Generations references

[JarodRussell]

Stumbled over this little comparison of a scene between Generations and Yesterday's Enterprise.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN001iUenmU[/yt]

Are there any other homages to scenes from the series hidden in this film?

 

[Mage]

I remember seeing the rolling under the door thing before, didn't realize it was such an exact copy of the scene.

 

[JarodRussell]

No matter what timeline, the Enterprise-D was always going to be destroyed in a battle against Klingon Birds of Prey.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It seems that in Trek's world, the same stuff's gonna happen no matter how much you screw with the timeline. Voyager's "Before and After" and "Year of Hell" even had Kes and Seven of Nine enact an indentical scene with a Krenim torpedo for different reasons. Wrath of Khan and Into Darkness had a role-reversal sacrifice, both of which involved Khan and both were undone shortly afterwards. Jonathan Archer still founded the United Federation of Planets on time despite a time war with multiple factions trying to stop him in Enterprise, one of which managed to kill 6 million people.

I find it fascinating. It explains how most of the main characters are together in every alternate timeline.

 

[Tosk]

David Carson directed both, so I always wondered if it was just him trying to "get it right" second time around. The timing on Geordi's roll in YE is clumsy, the GEN one is better.

 

[MacLeod]

It's a shame geordi forgot about one final failsafe the ship had. Eject the core. But then again it wasn't uncommon in ST for the failsafe system to fail. They really need to send a memo about the failure of the failsafe systems.

 

[Mage]

It's a shame geordi forgot about one final failsafe the ship had. Eject the core. But then again it wasn't uncommon in ST for the failsafe system to fail. They really need to send a memo about the failure of the failsafe systems.

I always got the impression that the ship couldn't get away far enough to survive the explosion of an ejected core. But that could be me.

 

[DarkHorizon]

David Carson directed both, so I always wondered if it was just him trying to "get it right" second time around. The timing on Geordi's roll in YE is clumsy, the GEN one is better.

Geordi doesn't do the roll in YE, that's from Best of Both Worlds.

 

[Tosk]

David Carson directed both, so I always wondered if it was just him trying to "get it right" second time around. The timing on Geordi's roll in YE is clumsy, the GEN one is better.

Geordi doesn't do the roll in YE, that's from Best of Both Worlds.

D'oh! Brain-fart.

I guess Carson was showing Cliff Bole how to do that part better, then.

 

[trevanian]

David Carson directed both, so I always wondered if it was just him trying to "get it right" second time around. The timing on Geordi's roll in YE is clumsy, the GEN one is better.

Geordi doesn't do the roll in YE, that's from Best of Both Worlds.

D'oh! Brain-fart.

I guess Carson was showing Cliff Bole how to do that part better, then.

On his worst day, Carson could easily show Bole how to do everything better. Bole is just about coverage, not shooting with a style or a point of view.

 

[Lance]

If there's one thing I do admire about Generations, it's the direction. Carson does a terrific job.

 

[Dick_Valentine]

It's a shame geordi forgot about one final failsafe the ship had. Eject the core. But then again it wasn't uncommon in ST for the failsafe system to fail. They really need to send a memo about the failure of the failsafe systems.

Well the failure of the failsafe system is supposed to be picked up by the damage report machine before it fails, but sadly the damage report machine is usually the first thing to be damaged so that rarely picks up the failures of the failsafes.

 

[Joe_Atari]

Carson repeats some more gags here and there. In both GEN and YE he does the "let's shine flashlights directly in people's faces" thing (to Soran in GEN, Castillo in YE); I never understood that (they were being rescued, not interrogated). He also liked the gory "death by sharp debris" shots (Garrett and Riker in YE, and the Klingon in the opening shot of TNG Redemption Part 2).

Other similarities between GEN and YE are the look of the 1701-D bridge (additional stations, etc.) and the overall darker, moodier lighting.

Agreed; Carson's effective direction (along with John "Chinatown" Alonzo's cinematography and Dennis McCarthy's score) was a high point of GEN. Too bad about y'know, the script...

 

[Lance]

^ Alonzo's cinematography was brilliant. He was doing things with those sets and the camera that hadn't been done in the seven years of the show, and he brought a real 'theatricality' to proceedings.

 

[Praetor]

It bums me out all the more that the D had to bite the bullet in the film. Those sets and the 6-footer looked amazing.

