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So I got the TNG Blu Ray Set for $59 (Best buy has it as a sale, for this week, along with TOS Season 2, which I also got on sale for roughly the same price).

Haven't watched them yet; but in my opinion; I paid for First Contact and Generations; and got Insurrection+Nemesis as bonuses.

I haven't seen Generations since 1994/95; and I'm going off admittedly hazy memories here; but Generations worked because you didn't have to rely on the TNG cast to carry the whole movie; and you actually got character development from Picard and others which wasn't stupid and retarded (ref Insurrection/Nemesis).

Malcolm McDowell's Dr. Soran was also a fairly decent villian --he could chew scenery and make it not look retarded, in the same vein as Ricardo Montalbah's Khan and Eric Bana's Nero "I expect you to die, mr pike".

Shinzon, and the So'na were utterly weak as villians went -- you never felt like they had a rationale for doing the nastyness they did.

I think your memory of Generations is more than a bit rose-tinted. Stewart, McDowell and Shatner try to save the silverware but they can only do so much when the plot doesn't make a lick of sense. The movie is basically a TNG episode stretched out to fill two hours, with some very good character work but no real coherent story to place it in.

I still like to watch bits of it (that crash never gets old), but if you haven't see in in fifteen years prepare to be bored and disappointed.

Insurrection, on the other hand, is in my opinion a lot better than what people give it credit for, as long as you keep in mind that it's supposed to be light and fun. If only the writers had made some things explicit that are only implied by the plot (mainly the Son's lying about the time it would take to reverse-engineering the ageing effect and Doherty getting played like a cheap violin) it would have been up there with the even movies.

MKSheppard wrote:Shinzon, and the So'na were utterly weak as villians went -- you never felt like they had a rationale for doing the nastyness they did.

In the original, longer cut of Nemesis, Shinzon did have an admittedly weak rationale for his actions - he knew that with or without the blood transfusion from Picard he wasn't going to live a very long life, and so by destroying Earth and setting up a full-scale invasion of the Federation, he would at least ensure that his name lived on in history.

Then the editor's scissors came in, and the end result was that Shinzon was turned into a generic BWA HA HA villain with no motives beyond the fact that he was eeevil.

It's fantastic how cheap some blu-rays are in the US - even with shipping costs, the current exchange rate (1 AUD = 0.87USD) means I can buy (region free) blu-rays from Amazon for a fraction of the cost - I picked up Star Trek TOS Season 1 and Season 2 on Blu-Ray (finally! woot for remastered) for $50 less than what I'd pay for them here, each!

Vympel wrote:It's fantastic how cheap some blu-rays are in the US - even with shipping costs, the current exchange rate (1 AUD = 0.87USD) means I can buy (region free) blu-rays from Amazon for a fraction of the cost - I picked up Star Trek TOS Season 1 and Season 2 on Blu-Ray (finally! woot for remastered) for $50 less than what I'd pay for them here, each!

Bad Vympel!

*slap*

You're supposed to be RESISTING the urge to buy more Blue-Ray disks!

When it comes to TNG, I ask, why bother with Blu-Ray? The VFX was designed for TV and does not scale at all. From everything I've heard, it looks like absolute shit. It wasn't until very late in TNG that it looked decent on DVD. Blu-Ray should look even worse.

Alyeska wrote:When it comes to TNG, I ask, why bother with Blu-Ray? The VFX was designed for TV and does not scale at all. From everything I've heard, it looks like absolute shit. It wasn't until very late in TNG that it looked decent on DVD. Blu-Ray should look even worse.

Indeed. I don't buy Trek series DVDs anyway, I just borrow them from a friend (still stuck on Voyager Season 2. Haven't watched it in over 10 months. Yeah this show bores me), but yeah TNG looks positively awful on DVD and it won't be any better on Blu-Ray. Such a waste of a landmark TV show.

The TNG movies though, I'll get the box set eventually (I already have the TOS movies blu-ray box-set).

Bad Vympel!

*slap*

You're supposed to be RESISTING the urge to buy more Blue-Ray disks!

Only at inflated Australian prices

Alyeska wrote:When it comes to TNG, I ask, why bother with Blu-Ray? The VFX was designed for TV and does not scale at all. From everything I've heard, it looks like absolute shit. It wasn't until very late in TNG that it looked decent on DVD. Blu-Ray should look even worse.

I don't believe Paramount has any current intentions to release TNG on Blu-ray, specifically because of the video mastering issues that make the show look terrible even on DVD.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:

Alyeska wrote:When it comes to TNG, I ask, why bother with Blu-Ray? The VFX was designed for TV and does not scale at all. From everything I've heard, it looks like absolute shit. It wasn't until very late in TNG that it looked decent on DVD. Blu-Ray should look even worse.

I don't believe Paramount has any current intentions to release TNG on Blu-ray, specifically because of the video mastering issues that make the show look terrible even on DVD.

They would have to remaster TNG just like they did with TOS.

Bounty wrote:I think your memory of Generations is more than a bit rose-tinted.

