seriously though, every modern star trek live action tv show trailer feels like
whispering woman's voice: stars are really big
and we are really small
and planets are medium size
and space is scary
but what if scary things...are beautiful?
let's touch IDIC™s and Make It So™
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
EDIT: Also wtf is it with Enterprise Captains and horses?
one of the flashback/illusions in The Cage is literally of Pike's horse ranch in the "Mojave Forest", so the show is at least coming by it honestly.
Oh I wasn't complaining, I just thought it was amusing that Pike, Kirk, and then Picard are all into horse riding. Like, you can't be the Captain of the Enterprise unless you're really into steeple chases, lol. I should rewatch The Cage before SNW drops just as a refresher.
I strongly suspect that Picard is written for a very casual audience that hasn't seen all that many episodes of Star Trek. Calling Picard "Locutus" is too deep of a cut without having to include awkward exposition about the events. Same with Beverly, I can say that having literally just watched TNG season 7 on Netflix, Picard and Beverly as a romantic potential barely ever comes up except for that one middling episode where they get captured. No point in mentioning it unless they planned to use it as part of the new story, which honestly would be kinda lame anyway.
Whoever is doing Spock in that Resurgence trailer has it so fucking nailed that it's almost scary
I thought I recognized the cadence and the way he pronounced certain words, I was sitting here thinking "this is a guy you know from a Bioware game, right? It finally hit me and I'm about 75% sure the voice actor is Robert Pine. For comparison, here he is doing the voice of Orgus Din in SWTOR:
RLM have put out their traditional hit piece on the new episode of Picard. As usual they're being pretty harsh but they have made one big prediction for how the rest of the season is going to pan out which I hope to god is wrong.
It would be unbelievably stupid if the Borg queen turned out to be Picard's mother but fuck if it doesn't sound like something Alex kurtzman would do.
All I have to say so far is I deeply appreciated the amount of ship porn going on so far and there were just a few moments there where this started to feel like an episode of TNG made in 2022. Season one of Picard started strong and declined horribly so I'm hoping this time they can maintain the quality.
RLM have put out their traditional hit piece on the new episode of Picard. As usual they're being pretty harsh but they have made one big prediction for how the rest of the season is going to pan out which I hope to god is wrong.
It would be unbelievably stupid if the Borg queen turned out to be Picard's mother but fuck if it doesn't sound like something Alex kurtzman would do.
All I have to say so far is I deeply appreciated the amount of ship porn going on so far and there were just a few moments there where this started to feel like an episode of TNG made in 2022. Season one of Picard started strong and declined horribly so I'm hoping this time they can maintain the quality.
Yeah, they definitely went with the "we decided to hate it before the first frame" school of criticism. And they'll make a lot of money off it.
I really, really doubt the Queen will turn out to be his mother.
Partly because they already did the "mysterious figure is main character's mom" thing in Discovery. Mostly because there's another abundantly obvious explanation: when Picard was assimilated, the Borg gained all of Picard's memories up to 2367. The Queen said the line because she's desperate for Picard to believe she has good intentions.
RLM didn't think of it because that requires more than mindlessly trashing the show.
RLM have put out their traditional hit piece on the new episode of Picard. As usual they're being pretty harsh but they have made one big prediction for how the rest of the season is going to pan out which I hope to god is wrong.
It would be unbelievably stupid if the Borg queen turned out to be Picard's mother but fuck if it doesn't sound like something Alex kurtzman would do.
All I have to say so far is I deeply appreciated the amount of ship porn going on so far and there were just a few moments there where this started to feel like an episode of TNG made in 2022. Season one of Picard started strong and declined horribly so I'm hoping this time they can maintain the quality.
Yeah, they definitely went with the "we decided to hate it before the first frame" school of criticism. And they'll make a lot of money off it.
I really, really doubt the Queen will turn out to be his mother.
Partly because they already did the "mysterious figure is main character's mom" thing in Discovery. Mostly because there's another abundantly obvious explanation: when Picard was assimilated, the Borg gained all of Picard's memories up to 2367. The Queen said the line because she's desperate for Picard to believe she has good intentions.
RLM didn't think of it because that requires more than mindlessly trashing the show.
OR,
the queen sees herself as "mother" to all borg, and by extension, all sentient life
0
Options
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
edited March 2022
I've only watched the clips of the
Q scene
because I don't have Hulu or Amazon or whatever the hell this thing is on in Europe, but while that scene itself is awesome, what's up with Picard being so old sounding? Stewart is 81, so sure as far as that goes, but he's sounding more like Grandpa Simpson, which is just weird consider how forceful the other character in the scene is. Is Stewart feeling his age? Was this how the character was in S1? What gives?
daveNYC on
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
because I don't have Hulu or Amazon or whatever the hell this thing is on in Europe, but while that scene itself is awesome, what's up with Picard being so old sounding? Stewart is 81, so sure as far as that goes, but he's sounding more like Grandpa Simpson, which is just weird consider how forceful the other character in the scene is. Is Stewart feeling his age? Was this how the character was in S1? What gives?
