The Movies: Given how well JJ Abram’s Star Trek film breathed new life into the Trek franchise earlier this year, it was inevitable that Paramount Pictures would release any number of Trek collections, just weeks before Abram's film is released on DVD. One such set is The Complete “Next Generation” Movie Collection...and, Picard fanboy flame wars notwithstanding, let me bluntly ask the obvious: seriously? Did they really release all Next Generation movies as a standalone purchase, when, to be perfectly blunt: only one of the four was worth more than just the rental price?

Yeah, I know: this is bound to irk the "Picard" fanboys a little, though may I remind you that if you disagree you can always click on any order link in this review, prove me wrong, and buy the DVD set. No? I didn’t think so. Feel free to do so at any time though. Nobody is stopping you at all.

Let me give a quick rundown of each Next Generation film for the agnostic reader, to give them an idea of what to expect here. For curiosity’s sake, I’ve taken the liberty to give my Techtite Rating at the end of each mini review:

Star Trek Generations: Much like Star Trek: The Motion Picture, this film’s problem was in how much of the film was wasted on stage-setting, as the Next Generation's first cinematic story. Yet the real failure of this film is in how the story begins and ends with no less than two deaths of Captain Kirk. How? Well, the film starts in the days of the original series, when Kirk seemingly died, though he's actually imprisoned in time and space...only to have Picard free him, just so Kirk can die for real. Spoilers, shmoilers: that’s the whole story, cap’n. Techtite Rating: 2.5 out of 5, or a passable Small Crater.

Star Trek: First Contact. I’m probably the only Trek fan who did not give this movie a 5 star rating. Sure, it has the borg. It shows us the pivotal moment when Earth makes “first contact” with an alien race. That, alone, is worth 4 stars. Yet here are the problems. For one: the Borg are suddenly a cliché “hive” with an even more cliché “queen.” Isn’t this the bizarre alien race from the opposite end of the galaxy, that the arrogant “Q” referred to as “not a he, not a she; not like anything you’ve ever seen”…? So now they reduce this alien race to an ant farm in space, simply to allow Picard to defeat the queen quickly, in a single movie. Then there’s Lily Sloane; a sardonic, sexist, female harpy stereotype who supposedly helped Zefram Cochrane make his warp drive (huh?), thinks that the word "borg" sounds Swedish (eh?) and treats Picard like a baby in need of his ba-ba (WHAT?!?). Don’t argue, Trek fanboys: “You bwoke your widdle ships” is engraved in my mind as the definitive moment that The Next Generation raped my childhood. Then they made two more movies to take that raped childhood and rake it across the coals. Though, yes: we do get to see first contact with the Vulcans. Techtite Rating: 4 out of 5 stars, or Large Crater.

Star Trek Insurrection was a movie that would’ve worked as a single TV episode though not as a movie. However, even as a TV episode this technobabble-saturated bore would be hard to watch, and would have been one of the least memorable TNG episodes of all time (yes even when compared to the “giant evil space snowflake” episode!). In the end there wasn't anything definitively horrible here, though the boring banter can be tiring. Techtite Rating: 1.5 out of 5, or Near Miss.

Star Trek Nemesis was the Batman and Robin of Star Trek lore; aka, the end of The Next Generation as we know it…and with reason. To say that the entire cast seemed to “phone it in” would be flattering; “voice mailing it in” would be more like it. Apparently someone wanted to rip off The Wrath of Khan yet they had no worthy arch-villain. So they clone Picard and make him an evil, bratty Picard. Adding injury to insult: they killed Data, replacing him with a half-as-smart, half-as-good, half-as-intriguing “clone” of his own. What was the point of this? ANY of this? Techtite Rating: 1 out of 5, or in other words: Burnout!

Enough said, right? Let's just jump forward to... 

The DVD (Extras): For those jumping ahead: we have here a set of four movies where only one was any good. SO what do they do? They offer a fourth disc of extras to sweeten the deal. Given that each movie has its own additional extras as well, that’s pretty cool.

Generations has Commentary by Director David Carson and Manny Coto. There’s also a “Scoring Trek” featurette and a separate featurette about designer Andrew Probert. “Stellar Cartography on Earth” gets a featurette (though why is that relevant to the extras of this film you’ll just have to judge for yourself) with a “Trek Roundtable” discussion and a faux “Starfleet Academy” video about “
Trilithium.” This disc also includes Part One of a four-part video feature about Data. Why data? Well apparently given Data’s involvement in at least 3/4ths of the film stories they apparently want to link all these unrelated film stories as a sort of Data saga. Um…let’s just move on…

First Contact’s comment track is by Damon Lindelof and Anthony Pascale. ILM’s effects get a featurette, as well as the International Space Station and “Spaceship One's Historic Flight.” There’s another “Trek Roundtable” about this particular movie, Part 2 of the Data featurette, With Starfleet Academy’s alleged take on the “Temporal Vortex” mystery.

Insurrection might be at least watchable thanks to the only lead cast commentary in this collection, starring Johnathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis. “Westmore's Legacy” gets a featurette (which makes more sense if you were able to follow the film’s story), with part 3 of the Data “Saga” featurette. Marina Sirtis gets her own Featurette called “The Counselor is In,” with an additional Trek Roundable discussion and a Starfleet Academy summary of The Origins of the Ba'ku and Son'a Conflict.

Nemesis’ commentary is by Michael and Denise Okuda. “Today's Tech Tomorrow's Data” talks about modern robotic technology, with an additional “Robot Hall of Fame” featurette. Both are good companion videos to the conclusion of the “Data Saga” Featurettes. A “Reunion with the Rikers” (aka a salute to Riker and Troi’s marriage in this film), another Trek Roundtable discussion, and a Starfleet Academy file round out the extras on this disc.

An additional disc is purely to help sales of this 1/4^th acceptable film collection. Though what a disc it is! “The Evolution of the Enterprise” is discussed, as are the villains of Trek, with an additional look at a sort of star map, showing where each “location” of the galaxy, from each film, relates to one another. A poignant salute is given, to the now dismantled “Star Trek The Experience” attraction in Las Vegas. Half an hour long, this is a far more fitting epitaph to everything TNG-related than “Nemesis” ever was. There are even additional salutes to the two “attractions” showcased in the Vegas “Experience,” called simply The Klingon Envcounter and Borg Invasion 4D. One Featurette is called quite simply “I Love The Star Trek Movies” and is an intriguing yet, logically, not terribly impartial look at the Trek films.

As I said before: if you disagree, buy it. To be fair; these are far superior transfers of the films, so if you really wanted them for all time, these re-mastered discs are the way to go. Just don’t expect me to bring the popcorn when you have a TNG movie marathon. I’ll be busy at home with The Original Series.

---Techtite