Finished watching it; and I agree with you that it's basically a classical TNG episode expanded to two hours. It does the job a hell of a lot better than Insurrection or Nemesis. What did make me cringe was the heavy, over the top technobabble during the movie.

What did make me cringe was the heavy, over the top technobabble during the movie.

Yeah, that hit me too the first time I rewatched it. It's especially jarring in the early scenes with Scotty; TOS characters and TNG technobabble just don't mix.

The more I think about it (i've seen only the first 15-18 minutes of FC again, up to the point where they're travelling back in time in the temporal wake) the more I like Generations over First Contact.

Sure, FC is a fun action filled romp with flaming space death, and people being killed left and right......but fucking hell, it had so many goddamn plotholes that you could drive the 1701-D through it and have plenty of clearance:

1.) The Borg Time Travel thing -- why did they wait until they had only the escape sphere to use it? Why not just use it as you approach earth with your cube?

2.) Why did they send only one cube AGAIN?

3.) Idiotic Trek Security responses again. Look, nobody noticed the fact that the environmental temps are all screwey down in engineering; and we've just engaged in battle with the borg! No sir, we don't have boarders.

4.) The Stupid Data Emotion Subplot -- didn't we just go over data having emotions and learning to control them in Generations? So how can the Borg queen try to subvert data like that?

5.) Jokes between the TNG cast seem much more forced than with the TOS gang -- look at how Riker tries to joke with Worf when he arrives on the E-E's bridge; and contrast it with how Scotty and Chekhov play off Kirk on the E-B's bridge:

"Brought a tear to me eye, laddie."

I am generally against buying old series' on Blu-Ray because I'm not that big a fan of seeing distracting details in a format that the original wasn't intended for. But yeah, I think that you're definitely looking at Generations with rose-tinted glasses. Sure, it had good characterization but the plot kept screaming hints that it could have been a lot better, when instead it just fell flat. First Contact has a better plot, and while it's a xeroxed idea, it works better because the original idea of going back in time to fix things worked back in The Voyage Home. That and the crew wasn't just "Oh shit, we're fucked, separate the saucer section, Data!"

I'd rather forget Insurrection and Nemesis, thanks. The former would have been better off as a mediocre TNG episode, and the latter was just... no. It could also be because I don't handle badly-executed character deaths well.

4.) The Stupid Data Emotion Subplot -- didn't we just go over data having emotions and learning to control them in Generations? So how can the Borg queen try to subvert data like that?

This I can actually understand, he's only had the chip for two years by the time of the movie, and there's also her rebuilding him as a human which is something he'd wanted for years. It was worse in the early drafts; the Queen grafts living skin onto him and puts him under a dripping tap, and the sensation of water hitting his skin becomes like crack to him.

You other points I can only agree with.

4.) The Stupid Data Emotion Subplot -- didn't we just go over data having emotions and learning to control them in Generations? So how can the Borg queen try to subvert data like that?

Well wasn't that the point? She never had a chance to subvert Data, he considered her offer for what, all of a nanosecond, literally? I don't remember the exact comment, but it was something like that. He was simply stringing her along. The Queen reactivating his emotion chip wasn't really what the subplot was about.

Gasphemer wrote:I am generally against buying old series' on Blu-Ray because I'm not that big a fan of seeing distracting details in a format that the original wasn't intended for. But yeah, I think that you're definitely looking at Generations with rose-tinted glasses.

Weren't the movies intended to be displayed on 35mm film - significantly higher resolution than NTSC 480i?

phongn wrote:

Gasphemer wrote:I am generally against buying old series' on Blu-Ray because I'm not that big a fan of seeing distracting details in a format that the original wasn't intended for. But yeah, I think that you're definitely looking at Generations with rose-tinted glasses.

Weren't the movies intended to be displayed on 35mm film - significantly higher resolution than NTSC 480i?

Blu-Ray is 1080p. It's just that the amount of detail that's included in TOS Blu-Ray is kind of disconcerting. See, they didn't account for 1080p back in the sixties, and used camera tricks that made things appear at least a little believable- it was made to be shown on an analog TV originally. Blu-Ray is interesting, sure, but I kind of miss when I couldn't notice the doors were made of balsa wood. It's just me being picky, really. Don't take it too seriously.

Wow, when they said these Blu-Rays were theatrical cut, they really meant it - the scenes in Star Trek VI with Colonel West (René Auberjonois - i.e. Odo) laying out the plan to rescue Kirk and McCoy, as well as him being revealed as the sniper in the end by Worf ("this is not Klingon blood" etc) were all not in the theatrical cut. I noticed their absence only at the end of the movie.

I had been so used to the Director's Cut (which was the only version I ever saw on VHS and then DVD).

I can understand why those were taken out. The unmasking scene plays out like a bad episode of Scooby Doo, and it doesn't add anything to the plot.

Bounty wrote:I can understand why those were taken out. The unmasking scene plays out like a bad episode of Scooby Doo, and it doesn't add anything to the plot.

The scene where they're laying out the plan was especially weird, because the Romulan Ambassador is sitting right there. As if they're going to go into detailed military plans in front of the President of the UFP in front of a Romulan.