Yeah, they definitely went with the "we decided to hate it before the first frame" school of criticism. And they'll make a lot of money off it.
I really, really doubt the Queen will turn out to be his mother.
Partly because they already did the "mysterious figure is main character's mom" thing in Discovery. Mostly because there's another abundantly obvious explanation: when Picard was assimilated, the Borg gained all of Picard's memories up to 2367. The Queen said the line because she's desperate for Picard to believe she has good intentions.
RLM didn't think of it because that requires more than mindlessly trashing the show.
I hadn't even considered the possibility Rich put forward because I made an assumption very close to what yours was in the spoiler. As soon as I heard the theory from Rich....I became very concerned that he might be right.
I still think you're right, but...oof?
As for RLM, they actually didn't hate the first episode of S2 from what I could tell of the video. They thought it was okay. They just assume it'll go to shit.
Bizazedo on
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I watched a lot of RLM based on the immense entertainment value of Plinkett's Star Wars reviews but I found their further commentary to not be all that insightful and kinda whiny at times. Star Wars prequels are soft targets and it's easy to sound smart punching down at them, but their takes on Star Trek are pretty bad.
+2
Options
HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
I watched a lot of RLM based on the immense entertainment value of Plinkett's Star Wars reviews but I found their further commentary to not be all that insightful and kinda whiny at times. Star Wars prequels are soft targets and it's easy to sound smart punching down at them, but their takes on Star Trek are pretty bad.
I love the deciphering of the message and building a basic language out of math. It is fantastic. It is exactly the Star Trek I am here for. Bridging communications across disparate species. Building a bridge through speech. Peace first. I love this. Its so good.
I love the deciphering of the message and building a basic language out of math. It is fantastic. It is exactly the Star Trek I am here for. Bridging communications across disparate species. Building a bridge through speech. Peace first. I love this. Its so good.
I still hate Tarka.
Yeah.
I definitely got "Arrival" vibes from it all. I just wish this part had more room to breathe and either be longer or involved in more episodes. It definitely feels a bit compressed to fit the runtime within an episode AND share room with other subplots. And Species 10C seems to be truly alien, which is also great.
Please, If you watched Disco 4x12 you got the superior feline: Grudge!
Bow down to the queen.
As for the latest episode of Disco
I second the Tarka hate. Guy wants to commit genocide of species 10-c. If he even can. He doesn't care that Earth and Nivar might be destroyed as a side effect. And all of this for what? So he can go back to whatever universe he came from? Like fuck you asshole. The entire Galaxy has to suffer so you can can travel to another universe to be with your friend? You waited 10 years for a chance and can't wait 10 hours? I fucking hate him.
I DO however, have to give the show credit, Tarka is a good villain in his motivations. Instead of the usual omnicidal psychos sci-fi usually has trying to kill billions, You know the Fascist, survival of the fittest types. Tarka reason is just self-centered solipsism. I think its telling that he says that Book(a man he has known for all of two minutes) is one of only two friends he has had. This is a guy that is damage beyond repair and his solipsism may have an excuse, but its not enough to excuse what he is doing. Its clear that Tarka doesn't see anyone in our Universe as real. Like he would kill everybody in the Milky way and jump to his preferred universe without regret.
In a way he is kind of like Dukat. In that he is evil, but not evil in a pulp way. He is evil because he considers everybody else needs secondary to his. Its what makes him so hateable. We are not likely to meet the pulp villain type, but we meet people like Tarka all the time.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
this caught me completely off guard and I cannot wait till next week.
I doubt we'll get much mention of them, we're too close to it in reality now. They'll be quietly ignored, like the Eugenics Wars of the 90s.
Which I won't even pretend to get mad about, I don't need them to create and introduce a whole alternative present.
It'd be nice if Picard would just consider that Q isn't the one behind everything. Historically he gets involved mostly to give Picard a chance to fix something that's broken, or learn a valuable lesson. I've seen the argument that he didn't set the Borg on them, he found a way to give them a warning that they were coming already, so they had time to prepare.
I doubt we'll get much mention of them, we're too close to it in reality now. They'll be quietly ignored, like the Eugenics Wars of the 90s.
Which I won't even pretend to get mad about, I don't need them to create and introduce a whole alternative present.
It'd be nice if Picard would just consider that Q isn't the one behind everything. Historically he gets involved mostly to give Picard a chance to fix something that's broken, or learn a valuable lesson. I've seen the argument that he didn't set the Borg on them, he found a way to give them a warning that they were coming already, so they had time to prepare.
Ignoring the Picard bits, so not going to spoil this (although for those reading this, the above spoiler from Klemming has Picard spoiler stuff), but about the bit regarding Q and the Borg from TNG....I thought, even in that episode, that they explicitly say the Borg are on their way because they now knew of the Federation's existence. Guinan has a bit about how the Federation might've been ready in their own time (and she was, obviously, aware of the Borg already), but Q accelerated it?
