Doesn't mean it's not another "big dumb movie". I like all of the TNG movies, but they're all pretty dumb.
It was one of the big problems I had with Generations, along with the destruction of the Enterprise-D, which seemed forced and contrived. I'm not sure Kirk should've had a heroic death at all. I would've liked it better if he'd lived to be 140 and died a distinguished, retired Starfleet admiral. Picard could've met him on his death bed or something, if they wanted a tie-in between the two captains. Dr. McCoy was still alive at the time of the 1st episode of TNG, after all.
That was pretty stupid. Generations became the Crystal Skull of Kirk movies and it did not need to be. Kirk "died" at the end of STVI, going off into the sunset. Leave it be. Did they even need to connect Kirk to Picard? Its not like the TNG sucked and no one liked it. It ran for like 8 years. It was on almost 3 times as long as the TOS. They should have stuck with focusing on their own stories instead of leaching off the TOS characters. That was dumb and it set the tone for the TNG movies which were all bad, with FC being OK.
Pulling off Kirk's death was probably an impossible challenge. There was no way they could've pleased everyone. As I'm sure has been said before Kirk's involvement in the first Generations felt almost unnecessary and seemed more like a crutch. He had already gone out in style in the previous movie. Putting him in in Generations reeked of the studio having a lack of faith in the TNG cast (even though it was one of the most successful TV shows around) and made it seem like they needed members of the original cast for the movie to make its money back. Generations started off the TNG movie series on a bad footing. Other than First Contact they were wanting at best. Too bad the TNG movies never really played to the strengths of the TV show and instead they attempted to make dumb action pieces.
I've been watching Star Trek since I was five in 1975 and he was a childhood hero. He went out saving millions of people. Good enough for me.
Babylon 5 had a very powerful episode testing the Heroes (John and Delenn) and teaching them the possibility and the value of dying alone, with no one knowing you had saved someone versus going out in a blaze of Glory on the Front Page so everyone honored it (Comes The Inquisitor)
Kirk essentially got to die heroically twice in the same movie (though the first got a do-over), once saving the Enterprise-B and the remaining El-Aurians, and once saving the crashed Enterprise-D crew and hundreds of millions of aliens. I don't see how you can give him a better send-off and have him do something that "makes a difference" more than that without having him be the central character of the film and his journey the central plot. I liked that they bucked expectations by not having him die on the bridge of his ship (just under a bridge this time - "Trolling message, Spock? None that I am conscious of" ). Plus, it ties back to what Kirk said in ST:V about how "I always knew I'd die alone." While obviously Picard was there as well, at the time he was off trying to disable the launcher and Kirk was on his own on the bridge. Plus, on the Enterprise-B he left the relative safety of the bridge to go off on his own into deflector control too, thus leading to him getting blown into space. So you really get the best of both worlds: Kirk dying in space on an Enterprise and Kirk dying on the ground fighting a villain in a rocky desert environment. It's like half the fighting scenarios of TOS.
Exactly this. Killing off 2 Trek icons in one movie was a shitty idea, and what a way to waste a good actor like McDowell. I get that they reeeeally wanted to have Kirk and Picard on screen at the same time for the "ZOMG - it's teh 2 captenz 2gether!" effect. It's the curiosity factor they were counting on to bring in ticket sales. What I don't get at all is how dead-set everyone was on having that double team fight scene vs the bad guy which was totally unnecessary except to kill off Kirk (who they should have/could have just left in the Nexus/the Feel-Good dimension). As for the destruction of the Enterprise D? Straight up LAME. --- LMAO
Technically, didn't it collapse under him? I prefer the original ending, although Kirk's death there was still less than perfect, it was better. The other parts of the original were better as well. The missile sputtering across the sky and crashing a few miles away. Soren on the highest platform uselessly jumping up and down, arms raised up, trying to grab the Nexus. Picard above the dying Kirk finally simply shooting Soren in the stomach with his own gun.
Yes, Kirk deserved better. Hell, McDowell deserved better. I think even Stewart deserved better. This is probably the most unsatisfying movie I've ever seen.* *Full disclosure: I haven't seen several of the TNG movies, but judging by what some of you have posted about them, I'm willing to concede that some of them might be even less satisfying than Generations.
you haven't seen "several" of the TNG movies other than GEN? There's only three after that one. But after FC, the TNG movies kind of go downhill. But you should make up your own mind about them.
^ I freely confess to not being a hardcore Trekkie since somewhere during the middle of TNG's TV run. Or somewhere near the middle of GEN, whichever came first.
I quite liked Generations myself, I agree Kirk could perhaps have had a more dramatic death, but as it is I thought how they did it was fine, I thought the enterprise D's crash was pretty cool and I liked the fact it ended the ship with a saucer sever just as it had begun in Farpoint