Generations is so good.

[Timo]

Seems obvious to me. If he arrested Soran, the Duras sisters would be at large, their ship loaded to the brim with starkiller weapons.

If, OTOH, Picard defeated Soran while Riker was holding the Duras sisters under the big guns of the Federation Flagship, the universe would be a much safer place.

Really, going back to Amargosa would have been the one thing that would have made no sense whatsoever. For one thing, it wouldn't have allowed Picard to achieve all his immediate goals. For another, it would have caused a bigger time interference than the hop just a few minutes back. And if Picard was willing to go that far back, why would he ever stop there? Why wouldn't he go back to stop the fire that killed his nephew? Why wouldn't he go back to stop the Borg before they turned him into Locutus? Why wouldn't he go back to stop Tasha Yar or Assistant Chief Engineer Singh from getting killed? Why wouldn't he bo back to stop the Holocaust, or the Children's Crusade, or the crucifixion of Christ, or the sack of Troy, or the death of the last mammoth?

For me the highlights of ST:GEN were the well-presented deaths of the hero ship and James T. Kirk, the brilliant acting of Stewart and Spiner, the character development of Data, the well thought out villain Soran, and the well explored theme of aging and loss. The main downers were the contrivances of the hastily rewritten prologue, where the TOS heroes acted out of character, or rather in character for entirely different characters. In the middle fall the competent visuals (including some gorgeous stuff on the E-B and Amargosa), the sometimes superfluous tweakings with sets, props and uniforms, the jarring twice-crashing of the saucer with all the usual Poseidon cliches, and the somewhat ho-hum portrayal of the Nexus from Picard's point of view (Kirk's was a bit more interesting for me).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Trekker4747]

Seems obvious to me. If he arrested Soran, the Duras sisters would be at large, their ship loaded to the brim with starkiller weapons.

Nope. On the observatory Soren contained the chip that contained the instructions to building the weapon, the other one(s) were on the Armagossa observatory and on Veridian. Both of which could be taken care of.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

I haven't seen it in a while but I don't remember it being said that you could exit the Nexus at any place and time of your choosing.

Guinan quite explicitly tells Picard that he can go anywhere and anywhen.

Picard, for whatever reason, chooses to go back and confront Soran again.

David R. George III's novel Crucible: Kirk: The Star to Every Wandering explains Generations very well. It gives more background to the film and makes it make sense.

And lets not forget that Soran actually won the first time round and made it back to the nexus, so how Picard has the ability to somehow use the Nexus and reset everything even though Soran won and is now himself in the nexus and is living his own fantasy and in no way would want the Nexus to allow all that to be reset by Picard, who now wants to travel back in time and stop Soran winning the first time round, but can't! Because, if he had traveled into the past from this point in time, it will be the past of this reality! In which Biff is corrupt, and powerful, and married to your mother and I'm in a nut house....and all because of the sports almanac.

 

[Timo]

Nope. On the observatory Soren contained the chip that contained the instructions to building the weapon, the other one(s) were on the Armagossa observatory and on Veridian. Both of which could be taken care of.

Picard would have had absolutely no way of knowing that, though.

All he knew was that Soran was capable of building starkillers, had built at least two for his own use, and was in cahoots with the Twisted Sisters whose agenda was well known.

Timo Saloniemi

Edit: Haggis got in between, so I had to add the quote.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Oops....sorry.

 

[RandyS]

By "the same respect," I assume you're referring to the fact that Kirk got a virtually identical ship to replace the one he'd blown up.

Well, if the fans hadn't outright hated the Excelsior at the time, that's what Kirk & Co. would have gotten in return for their acts of heroism.

Yeah, that's what I meant. And I heard about Harve Bennett's plan to give Kirk the Excelsior (Which I personally didn't hate, but WAS on the fans' side of that argument).

I just think that the Galaxy class is a better design than the Soverign, that 's all.

 

[RandyS]

Sure the obvious plot holes are there, but I still find it to be truest to the series out of the 4 movies (probably because it was written as the series was ending.)