Bizazedo on
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I doubt we'll get much mention of them, we're too close to it in reality now. They'll be quietly ignored, like the Eugenics Wars of the 90s.
Which I won't even pretend to get mad about, I don't need them to create and introduce a whole alternative present.
It'd be nice if Picard would just consider that Q isn't the one behind everything. Historically he gets involved mostly to give Picard a chance to fix something that's broken, or learn a valuable lesson. I've seen the argument that he didn't set the Borg on them, he found a way to give them a warning that they were coming already, so they had time to prepare.
Ignoring the Picard bits, so not going to spoil this (although for those reading this, the above spoiler from Klemming has Picard spoiler stuff), but about the bit regarding Q and the Borg from TNG....I thought, even in that episode, that they explicitly say the Borg are on their way because they now knew of the Federation's existence. Guinan has a bit about how the Federation might've been ready in their own time (and she was, obviously, aware of the Borg already), but Q accelerated it?
I think some of the crew state it, but it also contradicts other parts of the episode. They notice a world the Borg have ravaged and then comment how it is identical to what happened to multiple planets along the Neutral Zone which implies they are very much at the door to the Federation already.
I want to say Enterprise has a bit where Borg from First Contact had also alerted them which is, admittedly, a blatant retcon. Most of Q's personality is derived from retcons though as he went from generic godlike imp to someone with motivations for why he hung around the Enterprise.
I thought they'd already lost contact with some places and it was later confirmed/retconned to have been the Borg?
Q introduced them, but they were going to run into each other in due time, and it's hard to believe the Federation would have been ready for them if they had no idea what to expect (take Enterprise's first encounter with them, then play it in a location where they've got no-one to bail them out).
If Q accelerated it, it was almost certainly to the Federations benefit over the Borgs.
Yeah, I'll have to watch it again. It's a good episode, anyways, but I think Guinan says that Q may have accidentally helped the Federation by exposing them to the Borg this early. Was probably the proper decision to have it be a bit nebulous.
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
That was some solid, solid Trek. More than any other episode of the new shows, it felt like an updated version of 90s era stories. The story remains plot-focused but gives the characters time to breathe, a welcome change from the first season.
General Picard's hall of skulls was chilling. Like, Emperor Georgiou would think that was a little on the nose.
Interesting note: Picard, Raffi, Jurati, and Rios are in near-identical positions to the prime reality. Makes me wonder if, had she not been assimilated, Seven would've gone into politics.
I love the new Borg Queen. Alice Krige was great, but Annie Wersching is simultaneously creepy and pitiable.
The scene between Q and Picard was fantastic. I'll never understand why the TNG movies didn't bring Q to the big screen.
+8
Options
AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
That was some solid, solid Trek. More than any other episode of the new shows, it felt like an updated version of 90s era stories. The story remains plot-focused but gives the characters time to breathe, a welcome change from the first season.
General Picard's hall of skulls was chilling. Like, Emperor Georgiou would think that was a little on the nose.
Interesting note: Picard, Raffi, Jurati, and Rios are in near-identical positions to the prime reality. Makes me wonder if, had she not been assimilated, Seven would've gone into politics.
I love the new Borg Queen. Alice Krige was great, but Annie Wersching is simultaneously creepy and pitiable.
The scene between Q and Picard was fantastic. I'll never understand why the TNG movies didn't bring Q to the big screen.
Cowardice is why. The suits were too afraid to reference the show on more than a surface level with the TNG movies, lest they scare off general audiences.
I didn't actually watch the RLM video on Picard S2 or Picard S2 itself (fool me once shame on you etc.) but you do have to agree with this beautiful idea from the comments of the video
When Q said let me catch up, he should have first turned into a Spirit Halloween skeleton
That was some solid, solid Trek. More than any other episode of the new shows, it felt like an updated version of 90s era stories. The story remains plot-focused but gives the characters time to breathe, a welcome change from the first season.
General Picard's hall of skulls was chilling. Like, Emperor Georgiou would think that was a little on the nose.
Interesting note: Picard, Raffi, Jurati, and Rios are in near-identical positions to the prime reality. Makes me wonder if, had she not been assimilated, Seven would've gone into politics.
I love the new Borg Queen. Alice Krige was great, but Annie Wersching is simultaneously creepy and pitiable.
The scene between Q and Picard was fantastic. I'll never understand why the TNG movies didn't bring Q to the big screen.
Cowardice is why. The suits were too afraid to reference the show on more than a surface level with the TNG movies, lest they scare off general audiences.
Far be it for me to defend bean counters, but I'm not so sure. Q was central to the series finale—which had extremely high ratings and enjoyed Trek's peak crossover appeal. In fact, that crossover appeal is exactly why TNG got movies while DS9 and Voyager did not.
Plus, before the Kelvinverse movies, the most critically and financially sucessful Trek movies were either direct sequels to episodes (Wrath of Khan and First Contact) or each other (Voyage Home and Undiscovered Country).
