Some Nostalgic Thoughts on Generations

[angry apple panda]

When Generations came out, I was ten years old. I was a huge fan already, having watched most of TNG, all of the movies, and a lot of TOS. I remember seeing it in the theater, the second Trek film I'd seen theatrically after The Undiscovered Country.

At ten, I was totally into the film. I didn't realize people found it disappointing, or that it seemed dumbed down from the series, or that people found Data's emotional crises kind of annoying. I was into everything Star Trek and The Powers That Be could do no wrong in my eyes at that age. I think because I absorbed Star Trek so early, there were aspects of even TNG that people now find insufferable that I simply find nostalgic, like Wesley, or "The Naked Now." Even now, the bad episodes are at minimum entertaining.

But Generations is more than simply entertaining for me. When it came out on video, I watched the VHS a lot. I had the novelization. When my grandpa died suddenly in an accident, I empathized with Picard's loss of his brother and nephew. I empathized hard. A lot of the film is about loss and the stages of grief. Some people are able to move on more quickly than others. Some get stuck at specific stages and need help to continue on. Soran got stuck at denial. He lost his wife and kids to the Borg, and his desperation to pretend it never happened by getting back to the Nexus is real. I totally get that. I wouldn't murder millions of innocent people to do something like that, but I sympathize with his plight.

Data's fight to understand emotion and to deal with loss and almost untenable stress is real too. Yes, Data is a bit annoying here and played for laughs a lot, but his depression is heart-wrenching. When Data tells Picard that he doesn't want these emotions anymore, you can really feel the desperation in his voice (Brent Spiner really sells this scene). During times of loss and emotional duress, we are all desperate to not feel what we feel any longer, and the only cure is to continue moving forward somehow, even if it hurts. Picard's Nexus sequence is particularly hard for me to watch. I invariably tear up when he hugs Rene. It's devastating to me when he realizes it's just a fantasy. He's chasing the denial of his family's demise.

The Nexus is a drug of nostalgia and the clinging to childlike desires of of longing and comfort. People exposed to the Nexus become blinded by that nostalgia. We all want those things during loss. Maybe I'm blinded by nostalgia in the same way, in the sense that I fully realize that the film is imperfect and narratively clumsy, but Generations means something to me in ways that override both the critic inside me as well as the Star Trek fan. I honestly consider this my favorite TNG film and the only one that I enjoy thoroughly. It's definitely a film of ideas, moreso than future TNG films. Sure, there's a lot of action movie popcorn sequences that veer away from the spirit of the show, but I feel like the heart is there. The rest of the films seemed over-preoccupied with even more focus on action sequences, rehashing, and diminishing returns on the same tired maniacal villain tropes. Generations at least features a pretty interesting and original central concept. And it means a lot to me for nostalgia's sake, even if the film doesn't entirely hold together. It held me together when I needed it.

 

[FormerLurker]

I'm glad you feel this way. Too often, fans begin to separate which parts of a greater whole into "this is what it is" and "this isn't what it is" to explain, mostly to themselves, why they like some parts more than others. And far too often, they begin to describe the parts they like less as not only not exemplars of what they like, but actually wrong, or bad.

So many fans think the third season of TOS sucks, because the ratio of good episodes to better episodes (that they describe as bad to good, respectively) is not as overbalanced toward better as the first two seasons. Many feel the same way about the seventh season of TNG. But it shouldn't be that way.

Just because you don't think this episode or that season measure up to the best of the best, doesn't mean they suck. Someone on the production team was as earnest about Spock's Brain as they were about The Doomsday Machine. And they put the same effort into it. That effort counts, especially as there are fans for whom Spock's Brain is the first episode they ever saw, and it drew them in and engaged them. Then the next time they watched, they saw The Doomsday Machine, which drew them even further in, and put a fire in them. They sought out Star Trek after that. And Spock's Brain is then special to them, as it's the one that engaged them, and made them look for that fire.

To speak generally, this poster above me is that fan. A film that many of us malign as substandard, and bad, and done wrong (an illegitimate complaint), and better off forgotten and made never-was, is the film that brought her among us, and made her want to be here. This is never a bad thing. It needs to happen more often.

 

[angry apple panda]

"Spock's Brain" is ridiculous. And I kind of adore it. I look forward to it when it comes on during a rewatch. I am aware of how absurd the concept is, and I'm aware that it's considered a bad episode, but the actors still sell it and make it watchable. As long as the actors don't look bored, a bad episode can still be highly entertaining. "Genesis" from TNG would be nothing without Brent Spiner and Patrick Stewart's incredible chemistry.

 

[The Wormhole]

I really dig Generations. It was the first Trek movie I saw in theatres, and one of the few movies I've actually seen multiple times in the theatre. Even today, it's still among my top five favourite Trek movies.

 

[BillJ]

I really dig Generations. It was the first Trek movie I saw in theatres, and one of the few movies I've actually seen multiple times in the theatre. Even today, it's still among my top five favourite Trek movies.

I wanted to like it. But it all felt so forced. I tend to think that the mistake was using Kirk in the first film. The first movie should have been a TNG film.

