Don't think of STD as Star Trek! 1) It isn't Star Trek 2) As it's own thing it's actually not that bad {Si vis Pacem, Para Bellum was atrocious but hopefully that's just one episode.}. 3) The Orville is Star Trek pretending not to be. STD is another show masquerading as Star Trek.
Discovery is a joke. I refuse to watch it. Hell i just got done rewatching ST: First Contact the other night, and have plans to rewatch Undiscovered Country, if only because General Chang was such a Superb Villain.
I think that the conversation between Kirk and Picard had more meaning to it than you think, Dave. Kirk had given up command for Admiralty, and he regretted every minute of it. His death away from the captain's chair was just another note of sadness to pile atop the character's own sadness at his choices. Kirk tells Picard in no uncertain words that his place as Captain is in that chair, and that he shouldn't give that up for anything. While not supported by the TNG movies, extra-canon sources point to Picard being offered Admiralty several times, but he declined each time. This would be in keeping with Kirk's advice.
There are also extra-canon sources that suggest that during Kirk's time as an admiral in between TOS and TMP, he implemented many procedural and organizational changes that greatly benefited Starfleet in his era and beyond (see Lorerunner's long and excellent discussion of ST:TMP). So even though he gave up the captain's chair and it pained him, it was a sacrifice for the greater good.
Obviously this advice doesn’t apply to Sisko, Janeway, or Archer. Sisko went on a journey with the prophets. Janeway’s promotion to Admiral helped bring her ship home in 7 years. Archer became involved in Federation government.
I don’t know how many admirals Starfleet has, but they did lose one each in First Contact and Insurrection, so that may have left some openings. Guess Janeway took advantage of one of those opportunities.
A DS9 movie would have been great. Without Aron Eisenberg or Rene Auberjonois it would be hard to and with current writers that have openly stated they did not like Star Trek, it would likely suck.
@@mikeluit3027 no offense but Voyager's characters were utterly dogshit. the writers gave up on them and except for the Doctor and Seven of Nine they were all left in the dump. And Enterprise? I mean you might not like DS9 characters but its one of the few shows that had character development. I mean Star Trek is fine not being serialised, but its not bad because of it. Maybe also because they're not perfect flawless characters who have no inter-personal conflicts.
Kirk died a hero on the Enterprise B, saving the ship and sacrificing himself as Spock did in the Wrath of Khan, but without the long goodbye. I think that he would be remembered as a hero. Picard would not want to ruin that legend.
Generations, Insurrection and Nemesis all had, in my opinion, pretty mediocre scripts. Generations was elevated by great cinematography and score into something with a good heartbeat. Insurrection just fell flat through its obvious budgetary constraints and weak cinematography. Nemesis in my book is pretty irredeemable. Seems like the rough draft of the script was a lot more philosophical and epic but they got the worst possible director to do it. Also in my opinion it should have been Patrick Stewart playing Shinzon as well. Could have been cheesy but hes one of the rare actors who could have made that fascinating to watch. But Nemesis is the worst of the four for me.
It's funny. When I heard it was gonna be about the Romulans I wasn't happy, then Nemesis turned out to be my favorite TNG film. Guess those green blooded bastards were pretty interesting after all.
Insurrection is underrated. It's like an episode of TNG but with a huge budget. I'd rather watch more movies like that than STD. But yes, I share your disappointment with the decision not to tie in the plot with the Dominion War.
shophet125 There is actually an episode of TNG with a similar premise to the film Insurrection. "Who Watches The Watchers" Not exactly the same, but has some similar elements to it.
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Data and Troi discussing the size of their boobs. Priceless.
@@Textra1 Also Journey's end, which dealt with the forced relocation of a native American colony, and Homeward, where Worf's half-brother leads a doomed village to safety via the holodeck.
They weren't allowed to tie the movie to the Dominion War. In earlier drafts the Romulans were the villains, writer was told to replace 'em with an alien species of the episode kind of villains because using Romulans could create continuity issues with Dominion War. That was forced by studio executives. Writer of the Insurrection wrote a book about writing the movie. Paramount prevented its publication by basically threatening to blacklist him if he published it. Unfortunately Michael Piller passed away relatively young to cancer in 2005 and good thing about that misfortune is that his widow published it free on the internet and later on as print as well. Book is called Fade In. There are lot of ways how the film changed during the writing process and production, both in for better and worse in some aspects. Picards romantic interest was originally literally a child, sir Patrick Stewart didn't like it at all, so girl was changed to teenager and Patrick liked that only slightly better than a child, so they changed romantic interest to adult.
The visuals in Generations are amazing. It's out of the Trek "norm," but the cinematography/ lighting is incredible. Sucks the only DS9 movie we got was the Defiant cameo in First Contact and the only Voyager movie we got was the Janeway cameo in Nemesis.
yeah, Avery Brooks definitelly deserved a place on the big screen! And he had an animous relation to Picard, man it would have been fun to see them get a resolution in a Dominion War movie!
Sisko is my favorite captain, so i was really saddened they wouldn't get a film. A film on the dominion war would have been a great way to tie all that up together neatly without doing a dedicated deep space nine film.
1. First Contact - (I hated the Borg Queen concept though) 2. Generations - (Middling pass-off movie) 3. Insurrection - (A lot wrong with this film but still Trek) 4. Nemesis Nemesis really is the forerunner of JJTrek. Action scenes that are there because we need action. Villains that don't make a lot of sense. It is more cinematic than Insurrection but it fails everywhere else.
I always thought that the Borg queen concept should have been limited to this movie, explained that the Borg from the future would not be able to 'connect' to the older collective of the past so would've effectively been defeated the second they left the 24th century so needed the 'queen' to act as the collective will until they could establish contact with the 21st century Borg but hey ho.
First if all agree with your list. Regarding the Borg Queen. While I liked the appearance of it when I saw First Contact when I saw the movie for the first time, over time I have become to dislike the concept of the Borg having a "leader" (in FC I thought she was the embodiment of the Collective rather than a leader). This dislike is mostly due to her appearances on Voyager in which the concept of the Borg (a collective mind spanning thousands of lightyears with its drones being just single neurons) was dismantled and the queen started to have emotional traits like obsession. A couple of years ago another Trek fan suggested an alternative take on how conversation with the Borg in FC should have been like: as Data or Picard talks to one drone as he walks past it another drone continues the conversation, and so on and so on. I think that would not only have fit in more with the Collective (though the idea that the Collective actually feels a need to talk to Picard or Data when they could have just assimilated them for any knowledge the Borg want), but I think it would also have made the conversation a lot more creepier as makes clear how decentralized the Borg truly are.
Honestly... I was not a fan of the Borg Queen. I felt that her character was an antithesis to the Borg itself. The whole point of the Borg was the concept of "What's good for the group is good for the individual" to such an extreme that the sense of 'self' is completely expunged. If the Borg as a whole responded and reacted to Data as a singular disembodied intelligence operating out of different bodies like components or in unison then you would have a more insidious viewpoint of the Borg; An entity where cultures, races, philosophies and technologies are nothing more than raw materials to build its own goals.
I concur with your ranking, @ChrisLutz @TheDutchGhost, I agree the concept of a queen is anti-borg (if I understand you correctly). More importantly, your ideas of alternate/creepy characterization are amazing! I would love to see that concept developed in a sci-fi film!
@@H2Obsession You understood me correctly, I think the Borg Queen should never have been introduced. It devolved into a generic "bad guy" during Voyager.
After the soulless Nu-Trek films I went and bought all 10 Star Trek films in the TOS/TNG blu-ray collections. I have to thank Abrams and company for giving me a new found respect and enjoyment out of these films. My TNG movie list would be the same as yours Dave, and as much hate as Final Frontier gets I can't hate it for the simple reason it has the scene in the brig. Where Kirk and Spock arguing and McCoy chiming in. Kirk: Dammit Spock. God dammit. Spock: Captain, what I have done... Kirk: What you've done is betray every man on the ship. Spock: Worse. I've betrayed you. I do not expect you to forgive me. Kirk: Forgive you? I ought to knock you on your God Damn ass. Spock: If you think it would help. McCoy: You want me to hold him Jim? Kirk: You stay out of this!
I always hoped that a movie would have been made with the Argus fluid thing (that killed Tasha Yar), seeking revenge on Picard for tricking it and leaving it behind on that planet. It would have been a nice homage to the Khan episode/movie tie in...
Black Knight Yes Armus would have made a crazy cool movie villain (assuming he was a bit faster moving and had some better special effects) like the Blob or one of those other 60’s monsters.
Honestly that should have been generations. Maybe the Creature could fuck with time or some subspace bullshit idk black holes and wormholes. Just something not to contrived. Forcing both men face their flaws and fears.
Your ranking of the movies is spot on. I wish every one had been of the same caliber as first contact. I wish DS9 had gotten a movie combo with the TNG crew durring the war. That would have made for an epic film.