The lack of Q isn't the only weird thing about TNG movies, now that I think about it. They never tried to connect them like the TOS movies, or really even mention them at all. You could jump from Generations to Insurrection and not miss a thing character- or plot-wise.
Maybe it comes down to the bean counters knowing Trek movies were popular but not understanding why.
0
Options
AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
That was some solid, solid Trek. More than any other episode of the new shows, it felt like an updated version of 90s era stories. The story remains plot-focused but gives the characters time to breathe, a welcome change from the first season.
General Picard's hall of skulls was chilling. Like, Emperor Georgiou would think that was a little on the nose.
Interesting note: Picard, Raffi, Jurati, and Rios are in near-identical positions to the prime reality. Makes me wonder if, had she not been assimilated, Seven would've gone into politics.
I love the new Borg Queen. Alice Krige was great, but Annie Wersching is simultaneously creepy and pitiable.
The scene between Q and Picard was fantastic. I'll never understand why the TNG movies didn't bring Q to the big screen.
Cowardice is why. The suits were too afraid to reference the show on more than a surface level with the TNG movies, lest they scare off general audiences.
Far be it for me to defend bean counters, but I'm not so sure. Q was central to the series finale—which had extremely high ratings and enjoyed Trek's peak crossover appeal. In fact, that crossover appeal is exactly why TNG got movies while DS9 and Voyager did not.
Plus, before the Kelvinverse movies, the most critically and financially sucessful Trek movies were either direct sequels to episodes (Wrath of Khan and First Contact) or each other (Voyage Home and Undiscovered Country).
The lack of Q isn't the only weird thing about TNG movies, now that I think about it. They never tried to connect them like the TOS movies, or really even mention them at all. You could jump from Generations to Insurrection and not miss a thing character- or plot-wise.
Maybe it comes down to the bean counters knowing Trek movies were popular but not understanding why.
It's the only logical explanation for why we have an entire movie with B4 when Lore is right fucking there.
That was some solid, solid Trek. More than any other episode of the new shows, it felt like an updated version of 90s era stories. The story remains plot-focused but gives the characters time to breathe, a welcome change from the first season.
General Picard's hall of skulls was chilling. Like, Emperor Georgiou would think that was a little on the nose.
Interesting note: Picard, Raffi, Jurati, and Rios are in near-identical positions to the prime reality. Makes me wonder if, had she not been assimilated, Seven would've gone into politics.
I love the new Borg Queen. Alice Krige was great, but Annie Wersching is simultaneously creepy and pitiable.
The scene between Q and Picard was fantastic. I'll never understand why the TNG movies didn't bring Q to the big screen.
Cowardice is why. The suits were too afraid to reference the show on more than a surface level with the TNG movies, lest they scare off general audiences.
Far be it for me to defend bean counters, but I'm not so sure. Q was central to the series finale—which had extremely high ratings and enjoyed Trek's peak crossover appeal. In fact, that crossover appeal is exactly why TNG got movies while DS9 and Voyager did not.
Plus, before the Kelvinverse movies, the most critically and financially sucessful Trek movies were either direct sequels to episodes (Wrath of Khan and First Contact) or each other (Voyage Home and Undiscovered Country).
The lack of Q isn't the only weird thing about TNG movies, now that I think about it. They never tried to connect them like the TOS movies, or really even mention them at all. You could jump from Generations to Insurrection and not miss a thing character- or plot-wise.
Maybe it comes down to the bean counters knowing Trek movies were popular but not understanding why.
Happy to lay it on the bean counters and the suits. People who didn't know what made Trek what it was.
Most of the Star Trek TOS movies could have been episodes of the TV series if you break them down. I mean, "god like alien entity approaches Earth turns out to be souped up probe from Earth's past", I'm pretty sure that's both The Motion Picture and 2 or 3 episodes. Like, TV series V'ger wouldn't have been a plasma cloud the size of a solar system. It taking out the klingon ships would have happened off screen, and Kirk biting his lip and moaning as they did a slow flyby of the new Enterprise for half an hour wouldn't have been there, but the basic story could have been a TV episode. Most of the TOS movies feel like they started as TV scripts and got upscaled for the big screen and longer run times (and budgets with several extra zeroes on the end).
The TNG movies never really had that feel to me. They seemed to focus more on getting a big story for the big screen with big moments for the big characters. Some of this may have been on the cast (I remember stories that Stewart requested the dune buggy scene because he really wanted to do more action stuff than Picard normally got). But try to summarize the plot of any of the TNG movies and see if it sounds like it could pass as a TV episode and it doesn't work nearly as well. "A space wedgie ate a historic captain, now it's on track to destroy a planet because an alien wants to get back into the space wedgie (which is actually kind of like heaven) so Picard has to team up with historic captain to escape the space wedgie and foil the alien".