 

[angry apple panda]

I wanted to like it. But it all felt so forced. I tend to think that the mistake was using Kirk in the first film. The first movie should have been a TNG film.

I get that. But I appreciate his presence in the film. Shatner has the Kirk performance on lockdown. He always has that wonderful understated sarcasm and sense of humor, which makes a great foil for Picard's seriousness. Yeah, the film could have survived without him entirely, but I feel like his presence is fun.

Here's how I look at it: the Nexus sequence is essentially a dream sequence. To me, I kind of excuse the plot inconsistencies and weird character decisions as the product of fantasy. The film veers hard metaphorical at this point. It's a hazy dream sequence where people aren't entirely themselves, and Picard makes strange decisions like, "I'm going to find Kirk and go beat up Malcolm McDowell, because I'm trapped in someone's fan fiction!" It works for me because weird things happen in dreams when you can't be objective because you aren't conscious.

I realize that it's not a great rationalization, but this is the kind of situation where my brain knows it makes no sense and yet I can't help myself because, "OMG Picard and Kirk are hanging out and riding around on horses for some reason!" and I just accept it because it's fun.

 

[wayoung]

I was the same age as you. I grew up watching TOS and was obsessed with it and the TOS movies. Never a fan of TNG. I had a different reaction than you. I disliked Generations quite a bit, for most of the same reasons a lot of people do. Glad you liked it though. To each his own.

BTW, because this is a personal pet peeve of mine, Kublar-Ross's five stages of grief are bullshit, misinterpreted by hack TV/movie writers as an easy way for their characters to sound smart and represent grief quickly and easily. Kubler-Ross herself has denounced the public misinterpretation of her research and it's desemanation into pop culture/pop psychology by people who don't know what they are talking about.

Like many popular memes (for that's essentially what the five stages are now) it may seem innocent enough but it can cause real and lasting psychological and emotional damage to people who expect to experience the five stages and don't.

 

[Shikarnov]

Someone on the production team was as earnest about Spock's Brain as they were about The Doomsday Machine. And they put the same effort into it. That effort counts....

I tend to agree a lot with this statement. And as one of the people who believes Generations to be a deeply flawed movie, there were a lot good things too. Among them:

Finally seeing the Enterprise on the big screen. What a moment that was. And I don't know what they did cinematographically, but the ship -- even stock footage from the series -- really seemed HUGE. You could feel the sense of scale and weight.

I really liked the newer angular communicators. They were reminiscent of the insignia bar from the TOS movies without being overdone. Nice work from the art department. (I also liked Blackman's uniform design, and think it a pity we never saw it on screen).

Dennis McCarthy's Generations Overture is a wonderful piece of music -- different from traditional Star Trek fare, while still conveying a sense of energy. I love how happy it feels, as if everything is and will be just fine, and I think Roddenberry would have approved of that.

The lighting crew did an amazing job making the made-for-television sets look epic -- especially bathing them in yellow light and shadows nearby the Amargosa star.

There really is a lot to love about Generations. And as fans, we probably ought to be better about giving credit where credit is due -- and better about pinning the tail on the donkey. Generations' principal problems come down to only three names: Berman, Braga, and Moore.

 

[The Wormhole]

I wanted to like it. But it all felt so forced. I tend to think that the mistake was using Kirk in the first film. The first movie should have been a TNG film.

The movie certainly is flawed. It is basically a TNG episode inflated on the big screen, which is a complaint made about all the TNG movies, but this time it is true. But then it was written, produced and directed by people used to working on television and this was their first movie, so that's to be expected. It was a mistake to destroy the Enterprise D, it could have stayed for all the TNG movies. That said, the saucer's crash is a wonderfully done sequence which rivals movies today, IMO

But despite the flaws, I still enjoy the movie very much. And one thing I will say, when freed on the idiotic music restrictions Berman placed on televised Star Trek, Dennis McCarthy can actually do some pretty good music. The soundtrack to this movie really is stand-out, IMO. If anything, it rivals Jerry Goldsmith's scores on the other TNG movies.

 

[Shikarnov]

The movie certainly is flawed. It is basically a TNG episode inflated on the big screen, which is a complaint made about all the TNG movies...

I never felt that way before, but I can see why others do. Generations really is Star Trek: The Next Generation: Continued, and key elements of the story depend on all kinds of minutiae from the series (like Data's emotion chip, the existence of Robert and Rene and how much they mean to Captain Picard, and so on).

That's actually one of my principal beefs with the film; there's a lot of nonsense crowding the main plot. But I don't think that's because the writers were used to television, so much as they had a long list of stuff they felt needed to be included (like crash the saucer) even if it served no point.

 

[angry apple panda]

It does feel like a Star Trek episode on the big screen, but I honestly think that should be part of the goal of adapting Star Trek into a film format. Sure, the stakes (and the budget) can be higher, and the plot can be more intricate due to the length, but essentially it should be the same Star Trek we know from the series.

