I finally finished watching this edit (version 2) and took extensive notes. I hope that you find them helpful. This is an incredibly ambitious project, taking roughly 9-10 hours of content and reducing it to under 3!
First if all, a side note: I don’t know how attached you are to the Mega service for hosting, but I dislike how much it tries to push having its app and an account to use it. Other options like Google Drive might be better for a broad user base. (It took me an entire week to watch this in short segments that I could stream without making an account, and I constantly had to reload and/or wait for 4 hours to watch more.)
Consider also reordering the credits a tiny bit by putting the Star Trek Picard title at the front, and fading that into the rest. I think that this would more closely mirror what we see in the other films. You could also split off the audio so that you can play around with it more; since it doesn’t precisely line up with anything visually, there’s a lot of freedom, even freedom to substitute another track entirely or blend something else in or out at the beginning/end.
Alternately, I could imagine the movie starting with Crusher aboard her ship in 3x01 (or Jack in the opening of 3x02), then cutting to Picard in the vineyard to establish normalcy. I like the Data scene, but the theme of Picard missing Data isn’t big in this edit, and it might also be nice to hide the Borg bit until later. Introducing Jack here would also help build his character, since a lot of his establishing scenes get cut in this edit.
So if you followed this advice, you’d go from the beam out to the conference room to sickbay.
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Note that Riker calls Jack by name when he enters sickbay, even though that name has never been introduced. You may be able to trim out the extract line. The issue of intruding Jack apart from the Shrike battle is going to be tricky though.
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Beverly is also suddenly better. I’m not sure that there’s a good scene/shot to explain that, but I thought it was worth mentioning for continuity.
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You may want to include Riker and Picard talking on the way to sickbay about Jack likely being Picard’s son. That would also add the necessary context to Riker and Jack’s conversation soon after.
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Since season 2 doesn’t exist in this edit, consider removing the line about Picard learning recently that he is not like his father.
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Consider cutting Riker’s line about the crew putting their lives on the line for Jack. There’s been zero danger to them so far in this edit.
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Similar problem with Picard and Beverly mentioning the ship that is after them and asking what she knows about it. They also assume that the bad guys are after Jack, with no evidence yet.
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You may be able to fix some of these issues by rearranging the conversations. Maybe use Picard in the hallway with Jack and Beverly, then Beverly explaining people chasing her and Jack, and then maybe transition into the talk about Jack’s conception etc.
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Why is Seven trying to hide Jack? Why do they think people are looking for him, especially Starfleet? You may need to re-add a brief encounter with Vadic and the Shrike to make all of this sensible. Maybe the Titan can run away more immediately and skip the whole two hours of adventures in the nebula. You could retain the initial impression that the Shrike is simply a mercenary ship looking for Jack, the latest in the string of similar encounters that Beverly describes.
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The whole thing about Jack having visions and abilities comes on way too fast in this edit and maybe even in the show. I’d suggest maybe easing into it with his mirror scene when they are rendezvousing with the Intrepid, but then really only get into it after he is suddenly able to kill the four Changelings. We really need to build a connection to him first as an audience.
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I miss the earlier Ro scene w Riker in the observation lounge. In this edit, there’s no reason for her being alone w Picard. There’s also not enough buildup of the tension between Picard and Ro, which is paid off in their bar conversation and later in the hallway/on the viewscreen. Otherwise, the emotions shown feel unearned. If you are concerned about Picard and Riker not knowing that she got back from the Maquis, you can probably trim out one or two sentences to remove their surprise.
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With zero prior mention of Changelings, the question by Picard and Ro about whether they are who they say they are makes little sense and comes out of nowhere.
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The quick final shot of Picard and Ro right before cutting to the Changeling security officers seems like a leftover from something else that was trimmed out. In fact, it might best to cut the shot of the security officers as well, because that way we don’t have any tip-off that they are bad guys until they turn on Ro.
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Again, Picard tells Shaw that the Intrepid is compromised and it’s “worse than we thought,” but in this edit they haven’t thought or suspected anything. You need to build the paranoia a little bit to get to this point.
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If you are removing the whole Picard death and synth body thread, you need to do some trims in his conversation with Jack.
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Honestly, the whole Irumatic syndrome for Jack plotline fell flat for me in the original and still here. It’s a very short bit of misdirection and while it brings up the ideas of passing along weaknesses and liabilities to children, we get that same theme again when they discover Jack’s Borg connection. Maybe this whole sub-plot could be removed as we shortcut to the mystery of his growing abilities.
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Your establishing shot of the Titan includes an explosion in the background when nothing actiony is happening.
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Cutting straight to Data and Geordi sadly shortchanges the entire Data storyline, even what you tried to set up in the season 1 intro dream. Now if you wanted to cut Daystrom, you could have Geordi examining Data’s new body at the Fleet Museum and have some of that plotline occur there, trimming around the Vadic stuff to make it more of a research project by Geordi and his daughter. As it is, you’re giving us a heartfelt scene but it’s mostly “Somehow, Palpatine returned.”
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We need an establishing shot of the fleet museum if that’s where all these characters are meeting up, and to introduce it for later use in the climax. If you want to imply that they all just arrived at the Titan, you need to show some type of rendezvous with another shuttle, or La Sirena, or something. (I’m not sure that such a shot exists; it could be composited using VFX if you have the ability.)
