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Was Takei's reason silly for not appearing in Generations?

I'd cite "The Doomsday Machine", but Decker was a Commodore.

It is remarkably unclear on camera, but I think a Captain standing there going "Uhhhh..." while people are dying is sufficient reason to relieve him if you are also a Captain and have more experience.

To be fair, it wasn't Harriman's fault the Enterprise was sent out in the shape she was. It's been a while since I've seen Star Trek: Generations but didn't he also try several things as well?

HARRIMAN: On screen.
CHEKOV (OC): What the hell is that?
DEMORA: I've located the transport ships. ...Their hulls are starting to buckle under the stress. ...They won't survive much longer.
LIEUTENANT: We're encountering severe gravimetric distortions from the energy ribbon, Captain.
HARRIMAN: We'll have to keep our distance. We don't want to get pulled in too.
KIRK: Tractor beam! Tractor beam.
HARRIMAN: We don't have a tractor beam.
KIRK: You left Spacedock without a tractor beam?
HARRIMAN: It won't be installed until Tuesday. ...Ensign Sulu, try generating a subspace field around the ships. That might break them free.
DEMORA: There's too much quantum interference, Captain.
HARRIMAN: What about... What about venting plasma from the warp nacelles? That might disrupt the ribbon's hold on the ships.
NAVIGATOR: Aye sir. ...Releasing drive-plasma. ...It's not having any effect, sir. I think the ribbon's hold...
DEMORA: Sir! The starboard vessel's hull is collapsing...
CHEKOV (OC): How many people were aboard that ship?
DEMORA (OC): Two hundred sixty-five.
SCIENCE OFFICER: Sir, the Lakul's hull integrity is down to twelve percent.
HARRIMAN: Captain Kirk, ...I would appreciate any suggestions you might have.

Not sure I see anything there that would constitute grounds for relieving Harriman of command, even by a fellow captain.
 
In the novelisation of Generations, Sulu is aboard the Excelsior when news comes through about Kirk's death (it comes through in the middle of emergency exac drill).

Was anything like this ever considered or the scene is a pure fabrication by the author?

Iirc there's also a scene with McCoy and Spock in a chapel.
 
In the novelisation of Generations, Sulu is aboard the Excelsior when news comes through about Kirk's death (it comes through in the middle of emergency exac drill).

There was never a script with Sulu's participation. A proposal assumed all seven TOS characters would appear, but the actual script included only Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the line that identified the helmsman as Chekov's daughter.

When Nimoy, Kelley (and Takei?) expressed no interest in an appearance, the script was revised to include Kirk, Scotty and Chekov and the line that identified the helmsman as Sulu's daughter.

It's the job of the novelist to expand movie scripts as they novelize. Sometimes they restore cut or unfilmed scenes but, AFAIK, the Sulu, Spock and McCoy scenes in the "Generations" novelization were the creation of the author, JM Dillard.
 
If he turned down a role solely for the reason that his character would be 'demoted' is a horribly stupid decision. I don't think that Takei would have declined for that reason. I can understand not wanted to deal with Shatner, not liking the money, or not liking the story (like he made him as incompotent as Harriman), but the actual or perceived change of a rank of his character is crazy.
Recently on the Nerdist podcast, Wil Wheaton was telling a story about a salary negotiation on TNG, and the producers offered no extra money, but told him that they would promote his character to Lieutenant as an incentive.
You have to really, really care about your character to consider that some kind of inducement in lieu of more money.

Takei may have his issues, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't turn down the role just for that.
 
There was never a script with Sulu's participation. A proposal assumed all seven TOS characters would appear, but the actual script included only Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the line that identified the helmsman as Chekov's daughter.
*cough*bullshit*cough*

According to Ron Moore, the first draft had all seven of the original crew. As the crisis ramped up, each of Kirk's old crew took over from an Enterprise-B crewperson.

The scenes were horribly crowded. Uhura and Sulu each ended up with maybe three lines.

I don't know that this draft circulated, Ian, but according to one of the who wrote it, it certainly existed.

Otherwise, I agree with you that Demora was intended as Chekov's daughter. That bit is accurate.
 
I remember reading about that draft in one of the Trek books. It could have been Shatner's "Movie Memories." In any event Moore did state that it was hard getting all of the original cast sufficient number of lines to make their participation worth it.
 
I remember reading about that draft in one of the Trek books. It could have been Shatner's "Movie Memories."

Shatner's "ST Movie Memories" has many errors.

My point was, I remembered it as being a script proposal, not a fully blown script. Until they knew they had the participation of all seven TOS characters, it would seem unusual to do the whole draft and waste their energy when they couldn't give them more than glorified long cameos. On the other hand, each of the seven wanted a few juicy, memorable lines - but several had been burnt by promises of such in the past (particularly George on ST II and IV.)

In any event Moore did state that it was hard getting all of the original cast sufficient number of lines to make their participation worth it

Exactly. This film couldn't have 14 main characters, plus Whoopi. That kind of script was a pipe dream. But meaningful cameos for seven actors: also not so easy. Allyn seems convinced it was definitely a full script, but it never got out into the public domain, although most other ST scripts have.
 
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I'm wondering if people are confusing it with the original opening to Star Trek VI, which I believe was scripted. I never heard that the full TOS cast in Generations was anything more than early ideas, maybe in a story treatment. Didn't Maurice Hurley's script feature the two crews fighting each other or something?
 
I'm wondering if people are confusing it with the original opening to Star Trek VI, which I believe was scripted.

