Missed opportunities in Generations (but not in the way you might think).

They probably spent too much on Stellar Cartography (which appeared in, what, one brief scene?) to be able to develop any other big interior sets.

Kor

 

Yeah, them ditching the families and civilians after Generations allowed to do more horrifying plots (like the Borg takeover) without having to go into the whole unfortunate implications.
But that could have been done quite easily with the Enterprise D too; either make Starfleet change its policy and the families are removed from the ship permanently....or just put a line in First Contact about the Enterprise loading off the families at a space station before they go to fight the Borg.

 

Or perhaps the ship could be designed to somehow separate into a couple of different sections, with the part of the ship that has the living quarters being left in a safe place while the other part, likely having more weaponry and/or speed or maneuverability, goes into battle or whatever other dangerous situation is going on in this week's episode.

Kor

 

Madness!!!

 

it’s different though because the Galaxy and Sovereign are two totally different classes of ships. The refit is still a Constitution Class just refit/upgraded.

The Sovereign is a “next gen” starship. It’s going to have more in common with the Defiant and Voyager, etc…then say the Galaxy class had with the Nebula class.

sorta how the Excelsior and Oberth classes are radically different from the Connie’s and Miranda’s.

honestly, families should have been off the ships after “The Best of Both Worlds” and the battle of Wolf 359. And if not then, certainly after the Odyssey was destroyed on DS9…even if families had been evaced to DS9.

 

Sure, but I wasn't talking about in-universe explanations, but simply choices relating to design and iconicity. That factor was kept intact between the 1701 and its movie refit. The D - even if it hadn't been to everyone's tastes, including some people on the film crew - was the iconic ship of the show. The E had nothing to do with it design-wise and I felt that diminished its impact strictly from the perspective of emotional attachment. This could've been any ship, not necessarily an Enterprise. In short: I would've preferred to see a Galaxy-class refit, I suppose.

 

fair enough. I dunno what more you could do design wise for a Galaxy refit though. Going with the AGT version of the ship seems like overkill and still presents the same “problems” they had with the ED filming wise.

 

There might be some more subtle options than adding a third warp nacelle. For instance elongating the nacelles, make them a litle less stubby. In principle, a similar approach to what they did to the interiors in Generations. Minor modifications that still have a high impact in terms of making it look more cinematic. My main issue with the E-E is that its silhouette is so vastly different from the D. And since the E doesn't have the "neck" section at all anymore between the primary and secondary hulls, it doesn't even read as an iteration of the Enterprise lineage anymore, visually.

 

I think the only purpose of the movie was to formally dissociate the TOS and TNG eras as well as the small screen TNG with the new big-screen TNG.

One of the things necessary for the latter was in having an all new ship with all new sets; which would of course require a reason to destroy the existing ones become integral to the story. Since that seemed to be the goal, why bother making sets of never-before-seen areas of the Enterprise-D when it was not going to make it past the end of the movie? Not only would this have obviously cost money, but I think would have just been a tease and a let down for fans to finally see more of the ship after seven years only to then see it destroyed and have to get used to a new one the following movie.

Since I believe the decision was almost wholly money driven, there is also the factor of production ramping up on a new series (Voyager), while another was still ongoing (DS9) at the same time and thus necessitating making a new Trek movie on the cheap.

Personally I never cared for how the Enterprise-D looked in Generations and don't think it transitioned from the small to the large screen very well. It was a design made for TV where one could get away with less details and more distant shots. Add to that the reliance on a CGI model over a physical one which I've never been keen on no matter the show or movie or what size screen it's shown on.

So while I agree I would have liked to see more areas of the D as well, but during the series run. I think the E translates a lot better on a motion picture scale even though I always preferred the aesthetics of the Galaxy Class over the Sovereign and even that ship was not fully explored internally during the three movies that featured it.

 

Speaking of Generations... during a recent viewing... I just realized that the Nexus fantasies of Picard and Kirk do a good job illustrating the difference between the two men.

Picard is uptight and proper, so his fantasy is Edwardian and Manor House. Kirk is down-to-Earth and a cowboy, so his fantasy is rustic and horses in green pastures.

But the real missed opportunity with Kirk's fantasy should be him on the bridge of the original Enterprise... on a five-year mission.

 

Here’s a question that I’ve had on my mind for years.

How would you fix the end action scene of Generations?
The portion where Kirk and Picard go back in time to Veridian III. The moment when the Ribbon is coming, the ENT-D was in a dog fight before being destroyed and when all characters were in the most danger.

The rules of the Nexus allowed anyone to go anyplace and anytime. So, why not earlier in the movie? When Soran was freely walking the decks of the ENT-D and in Ten Forward.

The problems with Nexus was something Nimoy pointed out to Braga and Moore during the early production stages of GEN. Braga and Moore reportedly didn’t start to see the escape clause they created until the film was approaching post-production and they had to reshoot Kirk’s death.

Generations is a film that misses being great due to avoidable pitfalls. The Nexus being one of them. How would you alter the ending or make it work better?

 

It's difficult to answer this question without knowing what stipulations there are, if any.

For instance, if Kirk has to die, that's a significant plot consideration.

 

I would keep Kirk’s death. Just alter how it happens.

The Nexus has to remain. It’s the centerpiece of the bad guy’s plan and vehicle to bring Kirk to the 24th century.

The destruction of the ENT-D has to be there. Braga had wanted to destroy it since the end of season 6. In fact, besides the unfunny comedy in GEN. Most of the stupid in the movie comes from the desire of the writers to see the saucer section crash on a planet.