"negative space wedgie" has been a thing in the fandom at least back to the TNG days; in the actual shows, they usually call them an "anomaly" instead. VOY got a lot of mileage (sometimes literally) out of them, often prefacing it with "some sort of" or "some kind of". As "authentic"/classic Trek dialogue tics and tropes go, it's right up there with "sen-sors".
That was some solid, solid Trek. More than any other episode of the new shows, it felt like an updated version of 90s era stories. The story remains plot-focused but gives the characters time to breathe, a welcome change from the first season.
General Picard's hall of skulls was chilling. Like, Emperor Georgiou would think that was a little on the nose.
Interesting note: Picard, Raffi, Jurati, and Rios are in near-identical positions to the prime reality. Makes me wonder if, had she not been assimilated, Seven would've gone into politics.
I love the new Borg Queen. Alice Krige was great, but Annie Wersching is simultaneously creepy and pitiable.
The scene between Q and Picard was fantastic. I'll never understand why the TNG movies didn't bring Q to the big screen.
Cowardice is why. The suits were too afraid to reference the show on more than a surface level with the TNG movies, lest they scare off general audiences.
Far be it for me to defend bean counters, but I'm not so sure. Q was central to the series finale—which had extremely high ratings and enjoyed Trek's peak crossover appeal. In fact, that crossover appeal is exactly why TNG got movies while DS9 and Voyager did not.
Plus, before the Kelvinverse movies, the most critically and financially sucessful Trek movies were either direct sequels to episodes (Wrath of Khan and First Contact) or each other (Voyage Home and Undiscovered Country).
The lack of Q isn't the only weird thing about TNG movies, now that I think about it. They never tried to connect them like the TOS movies, or really even mention them at all. You could jump from Generations to Insurrection and not miss a thing character- or plot-wise.
Maybe it comes down to the bean counters knowing Trek movies were popular but not understanding why.
Happy to lay it on the bean counters and the suits. People who didn't know what made Trek what it was.
Most of the Star Trek TOS movies could have been episodes of the TV series if you break them down. I mean, "god like alien entity approaches Earth turns out to be souped up probe from Earth's past", I'm pretty sure that's both The Motion Picture and 2 or 3 episodes. Like, TV series V'ger wouldn't have been a plasma cloud the size of a solar system. It taking out the klingon ships would have happened off screen, and Kirk biting his lip and moaning as they did a slow flyby of the new Enterprise for half an hour wouldn't have been there, but the basic story could have been a TV episode. Most of the TOS movies feel like they started as TV scripts and got upscaled for the big screen and longer run times (and budgets with several extra zeroes on the end).
The TNG movies never really had that feel to me. They seemed to focus more on getting a big story for the big screen with big moments for the big characters. Some of this may have been on the cast (I remember stories that Stewart requested the dune buggy scene because he really wanted to do more action stuff than Picard normally got). But try to summarize the plot of any of the TNG movies and see if it sounds like it could pass as a TV episode and it doesn't work nearly as well. "A space wedgie ate a historic captain, now it's on track to destroy a planet because an alien wants to get back into the space wedgie (which is actually kind of like heaven) so Picard has to team up with historic captain to escape the space wedgie and foil the alien".
You know, I see where you're coming from, but it's interesting that my dad has the exact opposite opinion. It's neat to think about what makes a story fit TV vs film.
For me, the TOS movie work because they're solid individual stories that are still connected. That lets them build on one another, draw strength from each other, in a way the TNG movies lack. Undiscovered Country wouldn't be as strong as it is without Spock identity crisis in Voyage Home or Kirk finding then losing his son. If you take out Motion Picture, then the remaining movies (even 5, terrible though it is) tell a single, cohesive story about the Enterprise crew in the twilight of their careers, facing specters of the past amid the climax of a generation-defining cold war.
The TNG movies don't have any unifying themes or plot points. They had plenty of opportunities—Picard's family issues, expanding the Borg plot to multiple movies, bringing in Q—but failed to capitalize on any of them. A few years ago, SF Debris reviewed Insurrection and suggested it should've been a Civil War-style conflict that split the crew down the middle, instead of the fairly boilerplate "stop the badmiral/villain" plot we got.
I think you could expand that idea into two movies, the last of which would be the movie finale for TNG:
Make the Bak'u conflict more ambiguous:
1. Instead of pastoral good guys and technological bad guys, keep them one society with internal strife. One wants to stay Luddite, keeping out of the galaxy's way while the other wants to explore the stars like their ancestors.
2. The MacGuffin is more than a Fountain of Youth, but a way to restore entire planets. Bring in the idea that billions died in the Dominion War, leaving countless worlds permantely scarred—unless Starfleet can understand the MacGuffin.
3. Focus the second point into Troi's need to restore Betazed.
4. The Badmiral is still the antagonist, but instead of a well-meaning idiot who dies partway through, he's the BBEG. Instead of using the MacGuffin to heal worlds, he wants to turn into a Federation weapon of mass destruction—basically all the Klingon's worst nightmares about the Genesis Device come to life.
