It's been documented that Shatner considered quitting Star Trek Generations when he received the script and found that Kirk didn't really have an important role in it, and seemed to be "spending the entire movie waiting around to get killed off". That's why later rewrites added in Antonia and the horseback ride scene, to give Kirk more of a character arc. On the face of it, it looks like they would've been screwed if Shatner had pulled out since the entire crossover depended on his involvement – but I think I've come up with a way they could've rewritten Generations as a purely TNG film, and possibly ended up with a better result. To begin with, the opening sequence can still have the El-Aurian refugees on the Lakul being rescued by the Enterprise-B – but it's told from Guinan's point of view. We begin the movie with the Lakul running into the energy ribbon; they drop out of warp, they're getting drawn further in, structural integrity failing, the captain of the Lakul sends out a distress signal, lights fail and consoles explode, etc... then a heroic fanfare as the Enterprise-B swoops into view for the first time! This is not the Ent-B's maiden voyage: they've been out in space for a couple of years and there's no indication they're unprepared. Their transporter operator is having trouble getting a lock: the lifesigns on the Lakul keep fading in and out for some reason. Back on the Lakul, amid the smoke and the emergency lighting we can just see that the people seem to be fading in and out of existence – finally they are beamed away just as the ship explodes. Now in the Ent-B's sickbay, the refugees are crying and panicking, and Soran starts screaming that he has to go back before a nurse sedates him. Guinan seems like she's in shock; one of the medical staff shepherds her over to a bio-bed and asks what her name is – she answers "Guinan" before passing out. The Enterprise-B breaks free of the energy ribbon and out into space. Dissolve to Worf's promotion ceremony on the holodeck, with the caption "75 Years Later" (to allow for the Enterprise-B to have been in space for a while already). Now, there's quite a few things I'd change in the movie (I wouldn't kill off Rene, I would use the idea introduced in "Descent Part II" that the emotion chip contains memories, I would replace the Duras Sisters with Sela gone rogue, I would leave in the scene where Soran tortures Geordi, and I would make Picard's Nexus fantasy very different) but right now I'll just talk about what I'd do to replace Kirk. First of all, I'd clarify why Guinan has an "echo" in the Nexus: it's because she was unnaturally "ripped away" when the Enterprise-B beamed her away, which essentially tore her soul in two and left a piece of her behind in the Nexus. And I would say that Echo Guinan can leave the Nexus – and if she does, she will reintegrate with the real-world Guinan who is aboard the Enterprise-D. So Picard and Guinan willingly leave the Nexus together, and they stop Soran together. There are a lot of suggestions throughout TNG that Guinan is actually really badass (she's a better shot than Worf, she keeps that huge gun behind the bar, she even intimidates Q!) and now we get to actually see her in action. Do you think that could've worked?
Props to your idea, but honesty I don't think it would have worked. There's still too much of the same backstory and people who saw the movie would be scratching their heads wondering why this movie is focusing so much on a minor character, Whoopi Goldberg or not. Let's face it, the way this film was written, it was just a plot device to get Kirk into the 24th century. That's it. To actually make a viable film that has nothing to do with Kirk, it would need to be rewritten from scratch.
I agree with this. If, after the rewrites, Shatner still passed on appearing in the film, Berman would've been back to square one. A lot of the script probably could have been recycled into a 7th season episode (without Kirk, the Enterprise crash, the location work, and Malcolm McDowell as Soran), and the first NextGen movie would've been something else. Possibly the Maurice Hurley script, where Kirk was just a Holodeck character; he probably could have been excised from that script quite easily. Another possibility occurs to me. Nimoy passed on directing because he felt the script needed serious work, work that Berman said there was no time for. If Shatner also passed on the script (Moore & Braga's rewrites the script had were really just tinkering in the margins), Berman's next move could have been to hire a script doctor to make the rewrites that Nimoy (and, to a lesser extent, Shatner) wanted to make the film work. A third possibility! If Berman were absolutely committed to that story (for reasons of time, preproduction, etc.), it would have been trivial to rewrite the script for either Sulu or Chekov. We're talking about changing the ten pages of the prologue and a little bit of the Nexus material. For Sulu, the Enterprise-B becomes the Excelsior. For Chekov, put him in command of the Enterprise-B and dispense with Harriman.
I don't think that would have worked either. The entire premise of Generations was a "passing of the torch" between Kirk and Picard. Yeah, Sulu was also a captain, but having Sulu (or anyone, really) being put into a role that was clearly meant for Kirk, just to make the movie, would have been hard to take seriously IMHO.