Except the lights were set on low, which has always bugged me.

Glad to hear I wasn't the only one bothered by that. That's why the ship blew up at the end of the movie, the damn lights short circuited and overloaded the power grid!

 

[General_Phoenix]

I liked the beginning of Generations, loved the Enterprise B scenes, then I find myself quickly turning the movie off once Kirk gets sucked out into the nexus.

 

[trevanian]

Sure the obvious plot holes are there, but I still find it to be truest to the series out of the 4 movies (probably because it was written as the series was ending.)

Except the lights were set on low, which has always bugged me.

Glad to hear I wasn't the only one bothered by that. That's why the ship blew up at the end of the movie, the damn lights short circuited and overloaded the power grid!

It always seems weird to me that folks complain about the low lighting in GEN more than in TMP. At least in GEN there is a range of brightness to darkness, instead of just general murk coming up from the floor to make the actors look older than they were, which is the case through most of TMP.

And if you choose to look at Yesteday's E as an example of how director Dave Carson probably always wanted the real -d to look, then there isn't a big leap from that to GEN at all.

Also, it was an artistic choice in GEN; in TMP, the low lighting has to do at least as much with making sure the lights on the consoles and the super-8 rearprojected films at the stations would show up on film.

 

[Noname Given]

"Generations" is an idiot-plot film, the events of which never should have happened because Picard was a smart enough character to leave the Nexus at a point BEFORE the Amagosa Observatory was attacked, when he could have simply arrested Soran for trafficking in the illegal tri-lithium and taken him into custody before he harmed any one or anything (in fact, he probably could have prevented the deaths of his own family members at the same time).

Stupid, stupid movie, the events of which make no sense even within the established frame-work of the story it told.

Also, given how grief striken he was at the loss of his nephew; the Nexus ALSO provided him with an opportunity to change that - and personally; that to me would have made a more engaging story because, being Picard, he's probably be struggling with the fact that he's changing history, etc. Lets not even bother with the plot point where Guinan stated it would be VERY HARD for anyone to want to leave in the first place; yet, that aspect is a virtual non issue for either Picard or Kirk since there's less then 10 minutes left in the film when they do.

I agree with the quoted poster's view on Generations - it was a 'plot by numbers' overly simplistic film that (imo) wouldn't have made a good two part TNG series episode. Moore abd Braga just dialed it in (imo).

For me it was the worst of the TNG films until Nemesis hit theatres; bit (imo) it's still second worst.

 

[DrTaylor]

Also, it was an artistic choice in GEN; in TMP, the low lighting has to do at least as much with making sure the lights on the consoles and the super-8 rearprojected films at the stations would show up on film.

The explanation I always heard off Berman was, "Well, it's a darker film." I was eleven when it came out and I still saw through that.

 

[trevanian]

Also, it was an artistic choice in GEN; in TMP, the low lighting has to do at least as much with making sure the lights on the consoles and the super-8 rearprojected films at the stations would show up on film.

The explanation I always heard off Berman was, "Well, it's a darker film." I was eleven when it came out and I still saw through that.

They got a well-known big motion picture cinematographer for GEN, and I guess the first thing he thought when reading the script is, 'they are parked near this star for a long stretch, let's see the effect of that visually' ... and I guess Berman went along on that, deferring to the expert (the 'this is a big movie' effect might also explain other issues, since there was another producer on GEN, a guy who had worked on THE PRISONER and CLOCKWORK ORANGE, line -- as in 'hardline' -- producer Bernie Williams, who gave the director fits with his 'stick to the schedule'-itis.)

 

[Evil_Kirkneivel]

As others have mentioned, there are a few big plot holes in Generations. And yes, every movie has 'em, but when you're watching and enjoying a film, they are not as distracting.

Another big hole is: why doesn't Soren fly a ship into the Nexus? Data, of all people, says it's because the ship would be destroyed. Well, yeah, but so what? It would still work. I believe that's how Guinan got in there. And certainly Soren wouldn't care about destroying a ship.