Spoilered for Synopsis of Two Hypothetical Movies:
Insurrection:
Open with the Liberation of Betazed. The audience doesn't need to know anything about DS9 or the Dominion—they'll know a main character's home is under attack and the Enterprise is trying to save it, which is enough to follow along. Show that Betazed has been so damaged it will never fully recover.
The Enterprise is called to Bak'u for diplomatic talks over the MacGuffin, which go nowhere. This plants the seeds for split. Picard believes the Federation is wrong to impose a choice on another society, even if that choice benefits everyone. Riker believes the Bak'u are wrong to withhold vital aid from the galaxy out of self-absorbed isolationism. Part of the disagreement comes from how they deal with the war. Picard wants to forget it and go back to exploring—"let the past be the past"—while Riker thinks they have to accept that everything has changed.
Plot goes on, with increasing tension between the Bak'u factions and within the TNG crew. Something gives—the factions attack each other and/or the Badmiral puts the Evil Plan into action. The TNG crew splits: Picard vs. Riker. Worf and Crusher side with Picard, while Geordi and Troi go with Riker. Data, heartbroken, stays neutral and is the one who uncovers that the Badmiral is the real threat.
Angst and interesting contests among the broken crew. Riker and Troi get back together partially as a way of dealing with it all—something with a little more heft to it than "we feel young again so we're horny."
In the end, the day is saved. Badmiral's got his comeuppence, the Bak'u factions make peace and decide to help the galaxy on their own terms. On the surface it looks like everybody wins, but the TNG crew is shattered. The trust and friendship between them is gone. Riker takes a promotion to the Titan, with Geordi as his first officer. Worf takes his place as Picard's new Number One. Data stays behind on Bak'u to help spread the MacGuffin. Movie closes on a melancholy but hopeful note that maybe things will be okay again.
Hypothetical Movie 4:
1. Assuming it would release in 2002 like Nemesis, this is the chance to bring DS9 and Voyager characters to the big screen. Stuff like Bashir and Nog joining Riker's crew and some Voyager alums like Seven joining the Enterprise.
2. Something to Data as the inciting incident. Doesn't matter if someone tries to kill, kidnap him, whatever—Data being in trouble is enough to get both sides in the same room again.
3. The villain—probably Lore—is obsessed with revenge. They're a foil to the heroes, who eventually let go of their anger and find peace with each other. You could give the DS9/Voyager peeps space to help this along.
4. Make it clear that this is the final adventure of the TNG cast. Symbolize in the story with Picard being promoted or retiring. Saving Data is his last mission as captain of the Enterprise.
5. When it ends, the crew is still separate because things really do change forever—"all good things come to an end"—but their family is restored. Close out on Data as captain of the Enterprise and Riker asking Picard to be godfather to his child.
Posts
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
Oh I wasn't complaining, I just thought it was amusing that Pike, Kirk, and then Picard are all into horse riding. Like, you can't be the Captain of the Enterprise unless you're really into steeple chases, lol. I should rewatch The Cage before SNW drops just as a refresher.
Yeah that scene has resulted in many a meme on Star Trek Shitposting
I thought I recognized the cadence and the way he pronounced certain words, I was sitting here thinking "this is a guy you know from a Bioware game, right? It finally hit me and I'm about 75% sure the voice actor is Robert Pine. For comparison, here he is doing the voice of Orgus Din in SWTOR:
Also in googling "Orgus Din voice actor", I found out Robert Pine is Chris Pine's Dad. Just a weird factoid for ya.
All I have to say so far is I deeply appreciated the amount of ship porn going on so far and there were just a few moments there where this started to feel like an episode of TNG made in 2022. Season one of Picard started strong and declined horribly so I'm hoping this time they can maintain the quality.
Yeah, they definitely went with the "we decided to hate it before the first frame" school of criticism. And they'll make a lot of money off it.
Partly because they already did the "mysterious figure is main character's mom" thing in Discovery. Mostly because there's another abundantly obvious explanation: when Picard was assimilated, the Borg gained all of Picard's memories up to 2367. The Queen said the line because she's desperate for Picard to believe she has good intentions.
RLM didn't think of it because that requires more than mindlessly trashing the show.
OR,
Stewart's playing someone more frail than he is, just like he did in Logan.
I'm not sure what exactly, but I'm sure it says something that when Star Trek gave someone a robot body they made sure it had an enlarged prostate.
MAAATTTLOOOCKKK
I hadn't even considered the possibility Rich put forward because I made an assumption very close to what yours was in the spoiler. As soon as I heard the theory from Rich....I became very concerned that he might be right.
I still think you're right, but...oof?
As for RLM, they actually didn't hate the first episode of S2 from what I could tell of the video. They thought it was okay. They just assume it'll go to shit.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
eh I usually agree with their star trek takes
different strokes
I still hate Tarka.
omg we're going back to the bell riots
this caught me completely off guard and I cannot wait till next week.
Please, If you watched Disco 4x12 you got the superior feline: Grudge!
