Is it fair to blame Star Trek: Nemesis for the fall of the Next Generation era of films?

Did Star Trek: Nemesis bring an end to the Next Generation era of films?

Star Trek: Nemesis was the last film of the Next Generation era of films. It saw Jean-Luc Picard come face to face with a clone of himself, hellbent on destroying Picard and everything he believed in. The premise was sound on paper, and despite having a young Tom Hardy in the film, nothing fans hoped for came to fruition.

The film isn’t “bad”, but more just uninteresting, bookended with a character’s death that has felt needless since it happened, and even more so in recent years. It was the last film in the Trek canon before the rebooted J.J. Abrahams series started seven years later in 2009.

To say Nemesis was bad would be fair, at least compared to its contemporaries like First Contact, but recently WatchMojo posted a video where they claimed that Nemesis ended the Next Generation’s film run, and that doesn’t sound right.

The Next Generation of films constantly struggled to find success

When you look at the TNG era of films, of the four, only one had critical success, fan support, and made money and that’s First Contact. Generations, the first in the franchise, did well at the box office, and a good chunk of fans liked it, but it did get panned by critics and it wasn’t the hit that everyone thought it could be.

Insurrection was panned by most who saw it and it started to see a diminishing set of returns financially as a box office attraction. Making things even worse, is that Insurrection feels like the most forgotten film in the Star Trek canon, highlighting how little actually happened in the film.

In turn, Nemesis is arguably a better film than Insurrection, but it didn’t achieve great success and was still not nearly as good as it should’ve been. So yes, Nemesis was the last film in the franchise but had Nemesis come out after three great films, that all made money and held the attention of fans and critics alike, there would’ve been a fifth film.

Ultimately, the TNG era of films failed because three of the four are not seen in the best regards and there wasn’t a lot of goodwill built up across the four films for them to sustain a fifth. So yes, Nemesis closed the franchise, but films like Insurrection and Generations hold just as much blame for the franchise falling apart.