Generations@25
- Thread starter Khan 2.0
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I would have preferred to see him go down on the enterprise (I don't care if it had been the B thrust into the future somehow or the D) than what we got.
the idea of TOS (even just Kirk) crossing paths with TNG (and resulting in the death of kirk) evoked/still evokes such imagery as Kirk on the Ent D, (bridge, Picards ready room), Riker & Co on the previous Ent (A or B), old TNG spock encountering Kirk again after 80 years, and a finale of 2 Ents facing down a Klingon or romulan armada (an impossible to avoid shades of the Yesterdays Ent finale) with kirk sacrificing himself on the bridge of an Enterprise in something akin to the death of spock meets start of ST09s captain goes down with the ship thing - and it happening as its the only way for TNG crew to survive/peace to prevail (as opposed to saving a population of some random planet). evoking all kinds of call backs to the past (kirk taking on board spocks needs of the many outweigh the one noble sacrifice/dying alone campfire scene/a true kobiashi no win scenario no cheating death this time/atoning davids death/Klingons/doomsdaymachine near death finale - a death that would sort of bring the character full circle like 'all roads led to this' type deal - a 'oh that makes all kinds of sense/wow I cant believe they pulled it off'/Spock level impact death)
Braga and Moore explain on their commentary why they did what they did -- trying to subvert audience expectations by having the big meeting of the legendary captains not be something obvious -- and while I understand that thinking, I agree that it didn't pay off. The end result is underwhelming. Nobody wanted to see the legendary Star Trek captains chopping wood and making omelettes.
I don't know if featuring 24th century Spock wouldn't have overwhelmed the movie too much -- the aim here was never to make a 7th TOS movie, merely to feature TOS crew 'handing the baton' -- I too feel like, frankly, the movie needed that heart. If you are going to feature Captain Kirk and members of his crew, then they need to be more than cameos. And the makers of 'Generations' had no intention of doing that. Unfortunately.
I don't know if featuring 24th century Spock wouldn't have overwhelmed the movie too much -- the aim here was never to make a 7th TOS movie, merely to feature TOS crew 'handing the baton' -- I too feel like, frankly, the movie needed that heart. If you are going to feature Captain Kirk and members of his crew, then they need to be more than cameos. And the makers of 'Generations' had no intention of doing that. Unfortunately.
I've sometimes thought that the prologue with the Enterprise-B is in the wrong place in the film. It's hard to argue that it shouldn't be there -- the last movie ended with the maroon jackets, and this movie opens with the maroon jackets -- but I occasionally feel that the prologue would have worked better as a flashback, either after Riker says, "That's the mission where James Kirk died" or, better, when Picard goes to Guinan's quarters to talk about Soran.
Knowing that the prologue could have been even more crowded with cameos, with most of the original cast getting a single line or two, I'm okay with what we got. I don't mind that Scotty and Chekov get Spock and McCoy's dialogue. I only wish that Scotty's dialogue didn't sound like TNG-esque technobabble, since that's not the way Kirk's crew spoke.
Knowing that the prologue could have been even more crowded with cameos, with most of the original cast getting a single line or two, I'm okay with what we got. I don't mind that Scotty and Chekov get Spock and McCoy's dialogue. I only wish that Scotty's dialogue didn't sound like TNG-esque technobabble, since that's not the way Kirk's crew spoke.
I feel much the same way, and I've even created fan edits which place it there in the middle of the film.
I do quite like the synergy of moving from VI to VII, though. It feels a little out of place if you're doing a rewatch and you drop into seven seasons of TNG before coming back to GENS, but if you're watching the 10 movies back to back then it feels natural, which it should because while one can sometimes assume audiences have some familiarity with the movies, they may only be tangentially familiar with the TV shows. My big problem is that not enough is really done to introduce the TNG crew to these audiences. The moment it jumps to 78 years later or whatever it is, the movie simply assumes you're au fait with Picard and crew, and their myriad of backstories, and makes very few concessions to the casual cinema-goer. First Contact does that a whole lot better.
