Is Generations REALLY That Bad???

[controlfreak]

Generations was an ambitious film. It seemed to be trying really hard. I don't think it was a bad film at all. Sure there were some silly bits. There are silly bits in all Trek films. I find that those moments that seem to ruin the film for certain fans are blips on the screen for most normal people, not worth getting all aggro over.

 

[Grant]

Soran had 70 years to figure out how to recreate flying into the nexus, but decided blowing up whole stars and comitting genocide was the easiest. That's not a plot-hole that's a plot killer. The audience has SEEN how he got there the first time! They know how to get in --but Soran doesn't?

-Why can't Sybok buy a ship to go to the Great Barrier?
-how does the USS Reliant confuse two different planets? Why can't Khan figure out such a dumb code?
-how can an advanced probe not figure out it's transmissions are harmful?
Why doesn't the borg cube time travel first, when it's back in the DQ, THEN travel to Earth? How can they sudden;y beam onto Federation ships without being detected?

see what I mean? Are those "plot killers?"

I knew folks would choose to attack other Trek movies rather than defend the indefensible.

Spock speculated the probe didn't mean harm--he didn't know--maybe the probe didn't give a damn about any life forms except whales. I think the probe was pissed.

Soran had 70 years to plan and ponder how to get back and he couldn't think of simply doing what he did (and the audience saw) at the beginning?
For christ sakes the writers admitted it was bad writing in the commentary! Exiting the nexus five minutes before the missle launch instead of days or hours earlier? Terrible writing.

People knock Nemesis for copying Khan because they kill a character and leave open his possible return.

Generations ups the copycat ante x 3
Killing a major character
blowing up the ship AND
killing off the captain's reative(s) (brother AND nephew)

and saving an entire world

and having a character coming face to face with god (or somebody's idea of heaven)

now if they could have averted a war and sent a probe home with it's mission accomplished........

And they couldn't even have had Lursa and betor in control or one of the formidable new Klingon ships instead of the sad old BOP. (oh, that's right- they needed stock footage of a BOP exploding)

Now tell me they used stock footage in other trek movies to make Generations sound not so bad.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Wrath of Khan was packed with recycled footage from the first Trek feature.

 

[Harvey]

The story is weak, but it's an okay movie. It's certainly the best photographed of any of the Trek films up to that point, although it also has what may be the worst score of the series. A mixed bag all around, really.

 

[Grant]

Wrath of Khan was packed with recycled footage from the first Trek feature.

grrrrrrrrrr

But seriously, that's my point Khan used stock footage for humdrum 'leaving spacedock', 'flying through space' etc.--not the battle at the end!!

Generations used the BOP because they wanted to save money for the climax of the film.

Why not use the new Klingon ships- it made Lursa and Betor seem just 2 losers using an old obsolete ship rather than tough adversaries. Picard mocks the ship and 10 minutes later it destroys the flagship.

 

[Alrik]

Generations is just fine.......as a stand alone film.............taking place in an alternate timeline.


Well that's how I justify overlooking its many flaws. I don't have anywhere near the contempt for GEN as I do for NEM, so I give it a pass.

I will agree with the poster up-thread who mentioned the pacing. The bookended over long destruction of the E-D, framing the time inside the Nexus, just brings the movie to an absolute crawl. I noticed that the first time I saw it in the theatre.

 

[sonak]

Soran had 70 years to figure out how to recreate flying into the nexus, but decided blowing up whole stars and comitting genocide was the easiest. That's not a plot-hole that's a plot killer. The audience has SEEN how he got there the first time! They know how to get in --but Soran doesn't?

-Why can't Sybok buy a ship to go to the Great Barrier?
-how does the USS Reliant confuse two different planets? Why can't Khan figure out such a dumb code?
-how can an advanced probe not figure out it's transmissions are harmful?
Why doesn't the borg cube time travel first, when it's back in the DQ, THEN travel to Earth? How can they sudden;y beam onto Federation ships without being detected?

see what I mean? Are those "plot killers?"

