And thus we come to the end of the films using the cast of The Next Generation. All sorts of things seem to have been happening to the characters off camera, but as we’re not privy to them, we can only try to piece together the end-results and wonder if someone is, yet again, having a better time somewhere without us.
Star Trek X: Nemesis (2002)
Beginning with a reception after the wedding of Troi and Riker – during which we see, but never get to actually hear, Wil Wheaton – we suddenly veer off into the land of “Crisis is Brewing!!!” which drags Captain Picard away from potentially attending an ambassadorial event to be held in the nude (local customs, apparently, will be excused for some of those attending). Off we fly to a planet which is perfect fro driving a dune buggy around on, which is precisely what Jean-Luke and his merry band of men do. Huzzah! Fun times galore here.
Oh, but then someone has to go and spoil it, and the locals attack them with nasty things like guns and missiles. Damn them and their fun-busting ways!
Anyway, the real problem here is caused by guy who has been carefully selected to be the truest arch-nemesis (see how they did that? isn’t that clever?) of our favourite captain who’s open about his bald-headedness. Without revealing much of anything about the Very Bad Man – he’s mad! MAD, I tell you! – he is a match for Picard, but his clock is rapidly ticking, and he needs to win quickly, otherwise he will lose everything! This set of heightened stakes makes him a bit crazed – he’s mad! MAD, I tell you! – but it does at least drive the character’s need with a better devise device than is usual with these things. There’s “revenge”, sure, but just how far a level would you take that to, really? A willingness to plow-up a planet with yourself included just doesn’t seem reasonable, so with this villain’s situation – he’s mad! MAD, I tell you! – it’s at the very least plausible.
Our evil doer here – he’s mad! MAD, I tell you! – has an aide played by Ron Perlman in a latex head appliance. At some point, hopefully, he’ll be able to play a character which doesn’t require a latex head appliance, but here he gets to wear one that does at least as much to cover his face as the ones for Hellboy do.
Reman Viceroy Vkruk (that’s Perlman) isn’t as interesting as the guy he’s serving – who’s mad! MAD, I tell you! – but he is at the very least able to kick some ass. So he does. Like you do, when you’ve been wearing a latex head extension most of the day.
I really want to like this film, especially as we get to see people do things they’ve not before: Picard running around being a really action-oriented hero, Data doing noble things and taking control, Riker and Troi zooming all over the place to get word from one team back to Federation HQ by way of a chase / battle sequence… all very good things! Somehow it doesn’t hold together and feels disjointed afterwards. It’s possible that its three acts are too distinguished from each other, and thus the story isn’t so much of a unified one.
Did I mention the villain? He’s mad! MAD, I tell you!
Writing credits Gene Roddenberry (television series Star Trek) story by John Logan&Rick Berman&Brent Spiner screenplay by John Logan
This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.
The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.
Where did this one come from? No, seriously; where? Some back-of-the-drawer treatment that someone pitched in a desperate attempt to get something – anything – considered for the TV series?
Star Trek IX: Insurrection (1998)
The crew of the Enterprise (which became NCC-1701E a couple of films ago, by the way) are now charged with the initial bonding of a relationship with the peaceful Ba’ku peoples, who live in harmony with nature and reject any kind of technology. Thus, the notion of Data being both a robot and trustworthy is a bit much for them to deal with, but who can blame them when we all fear the on-coming Robot Apocalypse? …or maybe that’s just me.
Anyway, this distrust – nay, eschewing – of technology means there’s a very fine line to be travelled during negotiations to include the planet in the Federation. The long-unmentioned “Prime Directive” suddenly comes into play here, reminding the crew that no Starfleet expedition may interfere with the natural development of other civilizations. Merely having Data wander about and admit to what he is could be considered to be over-stepping the bounds of the rule.
Never the less, the real problem is with some ‘bad men’ who want to take advantage of other resources the planet has, which include all sorts of healing and restorative properties it possesses. We can tell they’re bad, because they have funny accents and have servant girls who never speak. Ooooohhhh! They’re eeeeeee–vil! Sadly, they also have some pull with Starfleet and the Federation, so in order to stop them, Picard and the crew are ‘going rogue’ as people seem to like saying these days, instead of “taking the law into their own hands” or “ignoring orders and doing what’s right instead”.
There’s some pretty damned good visuals here, especially the death of one of the bad guys near the end. Fun stuff.