Shatner acknowledgement tweet
https://twitter.com/WilliamShatner/status/1196440334210719744
https://twitter.com/WilliamShatner/status/1196440334210719744
I wonder if some of that's a function of Generations being, up to that time, the Star Trek movie written by writers with the most experience writing Star Trek. (Roddenberry kept trying to stick his hand in the TMP script, but it's not his script.) As a result, Moore and Braga might have written the script with blinders on; they knew the characters deeply and never realized that the audience wouldn't necessarily. As you say, they did a better job introducing characters and ideas in First Contact, so they recognized the mistakes they'd made on Generations.
Generations would have benefited from an outside rewrite, and now I'm imagining a script doctor (Carrie Fisher and Joss Whedon were both script doctoring at the time) taking a pass.
I still strongly remember the night I saw Generations.
I went with two of my best friends from art school, who were also both Trek fans. At the first theater we went to, the print got caught in the projector and burned up early on in the movie. After the audience sitting in a darkened theater for 20-30 minutes, the theater eventually realized that they couldn't repair their print for that showing and issued refunds to everyone. My friends and I then spent some time driving to another theater some ways away so that we could catch a late showing.
And I hated it.
I hated the story. I hated the dumb, perfunctory way they killed off Kirk, and I really hated that the filmmakers obviously expected us to get more choked up over Data finding his damn cat than about the death of the lead character from the first 25 years of the franchise. I ended up fighting with one of my friends about it on the way back home (he liked the movie overall), and I'm sure that my anger was exacerbated by all the extra hassle we went through to see the movie that night.
I own it on DVD (which I partially bought for the documentary on Matt Jefferies), but it's not a movie I revisit very often. I like the lighting and cinematography, the "Time is the fire in which we burn" line, the scene where Picard finally convinces Kirk to join him, but not much else. I still wish they'd just let the original crew sail off into the sunset at the end of STVI and let their final fates remain ambiguous.
I went with two of my best friends from art school, who were also both Trek fans. At the first theater we went to, the print got caught in the projector and burned up early on in the movie. After the audience sitting in a darkened theater for 20-30 minutes, the theater eventually realized that they couldn't repair their print for that showing and issued refunds to everyone. My friends and I then spent some time driving to another theater some ways away so that we could catch a late showing.
And I hated it.
I hated the story. I hated the dumb, perfunctory way they killed off Kirk, and I really hated that the filmmakers obviously expected us to get more choked up over Data finding his damn cat than about the death of the lead character from the first 25 years of the franchise. I ended up fighting with one of my friends about it on the way back home (he liked the movie overall), and I'm sure that my anger was exacerbated by all the extra hassle we went through to see the movie that night.
I own it on DVD (which I partially bought for the documentary on Matt Jefferies), but it's not a movie I revisit very often. I like the lighting and cinematography, the "Time is the fire in which we burn" line, the scene where Picard finally convinces Kirk to join him, but not much else. I still wish they'd just let the original crew sail off into the sunset at the end of STVI and let their final fates remain ambiguous.
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Yeah, the movie has got some good things about it, but it also had some serious flaws. Not the smallest of which is it's handling of Trek's first leading man. Shatner tells in 'Movie Memories' of his own readings of the first draft, that his gut instinct was that "Kirk isn't integral to the story", and while the writers did subsequently rewrite to keep him happy (although the scenes in question ended up on the cutting room floor anyway), it's hard to deny that Shatner's assessment of that early draft applies to the finished film too. Kirk really Isn't integrated into the movie very well, is treated in a perfunctory manner, and as @JonnyQuest037 says, one gets the feeling the movie expects us to care more about Data finding Spot, than it does about Kirk's death, more or less just brushed aside in the previous scene. There's no investment in Kirk as a character here. He really is nothing more than a function of the plot. Nimoy recognised this about their plans for Spock and neglected to return. I wonder what the film-makers would have done if Shatner had likewise turned them down? Part of me likes to think they'd be up shit creek without a paddle, but another part of me feels like they would've just shrugged it off and replaced the character with someone else, just like they did with Spock and McCoy in the opener. That's how un-integral to the story Kirk really was.
