Star Trek Generations at 20 (November 18, 1994)

I've never seen a real starship's saucer crash, so I can't say if it looked realistic or not. But for a practical effect, I thought it looked pretty darn good. Still does.

 

My main problem with the saucer crash is that it's only marginally more impressive than the similar scene in the last episode of Blake's 7. Big Hollywood films shouldn't look that much like a famously cheap BBC show from 13 years earlier.

 

Yep. The most direct comparison to it within Trek FX would be the CGI crashing of the Vengeance into San Francisco, and as an effect done with a model and technology almost twenty years older, it holds its own against it very well.

 

I went to see it about 2-3 times in the theater.

I actually left the first viewing wondering if I had just seen the best Star Trek film EVER!

Talk about getting caught up in the moment.

And then I saw it again. I liked it a tad less, but it was still good.

After about the 3rd or 4th time, the movie's flaws became downright GLARING, and I've had a lot of fun bashing the film ever since.

I think the movie, considering the poor writing and ginormous plot holes (we all know what they are), is a better movie than it deserves to be.

It's enhanced by Patrick Stewart, Malcolm McDowell and William Shatner's acting. I think I remember at the time that most people had good things to say particularly about Shatner's performance since, it seemed to me, many expected Patrick Stewart to wipe the floor with him in the thespian and screen presence department, but Shatner stole the film. I was super depressed about Kirk dying.

(I do think they should've made more of an effort to give TOS supporting cast more meaningful roles. The fact that they couldn't think of anything meaningful for Spock or McCoy in a movie about Kirk's death says a lot.)

I loved the theme of dealing with mortality and happiness.

The themes, cast and concept were there for a very successful Star Trek film, but they let time crunches get the better of them.

They ALMOST had it...

 

The famous orbital skydiving sequence that was originally meant to open the film with the christening bottle spinning through space being intercut with the events happening down on Earth. I've always been torn about this deleted scene. Part of me wishes they'd completed and edited it properly and left it in because it would have given us another look at the classic TOS characters in a casual setting and bonding as friends, but then we wouldn't have the uninterrupted opening credits sequence with the building music that climaxes with the bottle smashing against the Enterprise-B hull.

It was nice to see the old gang in casual wear one last time, though, and at least the producers got to recycle Kirk's orbital skydiving costume by having B'Elanna wear it in an episode of Voyager so the outfit did eventually make an appearance on-screen.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThC1i7dzYaw[/yt]

 

I've never seen a real giant reptillian creature named Godzilla attacking cities, but I know a guy in a sut playing him--or a bad CG version does not play in any realistic fashion when I see it.

On that note, the saucer crash was as artificial as another member pointed out with the basement train set reference. This was supposed to be the BIG sequence of the film, but it was just screaming "effect" when the point is for the FX to make one believe what they are watching is real.

 

I guess you either 'buy into it' or not. I loved and still do, I'll say again - if it was done using the CG of the day I think it would look a LOT worse today.

 

What's always bothered me is that it shouldn't have been difficult to integrate Spock into the film. There's a very easy way to do it, and I'm surprised that no one seemed to have thought of it. And this is predicated on the idea that Spock appears in the film's prologue.

The Armagosa observatory was attacked by Romulans. Who does the Enterprise crew know with a connection to Romulans? Spock. After the discovery of Romulan involvement and the rescue of Soran from the observatory, Picard contacts Spock to see if he's heard anything in the Romulan underground. In the course of their conversation, Picard mentions Soran's name. And Spock goes, "Soran. A name I have not heard in eight decades. He was a survivor of the Lakul, in the mission when Captain Kirk died." The conversation continues, and it's Spock who plants the critical idea that Soran is attempting to get back to the Nexus once he learns of Soran's interest in solar observations.

It's not perfect, and it would mean transferring the critical information in the stellar cartography set from Data to Spock, but it would also tie the two parts of the film together in a more organic way.

 

I was fine with the saucer crash and I know it wowed and entertained a lot of the people in the theaters. As a practical, live-action shooting model meant to represent a starship section about the size of two modern aircraft carriers slamming into the surface of a planet and kicking up dirt and debris I think that was the best that could be realistically accomplished for 1994 and the Generations production budget.

There are a few moments when it looks like a model and not a giant hull of a 24th century starship, but the overall effect was successful. Modern CGI could do the trick, but 1994 CGI? Probably not. The model was the right choice.

 

I like it!

I similarly thought that Kirk's first death should've been his last one. Kirk having the turbolift doors in his face as he goes off to save the ship should've happened on the Enterprise D with Kirk telling Picard, "Your place is on the bridge of your ship..."

I was completely caught off guard and shocked when the Enterprise D was destroyed.

They got everyone distracted and focused on Kirk dying that they snuck up and blew the ship up. Brilliant.

Because I don't know about you guys, but I don't remember ANY rumors of the Enterprise being blown up before the release date. Just the focus on Kirk being killed off.

It was shocking, effective, well done and executed.

But when it all was said and done, pointless.

Why? Because they didn't really allude to it again in the series except very briefly when Picard breaks his model display in FC. It didn't have any repercussions to Picard and co because everything was normal come First Contact.

It was one of the few sequences they nailed in Generations, but the lack of follow up in the sequels completely negates its impact.

All we're left with is what could've been.

What a shame.

I liked the Enterprise-D.

 

Although Captain Sisko does mention the Enterprise-D's destruction when Worf joins the DS9 crew the following year ("The Way of the Warrior, Part I"):

Sisko: "I was sorry to hear about the Enterprise. She was a good ship."

