Why were TNG Movies Mediocre?

[Big Orange]

TOS movies from the late 1970s to early 1990s were of course very mixed in quality (giving rise to the urban legend of uneven Trek movies being pants), but with the exception of First Contact the movies based on TNG were broadly mediocre and disappointing, with the last two TNG movies having subpar box office takings and generally lukewarm reviews.

Here is my basic overview of TNG movies:

Generations - Well meaning with Picard meeting Kirk, with Kirk saving the day one last time, but ultimately disappointing in execution and the villains were kinda boring.

First Contact - Mindless fun and generally successful, the most enjoyable TNG movie, but somewhat overrated.

Insurrection - A double order of "meh" and "ugh". Personally I think it is the worst of the bunch.

Nemesis - Watchable and well intentioned, but again has a mediocre execution, can't quite pin down what it wants to be, and is saddled with a more visibly aging TNG cast.

What do you think?

[Bounty]

It's a meaningless question since each film suffered from its own problems. Generations was a fast and cheap cash-in based on a half-cocked idea that the writers were forced to wrap a plot around. Insurrection started out as a great, thought-provoking premise but ended up getting watered down to the point where there was no conflict and barely any movie left. And when Nemesis rolled around no-one really seemed to care any more, which is why it ended up as a designed-by-committee movie trying to squeeze in crowdpleasing scenes without really having any sort of ideal behind them.

The only reason First Contact got away with being good is because a, Frakes is a competent director who knows how to do action movies, and b, it struck just the right balance between Braga doing 'creepy' and Moore doing 'good plot'. Unlike the others it had a simple concept and knew what it wanted to say and do ("space zombie invaders from the beyond" with Moby Dick and comedy B-plots) and did it well.

[Stofsk]

I think the TOS movies were enjoyable purely because they felt like movies. The TNG movies, on the other hand, some of them anyway, felt like longer TV episodes that somehow got onto the big screen.

They also felt too static. They got a new ship and new uniforms in First Contact, but otherwise it didn't feel like anything really changed. Few of the characters really developed. Geordi's sole character development from Generations to Nemesis was the changing of the prosthetics he wore. He ditched the Visor for occular implants, then he had regular eyes in Insurrection/Nemesis IIRC. That was it. I can't think of any real growth taking place with the characters. It would have been nice, for instance, to see Riker in command of his own ship and teaming up with the Enterprise on a joint mission. It would have been interesting to see Riker and Picard approach a problem that needs both of them to work together, but Riker finally has 'front row' status and is no longer Picard's second. Such a scenario can give lots of opportunities to explore each character and how they've changed.

First Contact had the big scale spectacle, and even then they fudged it - the Borg cube was annihilated within the first quarter of an hour. The rest of the film turns into "Let's go back in time and meet Zephram Cochrane!" after that. Which is a shame, because ultimately it was the most successful TNG film and largely because it felt dynamic.

I also don't believe in the 'odd/even' ST film myth. I personally find ST3 to be underrated, and TMP is overall enjoyable even if a bit slow at times. ST4 is overrated in my opinion, largely because I think comedy is something which tends to have a limited shelf life - there's only so many times you can laugh at the same joke.

[Bounty]

They were on the right track with Data. He got the emotion chip in GEN, which was a big deal, and it became a big plot point in FC showing how he'd adapted to it... and then INS rolls around and it's gone. Bam, back to square one, thanks for playing.

It's the same for the other characters. GEN, FC and INS all had major plot points that boiled down to "be happy with what you have", and that puts a big dent in any sort of character development. Picard's desire for a family life and a fresh start in GEN? Sorry, plot says he's happier alone on a ship. Data's quest for lust and power in FC? Sorry, loyalty and a conscience are more important - granted, I can understand that one. Picard's rehash of his desire for quiet life in INS? Again, wiped away by the time the end credits roll.

I'd add Nemesis to the list but that movie didn't even bother with actual development. True, the epilogue shows people moving on, but it's the damn epilogue and all those decisions were taken before the movie even started.

[DaveJB]

And when Nemesis rolled around no-one really seemed to care any more, which is why it ended up as a designed-by-committee movie trying to squeeze in crowdpleasing scenes without really having any sort of ideal behind them.