If I had to try and look objectively at Generations, I would say that the problem is that it's a TNG episode with elements forced into it that are unnatural. I'm not sure if it was studio interference or Berman, Braga, and Moore going, "Hey, if this is going to be a big summer popcorn movie, shouldn't we make it feel like one? Wait, why doesn't it feel like the older Star Trek movies? Maybe we should add this--"

And thus, we get silly amounts of explosions, conventional movie comic relief, cartoonish villains in Lursa and B'Etor, who both act even dumber than usual. Everyone seems to make decisions in a fog, not quite acting like the characters they embodied on the show, and I think this is due to a conflict between the writers wanting to write a smart TNG story and the writers also feeling pressured to make everything more cinematic. Within the context of cinematic blockbuster films, everyone acts pretty consistently with other films of this type. Within the fairly orderly Star Trek universe, everyone acts like they have a concussion. It's kind of an unsolvable conundrum, and it's why I think Trek rarely makes the jump to the silver screen well, at least starting in the late '80s and '90s on. The early Trek films were great because they had an auteur quality to them; there wasn't as much of an expectation that they would be filled with action movie tropes.

And yet I still kind of adore the film because I can see the heart and soul in the movie trying hard to exist in a film that doesn't want it to exist as much. It tries. It's not cynical. It's a genuine attempt at beauty that's somewhat tarnished by the need to fall into blockbuster conventions.

 

[angry apple panda]

BTW, because this is a personal pet peeve of mine, Kublar-Ross's five stages of grief are bullshit, misinterpreted by hack TV/movie writers as an easy way for their characters to sound smart and represent grief quickly and easily. Kubler-Ross herself has denounced the public misinterpretation of her research and it's desemanation into pop culture/pop psychology by people who don't know what they are talking about.

Like many popular memes (for that's essentially what the five stages are now) it may seem innocent enough but it can cause real and lasting psychological and emotional damage to people who expect to experience the five stages and don't.

My mistake. I think, for my point in the context of the film, Soran's denial of his family's permanent death can be looked at independently outside of the Kubler-Ross stages. Regardless of the validity, Soran is stuck, and he can't surpass the negative emotions he is feeling, which is a more universal concept.

 

[wayoung]

No worries, you may very well be correct that the writers and director where attempting to pass Picard through the stages. The stages not being real isn't your fault, but the writers who embrace them in the first place. Like the 10% of your brain myth that keeps popping up.

 

[angry apple panda]

No worries, you may very well be correct that the writers and director where attempting to pass Picard through the stages. The stages not being real isn't your fault, but the writers who embrace them in the first place. Like the 10% of your brain myth that keeps popping up.

Yeah, I think maybe it was a trendy concept to explore at the time.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Someone on the production team was as earnest about Spock's Brain as they were about The Doomsday Machine. And they put the same effort into it. That effort counts ...

I completely agree with this sentiment. It's absolutely true. Just watch interviews with everybody from Robert Justman, to Lee Cole, to Mike Okuda, and all of the unsung heroes inbetween and you'll find you're constantly, constantly presented with Artists who go above and beyond the cause because their name's on everything they do. And it's heavy duty stuff ...

 

[Paradise City]

I observed two things watching Generations. This is the first movie by a TNG staff and they write for the TNG ensemble well. But with the best will in the world, they aren't really sure how what exactly to do with Kirk. The second thing is the Nexus. It doesn't really make much sense and it doesn't have much of an internal logic to it. But in that way it's rather like the Guardian of Forever and oddly enough I commend them for replicating that sensibility.

 

[Roboturner913]

Generations was a big freaking deal for me. Being I guess 14-15 years old at the time. TNG had been my favorite show since I was about 10 so to see it on the big screen was mind-blowing. I agree the Nexus thing is a cop-out and doesn't really work, the Kirk/Picard meeting was hokey as it gets, they went way too far with the bad Data humor, etc. So yes in a lot of ways it is kind of a clunker.

BUT, there is a lot of cool ideas and stuff there. A lot of cool actiony stuff for eye candy. Great cinematography, I would argue that from set design to location to special effects, when you add everything up, it's one of the best looking sci-fi movies ever made, period. And I don't care what anybody says, the 1701-D looked damn fabulous. I can still watch that movie just about any time and not be too let down.

 

[SPCTRE]

I tend to think that the mistake was using Kirk in the first film.

I reckon how you (the collective "you") feel about the use of Kirk in GEN largely depends on your relationship with the character (e.g. which show you grew up with, your favorite captain, etc).

Either way, his death wasn't handled well, although it didn't bother when I first saw it.

 

[somebuddyX]

I love a lot of elements of Generations and hate a whole bunch too. It should've been a lot better than it is but understanding the constraints everyone was under, I think they did the best they could.

 

[Smellmet]

My only beef with Generations is the Nexus and Kirks death (or him being in the movie at all). I think the rest of it is excellent. I'd watch it over Insurrection and The Final Frontier any day. I think visually it's the most stunning Trek film until ST09. The effects have held up very well, in fact I think the planet destruction sequence is actually better than the Vulcan implosion in ST09.