Guinan was "pulled out" when they beamed her up. Picard and Kirk left willingly. Therefore, no echo Picard or Kirk.
Generations - The Nexus
- Thread starter Matthew Parsons
- Start date
I liked Generations well enough. It's a worthwhile film but not perhaps the classic one might want given that it's a vehicle to deal with the ultimate fate of a towering character. The thing that always strikes me with Generations is the TNG writers are very comfortable writing for the TNG crew but they never quite sure as to what to do with Kirk. He's kind of left outside in a limbo and at the end even Picard & Co don't seem too bothered that they've just buried The Big Man that got the whole Enterprise craze going. Spot the cat seems to command more attention.
As for the Nexus, when I saw it I just took it as a "Guardian Forever" type device. Somethiing that doesn't bear any real scrutiny but is the kind of thing that does lie well within the Trek tradition. I accepted it on those terms.
As for the Nexus, when I saw it I just took it as a "Guardian Forever" type device. Somethiing that doesn't bear any real scrutiny but is the kind of thing that does lie well within the Trek tradition. I accepted it on those terms.
Sorry. no offense, but that explanation is BS, IMHO.
1. There was one reason and one reason only why the scene with Picard and Guinan exists. It was to create dramatic tension for Picard. Guinan could have told the Nexus's story, or another human, or another Starfleet captain. That wasn't the point. The point was that we the audience are supposed to take Guinan at her word that Picard would not want to leave the Nexus once he's there. Period. Dramatically, the audience doesn't care about Guinan or Soran. They care about Picard. And there was a reason why Picard didn't go to Guinan at the end of the movie and say "Hey, guess what? You were wrong about the Nexus. Maybe it only affects El-Aurians that way. Now don't you feel silly?" Because we weren't supposed to assume that Guinan was wrong!
2. I never once felt that Picard and Kirk escaped the Nexus because they were "starship captains" and "made of sterner stuff." They enter the Nexus in their respective time periods, and within minutes they realize that it's fake and want to leave. No rigorous Starfleet training was needed for that, nor any feelings of "real pain" overcoming "fake happiness."
I"ll certainly agree with you that the nexus was portrayed sloppily. Nonetheless, the dramatic tension was still there, because at first Picard did not want to leave. His 'sense of duty' is what led him to realize that it was fake and thats why he decided to leave. Of course Guinan believed, incorrectly it seems, that he wouldn't care about duty and all that, but clearly she was wrong.
Who Picard encountered was Kirk's echo. After Kirk was pulled into the Nexus, Spock and the other figured out a way to rescue Kirk, leaving behind his echo.
This is why Scotty initially thought that Kirk was the one who arranged his rescue, because Scotty knew that Kirk was out and about when he crashed in the Jenolan (sp?).
Guinan's echo didn't say she simply couldn't leave, she couldn't leave because she was already there (outside the Nexus).
Kirk's echo could leave because Kirk was by that time dead.
Nope. Scotty thinking that Kirk was rescuing him from the Jenolen was a continuity error with Generations. The Kirk who helped Picard stop Soran was the "real" Kirk, not an echo.
The Shatner Novels have some interesting plots with reviving the Kirk from death with Borg technology so there maybe some stuff there as well.
The Nexus is a temporal anomaly, a literal nexus of time. While inside, you can go to anywhere it's been (or presumably, wherever it will be).
Guinan and Soran were pulled out of the Nexus after only a moment. They weren't there long enough to realize anything but the emotional high of being there. That's what Guinan describes to Picard.
It took me a little bit to get all that, but I didn't spend a lot of time trying to work it out either.
Guinan and Soran were pulled out of the Nexus after only a moment. They weren't there long enough to realize anything but the emotional high of being there. That's what Guinan describes to Picard.
It took me a little bit to get all that, but I didn't spend a lot of time trying to work it out either.
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That's an excellent point. Unfortunately, both Guinan and Soran act as if they are complete experts about the Nexus and what it does, despite them only being in it for a few seconds. And it is this "expertise" that they relate to Picard, who never knew just how long they were in it for. And this is the problem I have.
The nexus was created because Paramount and Berman stipulated to the writers of both Generations scripts (there was the Moore/Braga one and another written by Maurice Hurley that has never seen the light of day) that they couldn't use time travel to get Kirk and Picard to meet.
Guinan's expertise was based on a momentary experience, and the echo was of her in that moment. Soran was probably on the verge of batshit crazy anyway.
Picard discovered that the life the Nexus offered was tempting, but not necessarily as all-consuming as he was led to believe.
Kirk and Picard didn't leave echos behind, because they left the Nexus voluntarily. Guinan left an echo because she was beamed away by the Enterprise-B's transporter. So it's not like everyone who ever enters the Nexus leaves an echo; only those who are (in Guinan's words) "pulled...ripped away".
Oh good God, just make room in your thinking for variations amongst people. It's true that it should have been more difficult for Picard to tear himself away. I think they would have needed more screen time to build that impression up, to show him becoming more deeply immersed in the fantasy, then more time to show his mental struggle against it. There goes all the screen time... Anyway, Guinan had the choice made for her. She was plucked out in the early stages. She knows what that part of it's like. She reported the absolute truth of it to Picard, the Nexus was that perfect happiness you'd seemingly have to be crazy to say no to.
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Picard had more time to wrestle with it. If Guinan had had that time, maybe she would have found her way out too. Maybe not. The point was, it's HARD. It would severely test any person dumped into it.
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People nitpick this film to death, as if lack of continuity errors makes a great film. Talk about missing the forest for the trees. The concept is what's important, what if Heaven was a place you could get to by murder and trickery, would you?
Don't make the mistake of thinking that the "concept" of this film was anything deeper than "let's get Kirk and Picard together in the most convoluted way possible so that we can kill Kirk and blow up the Enterprise."
And I'll nitpick whatever I damn well please, thank you.
