On Screen: Another TNG Movie?

[Tobian]

Yes I have to agree with you there.. The last thing they really want to do is do a horribly complext startrek story.. They need something simple, easy to follow and probably involving shooting BUT it does REALLY not want to suck as badly as Nemesis! That is reducing trek the wrong way!

I would rather Brian Singer did it, but yes, sadly because of the property.. I can imagine they will go either one of two ways.. Either even more reductive "We need more guns, less plot, lose that prime directive crap!" or they will try TOO hard to make it treky :S

[Doug Burke]

Would anyone want to see Leonard Nimoy direct another Trek film?

I think it would be interesting to see what TNG would look like with a TOS touch...

[REG]

Look at First Contact: That is the anti-Trek Trek movie: You don't really need to know about the federation, warp mechanics, alien religions or which ensign was turned into what geometric shape and crushed by Andromedans.

By your logic or argument, you could also say that The Wrath of Khan and The Voyage Home are anti-Trek films.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

Once again, I think that the director is just one peice of the puzzle. You need a good, perhaps even great story. I'm probably one of the biggest fanboys you'll even meet, and even I know that sifting through the entire mythos and making something that will appeal only to fans is dooming the project.

<snip>

What I'm tryin to say here is IF they made another Trek movie, it's gonna have to be some kinda story that will appeal to the mass audience: I mayself would love a movie with a Gorn/Tholian/Fed allience against extra-dimentional invaders, but I know in my heart that it wouldn't work. (unless it's written like ID4 or LotR.... )

I completely agree, and anyone who does come in to work on such a script needs to understand that. That said, you can put in little touchs for the fans, but you need to keep them subtle so they don't turn off the general audience.

[Tricky]

Well, Wrath had the return of a villian from TOS, Khan, who's existance it turns out is very important to the entire mythos. (Eugenics war to WWIII, ban on genetic engineering, then the Augment incident, which lead to 'flat forheaded' Klingons, which slowed their empires advance, which kept Earth from becoming a vassal state. Oh and the same tech gave DS9 it's Chief Medical officer.) So it is partially anti-Trek.

But yeah, I guess in a way, STIV is an Anti-Trek movie; most of the Federation stuff could be replaced (guys from the future, friendly aliens or some such replacing it) and it would still be a great movie.

imho

[C5]

I have to agree here : I watched TWOK with very little knowlede of the Trekverse, and missed a lot of tiny details that, adding up, took part of the interest of the movie away for me (this probably explaining the fact that I was never able to understand why this movie is supposed to be so good).

OTOH, I agree that TVH and FC can be seen without knowing too much of the background (of course, one might miss the interest of scenes like the one with Spock and his mother at the beginning of TVH, or how becoming part human can mean so much for Data in FC, but they are IMHO less important than fully understanding the nature of Khan's relationship to Kirk).

[REG]

I have to agree here : I watched TWOK with very little knowlede of the Trekverse, and missed a lot of tiny details that, adding up, took part of the interest of the movie away for me (this probably explaining the fact that I was never able to understand why this movie is supposed to be so good).

The tiny details are minor, like watching an episode of TOS where Kirk was accused of killing a former rival classmate, only to find that the classmate actually faked his death.

The movie stand good on its own because it touched upon (1) getting old, (2) an obsessed villain -- so very Shakespearean, and (3) the Das Boot style combat between two ships that we don't get to see prior to the film. The movie also stirred a controversy because it killed Mr. Spock.

[Tobian]

The Trek movies which are good are pretty much good because they are heavy on plot, where you don't need to know much about the universe BUT there's a whole mess of stuff for fans to eat up.

The Wrath of Khan was extremelly bold and had emotional involvement. If you are to compare, for example Spocks death in The TWoK and Data's in Nemesis it goes to show how dumed down that film really was.. Yes you can, retrospectivelly, look back on TWoK, having seen The Search For Spock, and go yes: I can see where they were going here, but that's only because TSFS added odd bits of detail, like Spock saying 'Remember'. I have no idea on the actual writers intentions in TWoK but it could have gone either way.. In Nemesis it's like they are holding up a sign and going DATA IS NOT REALLY DEAD, SEE YOU IN THE NEXT EPISODE under our noses throughout the end of the film. It therefore removed the emotional impact, and imediatelly made me think.. Ripoff!

I think Reg you hit the button when you said 'it caused controversy' - which translates to gnashing and wailing of teeth, back in the 80's.. Lets compare that to the fan uproar at killing off Data.. no wait.. there was none!

[C5]

I think Reg you hit the button when you said 'it caused controversy' - which translates to gnashing and wailing of teeth, back in the 80's.. Lets compare that to the fan uproar at killing off Data.. no wait.. there was none!

I won't disagree with the fact that Nemesis looks like a cheap copy of TWOK (although I rather liked this movie and am not a huge fan of its model), but as far as fan reactions are concerned, I think that things were quite different for Nemesis... for one thing, most of Nemesis script was already known around 6 months before the movie aired, effectively killing most of the effect of surprise, added to the fact that most fans were already very critical of the staff, to put it mildly.
Plus, the TNG crew already had three movies behind it when Nemesis came, instead of the one movie before TWOK. I don't know for instance if Kirk's death in STVII generated as much uproar (apart from the way he met his end in the movie...)