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I mean, the TNG writers had even shown before that they could handle this sort of thing well.
Yes, Unification does sort of feel a little bit like, "... And Guest Starring Spock!". Especially as it's a two-parter, and Spock is only really present in the second part. But it acts as a really good example of world-building for The Next Generation, showing both 'behind enemy lines' and also that Star Trek's past and it's characters matter to the 'present', and it's far more successful at passing the baton than Generations. By the end, as Spock and Picard share a moment, one really is left with a sense of TNG having TOS blessing at last.
And as for Relics? Written by Generations scribe Ronald Moore, it's a fitting tribute not only to Scotty as a character (in, arguably, the single most in-focus role he actually ever had in any Star Trek episode or movie), but acts as an opportunity for character growth for Geordi LaForge. It too has a great scene where Stewart shares the stage with Doohan, and one feels the strong links from original to next generation.
The movie, Generations, does none of these things well.
Yes, Unification does sort of feel a little bit like, "... And Guest Starring Spock!". Especially as it's a two-parter, and Spock is only really present in the second part. But it acts as a really good example of world-building for The Next Generation, showing both 'behind enemy lines' and also that Star Trek's past and it's characters matter to the 'present', and it's far more successful at passing the baton than Generations. By the end, as Spock and Picard share a moment, one really is left with a sense of TNG having TOS blessing at last.
And as for Relics? Written by Generations scribe Ronald Moore, it's a fitting tribute not only to Scotty as a character (in, arguably, the single most in-focus role he actually ever had in any Star Trek episode or movie), but acts as an opportunity for character growth for Geordi LaForge. It too has a great scene where Stewart shares the stage with Doohan, and one feels the strong links from original to next generation.
The movie, Generations, does none of these things well.
I often saw Generations as the finale to the TV show, in a strange sense, as I saw the film shortly after 'All Good Things...' I enjoyed Generations. I know not everyone enjoyed it, but I did. It felt like a fitting conclusion to that particular chapter of Trek, though I wish the Enterprise-D survived to have a role in further movies.
Had Shatner said no maybe George Takei's phone would've been ringing..
Its hard to think of the funny wood chopping horse riding bridge falling Captain Shatner of the almost episodic/Trek theme parky Generations being the same character as the brusque authoritive Admiral Kirk in the cinematic Motion Picture or the serious Hornbloweresque Admiral Kirk of the adult Wrath of Khan (and SFS/TVH)...and the troubled elder Kirk of the intellectual Undiscovered Country ... but maybe not so hard when comparing to the mountain climbing campfire signing unicorn riding running and jumping 'Kirk' of the cheery Final Frontier (Captain Shatner again)
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If they'd killed off Sulu instead, he would've had the same last words — but delivered a little differently.
I think a mostly missed opportunity and yet not that disappointing, let alone bad. It was a tough film to make, it does feel fairly studio-driven, trying to have so many characters (including introducing the TNG characters for new viewers and also not boring the viewers who had been watched the show) and two captains as the leads. I like that Kirk played a role without going to the bridge, without getting to save the day and the 24th century crew from the captain's chair.
I do think some of the different lighting, especially in Ten-Forward, felt like trying too hard.
I also think there's some element of overly-high expectations in that, TWoK (and kind of the other original cast films) aside, *most* films based on TV series with the same actors also feel like a longer episode.
The results weren't spectacular but I thought it was at least an interesting idea, and even actual results, to depict Kirk without Spock and McCoy and see how he would be like.
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It really makes you wonder how excitedly Trek fans would have lined up at the cinema for the "epic" team up of Captain Picard and Commander Kyle
It really makes you wonder how excitedly Trek fans would have lined up at the cinema for the "epic" team up of Captain Picard and Commander Kyle
Mind you, if it were Lieutenant Leslie, I would so be there.
But that's the problem. In the real world, it makes a difference. In the fictional one, anyone could have done what Kirk did.
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