I do not often agree with you, Dave, but for Generations and First Contact I almost completely agree. For Insurrection I feel you completely missed the point though. The planet is not "property" of the Federation, it is a colony of another race. If someone lives in Federation space (or to put it in better words, within the Federation borders), does not mean they are automatically a member of the federation. Also, the Federation did not know they where once a warp capable civilization, so practically the Prime Directive would still have applied as far as the Federation would be concerned. Also, you said "It's only 600 people.". I could give you the same speech as Picard gave Admiral Dougherty: "...How many people does it take before it becomes wrong?...". You also call the Baku selfish for not sharing the effects of the rings. But it's being forcibly being taking from them. That's something else as the Federation talking and negotiating with them. And then it still would be the Baku's decision to make, not the Federation's. Also, the special effects could have been better, but are still not as bad as you make them out to be. I do however agree on the the laser-tag and the joystick criticism. For Nemesis I agree with a lot of points, and the one of the major faults with the movie is that the contrast between the good bits and the bad bits is sooooo huge, and I also missed screen-time for Worf, Geordi and Beverly. However, my main criticism is that the story has way to many continuity errors with the rest of the franchise. Having said that, I still did enjoy watching it, and did so multiple times now. For me the order would be: 1. First Contact (Which together with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country are my favorites of all Star Trek movies.) 2. Generations 3. Insurrection 4. Nemesis
so very true, and your film ranking (including your appreciation of TUC) are exactly the same as mine. Also Dave acted like the Baku were completely hoarding the planet to themselves, but they only banished the Sona after they tried to take over. Picard even suggested before he knew this that the Sona could establish a separate colony on the planet. The Baku showed no indication that they would object to a separate settlement or settlements on the planet. Hell, the extent of Baku activity was probably all of a few hundred square km. billions of people could be on the planet and they would never see them. The plan to collect the radiation was wasteful and reckless. You render an M class planet unlivable to get billions of concentrated treatments that will eventually run out, or you set up hospitals and colonies which can help billions of people(if not quite as fast) indefinitely. They federation/sona plan was a short term gain at a massive long term loss.
The point Dave is making is that the Baku are in fact hoarding the radiation because they refuse to allow the collection of the radiation around the planet because, and I'm paraphrasing here, "But then we'll age and die!" Allowing the Federation to collect the radiation around the planet would eventually result in the deaths of 600, yes, but it extends the lives of hundreds of trillions by a hundred years or more. With experts in the field of biology living longer and getting to study their field of expertise for a longer period of time, there is a greater chance more life extension technology could be developed, and this cycle could repeat. The needs of the vast majority out way the wants of the minute fraction. If possible immortality for hundreds of trillions can be attained at the cost of immortality for 600 individuals, while they still get to live a normal life span with the same life extending technology everyone else is going to get, then so be it.
I have a soft spot for Insurrection. Watched it in theaters with my family several times and it felt like a tng episode in a good way. Think its a bit misunderstood being the First Contact follow up
I think you are a little unfair with your thoughts on Insurrection. If you just don't like, that is fair, but some of your points don't really make sense. The Baku - It doesn't matter that they were not indigenous to the planet. They've lived there for over 300 years, before the Federation even existed. For all intents and purposes, it IS their planet. Federation Territory - A planet being in Federation Territory does not mean that the Federation 'owns' that planet. It just means that it is a planet within their boarders. Go back to the Season 3 episode, "Who Watches the Watchers". The Federation did not 'own' Mintaka III, nor were the Mintakans 'Federation Property'. It was simply a planet within Federation Space. Speaking of which... The Duck-blind - The Federation thought, going into this, that the Baku were indigenous to the planet, and that they were a primitive species. So of course they would hide their existence while observing, just like they did in the previously mentioned Season 3 episode. This plot line was 100% in keeping with established Federation procedure. The Plan - This wasn't a case of, 'Hey, we'd like to use this planet'. What they were going to do to the planet would have made it uninhabitable. They were going to destroy someone else's home for their own purposes. The Federation is supposed to be above that kind of behavior, so yes, it DID make them the villain. I can understand that many people did not like this movie, but in my opinion, your points completely miss what went on in the movie, and overlook years of Star Trek cannon.
These are all excellent points, couldn't have said it better myself. I would add that the vulcan concept of the "good of the many outweigh the good of the few" was often used as a way to show the pure logic way of thinking of Spock that would then be moderated by the human and emotional decisions of kirk that would often go against that premise. The one critical moment when that is also said is during the death scene of spock in ST2, in which case it was spock himself who gave up his life to save the many, no one forced him to take that decision. I have seen many of these videos, Dave often goes on tangents heavily influenced by his political beliefs. I think this discussion of insurrection is a perfect example.
OpinionsAreLikeUs yeah, and as for his statement "they wanted to keep it for themselves" is a bit disengenuous since as I recall they never said no one else was allowed to live on it, just that they didn't wish to move. As for the Federation "owning it" that's just silly, they dont own all the planets in the federation, their occupants do, which in this case in the Bakku.
This would all be a perfectly valid argument, except that it misses the elephant in the room (which is not your fault because the film misses it as well): at this point in the canon, the Federation is stuck in the Dominion War and it is actually losing badly. Potentially billions of lives would have been at stake if the Federation had lost. In that context, the prospect of obtaining a new form of advanced medical science that could sustain a desperate population even in the face of absolute privation could have been a game changer, especially if it could be obtained at so little cost as moving 600 people off of a backwater planet. The film should have played out as "In the Pale Moonlight" writ large, with desperate Starfleet officers struggling with their consciences in order to do something that they knew they have no choice but to do, with the Enterprise crew bitterly divided between the two sides, except the writers foolishly missed the obvious and decided to straw-man their own concept.
One little bit that felt strange for me when watching Generations was the bridge of the Enterprise D. When you look at the operations and navigation you see how many different characters have sat there, Wesley, Ro, Worf etc and that to me builds up the feels.
@10:56 As Picard himself stated "The darkest periods in Earth's history began when the few were exploited for the needs of the many" (Trail of Tears). And you skipped over the point of the Bak'cu and the Son'na being related as that provided the real reason why this operate to remove the Bak'cu from this planet was being conducted under such secrecy. (no spoilers watch the movie again).
Bernard Gilbert Well, they are related. But that just makes the Baku look like even bigger assholes, because they (somehow) forced the Sona of their planet, because apparently the *planet* was not big enough for two civilisation. The Sona building their own city out of sight was not good enough, they had to go. Also, the secret relocation was probably the admirals idea, because he did not know they are the same race, and the Sona would not mind using force.
In Generations that 20 year old bird of prey was a D12 class bird of prey. It's a medium cruiser. Without shields, the Enterprise couldn't stand up to that. Federation ships have next to no armor, and klingon ships are heavily armored, and the D12 had shields. Any ship without shields can be taken out by a couple of torpedoes just like that. In Insurrection the briar was only part of the federation in the 24 century. The ba'ku were there long before the federation. Even though they are not a native species, they did come to the planet first and claimed it. So they weren't squatting.
My favorite is First Contact. I never saw Nemesis in the theatre and watched maybe half on cable before flipping the channel. FC still have its issues but Troi being drunk was pretty funny and I liked that the Federation hero turned out to be a flawed man.
Yeah the followup to First Contact should've been a Dominion War movie. I get that you don't want to make Star Trek pure action, but the war was canon and established. This would've been a war movie on Star Trek's terms, not the producers or Abrams
I love them all. First Contact is the best though by a stretch. I'd say Insurrection is my least favourite but it has some great parts regardless 1) First Contact 2) Nemesis 3) Generations 4) Insurrection
First and fourth places are almost a given. Second and third are definitely arguable. But it doesn't make to much difference. Neither Generations nor Nemesis are either the best or the worst of the TNG films.
Generations has the biggest heart of all three. Especially around that discussion of life and death using time as a metaphor. Best dialogue of all four movies.
I actually really, really love the TNG movie uniforms, especially the white formal uniforms which are probably my favorite, followed by the TOS red formal uniforms.
In reply to 3:00, Dr Soran was working on a weapon of unlimited power. It's what the Romulans came looking for at the start of Generations, it's why Lursa and Be'tor rescued Soran from the shockwave, why Soran was able to punch Be'tor and get away with it, and why the Klingons took him Veridian III in exchange for that weapon (he transmitted the weapon's code to the Klingons to unlock it when he was safely on the planet's surface). The weapon was capable of stopping all nuclear fusion within a star, which is what diverted the nexus to Veridian III, which goes to show how powerful it was. The Enterprise-D didn't stand a chance against Soran's weapon of unlimited power, which is why a 20-year-old Klingon Bird of Prey was able to severely damage the Federation flagship. I think that had it been the observatory shooting at the Enterprise with the weapon (and maybe if the torpedos looked more fierce, instead of just the standard green Klingon torpedoes) I think people would have been less confused. It was a very complicated plot.
Always loved Alfre Woodard in anything she did. From her recurring character in the critically acclaimed "St. Elsewhere" to the made for tv film where she and soul diva Patti LaBelle were paired with comedic actor John Ritter, to churn out a serious dramatic true story telling of the Vietnam vets who were the first to bring light to the Agent Orange effects on Nam soldiers. I loved Woodard's line to the out of control Picard, _"I think you got him..."_ Its pure her as a compitent woman set up to handle a man in a moment of high stress.
Fist contact was indeed the best ST movie! "Timeline? This no time to be talking about timelines!"...."If you want my PROFESSIONAL opinion as a counselor , he's NUTS!"
You said what I've said for many years. Generations is BEAUTIFULLY filmed. I love watching it, and I loved the new look for the D, the change of lighting. The most beautiful looking of the TNG films. As for First Contact, all I can say beyond it being amazing, is that there was allegedly a scene with Sisko shot sending Worf to sector 001, and why hasn't that been shown at this point, 25 years later, in a director's cut?