I enjoyed the movie up until the Ent-D got trashed. That seemed like a contrived 'action' scene to me. Before that scene, there was a lot to like (including Soren - Malcolm McDowell plays a great villain with great lines like, "Time is the fire in which we burn."

Two other comments:

1) It never seemed right to me that Picard should be having to convince Kirk to leave the Nexus. Kirk is the man of action; he should have been the one trying to convince Picard. Or perhaps, they should both have been in agreement that it was what they had to do.

2) In the opening scene, Kirk and co have so much more screen presence than the Next Gen crew do later when they get on screen. Shatner seemed like a big screen actor, while the Next Gen people felt like TV actors (I think this was corrected in First Contact).

 

[tharpdevenport]

Well, Guinan was only there for a short while, like Scotty said in the movie "phasing in and out of our reality" or something like that. You can go there in short bursts, but once the shit is destroyed, your body dies before you can get there.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

That's another one that don't figure, kirk got into the ribbon when it hit and destroyed the section he was on on the ent-b, so would the same not happen the two ships that were also being destroyed by the ribbon.....and if so why did soran not just get in a ship and do fly into it, or even better get a ship and a space suit and fly into the ribbon via the space suit.....or even follow the ribbon until its passing close to a planet and just catch a ride there.....

Oh well its all pointless now, once the new trek movie is released next years and the sequel follows which i have inside info will be about spock travelling back in time to the battle between Picard/Kirk and soran on the planet, spock will then firstly kick picard in the nuts for not going to the missile launcher which he was supposed to do the first time round, then he will catch kirk from falling with his rocket boots, and then he will bludgeon soran to death with a massive white ceramic penis.......and all will be well again the the trek universe.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Oh, my! Lol!!

 

[Timo]

Another big hole is: why doesn't Soren fly a ship into the Nexus? Data, of all people, says it's because the ship would be destroyed. Well, yeah, but so what? It would still work.

Except that it doesn't. Soran obviously had the chance to try this out once, forty years prior to the movie. Something went wrong; probably the ship didn't manage to get close enough.

Probably there'd be a 90% chance of getting in by using a ship. But why should Soran accept 90% odds? He can get 100% odds by using a planet instead of a ship. And even though his species appears long-lived, it's unlikely he would be willing to wait another 40 years if his second attempt fails, too.

Really, if you had two options for going to paradise, and one involved trying to smuggle a bomb into a building and the other involved flying a frigging airliner smack into it, why would you ever even consider the former option? The casualties would mean nothing to you, just like human victims meant nothing to Soran. And the odds of the lobby security intercepting you in the former case might be 3% or less, but they'd be absolute zero in the latter case.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bacl]

so what do you think of it?

A total suckfest.

Gonna have to agree with this.

 

[Maurice]

The idea that you can't get in with a ship is specious. How come the Nexus would destroy a ship and not a human being? Or re they saying the person is destroyed but can magically resubstantiate upon exiting? How how can you exit the Nexus to a point in time and place where the Nexus wasn't present?

The whole thing is phenomenally stupid.

 

[Timo]

How come the Nexus would destroy a ship and not a human being?

The Nexus has some destructive properties, but they aren't major ones; apparently, only complex constructs like starships may be in danger. For example, the Nexus did nothing to the rocks and the scaffoldings on Veridian while neatly sweeping Soran and Picard away.

Clearly, this isn't your random natural phenomenon. It seems to be more like a transporter to paradise: you get a ride when you wish hard enough. That is completely consistent with the fact that Nexus fulfils your wishes after you get aboard. Again, that's not a random natural phenomenon, that's something we should classify as "advanced technology" or perhaps "supernatural lifeform". Perhaps the Nexus is a derelict starship of a Thasian-style species?

There's no indication that a person swept away would be destroyed as such. It appears he or she is actually "beamed up" more than anything else. The option of "beaming down" would then naturally follow.

The whole thing is phenomenally stupid.

I'd rather raise an eyebrow and call it fascinating.

Timo Saloniemi