I knew folks would choose to attack other Trek movies rather than defend the indefensible.

Spock speculated the probe didn't mean harm--he didn't know--maybe the probe didn't give a damn about any life forms except whales. I think the probe was pissed.

Soran had 70 years to plan and ponder how to get back and he couldn't think of simply doing what he did (and the audience saw) at the beginning?
For christ sakes the writers admitted it was bad writing in the commentary! Exiting the nexus five minutes before the missle launch instead of days or hours earlier? Terrible writing.

People knock Nemesis for copying Khan because they kill a character and leave open his possible return.

Generations ups the copycat ante x 3
Killing a major character
blowing up the ship AND
killing off the captain's reative(s) (brother AND nephew)

and saving an entire world

and having a character coming face to face with god (or somebody's idea of heaven)

now if they could have averted a war and sent a probe home with it's mission accomplished........

And they couldn't even have had Lursa and betor in control or one of the formidable new Klingon ships instead of the sad old BOP. (oh, that's right- they needed stock footage of a BOP exploding)

Now tell me they used stock footage in other trek movies to make Generations sound not so bad.

my point wasn't to "attack" other Trek films it was to show that they all have plot holes of some degree, some more major than the Nexus one.

So using that as a reason to dislike GEN is rather silly.

 

[Skywalker]

No, it's not as bad as some people make it seem. But it wasn't as great as it could have been, either. I don't really think the whole 'passing of the torch' aspect was necessary, since TUC ended with the TOS crew riding off into the sunset, and TNG was already well-established and very popular when it ended in '94.

 

[YARN]

Wrath of Khan was packed with recycled footage from the first Trek feature.

Yeah, with awesome footage.

 

[controlfreak]

The BOP explosion wasn't awesome? What else was reused that offended you?

 

[sbk1234]

It was fun enough. It felt MUCH more like a two-part episode than a movie, though.

This. It just didn't have the feel of a full-length motion picture. Too much of the sub-plots seemed contrived and didn't really do much to advance the story, if anything.

Still, I consider myself in the camp of folks who liked Generations.

 

[AdmiralScreed]

I'm starting to think that a lot of the Generations hate comes from TOS fans who dislike TNG. I think these people are searching for a way to bash TNG without it seeming unfair, and so they take something like the death of Kirk (which was REALLY poorly executed), blow it completely out of proportion, and use it to bash the entire film. It's completely unfair, and it tarnishes the reputation of an otherwise good film.

 

[Kamdan]

I never had any problems with the movie and I never really noticed the criticism until I first read and heard about them on the Internet, namely Confused Matthew’s negative review. It wasn’t until I heard Mr. Plinkett’s review that I truly began to understand why it wasn’t liked by fans, because of its vast difference from the familiarity of the show. I still love the film, mainly because I was really young when it came out and it was my first opportunity to see a Star Trek film. I still remember being excited after just seeing the trailer for the film, which is interesting, because it features scenes from the television show.

 

[sonak]

I'm starting to think that a lot of the Generations hate comes from TOS fans who dislike TNG. I think these people are searching for a way to bash TNG without it seeming unfair, and so they take something like the death of Kirk (which was REALLY poorly executed), blow it completely out of proportion, and use it to bash the entire film. It's completely unfair, and it tarnishes the reputation of an otherwise good film.

I agree, and I've mentioned it in other threads. A lot of negative feelings toward it ultimately boil down to having to do with Kirk's death. Had it ended more like Star Trek XI did with Spock Prime, with Kirk going off somewhere rather than dying, I wonder if Generations would be remembered differently.

 

[WarsTrek1993]

The movie isn't horrible, of course, it does have good moments.

And like I said in a Nemesis thread a while back, at least it doesn't have remarks about Android's bottoms...

 

[MasuPu'a]

I'm starting to think that a lot of the Generations hate comes from TOS fans who dislike TNG. I think these people are searching for a way to bash TNG without it seeming unfair, and so they take something like the death of Kirk (which was REALLY poorly executed), blow it completely out of proportion, and use it to bash the entire film. It's completely unfair, and it tarnishes the reputation of an otherwise good film.