The writing team seem to have decided to further expand the inter-connected-ness of the various TV shows running with the films. This is where it really starts sticking out a mile, as opposed to the last film where there’s merely a connection which is convenient to bring Mr. Warf back into the fold, yet the specifics don’t mar the enjoyment of the story itself. Here, however, there’s some sort of pre-existing romance between Counselor Deanna Troi and Commander William T. Riker, which for those not watching whatever show it began on comes as a bit of a shock. In other words: me. It works, and has valid use developing the characters and the plot here, but its starting-point is outside the story here, thus we become to be outsiders suddenly, which is not the way to make your audience feel, unless you have someone in the story with whom we can identify, and then they get the back-story explained to them. If we’ve never met the two characters before, it wouldn’t matter as much, but as this is the third film we’ve seen them in, and there wasn’t even a trace of anything in the last one to hang this on, it’s something that really ought to have been dealt with better.
The story in general feels a bit thin for a movie-length outing, and might even have felt the same for a two-part TV episode. I’d be willing to take a crack at editing the thing down to a 44-minute episode length, and suspect that the result would not feel as is much had been lost in the doing of it. There’s so little at stake at times that it’s tough to care about what happens to whom for most of the film. There’s a damned good story in there, had it been better developed or fleshed out properly.
Writing credits Gene Roddenberry (creator: Star Trek) story by Rick Berman&Michael Piller screenplay by Michael Piller
This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.
The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.
Borg borg borg. THEBOOOOORRRRGGGGG!!!!!! [ahem] If there’s any particular plot device Star Trek: The Next Generation over-used – other than the separation of the saucer section from the ship – it has to be the Borg, although Star Trek: Voyager used it far more yet. Still, the mindless inhumanity of the machine is a powerful image and one which is tough to beat for the sheer insurmountability of the challenge of its defeat. So… there’s that.
Star Trek VIII: First Contact (1996)
This one is intriguing in that we not only go back to the time that Earth first makes direct contact with an Extra-Terrestrial (April 4th, 2063; a few days prior to my 97th birthday; something to look forward to), we also get to meet the guy who invents Warp Drive. It also turns out that the two things take place not only on the same day, but in the same location, the one causing the other to occur. The guy who makes the faster-than-light propulsion engine ends-up being, frankly, a bit of a jerk, as he really wants to be left alone to tinker on stuff, not become some sort of high-technology hero figure. Granted, both Edison and Tesla were cranky bastards as well, so there you are.
Directed by Johnathan Frakes, this is effective as a story, even if the pacing seems slightly television-like in its rhythm in the editing and a tad conventional in its lighting and camera-work. He does well, however: even when the action is taking place in three locations we don’t get stuck with typical meanwhile… in an other part of space jump-cuts.
The story draws heavily on the themes of personal sacrifice being valued for the benefit of the larger goal, as well as the notion that everyone plays a role in the continuing development of history, no matter how insignificant they might seem to be in their contributing of details. Solid stuff, and we’ve seen it before, but it always works. Plus there’s a bit of comedy sprinkled throughout and that always helps.
The Borg Queen is actually a bit sexy, frankly, which goes back through James Bond, Dracula, and all the way to Cassandra and Medusa in its roots. Evil is always a seductress, causing otherwise intelligent individuals to lose their minds along with their principles in the pursuit of the bawdy and powerful opportunity being offered. Again, this isn’t over-played, and the dénouement is perfectly controlled without being filled with “gosh darn, aren’t we just something, gang?” hokum. Hooray!
This is probably the best of the 2nd iteration of the “Star Trek” series of films, although it also marks the beginning of a tendency to be too connected to the television versions running at the time.
Writing credits Gene Roddenberry (television series Star Trek) story by Rick Berman&Brannon Braga&Ronald D. Moore with screenplay by Brannon Braga&Ronald D. Moore
This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.
The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.
Okay now, here we go… out with the old, in with the new, and so on. Now we head into the territory occupied by the Enterprise numbered NCC-1701D and then shortly after meeting it get to say good-bye to it as well. Meantime we get to have an entirely new crew thrown at us, presuming we haven’t already met them on TV in the series Star Trek: The Next Generation, thus the title, which cunningly informs us that we’re possibly going to get something a little extra.
Star Trek VII: Generations (1994)
We start with the launch of the NCC-1701B, which is attended by a bunch of the now retired original crew (but not Spock, as Nimoy rightly said that his lines were so non-specific to the character that they could be anyone’s, and – given they ended up being uttered by Scotty – he was right). Because Kirk is on board (honestly, do not invite this guy onto your ship, everything goes to Hell when he’s around), there’s a crisis and the squeaky-clean Enterprise rescues as many of the passengers as it can who are on two vessels trapped inside “the Nexus”, which is a sort of energy beam / ribbon thing.