Agree pretty much but I think Nemesis is better than it's given credit for. Far from perfect, but getting something that really put some highlights on the Romulans, since basically all the TV series blueballed with them a lot was great. It does a lot of wrap up work too, something most finales of any show never do. All through TNG Riker is criticized for not taking a captain role, we finally get it. All through TNG we get the will they/won't they love triangle between Riker, Troi, and Worf - the wrap it up. If we think about any character, other than Picard who could be called the main character of TNG, it's Data, and his long struggle to find his humanity which was already continued through the other movies and brought to a final(though admitted poorly forced) conclusion. Plus a teriffic space battle is nothing to scoff at. Back to the Romulans, they've also been getting all that build up in the series, they always came across as being close to the fence, they aren't pure evil and hyper aggressive, just careful and secretive - it always seemed like they could become allies and the conclusion implied they would be(BEGONE JJ movies)
About Insurrection, I actually mostly enjoyed it, though more as an episode than a movie. As for the Baku and the planet, I get the arguments that they were in the wrong, but one point; they were on the planet before humans were even in space, long before the Federation existed. Thus the Federation didn't own the planet, they did. And if you try to use the argument that they weren't indigenous to the planet, you get into a sticky area, because "Native Americans" aren't actually indigenous to North America. They were just the first people to _find_ the land, after crossing a landbridge from Eurasia. So saying it doesn't matter that the Baku were there first is like saying it doesn't matter that the Native Americans were there first.
First Contact and The Undiscovered Country are the best Star Trek movies in my opinion. I personally like Nemesis, maybe because i saw it as a kid and Star Trek in general brought me and my father very close to each other, and it adds that nostalgia factor to the movie. This franchise has given me so much i cannot hate it, not even STD.
You love Dr. Spock, the pediatrician? Agreed. His 1988 book, "Spock on Parenting" really brought about new and interesting ideas for parenting human children.
For me the existence of B4 in Nemesis is what actually sinks the film. From the lack of any explanation as to where Shinzon got him (and the lack of any mention of Lore during conversations about him) to the way all his scenes seem there for him to say something stupid for a cheap laugh and finally to the copying of Data's memories to him to provide a reset button after Data's death. If you cut out those scenes and replaced them with something which maybe gives Geordie and Worf something to do (maybe a Reman attack on engineering in order to get the fleet locations) then it could have been a much more satisfying film and possibly even one which could stand near to First Contact in quality.
Data had too much of a role in that film and I agree the B4 parts were a drag. But, if I remember correctly, Spiner had a hand in the script and I think he ended Shatner'ing it up.
Martin Keeton I thought B4 might have been Lore on my first viewing of the film and I got really excited. I thought it would have been awesome to bring him back one last time. When we find out it was just another prototype I was actually really disappointed.
I don't understand why B4 *wasn't* Lore. Who couldn't envision Lore working with Shinzon? Sure, Lore was shut down by Data and probably kept somewhere secure by starfllet but it makes more sense Shinzon nicking Lore than *very conveniently* finding another Soong-type android from nowhere! And You could even have it starting out the same way with Lore pretending to be a different, dumber, android. It'd be entirely in-keeping with his character. He was very duplicitous in Data-Lore. And maybe Data's death would have felt a bit more earned? Data dies destroying Lore? WHY DIDN'T THEY DO THIS?
@amuletts, I totally agree! Lore working with Shinzon... great, and his acting as B4... pure brilliance! (Because Lore is known for his duplicity.) Please get a job in Hollywood. I would love to see your next movie! Anyway, I agree with @Martin Keeton... B4 stinks as written.
There was no reason for B4 to exist since we had Lore. It would've made far more sense to have the Romulans steal Lore from wherever Starfleet was storing him and use him for the same purpose. Since Lore doesn't work for anybody, the Romulans could've tried to forcibly reprogram him and inadvertently destroyed most of his mind due to inexperience with his positronic technology, leaving him like B4. It's just a slight rewrite to replace B4 with Lore. And Lore's ultimate fate is still unresolved, with no mention of him in Picard. I keep hoping some comic or novel will address it eventually
the only one I truly dislike is Insurrection. I can watch Generations, I can easily watch Nemesis, and I always enjoy watching First Contact, but that one is hard to watch. Nemesis may have a lot of problems, quite obvious ones even, but I still like it. Not as the ending of the TNG timeline, but just as a movie. Great space battle, some fantastic scenes in the mix, an intriguing moral dilemma, and yeah, some pretty underused characters, but still, not bad.
Generations is my favorite of TNG films, because of the meeting between Kirk and Picard, what also made it feel unique in my opinion that is, is that it felt like a higher budgeted episode of it's respective tv series.
Insurrection wasn't just the worst TNG movie, it rivals TMP for the worst Trek of all time. I remember thinking "Picard is committing treason against the Federation so another colony of smug space hippies don't have to play hacky-sack on a different paradise planet? And billions of suffering sick people can just fuck right off?" Only time I was actually rooting for the villains in a Trek movie.
Dave - totally agree with your order, and for all the reasons you state. The only thing I agonize over is whether I like the Galaxy Class or the Sovereign Class better... Sure Sovereign is faster & newer but it's primarily a battle-wagon. The Galaxy is the ultimate multi-role ship, literally good at everything but very big and expensive in terms of materials and manpower. I did like that the Sovereign was smaller, that the bigger-is-better Starfleet design paradigm has peaked and then reversed itself. It both makes sense and secures the Galaxy a place in history as the biggest ship of its era, the previous era, and likely the following era.
I appreciate that you referenced Confused Matthew. I feel free was a pioneer in online movie reviews. He was my introduction to online movie critique essays. Glad to hear I'm not the only one who knows him.
I agree with your opinions, especially Insurrection. This movie was a chance for us to see where the Enterprise, the Flag Ship of the Federation Fleet was during the Dominion War. Why we never saw it in the main battles where her crew could had been EXTREMELY useful. Yes in a cross over there's always the danger of one group outshining another, but if done right both sides can highlight the best on both sides. But instead, we got the Enterprise robbing the Federation of a MUCH needed resource for a war they were LOSING at the time. And all because some technology hating people got to stay on a planet that was in Federation Territory. Meanwhile MILLIONS of people are dying in the Dominion War. A great contrast to this is "In the Pale Moonlight" where Sisko does many questionable things to bring the Romulans into the war and turn the tide. What would you do in that situation? That was one of Star Trek's best strengths, thought provoking episodes that explored the grey areas of morality and problem solving. But in that film, we got a bull crap message of protecting the rights of people who are too selfish and ignorant for their own good.
Your summary of Insurrection is spot on! But you forgot one thing which was exceptionally good: There was never an OST this good in a ST movie! It still gives me goosebumps!
Dave, you should find Tom Hardy & Patrick Stewart's read through of the script from Nemesis. Some of the dialog is slightly different in places, and the acting is a little more casual, but god *DAMN* did these men knock it out of the park, even for just a rehearsal it's solid acting.
I kinda disagree with the encounter between Picard and Kirk not being very interesting. It has a purpose: many episodes show Picard enjoying riding, which symbolises his elegant way of doing things: always the diplomat, always the politician. Kirk, otoh, is not only dragged to the Nexus, he's dragged to Picard's way of seeing and doing things. It's when Kirk finally rides that he realises something's wrong. Funny enough, once the Enterprise-D gets destroyed, that side of Picard seems to have died as well. Since that movie, he changed for Kirk's less subtle and more effective diplomacy and started kicking ass. I guess he DID learn from him. I liked Insurrection, btw. Not the best of ST:TNG, but it offers also a very good philosophic conundrum. The inhabitants of the planet aren't natives either. Kinda reminds me of when BLM keep saying whites should leave USA bc they aren't native. Well, blacks aren't either.
Whatever criticisms there are for TNG movies, at least they were made by people who knew, understood and respected Star Trek. That's what's missing from JJ Abrams and Alex Kurtzman new Trek.
The biggest problem I have with Trek films in general, and this includes the TNG and Abrams films is they think every film needs a villain with a super weapon who threatens Earth, or a planet like Earth. I don't know if this is a mandate from Paramount post-TMP, but Trek doesn't need a Khan in every film! Trek is supposed to be about exploring the unknown, not stopping the bad guy. My perfect Trek film would be something like Annihilation or Interstellar, one where they actually go somewhere and find something new. If they absolutely have to have a film dealing with the Federation, it should be epic and dramatic, not an action fest.
I might be an idiot, but I love Nemesis. It was the first of the Star Trek films I saw, and I have a lot of happy memories connected to it. It's obviously not as good as First Contact, but I think, depending on my mood, I would list it above Generations
I always enjoyed Generations simply because I got to see the original TV sets with cinematic lighting. As a kid it was really entertaining but if you really think about it nothing makes sense
Kirk's recollections and debate with Picard are absolutely heart-wrenching and resonate better with me as an adult than any other thematic element of the ten Prime Universe films. These men are both experiencing crises of mortality and questioning their life choices; Picard handling it better because he had just witnessed an inhabited star system's annihilation. Anyone struggling with regret (especially as it concerns family) can relate to Kirk's initial decision, "I was like you once: so worried about duty and obligation I couldn't see past my own uniform. And what did it get me? An empty house .... Not this time." I'd switch Generations and First Contact; the latter has less profundity and just as many plot problems. Nemesis could've been better if the deleted scenes were retained and the space battle re-tooled (Picard should've rammed the Scimitar while defending Donatra's ship, rather than from a slow, awkward dead stop). I did, however, appreciate that Picard and Shinzon's fight resembled that of King Arthur and Mordred. Picard's exchange with Donatra after the battle, followed by, "Just open the doors," was also memorable.