The big issue is Kirk and Picard using the consequence free Nexus to travel to any point in time to stop Soran. Braga and Moore didn’t notice the issue until post-production and reshoots. In later interviews, they would say that during reshoots they were just trying to make the film as exciting as possible so people wouldn’t notice the escape clause they wrote into the movie.

I’ve racked my brain thinking about this for years. Because if you remove the unfunny comedy attempts (not till Tuesday, Data babbling and giggling like a clown), tweak Kirk’s death, dial up the action with the ENT-D (Braga wanted a technobabble victory and Jeri Taylor thought the lack of action would be “charming”), GEN would be a lot stronger of a film.

I just can’t see any smart reason Kirk and Picard would go to a time when they would be in the most danger.

 

That's because there isn't a smart reason for it unless Picard thought for some reason that it was best to minimize changes to the timeline.

But if they jump back any earlier then there's no smart reason why Kirk dies.

Of course, there's no smart reason for the E-D to crash either. It's as though "The Mind's Eye" never happened.

 

Rewatching Yesterday's Enterprise; something GEN could and should've had more of were ships attacking the ENT-D. I'll never understand the 90s era Trek writers penchant for applying handicaps in their story telling.

Chief examples:
38 photon torpedoes limit (unreplaceable once used) in VOY.

VOY's holodeck being incompatible with the rest of the ship. In the event the ship needed power and energy in an emergency. But hey, at least they can still do holodeck episodes!

The Duras' sisters flying a 20 year old BOP. Instead of a brand new one, which could stand toe to toe with the ENT-D.

It would've been easy enough to write into the plot of GEN. Soran was selling weapons in the movie. He allied with the Duras sisters to steal trilithium and later ordered them to buy him time above Veridian III. You could've easily written in 2 more ships loyal to the sisters. Or wrote in a Cardassian cruiser and a Romulan D'deridex, also on Soran's payroll. Doesn't take buy a minute to explain to the audience that the villains are a pack of renegades, pirates and or outlaws.

The battle of Veridian III from the villain's point of view, would've been a perfect test area for their new weapons. Against the flagship of the Federation no less. The ENT-D still gets damaged to the point of no a warp core breach. But in a larger than life battle where the big D goes out like a champ. As opposed to the movie where she goes out like a chump.

Like I said, a lot of the stupid in GEN comes from the writer's desire to see the ENT-D crash on a planet.
Picture this: Geordi was kidnapped, tortured, rescued in a prisoner exchange, checked out in Sickbay and then allowed to return to his duty station. Where he would be used as a trojan horse. All in the span of less than 24 hours. Yeah...
To say nothing of the crew not trying to rotate shield modulation. You know, like they did in show for 7 years.

 

Well, the other side of it is budget limitations/decisions. There was never going to be more than one ship, nor was there going to be a new model of ship, which made it harder to tell a convincing story about the Duras sisters taking out the E-D. Nor did they apparently even have the budget to not reuse literally the same explosion they used in the immediately prior film, which was perhaps GEN's most horrible moment (for this viewer at least).

 

Oh man. The hits just keep on coming. I'd rather they not used the Duras sisters at all then. They could've wrapped up that story on DS9 then. The sisters did appear in season 1 of that show.

It's hard to fathom, because the movie was allotted an additional $13 million to reshoot Kirk's death. Can you believe that? I certainly didn't see $13 million on the screen as Stewart, Shatner and McDowell ran around the cliffs of the valley of fire in Nevada. I believe they had to rebuild the mountain set, after test screenings came back bad. Where the rest of the money went, I have no idea.

 

Well, the additional money was just for reshoots of Kirk's death, not to redo what should have been a significant combat sequence.

Which is to say, upon rewatches it becomes clear just how pathetic that combat sequence is.

 

A post-credits blurb saying Captain Kirk will return in the Shatner/Reeves-Stevens novels?

Yes, but they were in season 7 of TNG after that.

 

I think I figured out a scenario where the movie can have it’s cake and eat it too. Keep Picard on the ship as it battles in the skies above Veridian III. My idea of increasing the number ships the ENT-D faced is a must. The enemy ships would be armed with Soran’s experimental weapons. With greater destructive yields than the ENT-D was designed to handle.
Something akin to the space battle in Valerian would be my ideal scenario.



The ENT-D wins, but the saucer section crashes with all hands. With the crew still facing a time limit, Picard would use the transporters from one of the shuttle crafts to beam to Soran’s location and try to stop him directly. Instead of having Picard trying to crawl through a hole in a rock formation under a force field.

Picard goes into the Nexus, recruits Kirk and the movie plays out the same. The answer to the escape clause of using the nexus to go anywhere/anytime is partially negated by the battle Picard experienced at the hands of Soran’s weapons. The ENT-D barely squeaked out a victory in a 3 on 1. All the bad guys were killed in the exchange. Not wanting to tempt fate by trying to refight such a battle by going back before it happens. While still needing to confront Soran and his confederates. This would be Picard’s logic for not going back too far, and staying in a moment where he knows his crew will win. I think 18 people died when the saucer section crashed. You risk losing all hands (1,200 people) in a rematch, where the decisions of the villains can’t be predicted.

General audience isn’t going to read books to fill in details a movie should explain.
E.g.: “Somehow Palpatine returned”. Rise of Skywalker
Details of the how, when and why explained in a novel released a year after the movie.

I forgot about Firstborn and I’m a super fan. I doubt the general audience were all following the show continuity as closely as well.