ZAP!! We’re seventy-eight years in the future and on the bridge of the NCC-1701D Enterprise with Captain Jean-Luc Picard at the helm, and the Nexus shows up again.
What this ends up being is a cross between Star Trek and James Bond, as Picard and company band together to defeat an obsessed crazy-man who is determined to return to ‘the Nexus’ where he will ive forever: FOREVER, I TELLYOU! HA-HA-HAAAAAA!!!
There’s also a sub-plot involving Data experimenting with an emotion-inducing plug-in, which is good for a few chuckles, but ultimately gets as wearisome as one would imagine the rest of the crew would find it in reality.
It’s okay, and I remember enjoying it in the theatre (possibly even on the opening night), but its best task is providing a bridge from one team to another.
Writing credits Gene Roddenberry (television series Star Trek) story by Rick Berman&Ronald D. Moore&Brannon Braga and screenplay by Ronald D. Moore&Brannon Braga
This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.
The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.
Here’s where SF really gets some proper treatment. As pointed out in the last one, the important doo-hickey is to use the weird setting of the vacuum of Space and characters who are gooey and / or green in order to discover more about the human beings of here and now. Ergo: The Day the Earth Stood Still has less to say about saucer technology than it does about the xenophobia and ‘Red Scare’ aspects of early-’50s America. Science is the platform that the fiction is placed upon, but then the setting supposedly makes the examination of delicate current topics ‘safer’ or less contentious, thus permitting more rational consideration of the points of both sides of the question. It’s also often done by setting bits of William Shakespeare’s work in new settings, such as Orson Welles’ Fascist Germany-set production of Macbeth demonstrating a battle for power by a success-driven megalomaniac.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Thus, we have “Star Trek VI” re-examining the question of racism, the original series having already done so in the episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (Season III, Episode 14), which I happen to have seen projected on a big screen locally when I was young. Here, however, the ‘extra complication’ is that it’s not merely another race, but a former deadly enemy involved. The parallel here is USA suddenly dealing with a post-fall of the Berlin Wall Soviet Union. Given the ‘Cold War’ history of the two nation’s interactions, plus the fact that Cuba still exists – which, in a pinch, could be seen as a Romulan Empire… kind of… maybe – makes it all work really well.
Due to the above Really Big Questions makes the character development fairly substantial, and it’s about damned time, frankly; in a way it’s a shame this is the last outing for the original crew of the Enterprise, as it really makes you think of Kirk as a far more intellectual and philosophical individual than before. Until now, the Klingons were “the bad guys” and we felt quite content to see them blown-up all the time. Yet, what would one think if one were Klingon? Is there a more intellectual and understandable side to them with which we might recognize our own need to expand our territories for use as food supply, raw materials for material wealth, and so on? Is it possible to see ourselves through their eyes as being simply irrational beings, clinging inconsiderately to our resources for no reason, when they might make better use of those materials for the benefit of all?
Even if one can make the jump to understand the need to trust the former enemy in a “new galaxial order”, can one truly feel that on a visceral level? Can one actually stand side-by-side with them and say “yes, we are brothers”? Would you let your daughter marry one?
This last question is actually posed in the script, and there was a bit of controversy about what, if anything, the reply might be. Another line was re-assigned due to Nichelle Nichols refusing to make a reference to the famous movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, which itself dealt with racial discrimination at a time that great tension was caused even by the mentioning of the topic itself.
So, thus, there’s more than enough validity in asking these questions, whether you assign national, racial, or even planetary roles to the specifics of the question. Until such time as the poignancy of the question is no longer existent, the theme must be employed.
This probably is the best of the entire series, and is easily the best of the films for the original crew. What a shame it’s also the last, as well as still looking like a TV show with much of its camerawork.
Writing credits Gene Roddenberry (television series Star Trek) story by Leonard Nimoy plus Lawrence Konner&Mark Rosenthal screenplay by Nicholas Meyer&Denny Martin Flinn
This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.
The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.
Ian Alexander Martin [IAM] is the Proprietor of Atomic Fez Publishing, as well as formerly being an actor and theatre director based in British Columbia, and also was Founding Editor and Publisher of the theatre magazine The Boards. [read more]
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