The creative teams behind the J.J. Abrams' blockbuster 2009 reboot. But if TNG had learned the same lessons the TOS movie series did, the Star Trek movie franchise might have lived longer and prospered throughout the 2000s.
The Kirk, who died at the end of the film.
Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis were bad movies, which was certainly a major factor as to why Trekkers abandoned the TNG movies. After Star Trek: First took the TNG films to new heights, producer Rick Berman and his team failed to follow the successful model the TOS movies set, which sustained Kirk's saga throughout the '80s. By not mimicking the example set by TOS, the TNG films quickly lost all of the momentum they gained from Star Trek: First 's triumph. And that's because Berman and his creative team continued to treat the TNG movies as episodic adventures like the TV series was instead of embracing the serialized format that drove fan interest in TOS' big-screen adventures.
Star Trek: The Next Generation Movies Were A Mixed Bag
Star Trek Generations wasn't quite the extravaganza it was intended to be, but it did its duty and properly brought TNG's cast to the big screen. Instead, it was the second TNG film, 1996's Star Trek: First , that was the true blockbuster. Star Trek: Voyager. After they both went off the air, the poorly-received prequel show Star Trek: Enterprise launched in 2001, which eroded the fan base further. When the final TNG movie, Star Trek: Nemesis, arrived in 2002, it was met with indifference; the critical and box office failure of Nemesis brought the TNG movie franchise to an ignoble end after only 8 years.
Star Trek TOS Movies Told A Complete Story That Kept Fans Coming Back
After Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home as a lighthearted romp that won over fans and non-fans alike, the director still properly paid off the character arcs that began with Star Trek II.
Star Treks II-IV became the franchise's first trilogy and told a wonderful story about death, resurrection, and friendship that conveyed the best essence of Star Trek. While the Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country as a fitting sendoff to the TOS crew that capped off their entire 12-year movie saga.
Star Trek TOS was an episodic TV series, and TNG would follow suit, but the TOS movies' masterstroke was giving fans a reason to want to see each movie by weaving a serialized macro-story across Star Treks II-VI. Since each film smoothly built off the preceding film, Trekkers were rewarded for coming back every time by getting to see their Starfleet heroes grow and change, finally embracing their status as the elder statesmen of the franchise.
Star Trek TNG Movies Should Have Been Serialized After First
Once Star Trek: First proved that TNG movies could be even bigger hits with audiences than the TOS movies were, Berman and his writers failed to serialize the saga. They should have mapped out a master plan for the TNG sequels that would naturally build off of First 's success. The Borg were a big draw for fans, but the studio, Paramount, inexplicably decided not to explore the cybernetic villains further in the movies. Instead, Borg Queen. Rather, exploring the Borg further fell under the purview of Star Trek: Voyager, leaving the TNG film franchise without their best villains and with no clear path or idea for the third film.
It also hurt the TNG movies that Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga, who wrote Star Trek Generations and First , opted not to continue penning TNG films and instead focused on being part of the creative teams of Deep Space Nine and Voyager, respectively. Without the writers behind First 's success, Berman turned to former TNG executive producer Michael Pillar to write Star Trek: Insurrection, and then he hired two franchise outsiders, Oscar-winning writer John Logan (Gladiator) and director Stuart Baird, to make Enterprise-D was destroyed in Star Trek Generations). Worse, because Star Trek: Nemesis wasn't planned as a swansong for the TNG films, Picard's movie adventures just stop abruptly, leaving Trekkers with a totally unsatisfying ending.
Star Trek TNG Movies Failed Because They Weren't "Must See" For Fans
Unfortunately, Rick Berman and Paramount saw the TNG movies as episodic tales akin to the TV series. They counted on Trekkers' love for Picard and his crew to keep them coming back for "reunions" with their heroes every few years. That sentiment would have been proven true if Star Trek: Insurrection had been as great a movie as First , but instead, the third TNG film told a confusing story that played like a less-than-stellar TNG TV episode. Worse, when the TNG movies finally did decide to follow the TOS movies' example, they took the wrong lessons entirely: Data's death in Star Trek: Nemesis was a blatant ripoff of Spock's death in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Trekkers weren't best pleased.
Since Star Trek continued on TV unabated, the occasional cinematic dalliances with Picard's Starship Enterprise failed to become "must-see" events for Trekkers. In the late-1990s, the Star Trek franchise was already divided between Deep Space Nine and Voyager on TV along with the TNG movies. Since most Trekkers were getting their "fix" from the TV shows every week, there was increasingly less urgency to reunite with Picard and the Enterprise on the big screen, nor was there a compelling reason to. Further, DS9 became the centerpiece of Star Trek with its Star Trek: Insurrection only fleetingly mentioned DS9's devastating conflict where billions were dying in a costly and brutal war. Instead, the crew of the Federation's flagship had a lighthearted romp over "the Fountain of Youth."
This lack of synergy between the TNG movies and the concurrent Star Trek TV series, along with the movie franchise's inability to "read the room" when it came to what Trekkers wanted from the films, ultimately doomed Picard's movie series. If the TNG films had embraced the serialized TOS model and told a macro story that would have given Trekkers a reason (besides nostalgia) to keep coming back to the movies for more, Star Trek: The Next Generation's movie saga could have lasted for many more years and provided an ending worthy of Captain Picard and his beloved crew.
