Star Trek Generations at 20 (November 18, 1994)

[Commishsleer]

I don't think Shatner "upstaged" Stewart.

I think the need to shoehorn the character, Captain Kirk, into the story upstaged the entire movie.

Kirk isn't integral to that script. Not at all. But you can't have Captain Kirk in it without giving him something of substance to do, so his inclusion in the story acts like the sudden emergence of a black hole the moment he re-appears. The last third of the movie is unbalanced by his presence.

The problem isn't an "actor" thing, it's a problem fundamental to the script.

That's exactly how I felt. Kirk was wasted in this story. He had to do something heroic, but he couldn't be the hero in a TNG movie, either. So, the writers walk a fine line and the result is (to me) a largely unsatisfying encounter between the two Trek greats. The imbalance came from having this heroic figure essentially having to play second fiddle to Picard (or at least be the supporting character in Picard's adventure) when he was the central figure in so many prior adventures.

One other small thing to vent on in that area:
To me, one of the most stupid lines in Trek history (second only to, "His brain is gone.") happened when Kirk says to Picard he shouldn't lecture him because he was out saving the galaxy while Picard's grandfather was still in diapers. So what? That matters how when time travel (or the Nexus) is involved? Kirk and Picard were basically the same age when they met, too. Just by looking at Picard, Kirk could assume Picard had at least as much experience as he did. Would Kirk really say that to a fellow officer? Would he show a fellow captain of the Enterprise that level of disrespect? That's stuck in my craw for a long time as very shallow or lazy writing just to make Kirk seem flippant and dismissive of Picard for no good reason.

It also took Kirk too long to figure out the Nexus when Picard got there. At the moment they entered the stables instead of Antonia's bedroom, he should've turned to Picard and said, "What do we need to do?" At that point, the idea that he would toy with an obvious fantasy over doing his duty was way out of character.

After twenty years, my issues with the handling of Kirk still stay at a low boil.

Bad writing.
I don't want any old guy saying diapers.

I really hate this movie but it had a lot of good things in it too. You would only have to tweak it a little bit to have a really good movie IMO.
Unlike INS which IMO was 90% rubbish.
Take Kirk out of the movie and replace his part with Picard, swap some of the Picard bits for Data and it would be fine and make sense.
Of course Data shouldn't act like a cowardly idiot. I can't defend it by saying its how would you act if you suddenly got emotions for the first time. good writing/acting/directing would have meant that I still liked Data. The performance was so OTT that I lost all sympathy for the character. It would just need a little tweak and you could have Data wallow in guilt over Geordi but overcome it instead he was hiding in the corner like Dr Smith from Lost In Space.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Bad writing.
I don't want any old guy saying diapers.

... INS [...] IMO was 90% rubbish.

 

[Khan 2.0]

I think the trailers (specifically the teaser) and the general notion it was going to be a crossover gave the Impression to casual fans (who didn't read spoliers) it would be "Yesterdays Enterprise The Movie."

I think there's definitely something in that. I watched the trailer again only recently for unrelated reasons, and it certainly gives the viewer the impression of the movie being the 1701-B coming forward in time and joining forces with 1701-D to fight a menace. Which, even as a recycled idea (kinda of used in 'Cause & Effect' too), would probably have been a better movie than the one we got...

yeah it looked like Kirk was on the ENT D (which was a mind blowing concept) and at one point they used FX from Cause & Effect of the Reliant style ship coming though the rift but to someone who hadn't seen that EP it left the tantalizing notion of could Khan even be involved?! (in a time travel way)


heres a cool fan trailer for a Yesterdays Enterprise Generations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHaTC0aUu-Q

 

[Smellmet]

The 1701-D crash was, at that time, one of the most amazing sequences in the franchise.

I think it still is, the choice to use miniatures was an inspired one - the CGI of the day, whilst reasonable would have looked dreadful now. It still is a jaw-dropping sequence.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

The 1701-D crash was, at that time, one of the most amazing sequences in the franchise.

I think it still is, the choice to use miniatures was an inspired one - the CGI of the day, whilst reasonable would have looked dreadful now. It still is a jaw-dropping sequence.

