Sounds very cool! I always thought the action scenes in the movies were a bit excessive.
However, do you really feel that it’s necessary to crop to 4:3? I get that it’s supposed to feel like a 90s TV show, but the movies were not shot with that ratio in mind. This means that those cropped movie images will lose a lot of their appeal and could possibly end up looking worse than the TV series itself (which was shot with 4:3 in mind).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Blueaffalump! The 4:3 was an idea and then I polled the FE community and most had requested it so I thought I’d give it a go. Yes, the movies were not filmed with 4:3 in mind which has made the pan&cropping a bit of a nightmare, but I’m always up to the challenge. The main issue is that the vertical side of the image is pretty tight on characters in a widescreen format as the image is allowed to breath horizontally rather than within a box. The cropping is almost more intensive than the actual editing itself. I may release widescreen and a 4:3 version, though there are some cropped shots that are used to hide things that are removed in the narrative at times. So I’ll have to figure out how to deal with that.
“Cut all Enterprise B scenes”
Reading through this, I don’t really understand this decision. It sounds as if Kirk will just show up at the end with insufficient set-up. And it also sounds like this episode doesn’t really have an opening (the boat scene feels like a post-credits opening; I don’t remember TNG having pre-credits openings which were character based rather than plot setup very often). I would try cutting together the Enterprise B stuff into a teaser; you can quickly set up Guinan and Soran that way, and then end it on Captain Kirk “dying”, and then roll opening credits.
Kirk won’t be in the episode at all. It’s just a showdown with Picard. To me, the opening feels a lot like a TNG episode. A light whimsical start that ends with a tense moment. Currently I don’t have plans to reinstate Kirk at all. I just don’t care for the performances or the storyline. The episode, like the movie is kind of a dud and ultimately serves the purpose of destroying the Enterprise.
I kind of feel like if “Insurrection” was actually a TNG episode, the Riker/Troi stuff would be a major B-plot and it could easily lead directly into the wedding, rather than saving that for “Nemesis” where it has nothing to do with anything going on. The show never would’ve had every character have things happen in the same episode, and Nemesis already has a major plotline for both Picard and Data, it doesn’t need a wedding too. You could do a thing early on where Picard tries to get through to Data by asking about the song and it doesn’t really work and then at the end Data is singing a song at the wedding, so it feels like some kind of pay-off rather than a random gag (which, admittedly, it makes me laugh, but I acknowledge that it’s character breaking and dumb).
I completely agree. Insurrection is probably the most TNG series like of the TNG movies. Riker and Troi’s fling is a narrative supporting the youthful nature of what is happening to the crew. With removing all of Anij and Picard’s love story we don’t see Picard go through the same process and thereby don’t really get a sense of what is happening to the crew beyond the marvelous scene with Geordi and the sunrise. It also helps with the idea that the Son’a could be healed over time if they would return and reunite with their parents. Another reason I don’t feel I can take out the Troi/Riker stuff is that beard. There really isn’t a reason for the beard coming off if he and Troi’s three scenes are removed. Sure I could just have him walking down the hall with no beard and Data then touches his face, but that would leave more questions asked than answered, imho.
For Nemesis, Data will die. Sacrifice is the strongest narrative and I don’t want to steal that from his character, especially after what we saw in Picard. Menbailee originally switched up the narrative to have the wedding at the end and Data alive, but that just made a tired narrative and movie worse for me as there was no emotional payoff beyond nostalgia. I want something more along the lines of Kira and Odo, resolution but with the weight of loss and the possibility of hope, rather than an overly happy ending.
Just my two cents, I’m sure that you have thought these things through and have reasons for the decisions you’ve made.
I appreciate your input! I originally intended to just make a 1:1 HD update of Menbailee’s edit, but my subjective interpretation wouldn’t allow it 😃 This has turned this project into a more involved process and so I wanted to share it as I go along to test ideas and get new and possibly better ideas along the way 😃