I get the feeling that with Nemesis, Berman was so blinded by having an Oscar-winning writer like John Logan on board that he gave him cart blanche to write whatever the hell he liked and didn't try and rein in any flaws of the screenplay. With the other TNG films there was at least some clear development in the writing process - Generations for instance had that horrible early screenplay by Maurice Hurley that was quickly ditched, First Contact's initial draft was about Picard's antics impersonating Zefram Cochrane with a bolted-on subplot about the Borg causing havoc on the Enterprise, while Insurrection's concept ended up being declawed at an early stage. With Nemesis on the other hand there were only 2 or 3 different screenplay versions, none of which were significantly different from what I recall (I believe the earliest version had the final battle in orbit of Earth rather than the Mutara Nebula copy, but that was about it).

The big problem overall though was that they were trying to do their movies the same way they'd been doing the TV shows, which just doesn't work. Ron Moore probably gave them a push in the right direction in FC, which was the only one where the characters even remotely acted like real people instead of ciphers, but it didn't really count for much in the end.

[Stofsk]

They were on the right track with Data. He got the emotion chip in GEN, which was a big deal, and it became a big plot point in FC showing how he'd adapted to it

Jesus. How could I have forgotten that?

EDIT: What was Insurrection's initial concept?

[Bounty]

They were on the right track with Data. He got the emotion chip in GEN, which was a big deal, and it became a big plot point in FC showing how he'd adapted to it

Jesus. How could I have forgotten that?

EDIT: What was Insurrection's initial concept?

Heart of Darkness in space, with Picard "going upstream" towards the Fountain of Youth to kill a rogue officer fighting a guerilla war against the Romulans. The next draft had Picard hunting down and killing Data instead of the officer in the second act, followed by Picard realising his mistake and turning on the Federation to stop an alliance with the Romulans.

Unfortunately it was Patrick Stewart of all people who complained about the story and had it rewritten, losing more and more of the core concept in the process until all that was left of the first draft was the rejuvenation McGuffin and Data going rogue. A bit.

[Stofsk]

Heart of Darkness in space, with Picard "going upstream" towards the Fountain of Youth to kill a rogue officer fighting a guerilla war against the Romulans.

That sounds awesome.

[tim31]

Oh jesus why couldn't we have had that?

Can you imagine how much mileage we could have gotten out of starfleet PT Boats?

Also I agree on the action direction of J-Frakes; I really enjoyed Thunderbirds.

[Coyote]

They also felt too static. They got a new ship and new uniforms in First Contact, but otherwise it didn't feel like anything really changed. Few of the characters really developed. Geordi's sole character development from Generations to Nemesis was the changing of the prosthetics he wore. He ditched the Visor for occular implants, then he had regular eyes in Insurrection/Nemesis IIRC. That was it. I can't think of any real growth taking place with the characters. It would have been nice, for instance, to see Riker in command of his own ship and...

But the biggest problem with the 'Star Trek' franchise is that it always goes to the edge of change, and seems to promise grand, sweeping development... only to back down each time.

For me, the realiziation that Star Trek movies were going to be inherently cowardly was in Star Trek-III, the Search for Spock. A lot of people liked that movie but I admit I disliked it immensly. After the brilliant set-up in Wrath of Khan --Spock dies, Saavik is obviously ready to replace him. Kirk has a son who both is so much like him and yet nothing like him. They seem ready to step aside, and usher in a new generation... only to fudge it completely in Search for Spock. Saavik gets hustled offstage; David Marcus dies an empty death; Spock magically comes back to life. Reset button.

From there it was a magical downhill to non-troublesome plots and not rocking boats. They briefly had a great 'Cold War insanity' plot with "The Undiscovered Country"; but by that time the Cold War was safely over.

They did some interesting and confrontation stuff in Trek TV shows from time to time, and while it took awhile to find their feet in DS9 they eventually tackled some interesting themes there and allowed for character growth and development... but the movies have almost been templates for 'not pushing the envelope'.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Heart of Darkness in space, with Picard "going upstream" towards the Fountain of Youth to kill a rogue officer fighting a guerilla war against the Romulans.

That sounds awesome.

The only problem is that it has been already done in a way that is unlikely to be topped or even matched anytime soon. Just moving the story to space would not provide enough justification for doing a half-assed version of the same story. Then again, I would have paid good money to see Picard saying: "They were gonna make me an admiral for this, and I wasn't even in their fuckin' fleet anymore."

