It's too bad the writers never thought of these thing.
Happy 19th Birthday, Star Trek Generations!
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I wish we'd seen a glimpse of Soran's lost, dead family members to personalize Malcolm McDowell's struggle to return to the Nexus so he could be with his loved ones again. A kind, decent man was driven to the brink of murder and even planetary genocide because he was determined to be reunited with his dead family members, even if they were just some sort of bizarre quantum/space-time illusion.
The novelization of Generations does a pretty good job of fleshing out Tolian Soran and makes him a much more sympathetic villain, describing how he lost his family in the Borg attack on the El-Aurian homeworld and his struggles to cope with their deaths and his separation from the addictive effects of the Nexus. The screenwriters should had given McDowell a little more material related to Soran's background and history.
The novelization of Generations does a pretty good job of fleshing out Tolian Soran and makes him a much more sympathetic villain, describing how he lost his family in the Borg attack on the El-Aurian homeworld and his struggles to cope with their deaths and his separation from the addictive effects of the Nexus. The screenwriters should had given McDowell a little more material related to Soran's background and history.
A random little thing I liked - that the Armagosa station had TOS-style control panels (something I never noticed until about a year ago!) I like the idea they've been collecting data on that star for over a century.
I Googled the Nexus and - from what I've been able to make out ... been able to gather - some novelization(s) made it a Q invention, which they basically got bored with and carelessly discarded. I hate that they went the easy, lazy route, by committing to this storyline. Q this ... Q that ... It's this one hand unbound and you're free thing, for these writers - just use Q!!! This is why I do not really read STAR TREK novels, or at least ... only do so, extremely rarely.
Same here. I can't stand the continuity porn, but many readers like it.
There should be an editorial rule where writers only get to use the Q or the Borg if the novel is actually about them.
Having Trelane be a Q was okay for the most part because of how little we were told about Trelane and his "parents" back in 1967, but even then it doesn't completely fly as an explanation in the wake of Voyager episodes like "The Q and the Grey" and "Q2" where the son Q had with the female member of the Continuum is described as the first such child in the the history of their realm and their species. Trelane being the child of two other Q shouldn't have made Q's son in Voyager so unusual, then, but the '90s Peter David novel is officially non-canon so the events in that story have no lasting bearing on the official television and film universe of the franchise.
That would have been a very wise move and could probably have been accomplished in just a couple of minutes. It also would have made the context of his actions that much more clearer. Good thought.
In the J.M. Dillard novelization, Soran is a more three-dimensional character who suffers two great traumas in a short space of time: his family's death at the hands of the Borg, and being violently ripped out of the Nexus where he's been reunited with his wife and children. These actions turn the normally thoughtful and kind El-Aurian scientist who "wouldn't hurt a fly" into a broken shell of a man who will do anything to get his loved ones back, even if it's a fantasy world inside a space-time phenomena that science doesn't remotely understand. He then spends the next 78 years trying and failing to get back into the Nexus by more conventional and less lethal means only to realize that murder and even planetary genocide the prices he must pay to once again be with his wife and children.
The Tolian Soran in the novel is even more interesting than McDowell's screen portrayal, and having brief glimpses of his family and their fate would have done more to create a sympathetic and more textured Trek villain, a man who isn't just some rabid psychopath out to destroy just because he can do so or because he's a vengeful thug who wants to get even with an old enemy who slighted him, but because he was a normal, everyday man who was broken and twisted into a borderline-genocidal maniac by the loss of his homeworld and the people he loved most. Malcolm McDowell could have done wonders with that material had it been written into the script, but instead it's Dr. Crusher and Picard who mention what the Borg did to his planet and family, not Soran himself.
The Tolian Soran in the novel is even more interesting than McDowell's screen portrayal, and having brief glimpses of his family and their fate would have done more to create a sympathetic and more textured Trek villain, a man who isn't just some rabid psychopath out to destroy just because he can do so or because he's a vengeful thug who wants to get even with an old enemy who slighted him, but because he was a normal, everyday man who was broken and twisted into a borderline-genocidal maniac by the loss of his homeworld and the people he loved most. Malcolm McDowell could have done wonders with that material had it been written into the script, but instead it's Dr. Crusher and Picard who mention what the Borg did to his planet and family, not Soran himself.
How else do you explain the Nexus, if not the Q then what else - magic?
In the Nexus you can travel backward and forward in time, in space, get immortality and your deepest wishes granted. I can't get my head around that being a natural phenomena. I know Genesis and Spock's resurrection in TWOK and the eternal life thing in INS were incredible as well but not nearly as much as the Nexus.
I think it being left-over super technology is the only 'real' explanation. I was also thinking maybe the Nexus was something the 'Preservers' might have used to transfer the Amerinds except that even the Preservers technology didn't look that sophisticated.
You forget that "Q2" completely contradicts the Next Gen episode "True Q", which was all about a young offspring of the Q. So I don't really mind if an old novel does it too!
Good point. (*Shakes fist at Trek writers*)
Soran schmoran. Once producers got great actor Malcolm McDowell, they thought they had a good villain already and did not need even try to write anything, just give him a cool gun.
But I'd like to link this video here now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkH7QjWkN2o
But I'd like to link this video here now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkH7QjWkN2o
At least Soran was better than Ru'afo, and I liked him a lot more than Shinzon. The thalaron radiation weapon in the latter film wound up being more interesting than Shinzon was, because they actually had the core of a terrific concept - a genetic clone of Jean-Luc Picard who grew up under dramatically different circumstances, becoming a much darker and more conflicted individual - and squandered it by not spending enough time fleshing out his character, spending more time on his deteriorating appearance and creepy psychic obsession with Troi than making him a better villain and more of an equal for Captain Picard (ironic considering they were genetically identical to one another).
I am not a STAR TREK author - nor do I wish to be - but I can come up with any number of ideas that are better than this over-reliance on Q crap, when they're stuck on a plot point. If you are asking me, outright to name an idea, I will have to get back to you. But it would definitely not be Q-related! You have my assurances ...
Why can't it be a natural phenomenon that came out of nowhere?
Not enough continuity porn.
on the topic of reused special effects, I can't confirm, but I read the explosion of the battle section was the same one used for the USS Grissom.
on the topic of the Nexus' origin and composition, I think that is unexplainable. I love fanwanking as much as anyone else, but that is too silly.
on the topic of the Nexus' origin and composition, I think that is unexplainable. I love fanwanking as much as anyone else, but that is too silly.
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IIRC, the two Q in "True Q" became human and had a human child through natural human childbirth, while Q and Suzie Plakson-Q conceived their child in their natural Q forms, so it's not quite the same thing.
I've heard that rumor as well, and it's probably true, based on the fact that the stardrive section was this tiny little thing in the upper left corner of the frame, and its explosion lasts for all of two seconds. Now compare that to the destruction of the original Enterprise in STIII. The Ent-D gets nothing of the dignity of her predecessor.
The biggest mistake of all was putting the 1701-D's destruction in the trailers before the film ever came out. WTF? I know they wanted to get butts in the seats and make the movie a blockbuster, but shouldn't the news of Kirk and Picard joining forces have been enough? Something the fans had waited almost a decade for at that point?
For the record, the original Enterprise was also seen being destroyed in the original trailers to TSFS back in the spring of 1984, and that was similarly baffling, but Star Trek III tends to be given more slack by the fans than Generations and is seen as the superior film in most respects.
For the record, the original Enterprise was also seen being destroyed in the original trailers to TSFS back in the spring of 1984, and that was similarly baffling, but Star Trek III tends to be given more slack by the fans than Generations and is seen as the superior film in most respects.
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