it is usually the stories that have a little less action and more intellectual bent. I think that is the best balance for the Star Trek universe. That's probably due to the lack of rigorous development of the science of the Star Trek infrastructure. The Enterprise was just a means to find interesting stories, in the best Trek stories the technology or phenomena they encounter might be well developed but the Holodeck, warp drive not to mention the economics and political strucutres of the Federation and Star Fleet are just window dressing barely propped up to get us to the story.

There's nothing wrong with that per se as long as the writers recognize this and take it into account, unfortunately it often seeps into the rest of the story turning into excessive technobable.

All four of the movies you listed had their good points and bad points. I liked the premise of Nemesis and there was a lot of interesting intellectual aspects in terms of character development but it feel down a lot in science side. But I think it may have come the closest to a good balance for Star Trek. Insurection is a close second but I just can't get past the whole flying by stick and banking the ship stuff. ;)

[Deja Q]

2. Hmmm...

A good balance is best, but when there's more of one than the other, which drives your preference?

(I second your argument re: intellectual.)

'Nemesis' had some okay ideas, but it was so much mush that what few set-pieces that were there... it's garbage. Never mind how much was ripped off from Treks II and III, including actual lines of dialogue. John Logan gets most of the blame for that non-script, but why did Brent Spiner make it central to Data? Why were all the other regulars left out?

I also prefer the joystick scene in Insurrection over Nemesis' infinitely more annoying "ram the two ships in deep space and use reverse thrusters to pull apart" idea when, in space, there is no way that would happen.

[YankeyMCC]

3. Lines of dialog were ripped off?

Which ones? I'm not being argumentative I just hadn't heard that before - at least I don't recall hearing of it.

As for the ramming ships - no it's not likely to be quiet as neat a separation but given that Trek (at least most post-TOS stuff) ignores inertia it's not surprising and a ramming maneuver may indeed be a tactic that could be used in space warfare. Again not as neatly perhaps given the likely fragility ships but again Trek often ignores that aspect of reality. I've seen/read the ramming thing in other good SF. Asimov's Robot/Empire/Foundation for one. But for me the violations in that sequence pale compare to what's often seen in Trek.

And for the Data-centric character development. Yeah, it's nice if you can get good development for more than one character, but I'll take one good character development over none any day. And I think Piccard got some decent development out of the story too.


As for driving my preference if heavy action and little intellect I'm not interested. And vice-versa. So I guess I'll say if it isn't a good story I'm not interested period.

[Deja Q]

7. To absent friends...

The whole Data 'farewell' scene by the bridge crew doesn't get more obvious (stolen from ST3, wine glass toasting and all).

The backdoor of B4 becoming Data with the engrams and all that technobabble is even more a obvious copout; talk of Spock's soul was far more compelling than "Oh we swapped parts with yet another clone of Data over the 15 years we've been a tv series..."

True, Trek has ignored physics in the past - in the past it was also naive (such as in 'Obsession' when the creature gets into the ship's air vents. Uh, wouldn't air vents leak all the air out of the ship?!) but by 2002, they knew better.

"Nemesis" had potential, but was too full of itself, they couldn't find an old villain so they made up a new one (using the flimsiest of ideas that redefine 'contrived'), and limits itself to Data and Picard. This wasn't an ensemble piece, and we didn't even get to see the Titan either...

Indeed, the only scene in Nemesis when people cared was when Riker said "Do the Kirk maneuver"; people cheered over Kirk's name being said.

[Orrex]

8. I've been thinking about this, on and off

Never mind how much was ripped off from Treks II and III, including actual lines of dialogue.

I confess that I didn't catch that, but I hadn't seen ST:III in many years either, so I probably just forgot. Anyway, if I had to guess, I'm sure that Logan would say that he meant it as an homage to the original cast, in a sort of ham-fisted Easter Egg kind of way. Not that this lets him off the hook, but I feel better about it if I assume that he wasn't trying to rip off one of the previous films without thinking that anyone would catch him at it.

I also prefer the joystick scene in Insurrection over Nemesis' infinitely more annoying "ram the two ships in deep space and use reverse thrusters to pull apart" idea when, in space, there is no way that would happen.

Why not? I'm likewise not being argumentative, but I'd like to hear your expanded thoughts on the matter.

After all, it's been shown already that inertial dampers can be knocked offline (ST:VI), but if they're still functional (as perhaps they were on the Scimitar--were we told otherwise?), then it makes "sense" that the Scimitar might remain relatively stationary while the Enterprise backed away, especially if we permit some (truly non-canonical, but what the hell) technobabble about different "frequencies" of inertial dampening fields or whatnot.

While I'm on the subject, here are five more things that were cool about Star Trek: Nemesis

1. At one point the Scimitar is observed to be "firing through its cloak," which may be the first time I've ever heard a cloaking device so explicitly (and IMO satisfyingly) likened to an actual cloak that one might wear for concealment.

2. Data's spacewalk. We've known since Datalore that deep space doesn't really hurt Soong androids, but it was gratifying to see it used here. And it's about time!

3. First Trek-use of realtime text messaging during combat. A very minor detail, but I liked it.

4. Perhaps the first time that Troi's "talent" was put to good use. Every other previous application of her "empathy" gave about as much info as you could figure out for yourself from a brief handshake.

5. Riker finally accepted a commission.

To be sure, it's not a great film, and certainly it wasn't a stellar performer at the box office. But it had at least a few points in its favor, so I'd probably watch it again if it were to show up on tv.

[trotsky]

4. I prefer the intellectual-oriented but First Contact was a fine film.

Nemesis, however, stunk like a moldy turd. I think I'd rather sit through 10 re-screenings of ST 5:Why does God need a Spaceship? than watch Nemesis again.

[Orrex]

5. Nemesis had four things going for it IMO

1. Dina Myers (say what you will)
2. The battle sequence, complete with rollovers and phaser volleys, whereas most (all?) previous ST space battles seem based on a sequential fire/wait/repeat methodology
3. No one has ever seen Ron Perlman outside of six hours' worth of heavy duty prosthetic makeup. What you thought was Ron Perlman in Alien 4 and The Last Supper was simply the most elaborate makeup of all.
4. "Thaleron" is a cool-sounding word


And is it possible that this was the first wheeled Federation vehicle ever shown in Trek? I can't think of another, unless one showed up in ST:ENT that I'm forgetting.

[Orsino]

6. They've managed to screw up the intellectual.

First Contact was right good. I enjoyed parts of Insurrection, but otherwise the TNG crew's movies have kinda stunk. Not completely, but sometimes mostly, as with Nemesis.

Gratuitous dune buggy.