But seriously, there really is not too much room for another movie readaptation of "Heart of Darkness". The only way to do it would be to follow the original novella more closely than Coppola did and even then I really can't imagine how you could tell the essence of the story better. Hell, with Michael Herr's invaluable input I find Apocalypse Now more convincing than Conrad's book.

[Stofsk]

Heart of Darkness in space, with Picard "going upstream" towards the Fountain of Youth to kill a rogue officer fighting a guerilla war against the Romulans.

That sounds awesome.

The only problem is that it has been already done in a way that is unlikely to be topped or even matched anytime soon. Just moving the story to space would not provide enough justification for doing a half-assed version of the same story. Then again, I would have paid good money to see Picard saying: "They were gonna make me an admiral for this, and I wasn't even in their fuckin' fleet anymore."

What would the equivalent to Colonel Kilgore be? A Starfleet Admiral after the end of a battle saying something like "I love the smell of antimatter in the morning!"

A space battle with Ride of the Valkyries playing as the music would be just perfect.

But seriously, there really is not too much room for another movie readaptation of "Heart of Darkness". The only way to do it would be to follow the original novella more closely than Coppola did and even then I really can't imagine how you could tell the essence of the story better. Hell, with Michael Herr's invaluable input I find Apocalypse Now more convincing than Conrad's book.

Still, the initial concept was miles ahead of what we got with Insurrection.

[Uraniun235]

A space battle with Ride of the Valkyries playing as the music would be just perfect.

It's not Star Trek, and it's kinda silly... but hopefully you enjoy it anyway.

The only worthwhile combat in Harlock Saga

[Stofsk]

See? It works! Wagner makes everything better.

[tim31]

The 'smell' of antimatter sounds like a Stupid Nelix Moment.

[Steve]

Well, to be perfectly honest.... my favorite TNG movie is Generations, not First Contact.

I just liked Generations a lot, it felt like a movie and was more than just action stuff. Dennis McCarthy gave us one hell of a musical score, a challenger for the best in Trek movie history IMHO, I liked Malcolm McDowell's villain, and there was a sense of something new coming at the end what with the E-D being lost and all.

I can see why people don't like it, but I honestly enjoyed the hell out of it. Hell, I saw it three times in theaters back in 94-95.

[JME2]

From there it was a magical downhill to non-troublesome plots and not rocking boats. They briefly had a great 'Cold War insanity' plot with "The Undiscovered Country"; but by that time the Cold War was safely over.

Yeah, I completely agree that the TOS movies jumped the shark with TSFS. I still like TUC the most, even if it was two years behind the times.

[Covenant]

One of the big problems with the movies is they come at the end of a series instead of in the middle, so you end up making your big production number after so much has been done and your characters have become so established, and your actors so damn old.

TOS's movies avoided this in part because their goddamn oldness was such a big part of the plots, and while their characters were established they were never that deep to begin with. Furthermore, the show was only on for three seasons, and while still remarkably decent story ideas half of the time, the writing and acting was pretty abysmal. All this adds up to a beloved series which hasn't been too over-wrought yet, letting the movies really leap into some good growth without having to explain characters, and also update the graphics, the budget, the acting, and so forth. It was a really good fit.

TNG, however, had their movies come out right at the end of the series. At it's best, TNG was a character-driven Drama, with such honestly good episodes as Chain of Command, where Picard is tortured by Cardassians and was seconds from breaking and The Inner Light, where Picard picks up his flute habit and lives an entire life in a day. We get very little of that from the TNG cast in the movies, and these are not a collection of individuals well suited for an action movie. They simply aren't compelling. If the TNG movies had focused on these themes a bit more overtly, it would have been less whiz-bang explosive but it might have not sucked as much.

Maybe that's not what you meant, but I think overall the Trek movies suffer from bipolar writing. The movies are all over-the-top but the shows are usually half-padded with boring nonsense. They make no sense when paired with their characters. They're not terrible, they're just... as said, mediocre. I feel like you could have swapped out those characters for basically anyone else and it would have felt more legitimate.

[Baffalo]

I'm wondering if perhaps the movies would've done better to simply introduce a new cast and crew just for the movies and just leave the older casts alone. The reason I say this is because often it's easier to do a one-shot with a cast rather than try to fit what's been established into a two hour format. How come we never see any of the other ships from First Contact? Why don't we see a lone ship on the frontier of Federation Space come under attack and the crew's desperation to survive? That's why I'm looking forward to the new movie... it gives Star Trek a chance to start again, without having to sit around and fit in established characters. Also, from what I've read about it so far, the thought of a Romulan character you can sympathize with is a bold step for Star Trek, since usually we only see the villains from the perspective of the Federation.