Insurrection was rehash of wonderful episode (" Journey's End ") with Indian settlers reallocation from series. Nemesis - clone of "Tapestry". First Contact - "Best of Both Worlds".
I would like to raise a criticism of the battle between the Scimitar and the Enterprise-E in Nemesis. It's overall cool, but the phaser energy and torpedoes being depleted so fast seemed a little strange to me considering the size of the ship. I know there was weapons fire outside of the actual external shots but it still seems like the battle was way too short to warrant the Enterprise-E running out of juice, especially with the Defiant spending FAR longer in battle and never having that problem. Additionally, the other problem is when the Enterprise-E unloads on the Scimitar after Troi locates it using her empathy. I saw lots of shield impacts but other than that, nothing. While the Enterprise is taking hull damage, and you can see debris, the Scimitar basically just gets jostled around a bit and then carries on its merry way minus the cloak... but with nearly ALL of its shields. It makes the epic moment very disappointing. I'm not asking for the Enterprise to blow the Scimitar away, but the scene would have felt better if the Scimitar had taken some real damage. To me it's like if Rocky went to fight Ivan from Rocky IV and after the beating Rocky unloads and does...... nothing at all but give Ivan a little cut. So that made that whole battle very, very frustrating to me.
Killing off Data felt so tacked on and really unnecessary. Nemesis was just terrible. First Contact was by a long measure, the best of the TNG films. It even rivals Wrath of Khan.
I'd consider Fist Contact the 2nd best Trek film behind Wrath of Khan. Speaking of, Nemesis really felt like they were trying to recreate Wrath of Khan by giving Picard a... Nemesis from his forgotten past. Except there was no history there as there was w/ Kirk/Kahn. And the writers telling us there was one doesn't make it so for the fans. Kahn only worked because of the TOS episode. If he'd been some generic bad guy first intro'd in the film, the emotional heart of the film would have been gone. It would have been... Nemesis.
They didn't want to kill Data off, which is why it probably felt tacked on. Spiner wanted Data to be taken out in the previous film even. As he got older he thought it looked really bad for Data to be aging.
Remember when they said that Shinzon was going to be as great a villain as Khan? I rank them from best: First Contact, Generations, Nemesis, Insurrection. I do think that the eighth film should have been more Dominion War related. As for the character B4, I think they should have cast for someone who sort of looks like Brent Spiner, but younger. That is if they wanted to resurrect Data in the form of B4.
First Contact is awesome, I have no complaints. Generations, I really need to watch again, it's been too long since I've seen it to make a good judgement call. Insurrection is just a long episode. Not even a great episode at that, just akin to a average one. Nemesis, I always weirdly liked. I feel like it had a lot of potential and there could have really been something there, I agree that exploring more of Picard's past and Shinzon's motives would have helped out a lot.
I’ve posted in other videos but I feel first contact ( which is already a great movie) better is if sisko and Picard had to fight off the borg. Cause Picard was a little out of character to me in first contact but having the hot blooded sisko in there would have been cool. I think the conflict would have been just them working together cause the borg queen to me was a misstep since for me the idea of an autonomous collective that just consumes kind of terrifies me. What would have worked is sisko and Picard finally dealing with the damage the borg has done to them
With First Contact they made pure gold. The stakes were far bigger than it ever had been before, and it was a very thought provoking film as well. But yeah, it was all very downhill from there, though I do think Nemesis was way better than Insurrection
I would argue the order is First Contact->Insurrection->Generations->Nemesis. Insurrection is not nearly as bad as you're saying - it's not good, but it's better than you say. It's certainly closest in tone to the show. But it's important to say that none of these movies were a patch on the best of the TV show. Mr. Plinkett has done a fantastic job of explaining why.
Dave the worst thing about Nemesis isn’t so much the direction as the scenes that were left on the cutting room floor. If you haven’t checked them out yet, look up the Chateau Picard scene first. The fact that it was cut is criminal.
To varying degrees I like all of them including Insurrection but recognise their flaws and merits. Nemesis definitely had the potential to be grand and epic and is not awful and Generations is actually sweet at times.
Agree with most of this until Nemesis which I think was equal to First Contact and a really good send off the scenes with Stewart and Hardy were really solid
i agree with the order and assessment . I like nemesis a little bit more but first contact is so far ahead of the rest , it often feels like the only TNG film and the others were TV movies. if these films were made now i suspect the dominion war would have paved the way for a STCU with tie ins to DS9 and possibly even voyager
I agree with the ranking, though Insurrection and Nemesis are so bad, it's hard to really say which one is worse. I think the way they killed Data while having a cop-out backup with B4 is why I might say Nemesis is slightly worse. But that's like saying having a toothache on the top of your jaw is worse than one on the bottom, they're both bad. If it would have just ended with First Contact, I could have been happy sending off TNG's crew that way.
1. First Contact 2. Generations 3. Nemesis 4. Insurrection But First Contact is up there with the best of best Star Trek movies. Probably only really outdone by The Wrath of Khan.
how many days did szinzon have to live? Cos why not have Picard give like 1 pint a day, keeping the blood on ice, until they have enough to completely transfuse. Would take little over a week. (the federation must be able to keep blood for way longer than we do today)
Overall Nemesis is a fixable movie. There's nothing wrong with its skeleton, but the meat they put on those bones doesn't make any sense. If they only tried a little harder to make some damn sense!
Compared to Star Trek Discovery these movies are the best thing since sliced bread.
I hate sliced bread. I want to slice it myself.
That doesn't make sense. You compare it either to Start Trek Discovery or to sliced breath.
You've just ousted yourself as 200 years old.
I'd still rather watch these than STD
I'd rather an STD than watch STD... or is it SJW? I cant tell the difference anymore.
Don't think of STD as Star Trek!
1) It isn't Star Trek
2) As it's own thing it's actually not that bad {Si vis Pacem, Para Bellum was atrocious but hopefully that's just one episode.}.
3) The Orville is Star Trek pretending not to be. STD is another show masquerading as Star Trek.
Francis Wright You're damn right. STD is not Trek. It's a generic space opera with Star Trek badges masking taped to it.
Discovery is a joke. I refuse to watch it. Hell i just got done rewatching ST: First Contact the other night, and have plans to rewatch Undiscovered Country, if only because General Chang was such a Superb Villain.
STD would have been good, if it wasn't Star Trek. If you can understand what I mean by that.
I think that the conversation between Kirk and Picard had more meaning to it than you think, Dave. Kirk had given up command for Admiralty, and he regretted every minute of it. His death away from the captain's chair was just another note of sadness to pile atop the character's own sadness at his choices. Kirk tells Picard in no uncertain words that his place as Captain is in that chair, and that he shouldn't give that up for anything.
While not supported by the TNG movies, extra-canon sources point to Picard being offered Admiralty several times, but he declined each time. This would be in keeping with Kirk's advice.
There are also extra-canon sources that suggest that during Kirk's time as an admiral in between TOS and TMP, he implemented many procedural and organizational changes that greatly benefited Starfleet in his era and beyond (see Lorerunner's long and excellent discussion of ST:TMP). So even though he gave up the captain's chair and it pained him, it was a sacrifice for the greater good.
Great point and I concur.
Actually he was offered an Admirals position in season 1 of TNG by Admiral Quinn, to run Starfleet Academy. Other sources though I'm not aware of.
Obviously this advice doesn’t apply to Sisko, Janeway, or Archer.
Sisko went on a journey with the prophets. Janeway’s promotion to Admiral helped bring her ship home in 7 years. Archer became involved in Federation government.
I don’t know how many admirals Starfleet has, but they did lose one each in First Contact and Insurrection, so that may have left some openings. Guess Janeway took advantage of one of those opportunities.
The Dominion War would have been an excellent movie and might have even made a Deep Space Nine movie a possability.
A DS9 movie would have been great. Without Aron Eisenberg or Rene Auberjonois it would be hard to and with current writers that have openly stated they did not like Star Trek, it would likely suck.
Yeah it would have been a decent chance at a watchable Star Trek movie.
Oh boy. I didn't like DS9 period. The characters for me weren't very interesting.
@@mikeluit3027 no offense but Voyager's characters were utterly dogshit. the writers gave up on them and except for the Doctor and Seven of Nine they were all left in the dump. And Enterprise? I mean you might not like DS9 characters but its one of the few shows that had character development. I mean Star Trek is fine not being serialised, but its not bad because of it. Maybe also because they're not perfect flawless characters who have no inter-personal conflicts.
@@mikeluit3027 Garrick and Ducat aren't interesting?
Kirk died a hero on the Enterprise B, saving the ship and sacrificing himself as Spock did in the Wrath of Khan, but without the long goodbye. I think that he would be remembered as a hero. Picard would not want to ruin that legend.
👏👏👏👏👏👏
I wholeheartedly agree, but again, would have been nice for the film to address or acknowledge this in some way.
That is a fair point tbh
I actually liked Insurrection. It was definitely an episode that was turned into a movie, but it had great character interactions.
Worst REAL Star Trek movie since ST:1 & 5! Nemesis was also mostly excrement! Any Movie AFTER Nemesis, is Not real Star Trek!