And then a minute or two later:

Worf: "I have spent most of my life among humans. It has not always been easy for me. And since the destruction of the Enterprise, it has become even more difficult. I am no longer sure I belong in this uniform.

 

It took me as a shock in the theater, too. I tried to spoil myself at much as I could about the movie (it's what I do), and I don't remember there even being a rumor that the E-D was going to be destroyed in GEN, either.

Still, the death of the ship seemed to fill no particular purpose. Purposeless and untimely deaths happen in real life, but in drama, one would've expected a more heroic way for E-D to go. Picard wasn't even aboard. It's too bad they couldn't have found a way to get Kirk on the bridge, perhaps acting much like his father did in ST09, sacrificing himself while buying time for the rest of the crew to escape.

When I found out later that the ostensible purpose for destroying E-D was so they could create another version of the Enterprise for future movies, it fueled the cynic in me. Its destruction didn't have to happen.

As far as the on-screen reaction to its destruction went, I don't think anyone on that crew, even Riker, felt for the ship what the TOS crew felt for their Enterprise. Considering the Stargazer was the ship Picard served on for over two decades (and he expressed great affection for it), and the E-D wasn't his first command, I could see why he may not have been that emotionally attached to E-D after only seven years on it.

 

"Generations" was only the second Trek film I had watched in the cinema ("Wrath of Khan" was the first), all the rest were watched on VHS till that point.

I quite enjoyed it at the time, although it felt like a two part episode in some ways ("Insurrection" felt even more like that, and not a particularly good one at that).

Plot holes aside, although I felt saddened by Kirks death, it felt way too cheap a scene in its portrayal. Whatever else you feel about Shatners acting style, it was not the way the character deserved to go on film.

On the point of more of the original cast being in the TOS sequences, haven't I heard that Nimoy and Kelley felt there just wasn't enough acting for their characters, and declined, and their lines were then spread between Koenig and Doohan (especially Chekov being in Sickbay during the Lakul evacuation).

 

Both Nimoy and Kelley respectfully opted out of making cameos in the movie, Nimoy specifically pointing out that the TOS crew's farewell at the end of Star Trek VI was far more appropriate and emotionally satisfying and Spock's role in the 23rd century scenes of the new film just didn't have a real purpose other than to make a glorified cameo for the sake of Spock being there. He was probably right.

In restrospect I completely understand their decisions and I kind of prefer Scotty and Chekov being there instead, since it's always great to see James Doohan back in action in a Starfleet uniform and Walter Koenig rarely got enough to do in any of the previous films (or even TOS, for that matter). It gave us one last look at two characters who weren't part of the main Troika, even if Scotty's appearance on TNG technically happens afterwards since "Relics" is set about 76 years after the launch of the Enterprise-B.

 

Relics BTW exposes a major continuity oops in ST. I forget which character tells Scotty they're from the Enterprise and Scotty replies by saying I bet Jim Kirk himself hauled her out of mothballs........Uh why would Scotty say that when he was there when Kirk "died" on the Enterprise-B

I know I know. It can be explained that he was "confused" from being in a transporter loop for 70 years or so or some other retcon BS to cover up for sloppy writing.

 

I'm glad Kelley opted out. He looked frail enough in TUC, I can't imagine it would have been a pretty sight to see him even older.

 

Transporter confusion and disorientation is the best theory to go with, really. If any one of us spent 75 years as a deconstructed energy pattern inside an advanced machine and then were reconstituted back into our original form we'd probably momentarily forget how to put on a shirt or go to the bathroom.

 

I have heard that Kelley's uninsurability was the actual reason he wasn't in Generations. Actors are insured in case of accidents or death, and Kelley's health and fragility would have made him incredibly expensive to the production for even a cameo.

 

After the 2009 Star Trek movie, I've decided that the reason Mr. Scott doesn't remember being at the launch of Enterprise-B in "Relics" is because he wasn't. Or this version of him wasn't.

To explain better, take two things, one the Dyson Sphere being super huge, and two transwarp beaming. After being stranded, Mr. Scott attempts a rescue of himself and Franklin using Transwarp beaming. He is partially successful. He and Franklin manage to beam to another world (probably Earth). However, the pattern also gets duplicated and bounced back, creating a diplicate Scott and Franklin back on the Sphere. This pair think the transwarp beaming failed, and Scott decides to try the a risky transporter loop into the pattern buffer. This also partially works. Scott lives, but Franklin is lost. This Scott is picked up by the USS Enterpise-D.

But what of the Scott that tranwarp beamed to Earth? He gets accosted by Starfleet Intelligence about his transwarp beaming, which gets hush-hushed. He manages to tell Spock about it before having to turn over or destroy his notes, figuring Spock will remember it without notes. Scott then gets invited to the launching of the Enterprise-B, since he's still on Earth.

 

Huh, I've never that Kelley couldn't get insured for GEN as the reason he wasn't in it. Interesting.

While I like seeing Scotty and Chekov and giving them some last minute character rapport with Kirk, the lack of Spock or Bones (Kirk's best friends) leaves a bit of a hole in the film, particularly earlier in the film.

It kinda makes sense later in the film that Kirk would be facing his mortality alone, but you'd have to think that with the themes and dramatic potential that they could've and should've found a way to make it work.

Yeah, I can totally buy that.

But you would've thought there might've been some repercussions to Picard. This is the second ship under his command that he's lost. Wouldn't he have faced a court martial or something? Would they have kept the crew together? I dunno. Those are some of the questions I had.