Anyway, back on topic, I think that a Star Trek movie now suffers from the "geek label" that is apparently stuck to the franchise as far as the average viewer is concerned.
In order to attract some audience, a Trek movie would have to be quite innovative... which sadly is often mixed with "adding lotsa explosions, FX and chicks" as far as some execs are concerned...

[REG]

Anyway, back on topic, I think that a Star Trek movie now suffers from the "geek label" that is apparently stuck to the franchise as far as the average viewer is concerned.

Huh???

Did we have a label change? Since when did Star Trek become a mainstream film?

In order to attract some audience, a Trek movie would have to be quite innovative... which sadly is often mixed with "adding lotsa explosions, FX and chicks" as far as some execs are concerned...

Not a whole lotta under-40 chicks in some of the recent Trek films, unless you count the Borg Queen in FIRST CONTACT (so far the only TNG film I can tolerate watching).

[Cut]

Huh???

Did we have a label change? Since when did Star Trek become a mainstream film?



Not a whole lotta under-40 chicks in some of the recent Trek films, unless you count the Borg Queen in FIRST CONTACT (so far the only TNG film I can tolerate watching).

I think that FC has been a great movie, but it hasn't been a very trekish one. The very dark, almost Alien-like atmosphere, the heavy on action storyline. That wasn't a Star Trek movie per se. Yes, it featured the cast and the villans from TNG but apart from that it was the most mainstreamed product of the series up until then. But that's not what Star Trek in the main part (especcialy not TNG) was all about. TNG wasn't the dark, gloomy, rich in warstories setting. The Borg situation demanded a clearing up, and it was well done in the movie, but that's not the core of TNG.

I think that though not as well liked as the other movies ST:Insurrection was a typical Star Trek (TNG) movie.

It was like a long episode brought to the big screen. A story about moral dilemma, friendship and even a little exploration (the Briar Patch). I liked it better than FC: More trekish less mainstream.

And I think that is what they should produce again: A good storyline, not too much battle and SFX and give the cast a proper farewell. Even Data.

And if it is not a huge finacial success but a decent Trek movie for the fans, who cares. Be honest to yourselves: No matter how good the next Trek movie fares it won't produce any more "offsprings" for years to come. We won't see another
movie or series for quite some time, so I'd say:

We, the fans have made Star Trek into what it is: One of the major SciFi sagas of all times. IMO the TNG cast and the fans deserve another STAR TREK movie.
Not Star Wars, "Star Aliens", Independence Day or something the like.

Then give the thing a rest or wait for the next miracle to happen that will give us nedw Trek stories on screen, either on Tv or the movies...

[C5]

Huh???

Did we have a label change? Since when did Star Trek become a mainstream film?

I'm not sure I understand correctly, but I was referring to the fact that apparently ST movies are now considered "geeky" by the average audience. Since we were talking about how to attract non-fans to Trek movies, I was considering this as one of the drawbacks.

Not a whole lotta under-40 chicks in some of the recent Trek films, unless you count the Borg Queen in FIRST CONTACT (so far the only TNG film I can tolerate watching).

Ok, the chicks part has not been used much yet in Star Trek, but I see it belonging to the same package as the "explosions and FX" one (which has been used in Trek movies a lot - even though I love to see Trek with more FX than on the series, there are not a space battle in every Trek episode, and that's not only because of the budget).

[Tobian]

The thing is though, we're missing he point here: Lord of the Rings could NOT be any geekier if it tried, yet it was widelly critically acclaimed, earned massive profits, and, except for a tiny minotity of die hards, satisfied the fans.. and that's what we need a Trek film to be! LoTR also kept the canon in tact, and didn't do horribly mangled things to the main characters either

[Tricky]

Yes, the chick thing has been relagated to the Various Trek series (7of9, T'Pol, the Orion Slave girls, Hoshi to a lesser degree, and maybe even some of the 'sweeps week' stuff on DS9), but you know if a Trek movie was greenlighted today, that at least on Paramount studio rep would try and get "a sexy alien chick, played by an actress from the OC" into the mix

How ever, there has been an attempt in the more recent films, to up the "splosion" count. Look at WoK, then look at Nemesis.

But, at least Trek is light years behind another francise in its 'all characters are CGI quest!

I felt really slighted by LotR: I used to be harrased in HS for my D&D gaming. Now, the same class of bully can say their name in Elven, qoutes Aragon before football games, and dreams of slaying dragons and rescueing princesses!

My friends tell me the 'Geek is Chic' right now; great! I was geek before geek was cool.

[REG]

I'm not sure I understand correctly, but I was referring to the fact that apparently ST movies are now considered "geeky" by the average audience. Since we were talking about how to attract non-fans to Trek movies, I was considering this as one of the drawbacks.

Now it's geeky? Star Trek films have always been geeky. It's the mainstream audience that crossed over to see what we like about it ... finally.