It’s on UA-cam for free now
Just watched it, much better than I remember
I agree, Character interactions were great
Generations, Insurrection and Nemesis all had, in my opinion, pretty mediocre scripts. Generations was elevated by great cinematography and score into something with a good heartbeat. Insurrection just fell flat through its obvious budgetary constraints and weak cinematography. Nemesis in my book is pretty irredeemable. Seems like the rough draft of the script was a lot more philosophical and epic but they got the worst possible director to do it. Also in my opinion it should have been Patrick Stewart playing Shinzon as well. Could have been cheesy but hes one of the rare actors who could have made that fascinating to watch. But Nemesis is the worst of the four for me.
I liked how Romulans were involved in Nenesis. They kinda get forgotten in Star Trek.
It's funny. When I heard it was gonna be about the Romulans I wasn't happy, then Nemesis turned out to be my favorite TNG film. Guess those green blooded bastards were pretty interesting after all.
Really? They did two movies with the same Romulan centered plot, Nemesis and Star Trek 2009.
@@christophzeit6282 Don't bring JJ into an otherwise civilized comments thread.
The new Picard series heavily focused on Romulans.
Insurrection is underrated. It's like an episode of TNG but with a huge budget. I'd rather watch more movies like that than STD. But yes, I share your disappointment with the decision not to tie in the plot with the Dominion War.
shophet125 There is actually an episode of TNG with a similar premise to the film Insurrection. "Who Watches The Watchers"
Not exactly the same, but has some similar elements to it.
Data and Troi discussing the size of their boobs. Priceless.
@@Textra1 Also Journey's end, which dealt with the forced relocation of a native American colony, and Homeward, where Worf's half-brother leads a doomed village to safety via the holodeck.
They weren't allowed to tie the movie to the Dominion War. In earlier drafts the Romulans were the villains, writer was told to replace 'em with an alien species of the episode kind of villains because using Romulans could create continuity issues with Dominion War. That was forced by studio executives. Writer of the Insurrection wrote a book about writing the movie. Paramount prevented its publication by basically threatening to blacklist him if he published it. Unfortunately Michael Piller passed away relatively young to cancer in 2005 and good thing about that misfortune is that his widow published it free on the internet and later on as print as well. Book is called Fade In. There are lot of ways how the film changed during the writing process and production, both in for better and worse in some aspects. Picards romantic interest was originally literally a child, sir Patrick Stewart didn't like it at all, so girl was changed to teenager and Patrick liked that only slightly better than a child, so they changed romantic interest to adult.
Agree, i watched insurrection recently and loved it
The space dogfight in Nemesis is a redeeming quality for me.
Wrath of Kahn and First Contact have always been the real fan favs.
KHAAAAAANNNN
They're the two BEST movies. Still..
Undiscovered Country is up there imo. Extremely strong political and thematic essence of what Star Trek stands for imo.
Although I don't disagree I still think the motion picture is fantastic.
The visuals in Generations are amazing. It's out of the Trek "norm," but the cinematography/ lighting is incredible. Sucks the only DS9 movie we got was the Defiant cameo in First Contact and the only Voyager movie we got was the Janeway cameo in Nemesis.
yeah, Avery Brooks definitelly deserved a place on the big screen! And he had an animous relation to Picard, man it would have been fun to see them get a resolution in a Dominion War movie!
Sisko is my favorite captain, so i was really saddened they wouldn't get a film. A film on the dominion war would have been a great way to tie all that up together neatly without doing a dedicated deep space nine film.
The naturalistic lighting really does add a touch of the epic to that film. A series done like that would be incredible.
Absolutely agree. We'll always have Sisko punching Q.
@TurboCMinusMinus Why they never made a TNG movie with DS9 and VOYAGER actors appearing is a mystery though. It could have really enriched a movie.
STILL BETTER THAN DISCOVERY
Twighlight is a better lovestory than Discovery.
Well, what isn't better than Discovery? The only good news is the now confirmed Captain Pike show.
Beyond Limitations Video Production It doesn’t matter. Captain Pike will be terrible. Like all modern Trek.
I've personally always found Nemesis really underrated
1. First Contact - (I hated the Borg Queen concept though)
2. Generations - (Middling pass-off movie)
3. Insurrection - (A lot wrong with this film but still Trek)
4. Nemesis
Nemesis really is the forerunner of JJTrek. Action scenes that are there because we need action. Villains that don't make a lot of sense. It is more cinematic than Insurrection but it fails everywhere else.
I always thought that the Borg queen concept should have been limited to this movie, explained that the Borg from the future would not be able to 'connect' to the older collective of the past so would've effectively been defeated the second they left the 24th century so needed the 'queen' to act as the collective will until they could establish contact with the 21st century Borg but hey ho.
First if all agree with your list.
Regarding the Borg Queen. While I liked the appearance of it when I saw First Contact when I saw the movie for the first time, over time I have become to dislike the concept of the Borg having a "leader" (in FC I thought she was the embodiment of the Collective rather than a leader).
This dislike is mostly due to her appearances on Voyager in which the concept of the Borg (a collective mind spanning thousands of lightyears with its drones being just single neurons) was dismantled and the queen started to have emotional traits like obsession.
A couple of years ago another Trek fan suggested an alternative take on how conversation with the Borg in FC should have been like: as Data or Picard talks to one drone as he walks past it another drone continues the conversation, and so on and so on.
I think that would not only have fit in more with the Collective (though the idea that the Collective actually feels a need to talk to Picard or Data when they could have just assimilated them for any knowledge the Borg want), but I think it would also have made the conversation a lot more creepier as makes clear how decentralized the Borg truly are.
Honestly... I was not a fan of the Borg Queen. I felt that her character was an antithesis to the Borg itself. The whole point of the Borg was the concept of "What's good for the group is good for the individual" to such an extreme that the sense of 'self' is completely expunged. If the Borg as a whole responded and reacted to Data as a singular disembodied intelligence operating out of different bodies like components or in unison then you would have a more insidious viewpoint of the Borg; An entity where cultures, races, philosophies and technologies are nothing more than raw materials to build its own goals.
I concur with your ranking, @ChrisLutz
@TheDutchGhost, I agree the concept of a queen is anti-borg (if I understand you correctly). More importantly, your ideas of alternate/creepy characterization are amazing! I would love to see that concept developed in a sci-fi film!
@@H2Obsession You understood me correctly, I think the Borg Queen should never have been introduced. It devolved into a generic "bad guy" during Voyager.
After the soulless Nu-Trek films I went and bought all 10 Star Trek films in the TOS/TNG blu-ray collections. I have to thank Abrams and company for giving me a new found respect and enjoyment out of these films. My TNG movie list would be the same as yours Dave, and as much hate as Final Frontier gets I can't hate it for the simple reason it has the scene in the brig. Where Kirk and Spock arguing and McCoy chiming in.
Kirk: Dammit Spock. God dammit.
Spock: Captain, what I have done...
Kirk: What you've done is betray every man on the ship.
Spock: Worse. I've betrayed you. I do not expect you to forgive me.
Kirk: Forgive you? I ought to knock you on your God Damn ass.
Spock: If you think it would help.
McCoy: You want me to hold him Jim?
Kirk: You stay out of this!
I'm sure you'll agree FF gave us a great quote; one of my favorites decades later : "What does GOD need with a starship??"
Row Row Row your boat.
Final Frontier would have worked had the mission to respond to a Divine call been treated with the seriousness it deserved.
Same here.
Grew up on the kirk movies and next gen.
They all look like next level masterpieces compared to nu trek
@@richyrich7260 awesome scene
I always hoped that a movie would have been made with the Argus fluid thing (that killed Tasha Yar), seeking revenge on Picard for tricking it and leaving it behind on that planet. It would have been a nice homage to the Khan episode/movie tie in...
Black Knight Yes Armus would have made a crazy cool movie villain (assuming he was a bit faster moving and had some better special effects) like the Blob or one of those other 60’s monsters.
Honestly that should have been generations. Maybe the Creature could fuck with time or some subspace bullshit idk black holes and wormholes. Just something not to contrived. Forcing both men face their flaws and fears.
Your ranking of the movies is spot on. I wish every one had been of the same caliber as first contact. I wish DS9 had gotten a movie combo with the TNG crew durring the war. That would have made for an epic film.
I do not often agree with you, Dave, but for Generations and First Contact I almost completely agree.
For Insurrection I feel you completely missed the point though. The planet is not "property" of the Federation, it is a colony of another race. If someone lives in Federation space (or to put it in better words, within the Federation borders), does not mean they are automatically a member of the federation. Also, the Federation did not know they where once a warp capable civilization, so practically the Prime Directive would still have applied as far as the Federation would be concerned. Also, you said "It's only 600 people.". I could give you the same speech as Picard gave Admiral Dougherty: "...How many people does it take before it becomes wrong?...". You also call the Baku selfish for not sharing the effects of the rings. But it's being forcibly being taking from them. That's something else as the Federation talking and negotiating with them. And then it still would be the Baku's decision to make, not the Federation's.
Also, the special effects could have been better, but are still not as bad as you make them out to be. I do however agree on the the laser-tag and the joystick criticism.
For Nemesis I agree with a lot of points, and the one of the major faults with the movie is that the contrast between the good bits and the bad bits is sooooo huge, and I also missed screen-time for Worf, Geordi and Beverly. However, my main criticism is that the story has way to many continuity errors with the rest of the franchise. Having said that, I still did enjoy watching it, and did so multiple times now.