Bow down to the queen.
As for the latest episode of Disco
I DO however, have to give the show credit, Tarka is a good villain in his motivations. Instead of the usual omnicidal psychos sci-fi usually has trying to kill billions, You know the Fascist, survival of the fittest types. Tarka reason is just self-centered solipsism. I think its telling that he says that Book(a man he has known for all of two minutes) is one of only two friends he has had. This is a guy that is damage beyond repair and his solipsism may have an excuse, but its not enough to excuse what he is doing. Its clear that Tarka doesn't see anyone in our Universe as real. Like he would kill everybody in the Milky way and jump to his preferred universe without regret.
In a way he is kind of like Dukat. In that he is evil, but not evil in a pulp way. He is evil because he considers everybody else needs secondary to his. Its what makes him so hateable. We are not likely to meet the pulp villain type, but we meet people like Tarka all the time.
Which I won't even pretend to get mad about, I don't need them to create and introduce a whole alternative present.
It'd be nice if Picard would just consider that Q isn't the one behind everything. Historically he gets involved mostly to give Picard a chance to fix something that's broken, or learn a valuable lesson. I've seen the argument that he didn't set the Borg on them, he found a way to give them a warning that they were coming already, so they had time to prepare.
Ignoring the Picard bits, so not going to spoil this (although for those reading this, the above spoiler from Klemming has Picard spoiler stuff), but about the bit regarding Q and the Borg from TNG....I thought, even in that episode, that they explicitly say the Borg are on their way because they now knew of the Federation's existence. Guinan has a bit about how the Federation might've been ready in their own time (and she was, obviously, aware of the Borg already), but Q accelerated it?
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I think some of the crew state it, but it also contradicts other parts of the episode. They notice a world the Borg have ravaged and then comment how it is identical to what happened to multiple planets along the Neutral Zone which implies they are very much at the door to the Federation already.
I want to say Enterprise has a bit where Borg from First Contact had also alerted them which is, admittedly, a blatant retcon. Most of Q's personality is derived from retcons though as he went from generic godlike imp to someone with motivations for why he hung around the Enterprise.
Q introduced them, but they were going to run into each other in due time, and it's hard to believe the Federation would have been ready for them if they had no idea what to expect (take Enterprise's first encounter with them, then play it in a location where they've got no-one to bail them out).
If Q accelerated it, it was almost certainly to the Federations benefit over the Borgs.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
General Picard's hall of skulls was chilling. Like, Emperor Georgiou would think that was a little on the nose.
Interesting note: Picard, Raffi, Jurati, and Rios are in near-identical positions to the prime reality. Makes me wonder if, had she not been assimilated, Seven would've gone into politics.
I love the new Borg Queen. Alice Krige was great, but Annie Wersching is simultaneously creepy and pitiable.
The scene between Q and Picard was fantastic. I'll never understand why the TNG movies didn't bring Q to the big screen.
Cowardice is why. The suits were too afraid to reference the show on more than a surface level with the TNG movies, lest they scare off general audiences.
Far be it for me to defend bean counters, but I'm not so sure. Q was central to the series finale—which had extremely high ratings and enjoyed Trek's peak crossover appeal. In fact, that crossover appeal is exactly why TNG got movies while DS9 and Voyager did not.
Plus, before the Kelvinverse movies, the most critically and financially sucessful Trek movies were either direct sequels to episodes (Wrath of Khan and First Contact) or each other (Voyage Home and Undiscovered Country).
The lack of Q isn't the only weird thing about TNG movies, now that I think about it. They never tried to connect them like the TOS movies, or really even mention them at all. You could jump from Generations to Insurrection and not miss a thing character- or plot-wise.
Maybe it comes down to the bean counters knowing Trek movies were popular but not understanding why.
It's the only logical explanation for why we have an entire movie with B4 when Lore is right fucking there.
Happy to lay it on the bean counters and the suits. People who didn't know what made Trek what it was.
Most of the Star Trek TOS movies could have been episodes of the TV series if you break them down. I mean, "god like alien entity approaches Earth turns out to be souped up probe from Earth's past", I'm pretty sure that's both The Motion Picture and 2 or 3 episodes. Like, TV series V'ger wouldn't have been a plasma cloud the size of a solar system. It taking out the klingon ships would have happened off screen, and Kirk biting his lip and moaning as they did a slow flyby of the new Enterprise for half an hour wouldn't have been there, but the basic story could have been a TV episode. Most of the TOS movies feel like they started as TV scripts and got upscaled for the big screen and longer run times (and budgets with several extra zeroes on the end).
The TNG movies never really had that feel to me. They seemed to focus more on getting a big story for the big screen with big moments for the big characters. Some of this may have been on the cast (I remember stories that Stewart requested the dune buggy scene because he really wanted to do more action stuff than Picard normally got). But try to summarize the plot of any of the TNG movies and see if it sounds like it could pass as a TV episode and it doesn't work nearly as well. "A space wedgie ate a historic captain, now it's on track to destroy a planet because an alien wants to get back into the space wedgie (which is actually kind of like heaven) so Picard has to team up with historic captain to escape the space wedgie and foil the alien".
