I really don't know if this is true or not - but it certainly would have been glorious.
Star Trek Generations at 20 (November 18, 1994)
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I really don't know if this is true or not - but it certainly would have been glorious.
Pisses me off contemplating this.
TOS deserved a better send of than this bullshit. Berman and his goons wouldn't have had jobs if it weren't for those original guys.
Fools!
Bureaucratic fools!
They had it. It was called Star Trek VI. I wish they'd just done a TNG film and left the original crew alone.
Certainly, they would not have found their way into one of the most successful tv/movie franchises any other way.
Sounds familiar...
I personally thought the movie was weak in storytelling.
However, the death of Kirk is what made me hate it.
Had they not done that, It would have been a passable film.
I really hated that the Nexus showed that both Picard and Kirk's greatest wish was to settle down and have a family? What?
Both of those guys had plenty of opportunity for that but always turned it down in favour of having the best darn job in the universe.
I'm not a big TNG fan but was Picard only in command out of duty to the Federation? Was his secret desire to settle down but he thought Starfleet couldn't do without him?
And Kirk was even less likely to want a life on the farm. Even in within GEN Kirk was itching to get in the centre seat again and he told Picard never to give up command. Yet we are supposed to think that all Kirk really wanted ever to do was to give up Starfleet to be with Antonia
But frankly had Berman not involved Kirk in this nonsense I would just say meh to GEN instead of hating it with a passion. Let Berman destroy his own characters. While I thought Picard's character was dented, in the next movie he was back to being a big Starfleet man. Not jumping on Space e-harmony looking for a true love to carry on the family name.
People are complex and usually want more than one thing, and those things are not always compatible. Picard especially was conflicted between wanting to explore the galaxy and wanting to fulfil what he felt was his obligation to his family. I thought the movie actually presented that pretty well.
Kirk was handled less well, but I still never felt his desire to settle down with Antonia was wildly out of character. By the end of TWOK, he certainly seems to be reflecting on things and wondering about the parts of his life he's neglected by dedicating his life to Starfleet.
Kirk was handled less well, but I still never felt his desire to settle down with Antonia was wildly out of character. By the end of TWOK, he certainly seems to be reflecting on things and wondering about the parts of his life he's neglected by dedicating his life to Starfleet.
Yeah, but still, it was a joke reflecting a sentiment that was expressed far and wide at the time of Generations' release.
This is one part of the movie that actually makes sense. The nexus was not fulfilling Kirk and Picard's wildest dreams, it was showing the the path they did not take, what might have been. Picard especially was mindful of the family he never had as he mourned for his brother and nephew. Both captains had spent many years living their dreams, sitting in the center seat of a starship. In the nexus, they had a chance to see the other side (and learn that the grass is not greener).
Still, if Picard had found Kirk watching a dancing Orion slave girl, that would have been fun.
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I was starting to think I was the only one who got that.
Picard finding Kirk dancing with the Orion slave girl would have been funnier.
It always made sense to me that Kirk would have longed to settle down and have a family, or at the least have a married life with a woman he loved. After his sad experience with Carol Marcus and never getting to watch his son David grow up, the feelings of regret he had over all the missed opportunities with both of them and the times he fell in love with other women during his Starfleet career only to have tragedy intervene, it sort of made perfect sense for Kirk's idyllic Nexus environment to focus on the woman he never married so that he could return to Starfleet.
As much as he loved his Enterprises (especially the first one) and his friends and crewmates, there was always something missing from his life and only a long-term relationship with a woman could fill that void. He'd already sabotaged his relationship with Carol and lost women like Edith Keeler and Miramanee to tragic deaths, so his Nexus "reality" was one of the most logical things about the last part of the movie.
As much as he loved his Enterprises (especially the first one) and his friends and crewmates, there was always something missing from his life and only a long-term relationship with a woman could fill that void. He'd already sabotaged his relationship with Carol and lost women like Edith Keeler and Miramanee to tragic deaths, so his Nexus "reality" was one of the most logical things about the last part of the movie.
I decided to give Generations an anniversary spin, and my impressions are pretty much unchanged: the first two thirds are good, though flawed, but the last third is a bit of a mess, and slows down badly. Ironically, it's around the time of the big action set piece (the Enterprise crash) that the pacing suffers.
I think the main mistake with the film as it is exists was the Klingon subplot - and it was originally even longer! Lursa and B'Etor were never great characters, and I don't really know why they are in the film. They take away scenes from Soran, who is never really given a chance to stand out. Sure, he has some good dialogue with Picard in Ten Forward and on the planet, but he never really comes across as more than just a mad scientist. The thing that annoys me is that we never see Soran in the Nexus! He's there, along with Kirk and Picard. Bring all three of them together in an interesting, timey-wimey ending.