For me the order would be:
1. First Contact (Which together with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country are my favorites of all Star Trek movies.)
2. Generations
3. Insurrection
4. Nemesis
Wow I couldn't have said it better myself, I know because I tried and I was much longer and less succinct
jjledzep
Exactly 👌
so very true, and your film ranking (including your appreciation of TUC) are exactly the same as mine.
Also Dave acted like the Baku were completely hoarding the planet to themselves, but they only banished the Sona after they tried to take over. Picard even suggested before he knew this that the Sona could establish a separate colony on the planet. The Baku showed no indication that they would object to a separate settlement or settlements on the planet. Hell, the extent of Baku activity was probably all of a few hundred square km. billions of people could be on the planet and they would never see them. The plan to collect the radiation was wasteful and reckless. You render an M class planet unlivable to get billions of concentrated treatments that will eventually run out, or you set up hospitals and colonies which can help billions of people(if not quite as fast) indefinitely. They federation/sona plan was a short term gain at a massive long term loss.
jjledzep undiscovered country is great.
The point Dave is making is that the Baku are in fact hoarding the radiation because they refuse to allow the collection of the radiation around the planet because, and I'm paraphrasing here, "But then we'll age and die!"
Allowing the Federation to collect the radiation around the planet would eventually result in the deaths of 600, yes, but it extends the lives of hundreds of trillions by a hundred years or more. With experts in the field of biology living longer and getting to study their field of expertise for a longer period of time, there is a greater chance more life extension technology could be developed, and this cycle could repeat.
The needs of the vast majority out way the wants of the minute fraction. If possible immortality for hundreds of trillions can be attained at the cost of immortality for 600 individuals, while they still get to live a normal life span with the same life extending technology everyone else is going to get, then so be it.
I have a soft spot for Insurrection. Watched it in theaters with my family several times and it felt like a tng episode in a good way. Think its a bit misunderstood being the First Contact follow up
Same. I saw it with family in theaters and it is the closest in tone to the TV show, especially Data.
I think you are a little unfair with your thoughts on Insurrection. If you just don't like, that is fair, but some of your points don't really make sense.
The Baku - It doesn't matter that they were not indigenous to the planet. They've lived there for over 300 years, before the Federation even existed. For all intents and purposes, it IS their planet.
Federation Territory - A planet being in Federation Territory does not mean that the Federation 'owns' that planet. It just means that it is a planet within their boarders. Go back to the Season 3 episode, "Who Watches the Watchers". The Federation did not 'own' Mintaka III, nor were the Mintakans 'Federation Property'. It was simply a planet within Federation Space. Speaking of which...
The Duck-blind - The Federation thought, going into this, that the Baku were indigenous to the planet, and that they were a primitive species. So of course they would hide their existence while observing, just like they did in the previously mentioned Season 3 episode. This plot line was 100% in keeping with established Federation procedure.
The Plan - This wasn't a case of, 'Hey, we'd like to use this planet'. What they were going to do to the planet would have made it uninhabitable. They were going to destroy someone else's home for their own purposes. The Federation is supposed to be above that kind of behavior, so yes, it DID make them the villain.
I can understand that many people did not like this movie, but in my opinion, your points completely miss what went on in the movie, and overlook years of Star Trek cannon.
If this was a Federation council meeting, I would agree to disagree on Dave's points about the Baku as well.
OpinionsAreLikeUs insurrection is the ulimate expression of drumhead
These are all excellent points, couldn't have said it better myself. I would add that the vulcan concept of the "good of the many outweigh the good of the few" was often used as a way to show the pure logic way of thinking of Spock that would then be moderated by the human and emotional decisions of kirk that would often go against that premise. The one critical moment when that is also said is during the death scene of spock in ST2, in which case it was spock himself who gave up his life to save the many, no one forced him to take that decision.
I have seen many of these videos, Dave often goes on tangents heavily influenced by his political beliefs. I think this discussion of insurrection is a perfect example.
OpinionsAreLikeUs yeah, and as for his statement "they wanted to keep it for themselves" is a bit disengenuous since as I recall they never said no one else was allowed to live on it, just that they didn't wish to move. As for the Federation "owning it" that's just silly, they dont own all the planets in the federation, their occupants do, which in this case in the Bakku.
This would all be a perfectly valid argument, except that it misses the elephant in the room (which is not your fault because the film misses it as well): at this point in the canon, the Federation is stuck in the Dominion War and it is actually losing badly. Potentially billions of lives would have been at stake if the Federation had lost. In that context, the prospect of obtaining a new form of advanced medical science that could sustain a desperate population even in the face of absolute privation could have been a game changer, especially if it could be obtained at so little cost as moving 600 people off of a backwater planet. The film should have played out as "In the Pale Moonlight" writ large, with desperate Starfleet officers struggling with their consciences in order to do something that they knew they have no choice but to do, with the Enterprise crew bitterly divided between the two sides, except the writers foolishly missed the obvious and decided to straw-man their own concept.
WHen the joystick came out...i remembered the whole movie theater was laughing.
I bet they thought they were so clever pulling that Atari bootleg.
One little bit that felt strange for me when watching Generations was the bridge of the Enterprise D. When you look at the operations and navigation you see how many different characters have sat there, Wesley, Ro, Worf etc and that to me builds up the feels.
My favorite thing about the TNG movies : that same Picard face used on three different posters.
I never noticed that until I read you post lol
1. First Contact
2. Nemesis
3/4. Generations/Insurrection.
Nemesis killed Data. I cannot forgive this...
As an 8 yo girl seeing her hero die on screen like that I was never the same as I sobbed my way out of the theater
Brent Spiner was to blame. He wanted Data to die.
Brent Spiner wanted it... he said that for an android that never ages it was getting more difficult to play the part
Unfortunately Brent Spiner wanted it because he said that androids aren't meant to age
@10:56 As Picard himself stated "The darkest periods in Earth's history began when the few were exploited for the needs of the many" (Trail of Tears). And you skipped over the point of the Bak'cu and the Son'na being related as that provided the real reason why this operate to remove the Bak'cu from this planet was being conducted under such secrecy. (no spoilers watch the movie again).
Bernard Gilbert
Well, they are related. But that just makes the Baku look like even bigger assholes, because they (somehow) forced the Sona of their planet, because apparently the *planet* was not big enough for two civilisation. The Sona building their own city out of sight was not good enough, they had to go.
Also, the secret relocation was probably the admirals idea, because he did not know they are the same race, and the Sona would not mind using force.
In Generations that 20 year old bird of prey was a D12 class bird of prey. It's a medium cruiser. Without shields, the Enterprise couldn't stand up to that. Federation ships have next to no armor, and klingon ships are heavily armored, and the D12 had shields. Any ship without shields can be taken out by a couple of torpedoes just like that.
In Insurrection the briar was only part of the federation in the 24 century. The ba'ku were there long before the federation. Even though they are not a native species, they did come to the planet first and claimed it. So they weren't squatting.
+chris pearson
no the D12 is a cruiser. It was the top of the line for klingon warships for a while when it was first launched.
My favorite is First Contact. I never saw Nemesis in the theatre and watched maybe half on cable before flipping the channel.
FC still have its issues but Troi being drunk was pretty funny and I liked that the Federation hero turned out to be a flawed man.
Yeah the followup to First Contact should've been a Dominion War movie. I get that you don't want to make Star Trek pure action, but the war was canon and established. This would've been a war movie on Star Trek's terms, not the producers or Abrams
I love them all. First Contact is the best though by a stretch. I'd say Insurrection is my least favourite but it has some great parts regardless
1) First Contact
2) Nemesis
3) Generations
4) Insurrection
First and fourth places are almost a given. Second and third are definitely arguable. But it doesn't make to much difference. Neither Generations nor Nemesis are either the best or the worst of the TNG films.
Nah, Generations was the best.
Koloth insurrection was better than nemesis.
I loved First contact and Generation (Not a Kirk death preaty not epic)
All Good Things gets the blue ribbon.
That would have been a great movie. It really encapsulated what made TNG great.
Generations has the biggest heart of all three. Especially around that discussion of life and death using time as a metaphor. Best dialogue of all four movies.
I actually really, really love the TNG movie uniforms, especially the white formal uniforms which are probably my favorite, followed by the TOS red formal uniforms.
In reply to 3:00, Dr Soran was working on a weapon of unlimited power. It's what the Romulans came looking for at the start of Generations, it's why Lursa and Be'tor rescued Soran from the shockwave, why Soran was able to punch Be'tor and get away with it, and why the Klingons took him Veridian III in exchange for that weapon (he transmitted the weapon's code to the Klingons to unlock it when he was safely on the planet's surface). The weapon was capable of stopping all nuclear fusion within a star, which is what diverted the nexus to Veridian III, which goes to show how powerful it was.
The Enterprise-D didn't stand a chance against Soran's weapon of unlimited power, which is why a 20-year-old Klingon Bird of Prey was able to severely damage the Federation flagship. I think that had it been the observatory shooting at the Enterprise with the weapon (and maybe if the torpedos looked more fierce, instead of just the standard green Klingon torpedoes) I think people would have been less confused. It was a very complicated plot.
Always loved Alfre Woodard in anything she did. From her recurring character in the critically acclaimed "St. Elsewhere" to the made for tv film where she and soul diva Patti LaBelle were paired with comedic actor John Ritter, to churn out a serious dramatic true story telling of the Vietnam vets who were the first to bring light to the Agent Orange effects on Nam soldiers.