I agree it was a great looking sequence and one that was EXTREMELY difficult to pull off.

When you're in space it's relatively east to make adjustments to ships and planets and things like that to make it look real in appearance and scale.

When you're talking about actually having a huge ship crashing through trees, hills, dirt and objects that humans are very familiar with how big they are and be able to get them in correct scale with the Enterprise, that's a tall order.

The fact they were able to make the saucer plow though these common items, make it accurate in scale AND make it look pretty damn real, all with handmade minitures and no computers, is extremely impressive.

All of which just backs my belief that no CGI is as good as extremely well done physical effects like ships, sets and other effects.

Want further proof. Look at the Hoth hanger set in Empire Strikes Back and all the full scale replica ships that were constructed for it. I defy you to tell me that didn't look like an actual snowbase with real ships and i double defy you to tell me one scene in the prequels that had anywhere near the realism and wow factor that set did.

But hey building sets and ships is expensive and time consuming. Why bother to put in the effort to do so when you can sit on your ass drinking your coffee telling the actors to pretend what is there on green screens and then have a bunch of CGI guys put it all in later.

Remember the George Lucas motto when it comes so SFX: Any special effect worth doing is worth doing half assed as quickly and cheaply as possible instead of actually investing time and effort and money to get right.

 

[Etoile]

I was a member of a Starfleet chapter at the time - can't recall which one - and we volunteered at the local theater in addition to advertising our chapter. I was one of the last to finish volunteering just before the movie started, and I ended up not being able to find a single seat. I found myself on the floor at the rear of the theater, leaning up against the wall. The sound effects were amazing this way - I will never forget feeling the movie as much as hearing it. I don't remember anything else about being there on opening night, really, but Generations will always have a special place in my heart because of that experience.

 

[Lance]

Of course Data shouldn't act like a cowardly idiot. I can't defend it by saying its how would you act if you suddenly got emotions for the first time. good writing/acting/directing would have meant that I still liked Data. The performance was so OTT that I lost all sympathy for the character. It would just need a little tweak and you could have Data wallow in guilt over Geordi but overcome it instead he was hiding in the corner like Dr Smith from Lost In Space.

In some ways the emotion chip subplot parallels the chip's previous appearance in "Descent" -- here, like there, Data puts Geordi in mortal danger while under the influence of the chip (albeit in very different contexts). Indeed, I think at the end of "Descent", one of the reasons Data actually rejected the idea of installing the chip was because of his regret at having put Geordi in danger. So, there's a kind of cyclical thing going on: one might say that Data's severe emotional reaction to Geordi being kidnapped in the movie is at least in part because his worst fears about installing the chip leading to him 'betraying' his best friend again came 100% true. Albeit, again, in very different circumstances.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Wrongheaded, desperate effort.

It says much that TNG even required a piss poor "passing the torch" plot in order to force itself on the movie going public. A series which lasted 7 seasons should not need to kill off the icon of the franchise / previous series in order to establish its own reason to graduate to the big boy pants of movies.

 

[Lance]

I had previously assumed that Kirk's inclusion was something forced on the production team by the studio heads, frightened as they might be of TNG 'graduating' to the big screen and confusing audiences..... yes, I thought that, until someone on here corrected me that, no, the only requirements ever given to the producers were for a TNG movie. It being a "passing of the torch" was apparently Rick Berman's own idea (and a utterly misguided idea at that )

 

[urbandefault]

Just came across this. Never seen it before. I like these look behind the scenes things, even if it is just fluff.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiyM9JgB1Uo[/yt]

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I had previously assumed that Kirk's inclusion was something forced on the production team by the studio heads, frightened as they might be of TNG 'graduating' to the big screen and confusing audiences..... yes, I thought that, until someone on here corrected me that, no, the only requirements ever given to the producers were for a TNG movie. It being a "passing of the torch" was apparently Rick Berman's own idea (and a utterly misguided idea at that )

The idea wasn't misguided, just poorly executed. Including Kirk in a Next Generation movie could have worked, but Generations wasn't the right vehicle for it. As many have pointed out, including in this own thread, Kirk was superfluous to the story. Even Shatner recognized that; in his meetings with Berman, Moore, and Braga, he pointed out that Kirk didn't have any meaningful role in the story. And I blame a lot of that on the team's unfamiliarity with feature film writing (Generations is paced out like a television script, with obvious commercial/act breaks) and their desire to make sure that the Next Generation cast wasn't crowded out in their own movie.

