The Next Generation crew appeared in 4 movies with only one of them being a real standout with the other 3 being okay, but could have been much better. It would have been nice to have one more big movie for the TNG cast to go out with a bang but it was not meant to be.

Generations:

This was the movie that had a goal of successfully transferring the movies from the original crew to the new guys. It was a decent effort, but could have been significantly better if they could have gotten the entire original cast to participate. Due to egos and script conflicts it was not meant to be.

Overall, the movie was perfectly fine. Seeing Kirk and Picard going after Dr. Soran (Malcolm McDowell) was a blast and I felt that Kirk’s death was fitting, but it would have been fun to see him in maybe one more film even if it was nothing more than a cameo.

I liked the addition of Lursa and B’Etor into the movie and their death was appropriate and humorously done. McDowell did a great job as Dr. Soran and displayed just enough emotion to make you sympathetic towards him, yet still want to see him get his comeuppance in the end.

This was not the classic it should have been, but the movie was good for the most part and made me excited to see what they could pull of in the first movie featuring only the TNG cast which leads me to my favorite Star Trek movie yet…

First Contact:

YES! This is the best Star Trek movie in my opinion. It was practically flawless in the way it balanced humor with tremendous drama and tension.

The movie had great moments for the entire TNG crew with one of the standouts being Marina Sirtis’ drunk Troi scene with Zefram Cochran (wonderfully portrayed by James Cromwell) and Riker (Jonathan Frakes). Sirtis was fairly limited in what she could do with Troi in the television show so it was nice to see a different side of the character and actress.

Alfre Woodard’s Lily was perfect played directly opposite Patrick Stewart’s Picard. I really wish they could have found a way to make her a permanent addition to the franchise since I would have loved to see her character’s relationship with Picard blossom.

The Borg, along with the awesome Borg Queen played by Alice Krige, were great adversary’s for this movie and really made you feel that the crew of the Enterprise was in genuine danger.

This one falls in to the category of being not only a great Star Trek film, but a fantastic film period.

Insurrection:

This was definitely a step down from First Contact but it is not as bad of a movie as people would make you believe. The main issue of the movie was that it seemed more like a great 2 part television episode and not a film. I enjoy movies with moral messages from time to time, but would prefer to have that message not be so blunt in it’s delivery.

I really do not have a lot to say about this film other than it was cool to see F. Murray Abraham as the main villain Ru’afo and the final battle between him and Picard was pretty entertaining.

Nemesis:

The final TNG movie. Better than Insurrection, but not as good as First Contact.

This is another heavily criticized movie that I feel gets better with repeated viewings. The premise was a little bizarre with the clone of Picard (a very young Tom Hardy as Shinzon) seeming like a bad choice initially for the main villain, but I feel Hardy did a great job in the role and the feelings of deep violation was played masterfully by Stewart.

I also enjoyed the introduction of the Reman’s into Stark Trek lore. They were delightfully creepy and could have been a solid menace in future films.

The overall darkness of the movie seemed a little overwhelming at times, but was appropriate for the story.

This movie is better than a lot of people say and is definitely worth a watch.

There were a lot of rumors that they were going to do one more movie before the eventual re-boot that would have featured the TNG crew, Deep Space Nine cast, and some of the characters from Voyager together. That would have been incredible, but Nemesis tanked at the theaters preventing it from happening.

It would have been great to get one final big movie out of the crew, but what we got was fun overall and a great addition to my film collection.