I'll whip up the relevant bits from the story. Glad I bought one of the many releases of this story on VHS, I'm not paying for TNG DVDs until they come out by episode instead of by season.Q tells Picard that "...the trial never ends. We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons ... and for one brief moment you *did*."
Picard replies, "When I realized the paradox..."
Q nods, "Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. THAT is the exploration that awaits you: not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence."
THAT was what got my hopes up for the movies.
So what did we get in return? (I'm going for very condensed, edited, highlights. To explain EVERYTHING that went wrong with each one would take megabytes of space...)
A movie where they destroy the "D" and use people who were more like sob-story charity cases than villains. And the Duras sisters, while superficially entertaining, never had a sufficiently villainous edge to them. The humor passes only because of Data's situation. I won't mention the plot inconsistencies and continuity screw-ups, right Scotty? I used to have a web page devoted to the screw-ups they made but I eventually dumped it.
Then we get a Borg movie. 
A Borg is as villainous as a VHS video cassette. And if you're going to time travel, please time travel to contemporary times or earlier so it can actually look funny. And the Queen... breaks continuity just by being there. TNG movies and the spinoff shows readily break continuity whenever it suits them. (Which is sad because TNG tried exceptionally hard to create a continuity. ) I won't mention any other plot inconsistencies and continuity screw-ups in this one. But, the Borg movie truly stinks and Picard is hardly his usual, moral self. I used to have a web page devoted to the screw-ups they made but I eventually dumped it. But I did find a web page, http://www.mediacircus.net/firstcon.html and another http://members.tripod.com/~Desslok/dietrek/mine.htm which can say most of it for me. There are other details, but I'm that much of a nitpicker anymore.
Then we get "Insurrection". Its only crime is posing a less than cinematic situation. I like the movie but I won't ignore its main problem; the problems they had to revolve around were miniscule and not grandiose. Oh yeah, half-way through they worm out of the concept that the Federation has gone bad by limiting the corruption to just Admiral Daugherty and that by the end, all is happy and smurfy again.
As for "Nemesis", thank God it's over for good! It's long since been tired and burnt out, mostly by the hands who have been around since 1988 and should have moved on long ago. Geez, we didn't even gete to see the "Titan" that Riker was going to command! This movie is so underachieving, sloppy, and pedantic I could cry. And I nearly did in the theatre because it was just that sloppy and sometimes confusing despite being obvious. Nor would anybody buy Data's death so easily, especially when they made the ultimate cop-out with B4 suddenly whistling... Ugh. At least Riker made the "Kirk Epsilon" reference, for which a few people (like me) clapped when he said that.
Added bonus, something that might have made a good TNG movie if it weren't for Berman, the Paramount movie whores who always say that Trek movies must have boatloads of humor in them, and so on:
Picard then presses Q for more information, and Q tells him as he departs, "...In any case, I'll be watching; and if you're very lucky, I'll drop by to say hello from time to time. See you -- out there..."
Didn't see him much, did we? 
Can't blame Q, he probably saw Picard's movie adventures and decided he just wasn't worth harassing anymore.
Email this topic to a friend
Printer-friendly version of this topic
Bookmark this topic (Registered users only)
The DU Lounge (Protected)