I still say blow up the ship for wow factor, but undo it with the Nexus. Best of both worlds.

(Say, that's a catchy title...)

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

The best part of Generations, at least in owning it, is hearing the writers' commentary. They praise Carson and Alonzo and aren't afraid to criticize elements of the script.

But the praise for how the inside of the ship looked different and more theatrical for Generations isn't just Alonzo's cinematography. They made a point to say that, on television, they only had a week to shoot an episode, and the ship was lit generally the same way week to week (unless the script calls for a power outage). They couldn't even attempt to create the warmth that Alonzo created but having sunbeams coming into the windows. They also couldn't use as many extras, despite the fact that Ten-Forward should have looked like that the whole series.

As for the script, the studio gave them a long checklist of elements the script had to have. That checklist included:

- Kirk and two other TOS guys appeared in only the beginning. Kirk would appear later in the film for an adventure with Picard, but it was primarily a TNG movie.
- They wanted an arch-villain similar to Khan.
- Klingons must be used.
- there must be a Data-comedy-runner subplot.
- The Enterprise must be destroyed.

That sounds like the whole script, doesn't it. With all those set requirements, a script from a film student wouldn't look much different than a script from an Oscar-winning screenwriter, and the writers of the film fall in the middle of that range. Plus they really tried to make the film meaningful in terms of its themes of mortality. I commend them. My biggest complaint, script-wise has always been the ludicrous hostage negotiation scene. I'd probably rank the film a grade higher if that scene had made sense

 

[trevanian]

The one thing I thought they could have gone further with on the sunlight shining inside was to bring the light at more of a raking angle rather than shining it straight in. If the sun was low, you'd've had a hot spot on the ceiling that would have provided bounce down on the actors, kind of the JFK lighting of Richardson's, or if you'd had the light coming in from above, that would have created an interesting effect on the deck, especially if you were shooting toward the windows and letting the people go silhouetted.

 

[Lance]

It bums me out all the more that the D had to bite the bullet in the film. Those sets and the 6-footer looked amazing.

The more I've thought about it over the years, the more I wish they hadn't destroyed the D. The Enterprise E never had the particularly unique style of the D, something which was such a large contributing factor to the 'feel' of the TNG tv series. I was enthralled with it when it made its debut in First Contact in 1996, but as the years have gone on I've come to think of it as a dark, dreary, lifeless vessell. Online commentators like RedLetterMedia have talked about the 'depressing' tone of the TNG movies, and I think the change to the more totalitarian look of the Enterprise E, alongside those new grey uniforms, did much to contribute to that. There was always something uplifting about the D, even in Generations where its lit darker, but the overall effect is more like a blend of rich colors, not "battleship grey" like the Ent E was.

I understand they wanted a 'hook' for the next movie, a brand new ship (and the cynic in me adds, "new merchandising opportunities" ) to add interest to the marketing of the movie, as well as giving us an allegedly more 'theatrical' hero ship. And it worked, at least in 1996. But it was a very short term solution, and I think in the long term it would have been much better to have retained some sense of continuity with the series that had been so popular. Generations shown that the Enterprise D could work on the big screen, and that it looked fantastic. Why fix it if it isn't broke?

 

[arch101]

^^^Biggest missed opportunity in the films was NOT to have the D in FC. If you thought the Borg were scary, just imagine them assimilating the civilians, including children and pets. The D was a miniature Earth with all the aspects of a human (and some alien) community onboard. The E were a solely military crew of volunteers. Assimilating soldiers into drones isn't as powerful a demonstration of what the Borg are going to do as the assimilation of families would have been.

 

[Lance]

^^^Biggest missed opportunity in the films was NOT to have the D in FC. If you thought the Borg were scary, just imagine them assimilating the civilians, including children and pets. The D was a miniature Earth with all the aspects of a human (and some alien) community onboard. The E were a solely military crew of volunteers. Assimilating soldiers into drones isn't as powerful a demonstration of what the Borg are going to do as the assimilation of families would have been.

Oh absolutely. Not to mention the ship itself. I can imagine seeing the familiar-and-comfortable Enterprise D sets being slowly converted into Borg alcoves would have had far more emotional resonance with the audience than the same thing happening to a ship we've only known for five minutes. The audience wouldn't have the same emotional connection with the 1701-E as they would have done with her predecessor in that situation.