I grew up watching TNG, and a lot of the problems I had with Generations are because of that. The beloved characters of the show were twisted into unrecognizable jokes; such as seeing Picard, the man who hated kids and couldn't understand why Starfleet had given him a ship full of children, suddenly weeping because he didn't have a family. Data's quest to become human was a favorite character arc of the show, Generations turned it into an unending, torturous gag of Data being 'funny.'

The gaping plot holes were another. Soran has to blow up a sun to get into the Nexus, why couldn't he put on a spacesuit and have a ship shoot him into the Nexus? Or pilot a ship into the Nexus? Why did he have to use such a convoluted plan?

You can go anywhere and any time in the Nexus, yet Picard decides that the best time to go to in order to stop Soran would be a few minutes before Soran shoots the rocket. Even though this gives him less time to stop Soran.

Watching the Enterprise, the most advanced ship in the fleet, getting it's ass handed to it from a outdated BoP. I know the explanation given is that the BoP had their shield frequency, but don't starships have the ability to change shield frequencies? I recall episodes where they rotate through different frequencies. They couldn't do this?

Also, the movie is just lazy and half-assed. The mis-matched uniforms, the recycled screenshot of the BoP exploding (taken from UC), and of course, Kirk's death.

I'm a fan of TNG and I just didn't like this film. While I understand it's certainly not the worse Trek film, it's definitely far from the best. I don't think you need to be a hater of TNG to hate this film, the film has enough problems of it's own.

 

[Jeyl]

What was the point in killing Picard's family? All taht it does is cause Picard to cry and have some moments in the Nexus, but that's it.

 

[Jeyl]

Watching the Enterprise, the most advanced ship in the fleet, getting it's ass handed to it from a outdated BoP. I know the explanation given is that the BoP had their shield frequency, but don't starships have the ability to change shield frequencies? I recall episodes where they rotate through different frequencies. They couldn't do this?

Here's a better idea. Instead of changing the shield frequencies, how about giving the order to "FIRE ALL WEAPONS!". The Enterprise has many phaser arrays, photon torpedo banks and even the ability to cause the torpedoes to spread. These weapons caused the Borg problems even after they had adapted to them.

It's just one of those stupid things the higher ups ordered because they didn't want to stick with the Enterprise D for any of the movies (which imho was a mistake since the ship looks gorgeous on the big screen).

Head: We want the Enterprise destoryed. It just doesn't work for movies.
Writer: Uh, ok. How should we destroy it?
Head: We're using the Duras sisters so have the Enterprise lose in a fight with them.
Writer: Oh, ok. We can have the sisters amass a whole fleet of Vor'cha class cruisers that ambush the Enterprise and-
Head: We can't use the Vorcha. We never destroyed one that would look good theatrically. The sisters will be using a bird of prey.
Writer: So a fleet of Bird of Preys?
Head: No, just one. We only have the budget to show only a couple of new shots of the Bird of Prey, but we'll be reusing most of the shots from Star Trek VI, including the explosion.
Writer: But the Bird of Prey design is almost a century old in TNG where as the Enterprise D is still the Federation flagship.
Head: Than do what we've always done. Technobabble.
Writer: And how would the crew-
Head: DO WHAT WE'VE ALWAYS DONE! TECHNOBABBLE!

 

[Grant]

By the way.....I love TNG--so that isn't why i think it stinks. I like FC Ins and Nem better than Generations.

And yes, I agree with those who say you don't slow the movie to a crawl with some lame thing like the 'Nexus christmas' in the last 25 minutes of the movie.

 

[RAMA]

I didn't mind the movie when I first saw it, I thought it was passable, but when I rewatched it, I found myself grinding my teeth at the muddled ideas and plot holes. Somehow I just wanted it to be a bigger event movie too, and they just didn't have the budget.