I loved Woodard's line to the out of control Picard, _"I think you got him..."_ Its pure her as a compitent woman set up to handle a man in a moment of high stress.
My favorite quote from these movies was "I don't wanna be a statue."
Fist contact was indeed the best ST movie! "Timeline? This no time to be talking about timelines!"...."If you want my PROFESSIONAL opinion as a counselor , he's NUTS!"
I would love to see this version! Fist Contact: A Fight Club Porn Parody 😜
You said what I've said for many years. Generations is BEAUTIFULLY filmed. I love watching it, and I loved the new look for the D, the change of lighting. The most beautiful looking of the TNG films.
As for First Contact, all I can say beyond it being amazing, is that there was allegedly a scene with Sisko shot sending Worf to sector 001, and why hasn't that been shown at this point, 25 years later, in a director's cut?
Agree pretty much but I think Nemesis is better than it's given credit for. Far from perfect, but getting something that really put some highlights on the Romulans, since basically all the TV series blueballed with them a lot was great. It does a lot of wrap up work too, something most finales of any show never do. All through TNG Riker is criticized for not taking a captain role, we finally get it. All through TNG we get the will they/won't they love triangle between Riker, Troi, and Worf - the wrap it up. If we think about any character, other than Picard who could be called the main character of TNG, it's Data, and his long struggle to find his humanity which was already continued through the other movies and brought to a final(though admitted poorly forced) conclusion. Plus a teriffic space battle is nothing to scoff at. Back to the Romulans, they've also been getting all that build up in the series, they always came across as being close to the fence, they aren't pure evil and hyper aggressive, just careful and secretive - it always seemed like they could become allies and the conclusion implied they would be(BEGONE JJ movies)
About Insurrection, I actually mostly enjoyed it, though more as an episode than a movie.
As for the Baku and the planet, I get the arguments that they were in the wrong, but one point; they were on the planet before humans were even in space, long before the Federation existed. Thus the Federation didn't own the planet, they did.
And if you try to use the argument that they weren't indigenous to the planet, you get into a sticky area, because "Native Americans" aren't actually indigenous to North America. They were just the first people to _find_ the land, after crossing a landbridge from Eurasia.
So saying it doesn't matter that the Baku were there first is like saying it doesn't matter that the Native Americans were there first.
First Contact and The Undiscovered Country are the best Star Trek movies in my opinion. I personally like Nemesis, maybe because i saw it as a kid and Star Trek in general brought me and my father very close to each other, and it adds that nostalgia factor to the movie. This franchise has given me so much i cannot hate it, not even STD.
I love Doctor Spock!
May the force be with you!
Please stop watching STD.
You love Dr. Spock, the pediatrician? Agreed. His 1988 book, "Spock on Parenting" really brought about new and interesting ideas for parenting human children.
Mad -pac. Yes indeed! Did the second sentence not give you any clue as to my great trolling?
Doctor Who?
The Funk Doctor Spock? Red Man?
For me the existence of B4 in Nemesis is what actually sinks the film. From the lack of any explanation as to where Shinzon got him (and the lack of any mention of Lore during conversations about him) to the way all his scenes seem there for him to say something stupid for a cheap laugh and finally to the copying of Data's memories to him to provide a reset button after Data's death. If you cut out those scenes and replaced them with something which maybe gives Geordie and Worf something to do (maybe a Reman attack on engineering in order to get the fleet locations) then it could have been a much more satisfying film and possibly even one which could stand near to First Contact in quality.
Data had too much of a role in that film and I agree the B4 parts were a drag. But, if I remember correctly, Spiner had a hand in the script and I think he ended Shatner'ing it up.
Martin Keeton I thought B4 might have been Lore on my first viewing of the film and I got really excited. I thought it would have been awesome to bring him back one last time. When we find out it was just another prototype I was actually really disappointed.
I don't understand why B4 *wasn't* Lore. Who couldn't envision Lore working with Shinzon? Sure, Lore was shut down by Data and probably kept somewhere secure by starfllet but it makes more sense Shinzon nicking Lore than *very conveniently* finding another Soong-type android from nowhere! And You could even have it starting out the same way with Lore pretending to be a different, dumber, android. It'd be entirely in-keeping with his character. He was very duplicitous in Data-Lore. And maybe Data's death would have felt a bit more earned? Data dies destroying Lore? WHY DIDN'T THEY DO THIS?
@amuletts, I totally agree! Lore working with Shinzon... great, and his acting as B4... pure brilliance! (Because Lore is known for his duplicity.) Please get a job in Hollywood. I would love to see your next movie!
Anyway, I agree with @Martin Keeton... B4 stinks as written.
There was no reason for B4 to exist since we had Lore. It would've made far more sense to have the Romulans steal Lore from wherever Starfleet was storing him and use him for the same purpose. Since Lore doesn't work for anybody, the Romulans could've tried to forcibly reprogram him and inadvertently destroyed most of his mind due to inexperience with his positronic technology, leaving him like B4. It's just a slight rewrite to replace B4 with Lore. And Lore's ultimate fate is still unresolved, with no mention of him in Picard. I keep hoping some comic or novel will address it eventually
Insurrection is the only Trek film I can recall disappearing from the theater where I lived at the time after 2 weeks.
the only one I truly dislike is Insurrection. I can watch Generations, I can easily watch Nemesis, and I always enjoy watching First Contact, but that one is hard to watch. Nemesis may have a lot of problems, quite obvious ones even, but I still like it. Not as the ending of the TNG timeline, but just as a movie. Great space battle, some fantastic scenes in the mix, an intriguing moral dilemma, and yeah, some pretty underused characters, but still, not bad.
"Bridge on the Captain." - Willam Shatner taking about this scene during"The Captain's Summit".
"How did Picard carry Kirk's body..."
Dude, it's Picard.
You need to do this for the 6 Original Series Star Trek movies. Would you be interested in doing a video on them???
oh thats easy 2,3,4 as a group (in which ever order you like, I regard them as one story) 6, 1,5
Generations is my favorite of TNG films, because of the meeting between Kirk and Picard, what also made it feel unique in my opinion that is, is that it felt like a higher budgeted episode of it's respective tv series.
"The Baku are squatting there" had me in tears lmfao!
Insurrection wasn't just the worst TNG movie, it rivals TMP for the worst Trek of all time. I remember thinking "Picard is committing treason against the Federation so another colony of smug space hippies don't have to play hacky-sack on a different paradise planet? And billions of suffering sick people can just fuck right off?" Only time I was actually rooting for the villains in a Trek movie.
I watched all TNG movies my favorites are generations and first contact
Dave - totally agree with your order, and for all the reasons you state.
The only thing I agonize over is whether I like the Galaxy Class or the Sovereign Class better... Sure Sovereign is faster & newer but it's primarily a battle-wagon. The Galaxy is the ultimate multi-role ship, literally good at everything but very big and expensive in terms of materials and manpower. I did like that the Sovereign was smaller, that the bigger-is-better Starfleet design paradigm has peaked and then reversed itself. It both makes sense and secures the Galaxy a place in history as the biggest ship of its era, the previous era, and likely the following era.
I appreciate that you referenced Confused Matthew. I feel free was a pioneer in online movie reviews. He was my introduction to online movie critique essays. Glad to hear I'm not the only one who knows him.
I agree with your opinions, especially Insurrection. This movie was a chance for us to see where the Enterprise, the Flag Ship of the Federation Fleet was during the Dominion War. Why we never saw it in the main battles where her crew could had been EXTREMELY useful. Yes in a cross over there's always the danger of one group outshining another, but if done right both sides can highlight the best on both sides.
But instead, we got the Enterprise robbing the Federation of a MUCH needed resource for a war they were LOSING at the time. And all because some technology hating people got to stay on a planet that was in Federation Territory. Meanwhile MILLIONS of people are dying in the Dominion War.
A great contrast to this is "In the Pale Moonlight" where Sisko does many questionable things to bring the Romulans into the war and turn the tide. What would you do in that situation? That was one of Star Trek's best strengths, thought provoking episodes that explored the grey areas of morality and problem solving.
But in that film, we got a bull crap message of protecting the rights of people who are too selfish and ignorant for their own good.
Your summary of Insurrection is spot on! But you forgot one thing which was exceptionally good: There was never an OST this good in a ST movie! It still gives me goosebumps!
Dave, you should find Tom Hardy & Patrick Stewart's read through of the script from Nemesis. Some of the dialog is slightly different in places, and the acting is a little more casual, but god *DAMN* did these men knock it out of the park, even for just a rehearsal it's solid acting.
4. Insurrection
3. Nemesis
2. Generations (bit of a guilty pleasure tbh)
1. First Contact
First contact is amazing with the best soundtrack and aged amazingly good.
I kinda disagree with the encounter between Picard and Kirk not being very interesting. It has a purpose: many episodes show Picard enjoying riding, which symbolises his elegant way of doing things: always the diplomat, always the politician. Kirk, otoh, is not only dragged to the Nexus, he's dragged to Picard's way of seeing and doing things. It's when Kirk finally rides that he realises something's wrong. Funny enough, once the Enterprise-D gets destroyed, that side of Picard seems to have died as well. Since that movie, he changed for Kirk's less subtle and more effective diplomacy and started kicking ass. I guess he DID learn from him.