 

[cooleddie74]

And yet, when some of the very same writers penned the final episode of Enterprise a little over a decade later the idea of guest stars from another part of the Trek universe crowding out the main cast and sucking up all the air and attention didn't seem like a problem. I do agree that Generations didn't have the tight feature-film pacing of First Contact or most of the earlier and later Trek films, but that didn't much bother me. Some Trek movies feel a lot more like glorified, overblown and bloated two-part episodes than others, and while this one has that feel to an extent it isn't as guilty as a couple of other films in the franchise.

 

[Smellmet]

Just came across this. Never seen it before. I like these look behind the scenes things, even if it is just fluff.

Yeah that was pretty decent to watch. I like stuff like that too.

That shot of the D approaching the Amagosa station is still an absolute stunner - don't think it would look any better if it was done today. I also prefer the planet destruction scene in this compared to the one in ST09 too, I know it's a different scenario but I think it just flat out looks better, the ST09 one is the weak link in that film's FX for me. Obviously I've already discussed the saucer crash earlier - superb. In fact I think I prefer the visuals in this movie over both First Contact and definitely Insurrection.

Oh and Gates McFadden never looked as hot as she did in this either.

 

[AgentCoop]

I saw it on opening day and I absolutely loved it. Still do. It's a deeply flawed movie, but somehow my affection for it remains.

 

[cooleddie74]

Agreed there. Gates was unbelievably hot in this movie, and the 1994-vintage CGI used to create the shots of the Enterprise-D, Amargosa Observatory and the Enterprise-B still hold up excellently twenty years later and probably wouldn't look that much better if a current effects and imaging team were making the film.

The entire Amargosa sequence of the movie is visually stunning to watch with the great visuals of the ship and observatory, and the bright light from the nearby star bathing everything just created one of the most interesting atmospheres of any Trek movie's sets. It was so strange to see Picard's normally well-lit and cheerful ready room so dark and full of shadows. The cinematography on Generations was often top-notch and the film deserves credit for how it looked on the big screen.

 

[AgentCoop]

The entire Amargosa sequence of the movie is visually stunning to watch with the great visuals of the ship and observatory, and the bright light from the nearby star bathing everything just created one of the most interesting atmospheres of any Trek movie's sets. It was so strange to see Picard's normally well-lit and cheerful ready room so dark and full of shadows. The cinematography on Generations was often top-notch and the film deserves credit for how it looked on the big screen.

This. I've heard a lot of criticism that the sets were lit that way to hide the shortcomings of the TV sets on the big screen, but to my eye it resulted in some of the most beautiful and atmospheric images in any Trek film.

 

[cooleddie74]

Star Trek Generations remains one of the most visually beautiful films in the entire franchise. Even if you don't like the story and plot, the movie itself is just plain gorgeous to sit and watch.

 

[Smellmet]

Totally agree, it makes the film look so cinematic compared to the series, and all the TNG films that followed to be frank, which considering they were using the same sets from the show is no mean feat. The Amagosa scenes are just sooo good to look at, both the exterior and interior shot.

I'd go as far to say that it's the best looking Trek movie of the original 10.

 

[Smellmet]

I saw it on opening day and I absolutely loved it. Still do. It's a deeply flawed movie, but somehow my affection for it remains.

Kind of same here. I said earlier that I ranked it as merely 'OK' because of the dumb Nexus scenes, but It still has a lot to recommend it, along with the stunning photography, great FX, really solid score, it's still a pretty entertaining movie when all's said and done. It's the only Trek movie I ever saw four times at the theatre too. I'd watch it over Insurrection any day of the week.

 

[dub]

One of the truly great Star Trek movie soundtracks

They're all truly great! I used to listen to the opening credits track of GEN on full blast on my boom box. The moment when the bottle crashes was killer!