[Uraniun235]

No, they wouldn't have done better, because they'd still have been written by the same people. It's like all those threads where people wrote "well, if I'd been in charge of the show, I'd have set down these rules:". It wouldn't actually have made a better product, it'd just suck in different ways, because you'd still have the same people writing it.

Besides, you're seriously going to throw away the allure of Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard? Badly aging or not, TNG was a hit show in its day, and it would have been madness for any producer to seriously suggest that the TNG cast sit one out or even be retired prior to Nemesis.

It's not like it's that hard to work the TNG cast into a movie - they have the Enterprise-E, they can be wherever you want them to be. The only tricky part is Worf, but they really should have just not even said anything about him being around, and let the fans cry about it later.


I'd also argue that the TOS Romulans were not villains - they were military officers doing their duty. The Romulan commander from Balance of Terror laments that if he succeeds it will only bring more war for the Empire, and the Romulan commander from The Enterprise Incident was responding to an illegal incursion of Romulan territory by Starfleet. It's not really until TNG where we see the Romulans stirring shit up with a sinister smile on their faces.

[tim31]

Yeah, what was the deal with Worf in the last two movies? I remember it being something along the lines of 'LOL HAI GUYZ JUST DROPPED IN' in Insurrection, but had he actually been reassigned to the Big E as of Nemesis? Since he was supposed to have taken on a diplomatic role as of the end of DS9?

[VF5SS]

I think the era of movies they were made in only added to the mediocrity. Frankly a lot of the sci-fi stuff in the mid 90's hasn't aged well. It was like everything had to be a weird Ronald Emmerich fueled SFX fest with a muddled plot line. Add in some sassy character antics and you've got unremarkable summer movie fodder.

[Oskuro]

What the fuck is the problem with aging? Old people can be interesting too. In fact, I always felt that the original cast became more interesting in the movies as they had a lifetime of experience with wich to ponder their actions (bad writting aside), and Patrick Stewart's aged look (even from the start) made him more believable as the Captain in my mind.

Of course, people are now complaining about the new ST movie cast being too young.

[Stofsk]

The only tricky part is Worf, but they really should have just not even said anything about him being around, and let the fans cry about it later.

They could have gone down the Sulu route with Worf - make him appear in the film but not as an Enterprise officer, like how Sulu was Captain of the Excelsior in TUC and appeared infrequently but still no less important to the plot.

They might have gone down that route with Riker in command of a ship as well. I suppose the reason why the TNG films feel like extended episodes was because the writers forced all the characters onto the same ship, and this was most jarring for Worf. It felt like the show never ended and all these never characters found something else to do with themselves. In comparison, in TMP Kirk's an Admiral who takes over Enterprise which IIRC was in command of Matt Decker's son. Spock was on Vulcan. McCoy had to be almost dragged onto the ship. Then in Wrath, Kirk's deskbound while Spock's in command. Get all the way to TUC and Sulu is no longer the helmsman, he's been promoted to a Captain in his own right. There was a sense that 'life goes on', which IMO is missing from the TNG films.

[JME2]

There was a sense that 'life goes on', which IMO is missing from the TNG films.

To play devil's advocate, Logan tried to do that in X, with Riker and Troi moving to the Titan, Beverley Crusher returning to Starfleet Medical, and Picard musing about life moving on with Data after the wedding. Unfortunately, those scenes went bye-bye at the order of Stuard Baird so as to hurry the action along. It's too bad; the deleted scene between Data and Picard is actually very well done.

Yeah, what was the deal with Worf in the last two movies? I remember it being something along the lines of 'LOL HAI GUYZ JUST DROPPED IN' in Insurrection, but had he actually been reassigned to the Big E as of Nemesis? Since he was supposed to have taken on a diplomatic role as of the end of DS9?

There was a nine-book mini-series published by Pocket Books called A Time to... about a year or two after the film was released. It basically chronicles the year leading up to Nemesis and answers the inconsistencies regarding the TNG characters (ex. Data's missing emotion chip, Wesley's presence at the wedding. etc). IIRC in Worf's case, he stepped down due to an incoming Federation presidential administration and a desire to get back in the field. Alexander took over the post.