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Again, if you are cutting the season 1 plotline, you need to trim out Data and Picard’s lines about him wanting to experience death.
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We still need more buildup for Jack’s powers and the mystery of it all. They know too much about him too suddenly.
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Where did that cloaking device come from? I guess in this edit there wouldn’t have been a prior time to use it, so maybe they always had it. Why is it being used now?
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The Picard Locutus thread would be more powerful and organic if you kept the earlier Shaw backstory scene.
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You have another vestigial reference in Picard’s conversation with Jack to Picard having previously died.
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We need to see behind the door, whether with Troi or as a flash when talking w Picard. We can see the cube like in the show or something else, but we need to see.
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It seems like we should have seen Jack do some of his mind-control stuff prior to escaping the Titan, even if it’s just the more casual stuff with Ensign LaForge.
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We never saw much interaction between Picard and Jack, which makes his line about Picard promising to never give up on him come out of nowhere. The lack of relationship scenes also makes it harder to believe the part later where Picard goes into the Collective to rescue Jack.
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Coming as close together as the scenes do in this edit, it’s obvious that Jack leaving the Titan in a shuttle is the same shot as Ro leaving.
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In this edit we never see the shift from running away and hiding to crashing Frontier Day. It could be assumed that the change is in response to Jack’s departure and whatever Geordi found out, but you skip the scenes that would explain this, only to include them later. It would make more story-sense to put those scenes (including the cut one where they explain the Borg DNA) immediately after the call from Geordi, and then show the Titan hurrying to crash Frontier Day as a result. I would also recommend moving the Frontier Day scenes together for better cohesion. Also pay close attention so that nothing gets repeated about fleet formation; since that stuff is spread out across two vanilla episodes, I think there’s some recap dialogue/monologue that isn’t as good in a merged format.
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The assimilation is the first time your edit mentions or shows Alandra LaForge. It would have been good to show her coming on board with Geordi at the Fleet Museum/rendezvous.
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It’s cool to have Raffi as more of a random crew member, but it’s a little odd how familiar our characters seem with her when she’s had zero introduction. It might be better to introduce her alongside Worf as his associate under Ro.
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It may be possible to tighten up the scene where they reactivate the D. It’s nostalgic and I understand that it needs some level of emotional pause, but it also seems a little long and chatty given the situation.
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There’s probably not much you can do, but I wish the cube wasn’t inside the solar system with nobody noticing, especially prior to it transmitting the signal.
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You may be able to tighten up the conversations leading up to the away team going aboard the cube.
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We also have lots of heartfelt conversations on the cube, but I’m not sure they really have time for that. I mean, they’re trying to save a ton of people who have been assimilated and who are being actively murdered at the same time this is occurring.
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The reordering of scenes that cuts off then resumes the Queen’s monologue is awkward. I think we may need the Queen’s explanation that assimilation is not simply the goal anymore prior to hearing the Borg declare their intent to exterminate everyone.
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The idea that fleet formation requires line of sight is odd. You may be able to remove that element with a few precise line trims. The Titan can instead use the cloak as you normally would, to make yourself harder to hit in a situation where you are outgunned.
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I’m not a huge fan of the giant D flying like the tiny Defiant. Maybe play around with slowing those shots down to make it less fighter-like, or trim some parts entirely that exist mostly for eye candy without advancing the events themselves.
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One of my biggest complaints about the finale is how easy it was for Picard to connect and for Jack and Picard to disconnect from the Collective. Maybe additional difficulty could be communicated through flashes from Best of Both Worlds, from Jack’s visions, and from the battle and assimilated crew members, along with the chorus of their voices. I understand that they wanted the Collective to feel like a peaceful place, but I kept wondering where are the voices, the connections?
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Similarly, I don’t love how easily everyone on the Titan returns to normal, or how the biological Borg components somehow resulted in the growing of black veins/wires. How much better would it have been if they all simply got the red eyes shown earlier, along with a blank expression and maybe slight skin change. That would require lots of VFX work.
When the signal ends, I wish there was some indication of collapse into unconsciousness instead of suddenly waking up. This is probably not something that you can do anything about besides maybe showing the recovery less to imply more off scene.
Note also that your season 2 footage has a much lower volume than your season 3 stuff. You will need to more closely match them to imply unity.
All in all, I think you’ve got a solid start on a final TNG film. I most recommend evening out that audio and paying attention to opportunities for precise line trims that would enhance your story/minimize distractions. As mentioned in many specific notes above, you may also need to re-add some of the cut content that introduces key plot points. The Changeling conspiracy and Jack being hunted can’t just pop out of nowhere with everyone acting like it’s normal. You also need to create audience buy-in for the key relationships (Picard and Ro, Picard and Jack), and that requires more scenes of intimate conversation.
You’ve got a great idea, but this edit needs a lot of polish and work to end up as a cohesive film. It’s going to be very hard to have it all make sense while keeping the edit under 3 hours. You’ve got a good start. In spite of my many critiques, I enjoyed seeing the season in this format, and I’m interested in seeing where this edit goes. Thank you.