It was. The dropped prologue of ST VI was supposed to show Kirk reuniting all the key crew members for a "last roundup", before the briefing we saw. Kirk was in bed with Carol Marcus, woken by a man (who has a strangely glowing hand), then we see Scotty lecturing at the Academy about Kruge's ship, recently raised from San Francisco Bay, Chekov playing a card game against a Betazoid, etc.

Denny Martin Flinn used this unfilmed sequence as the beginning of his novel, "The Fearful Summons".
 
Didn't Maurice Hurley's script feature the two crews fighting each other or something?
No. Hurley's script involved an invader from outside normal space-time and Picard using a holodeck Kirk as a consultant. Think "The Tholian Web" meets "Booby Trap," and that's Hurley's script.

Moore and Braga wanted to do a "two crews fighting" movie, because they thought the potential poster -- Picard vs. Kirk, Enterprise-D vs. Enterprise-A -- was irresistible. They couldn't come up with a good story, however, that would have made both crews look heroic. Then they came up with the "problem starts in the 23rd-century, problem resolved in the 24th-century" structure, and that's where Generations came from.
 
No. Hurley's script involved an invader from outside normal space-time and Picard using a holodeck Kirk as a consultant. Think "The Tholian Web" meets "Booby Trap," and that's Hurley's script.

Think I'd rather have had this movie.
 
^ Sounds like a snorefest. But only slightly moreso than Generations...

Yeah exactly. It might have made a decent episode, but Picard walking down to the holodeck to ask fake Kirk questions would have killed all dramatic tension and pacing. Generations brought him into the thick of it, even if it was pretty poorly done.
 
I know it's an old thread but i happened to be reading stuff about generations today and found this old thread on my search so i thought i'd add something.

If I was in the movie business, i'd of made a sequel to ST6 as ST7 and done generations as a standalone first movie for TNG but it would've been different.

ST7 would've had the Enterprise A returning to space dock after they headed off at the end of ST6, where the ship would be decommissioned and the crew transfer to the newely unveiled Enterprise B which then goes out on it's maiden voyage but with the same captain as generations and crew but all the stuff that followed the tuesday joke but be already in place, the ship would be fully working. They would encounter an energy ribbon but there would be no nexus and no one would die, apart from one of the transport ships. There would still be a dr soran and instead of the nexus thing, he'd be found out to be working with romulans on a weapon to destroy a star to wipe out a star system. romulan agents are on the surviving transport which breaks free but is damaged, they are altered to look human and they steal a shuttle with soran and disable the enterprise b engines and shields to escape. The crew don't find out who dr soran is or what he's planning till they board the damaged trasnport and check the logs and computer in his quarters.

Kirk, Chekov and Scotty would be on the first voyage as guests. Kirk now an Admiral, Chekov and Scotty a teacher at the Academy.

stuff happens...

at some point the captain gets injuried during a battle with a romulan warpship and kirk takes command briefly.

more stuff happens

movie ends with Kirk returning to Earth to test students on the no win simulation, ending with him laughing about a questing from a vulcan student who asks him how he beat it. "you may ask..." queue raised eyebrow and end credits. no lame bridge death.

Sulu would also get his own movie entitled Star Trek Excelsior : The Klingon Way or some other catchy name, to come out shortly before or after ST7. (kirk mentions sulu's ongoing mission in klingon space)

Sulu invesigates a klingon consiracy involving the destruction of praxis and the future of the klingon homeworld.

which evntually turns into a tv series after at least two more movies, making it a trilogy. with an episodic format where sulu hands over command to his daughter from generations.

star trek generations still gets made but is entirely tng cast and no nexus. instead it's starts off with picards family tragedy and then a klingon plot by the duras sisters to kidnap geordi so they can get some secret starfleet intel on a recent mission where the enterprise found dead romulans on a startfleet observitory. They were devloping a weapon with the klingons to attack starbases along the netural zone. hybrid klingon-romulan bird of prays with cloaking devices and they could fire when cloaked, they need to erased that intel which hasn't been decoded yet.

they use a mind control device to make la forge go to a computer terminal and wipe the data

how did they kidnap him? he was coming back on a shuttle from the observitory and the klingons intercepted him, knocked him out, wiped his memory of the event and put in the mind control deivce which they triggered while cloaked following the enterprise.

they wipe the intel and la forge is knocked out again by the device which is discovered, data manages to detect the klingon bop and they have a battle but the sisters escape.

later the star bases are attacked, the enterprise arrives, there is a massive battle and lots of ships are destroyed, klingons and romulans surrender and the durus sisters ship is destroyed.
 
geeze was only posting because i had a moment of clarity in an otherwise mundane day. what do people always hate old threads appearing again? doesn't seem to matter what forum it is. it doesn't hurt anyone, unless it's trolled or malicious or just spame from bots.

and instead of an actual reply, just two pointless ones. kinda ironic.

if certain forum folk don't like old threads to continue, just locked them. so simple! LIGHTBULB.gif
 
geeze was only posting because i had a moment of clarity in an otherwise mundane day. what do people always hate old threads appearing again? ...
Because it's against the rules of this particular BBS:
https://www.trekbbs.com/rules/#post-11662568
Resurrecting dead threads. If you find a thread that has not had a post in it in over a year, don't post in it. Start a new thread instead. You can, if necessary, link back to the old thread if something crucial is in the thread.

Yes, this can be a potential point of confusion because some other message boards don't really say anything specific about reviving ancient threads. But this particular board does have a specific rule about it. So it's usually good to review the terms, guidelines, etc. of a message board in advance, to be familiar with how that particular community does things.

Kor
 
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