Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but are you saying Ronald D. Moore (the writer of the “Relics” episode) was a bad writer because he didn’t know what was going to happen in the future?
Actually, I think making a movie that’s really nothing more than a very long regular-series episode is a worse sin than making a bad movie that’s at least an actual movie.
Actually, given that it was the same Ronald D. Moore who co-wrote Generations…yeah. It’s bad enough when a writer ignores plot points that were established by another writer, but even worse when a writer ignores the plot points he, himself, established.
Of course, it’s fanwankable (Scotty was so disoriented from being cycled in the buffer for 80-some years that he forgot Kirk got sucked in), so it’s not that great a sin.
Why? (bolding is mine to highlight my confusion)
Because if you’re going to spend umpty-million dollars to make a big-screen release, it should be a little more than just a two-part episode sewn together. Star Trek films are big, spacious adventures. Insurrection was small, very limited in scope and pretty darn boring.
There’s a big difference between really trying and missing the target (say, Final Frontier) and just not even bothering (Insurrection).
No, I’m saying that Generations was badly written for ignoring the episode several years previously.
Except that Scotty wasn’t originally intended to be in Generations - right now, I can’t recall who was - and unfortunately they couldnt go back and re-film the TNG episode for this issue.
Found a cite :
I did a search for some of my earlier comments on this film and this summarized best how I felt about Insurrection and TNG generally:
The premise of Insurrection was both moralizing and magical, as if the hero elf had discovered the Pool of Eternal Youth and had to defend it from the wicked trolls. With boob jokes!