I liked Insurrection, btw. Not the best of ST:TNG, but it offers also a very good philosophic conundrum. The inhabitants of the planet aren't natives either. Kinda reminds me of when BLM keep saying whites should leave USA bc they aren't native. Well, blacks aren't either.
Whatever criticisms there are for TNG movies, at least they were made by people who knew, understood and respected Star Trek. That's what's missing from JJ Abrams and Alex Kurtzman new Trek.
Excellent video. Your commentary is spot on.
The biggest problem I have with Trek films in general, and this includes the TNG and Abrams films is they think every film needs a villain with a super weapon who threatens Earth, or a planet like Earth. I don't know if this is a mandate from Paramount post-TMP, but Trek doesn't need a Khan in every film! Trek is supposed to be about exploring the unknown, not stopping the bad guy. My perfect Trek film would be something like Annihilation or Interstellar, one where they actually go somewhere and find something new. If they absolutely have to have a film dealing with the Federation, it should be epic and dramatic, not an action fest.
I might be an idiot, but I love Nemesis. It was the first of the Star Trek films I saw, and I have a lot of happy memories connected to it. It's obviously not as good as First Contact, but I think, depending on my mood, I would list it above Generations
I always enjoyed Generations simply because I got to see the original TV sets with cinematic lighting. As a kid it was really entertaining but if you really think about it nothing makes sense
Kirk's recollections and debate with Picard are absolutely heart-wrenching and resonate better with me as an adult than any other thematic element of the ten Prime Universe films. These men are both experiencing crises of mortality and questioning their life choices; Picard handling it better because he had just witnessed an inhabited star system's annihilation. Anyone struggling with regret (especially as it concerns family) can relate to Kirk's initial decision, "I was like you once: so worried about duty and obligation I couldn't see past my own uniform. And what did it get me? An empty house .... Not this time."
I'd switch Generations and First Contact; the latter has less profundity and just as many plot problems. Nemesis could've been better if the deleted scenes were retained and the space battle re-tooled (Picard should've rammed the Scimitar while defending Donatra's ship, rather than from a slow, awkward dead stop). I did, however, appreciate that Picard and Shinzon's fight resembled that of King Arthur and Mordred. Picard's exchange with Donatra after the battle, followed by, "Just open the doors," was also memorable.
Insurrection was rehash of wonderful episode (" Journey's End ") with Indian settlers reallocation from series. Nemesis - clone of "Tapestry". First Contact - "Best of Both Worlds".
I would like to raise a criticism of the battle between the Scimitar and the Enterprise-E in Nemesis. It's overall cool, but the phaser energy and torpedoes being depleted so fast seemed a little strange to me considering the size of the ship. I know there was weapons fire outside of the actual external shots but it still seems like the battle was way too short to warrant the Enterprise-E running out of juice, especially with the Defiant spending FAR longer in battle and never having that problem. Additionally, the other problem is when the Enterprise-E unloads on the Scimitar after Troi locates it using her empathy. I saw lots of shield impacts but other than that, nothing. While the Enterprise is taking hull damage, and you can see debris, the Scimitar basically just gets jostled around a bit and then carries on its merry way minus the cloak... but with nearly ALL of its shields. It makes the epic moment very disappointing. I'm not asking for the Enterprise to blow the Scimitar away, but the scene would have felt better if the Scimitar had taken some real damage. To me it's like if Rocky went to fight Ivan from Rocky IV and after the beating Rocky unloads and does...... nothing at all but give Ivan a little cut. So that made that whole battle very, very frustrating to me.
Killing off Data felt so tacked on and really unnecessary. Nemesis was just terrible. First Contact was by a long measure, the best of the TNG films. It even rivals Wrath of Khan.
I'd consider Fist Contact the 2nd best Trek film behind Wrath of Khan. Speaking of, Nemesis really felt like they were trying to recreate Wrath of Khan by giving Picard a... Nemesis from his forgotten past. Except there was no history there as there was w/ Kirk/Kahn. And the writers telling us there was one doesn't make it so for the fans. Kahn only worked because of the TOS episode. If he'd been some generic bad guy first intro'd in the film, the emotional heart of the film would have been gone. It would have been... Nemesis.
First Contact was awful.
They didn't want to kill Data off, which is why it probably felt tacked on. Spiner wanted Data to be taken out in the previous film even. As he got older he thought it looked really bad for Data to be aging.
@PiGo I would like to add that Brent Spiner only agreed to star in Nemesis if he got killed off.
@Antichrist2000 I would say First Contact is one of the worst for just one of those reasons.
Insurrection is my favorite * quickly ducks for cover *
BTW making a safe movie is going back to the Borg every time
For me it's
4. Insurrection (1998)
3. Nemesis (2002)
2. Generations (1994)
1. First Contact (1996)
To be honest.... Insurrection is my favorite
Remember when they said that Shinzon was going to be as great a villain as Khan? I rank them from best: First Contact, Generations, Nemesis, Insurrection.
I do think that the eighth film should have been more Dominion War related.
As for the character B4, I think they should have cast for someone who sort of looks like Brent Spiner, but younger. That is if they wanted to resurrect Data in the form of B4.
First Contact is awesome, I have no complaints.
Generations, I really need to watch again, it's been too long since I've seen it to make a good judgement call.
Insurrection is just a long episode. Not even a great episode at that, just akin to a average one.
Nemesis, I always weirdly liked. I feel like it had a lot of potential and there could have really been something there, I agree that exploring more of Picard's past and Shinzon's motives would have helped out a lot.
This was a really good video, and gave me cause to revisit some of these films, witch I had forgotten about.
I’ve posted in other videos but I feel first contact ( which is already a great movie) better is if sisko and Picard had to fight off the borg. Cause Picard was a little out of character to me in first contact but having the hot blooded sisko in there would have been cool. I think the conflict would have been just them working together cause the borg queen to me was a misstep since for me the idea of an autonomous collective that just consumes kind of terrifies me.
What would have worked is sisko and Picard finally dealing with the damage the borg has done to them
With First Contact they made pure gold. The stakes were far bigger than it ever had been before, and it was a very thought provoking film as well. But yeah, it was all very downhill from there, though I do think Nemesis was way better than Insurrection
Personally, I prefer Insurrection over Generations. The former had fewer things that bothered me. First Contact blows both of them away, of course.
I would argue the order is First Contact->Insurrection->Generations->Nemesis. Insurrection is not nearly as bad as you're saying - it's not good, but it's better than you say. It's certainly closest in tone to the show. But it's important to say that none of these movies were a patch on the best of the TV show. Mr. Plinkett has done a fantastic job of explaining why.
Dave the worst thing about Nemesis isn’t so much the direction as the scenes that were left on the cutting room floor. If you haven’t checked them out yet, look up the Chateau Picard scene first. The fact that it was cut is criminal.
To varying degrees I like all of them including Insurrection but recognise their flaws and merits. Nemesis definitely had the potential to be grand and epic and is not awful and Generations is actually sweet at times.
"First Contact" is great fun and a trillion X better than anything in KurtmanNeoTrek.
2:42 For bonus points, this is a pre-warp planet. Kirk's bones are going to give some archeologists a lot of headache.
Agree with most of this until Nemesis which I think was equal to First Contact and a really good send off the scenes with Stewart and Hardy were really solid
ST Insurrection: I really liked the Riker/Troi rejuvination romantic rekindling, but otherwise completely agree with the review in this vid.
Nemesis actually put me to sleep recently. I decided to watch it with my son and nodded off. I now blame the background noise.
Generations is a beautifully shot film.
i agree with the order and assessment . I like nemesis a little bit more but first contact is so far ahead of the rest , it often feels like the only TNG film and the others were TV movies. if these films were made now i suspect the dominion war would have paved the way for a STCU with tie ins to DS9 and possibly even voyager
I used to Chekov to these movies but now they just make me want to take a number one.
I completely agree with this whole video and the ranking
I agree with the ranking, though Insurrection and Nemesis are so bad, it's hard to really say which one is worse. I think the way they killed Data while having a cop-out backup with B4 is why I might say Nemesis is slightly worse. But that's like saying having a toothache on the top of your jaw is worse than one on the bottom, they're both bad. If it would have just ended with First Contact, I could have been happy sending off TNG's crew that way.
Of course Kirk said he always believed that when he dies he would die alone, so on the bridge of a ship would not be the place.
I rate the films exactly the same. The best thing about Insurrection was the music score. I really like that.
You forgot about Data singing and Worf's reaction to that!
1. First Contact
2. Generations
3. Nemesis
4. Insurrection
But First Contact is up there with the best of best Star Trek movies. Probably only really outdone by The Wrath of Khan.
I cannot watch any review of Insurrection without recalling Plinkett's line about "a purple space bazooka" LOL
I am not going to mention any show names, but I am glad that Picard is not left familially destitute after Rene and Robert died.
Nemesis may not be perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than generations.
how many days did szinzon have to live? Cos why not have Picard give like 1 pint a day, keeping the blood on ice, until they have enough to completely transfuse. Would take little over a week. (the federation must be able to keep blood for way longer than we do today)
Overall Nemesis is a fixable movie. There's nothing wrong with its skeleton, but the meat they put on those bones doesn't make any sense. If they only tried a little harder to make some damn sense!
I’ve watched the shit out of first contact, love that movie.
Saw the Borg Queen actress at a comic con a few years back too.