For what it's worth, I largely agree with you. A Generations with Sulu or Chekov in the Kirk role would have worked as a story. Nothing about the film's story changes. Which tells you a lot about how critical Kirk is to the film, namely that he's not. The story still works in the same way if you substitute any other Captain-like character for Kirk. A Generations with Sulu or Chekov in the Kirk role would not have worked with fans. A "two captains" poster with Stewart and Takei would not have been iconic. Generations already has the reputation of being nothing more than a NextGen episode with a guest star the television series couldn't afford; a Generations with another character in the Kirk role would magnify that perception, especially since Takei and Koenig were very much characters the television series could have afforded. (Takei, of course, did Voyager's "Flashback," and there was a Chekov episode in development for TNG's seventh season that fell through.) The energy and excitement among fans that Generations had wouldn't have been as loud or strong had the film been a Picard/Sulu or a Picard/Chekov team-up. And that's where I agree with you. There would have been fans, and I probably would have been among them, who would have said in November 1994, "What the fuck, Berman?"
I vaguely remember plot rumours that were doing the rounds at the time along the lines of Kirk's crew encountering a threat (presumably the Nexus ribbon and Soran), and then Picard's crew encountering the same threat many years later. There was a rumour that Picard would use the holodeck to consult a Kirk hologram for advice, and that the two captains would never actually have met face-to-face. Reading this discussion makes me wonder if any of that was true at the time (an earlier draft maybe) and if the film would have been better that way?
First I've heard of that? What would the premise have been? There was an '80's movie called Best Defense, starring Eddie Murphy and Dudley Moore. The movie constantly alternates between two plotlines taking place at different points in time, the gist being that things taking place in the past plotline have repercussions in the future plotline. If something like that had been done for Generations (instead of some contrived plot device like the Nexus being needed to bring the captains together), I think it would have worked much better. Of course, a story like that really needs to be written well, and the amount of time they had to come up with a story was limited.
I fear that I'm going to conflate the one or two sentence description I saw about the episode some fifteen years ago with "Too Short a Season." Admiral Chekov was on-hand aboard the Enterprise to witness the signing of a treaty between the Federation and an alien race. As a Captain, he had had an encounter with this race; I'm assuming first contact, which would be a reason why he would be there. But Chekov harbored a secret -- these aliens had brutally tortured him years before -- and he intended to use the Enterprise to exact his revenge. I could see this working, especially if the episode paired Worf and Chekov, since both have Russian heritage. Maybe Picard can't get through to Chekov, but Worf can. I could actually imagine Worf saying to Chekov, "Do not dishonor the Rodina [Motherland] this way." I also seem to recall the Chekov had a daughter in this story, though I may be confused with something else.
From Memory Alpha: First I've heard of this! We are going to see Walter Koenig reprise a 24th Century Admiral Chekov (and it's Pavel, not a clone/ancestor) in the fanfilm Star Trek: Renegades, directed by Tim Russ who reprises Tuvok. In it, he's head of Starfleet Intelligence.
I don't know that you can really tweak GEN to have the same essential plot, just without Kirk. Structurally, the film just wouldn't work. That said, I do wonder if there's an arguement to be made that a GEN that only has Kirk in the prologue, and not in the last act, would work.
It depends upon what you consider the purpose of the film to be. You can do a passing of the torch film with a TOS prologue to a TNG film and give Kirk a glorious sendoff in the process. If the requirement is that Kirk and Picard actually physically meet, I think you can do that if you just finagle the rules of the Nexus some. Of course, that requires both the studio and Shatner to be on board. All I'm saying is that the film, storytelling wise, can work without Kirk in the last act. Generations as it currently exists essentially plays out as though there were a list of plot points they had to check off. Destroy the Enterprise, have Kirk and Picard meet, then kill Kirk. The film has real coherency issues. Of course, the film plays out that way because that's exactly how it was written. The studio wanted certain things to happen, and the film was written around them. The inclusion and death of Kirk are towards the top of the list.
To make it a viable film that actually had to do with Kirk, it would also have to be rewritten from scratch.
Interestingly, Nicholas Meyer ended up writing Wrath of Khan in much the same way, with a checklist of elements they wanted to include (Saavik, Khan, Genesis, the death of Spock, etc.). Except there it worked.
The horseback scenes were nothing but blatant pandering to the actor. They don't really enhance Kirk's role in the movie at all, but the writers knew that Shatner the actor, a ranching enthusiast, wasn't going to say 'no' to any movie role where he gets to ride on horseback.
They work in TWOK because Meyer constructs a coherent narrative to connect them, GEN spends its time inbetween the major beats on the Data sublot.
You know, GEN has a ton of problems, but the Data subplot was not one of them IMO. It was one of the few threads in the script that worked. Then again, if they had removed the Data subplot and focused more on the rest of the movie, it might've been better. So it could be a case of the Data subplot being too good for the movie's own good? I dunno.