Make sure the solution is to generate a negative space wedgie to counteract the effects.
You know, I see where you're coming from, but it's interesting that my dad has the exact opposite opinion. It's neat to think about what makes a story fit TV vs film.
For me, the TOS movie work because they're solid individual stories that are still connected. That lets them build on one another, draw strength from each other, in a way the TNG movies lack. Undiscovered Country wouldn't be as strong as it is without Spock identity crisis in Voyage Home or Kirk finding then losing his son. If you take out Motion Picture, then the remaining movies (even 5, terrible though it is) tell a single, cohesive story about the Enterprise crew in the twilight of their careers, facing specters of the past amid the climax of a generation-defining cold war.
The TNG movies don't have any unifying themes or plot points. They had plenty of opportunities—Picard's family issues, expanding the Borg plot to multiple movies, bringing in Q—but failed to capitalize on any of them. A few years ago, SF Debris reviewed Insurrection and suggested it should've been a Civil War-style conflict that split the crew down the middle, instead of the fairly boilerplate "stop the badmiral/villain" plot we got.
I think you could expand that idea into two movies, the last of which would be the movie finale for TNG:
Make the Bak'u conflict more ambiguous:
1. Instead of pastoral good guys and technological bad guys, keep them one society with internal strife. One wants to stay Luddite, keeping out of the galaxy's way while the other wants to explore the stars like their ancestors.
2. The MacGuffin is more than a Fountain of Youth, but a way to restore entire planets. Bring in the idea that billions died in the Dominion War, leaving countless worlds permantely scarred—unless Starfleet can understand the MacGuffin.
3. Focus the second point into Troi's need to restore Betazed.
4. The Badmiral is still the antagonist, but instead of a well-meaning idiot who dies partway through, he's the BBEG. Instead of using the MacGuffin to heal worlds, he wants to turn into a Federation weapon of mass destruction—basically all the Klingon's worst nightmares about the Genesis Device come to life.
Spoilered for Synopsis of Two Hypothetical Movies:
Open with the Liberation of Betazed. The audience doesn't need to know anything about DS9 or the Dominion—they'll know a main character's home is under attack and the Enterprise is trying to save it, which is enough to follow along. Show that Betazed has been so damaged it will never fully recover.
The Enterprise is called to Bak'u for diplomatic talks over the MacGuffin, which go nowhere. This plants the seeds for split. Picard believes the Federation is wrong to impose a choice on another society, even if that choice benefits everyone. Riker believes the Bak'u are wrong to withhold vital aid from the galaxy out of self-absorbed isolationism. Part of the disagreement comes from how they deal with the war. Picard wants to forget it and go back to exploring—"let the past be the past"—while Riker thinks they have to accept that everything has changed.
Plot goes on, with increasing tension between the Bak'u factions and within the TNG crew. Something gives—the factions attack each other and/or the Badmiral puts the Evil Plan into action. The TNG crew splits: Picard vs. Riker. Worf and Crusher side with Picard, while Geordi and Troi go with Riker. Data, heartbroken, stays neutral and is the one who uncovers that the Badmiral is the real threat.
Angst and interesting contests among the broken crew. Riker and Troi get back together partially as a way of dealing with it all—something with a little more heft to it than "we feel young again so we're horny."
In the end, the day is saved. Badmiral's got his comeuppence, the Bak'u factions make peace and decide to help the galaxy on their own terms. On the surface it looks like everybody wins, but the TNG crew is shattered. The trust and friendship between them is gone. Riker takes a promotion to the Titan, with Geordi as his first officer. Worf takes his place as Picard's new Number One. Data stays behind on Bak'u to help spread the MacGuffin. Movie closes on a melancholy but hopeful note that maybe things will be okay again.
Hypothetical Movie 4:
1. Assuming it would release in 2002 like Nemesis, this is the chance to bring DS9 and Voyager characters to the big screen. Stuff like Bashir and Nog joining Riker's crew and some Voyager alums like Seven joining the Enterprise.
2. Something to Data as the inciting incident. Doesn't matter if someone tries to kill, kidnap him, whatever—Data being in trouble is enough to get both sides in the same room again.
3. The villain—probably Lore—is obsessed with revenge. They're a foil to the heroes, who eventually let go of their anger and find peace with each other. You could give the DS9/Voyager peeps space to help this along.
4. Make it clear that this is the final adventure of the TNG cast. Symbolize in the story with Picard being promoted or retiring. Saving Data is his last mission as captain of the Enterprise.
5. When it ends, the crew is still separate because things really do change forever—"all good things come to an end"—but their family is restored. Close out on Data as captain of the Enterprise and Riker asking Picard to be godfather to his child.
I hope that was coherent.
John de Lancie seems like he is having a great time playing Q again.
Very happy with this season so far.