I'd have completely restructured the final third, because they just don't make the most of the Nexus. I'd have used Kirk better, because in the final film, he's just Picard's muscle for a fistfight between three pensioners in the desert. The other big issue is Kirk's death, which is a bit rubbish. His first fake death was much more fitting, because he dies saving the Enterprise.
So. I'd have the Enterprise-D totally destroyed by the warp core breach, with all hands up in smoke, with Picard watching from the planet. Then the first confrontation with Soran, ending in the Nexus sequences. Picard now has two things to do: stop Soran, and save the ship. You could have Picard in the Nexus, meeting Soran, and experiencing his fantasy. Have a more fitting, redemptive ending for Soran, in which Picard and Kirk convince him he's made a mistake when his Nexus wife and kids turn against Soran for the lengths and deaths he's caused to get to them, representing his suppressed guilt and realisation that after all he's done, the Nexus is ultimately empty because it isn't real. Kirk and Picard realise this in the actual film, so Soran should too.
Then the climactic ending. Soran goes back to Veridian to stop his rockets, Picard and Kirk go to the Klingon ship to stop them destroying the Enterprise. Action ensues, and Kirk dies saving the Enterprise.
Now I need to find the Nexus so I can pitch to Ron Moore in 1993.
I think the main mistake with the film as it is exists was the Klingon subplot - and it was originally even longer! Lursa and B'Etor were never great characters, and I don't really know why they are in the film. They take away scenes from Soran, who is never really given a chance to stand out. Sure, he has some good dialogue with Picard in Ten Forward and on the planet, but he never really comes across as more than just a mad scientist. The thing that annoys me is that we never see Soran in the Nexus! He's there, along with Kirk and Picard. Bring all three of them together in an interesting, timey-wimey ending.
I'd have completely restructured the final third, because they just don't make the most of the Nexus. I'd have used Kirk better, because in the final film, he's just Picard's muscle for a fistfight between three pensioners in the desert. The other big issue is Kirk's death, which is a bit rubbish. His first fake death was much more fitting, because he dies saving the Enterprise.
So. I'd have the Enterprise-D totally destroyed by the warp core breach, with all hands up in smoke, with Picard watching from the planet. Then the first confrontation with Soran, ending in the Nexus sequences. Picard now has two things to do: stop Soran, and save the ship. You could have Picard in the Nexus, meeting Soran, and experiencing his fantasy. Have a more fitting, redemptive ending for Soran, in which Picard and Kirk convince him he's made a mistake when his Nexus wife and kids turn against Soran for the lengths and deaths he's caused to get to them, representing his suppressed guilt and realisation that after all he's done, the Nexus is ultimately empty because it isn't real. Kirk and Picard realise this in the actual film, so Soran should too.
Then the climactic ending. Soran goes back to Veridian to stop his rockets, Picard and Kirk go to the Klingon ship to stop them destroying the Enterprise. Action ensues, and Kirk dies saving the Enterprise.
Now I need to find the Nexus so I can pitch to Ron Moore in 1993.
Picard's Nexus experience was an idealized dream of a family Christmas, something from his subconscious, probably due to the loss of his brother and nephew. When he realized that it wasn't real he regained his focus on the situation at hand. That's when Guinan's echo appeared.
Kirk's experience was the road not taken, retirement from Starfleet and asking Antonia to marry him. He said as much when Picard explained to him where they were.
"This time ..." he said.
The jump to his uncle's horse barn was an indication that Antonia was not Kirk's unrealized dream. Jumping the ravine with no fear convinced him that this wasn't reality, and it was not where he needed to be.
The interaction between Kirk and Picard in this sequence was good. Both men realized that their life choices were the best they could have done.
I'd like to see a cut of the movie with the scene where Soran shoots Kirk in the back. It might have played out better than the "bridge on the captain" scene. A tragic end for Kirk, but very dramatic. It might have given Picard reason to go postal on Soran.
But hey. The movie is 20 years old now, and I'm used to it the way it is.
The original ending is freely available, and it's dreadful. Picard comes out of it looking like an idiot, and Kirk gets shot for nothing. It's not in the least dramatic. The remounted ending is better, though still not very good.
Not too many people seemed to like the original ending where Soran shoots Kirk in the back and he dies in Picard's arms, and I have to agree. While the crushed-under-a-metal-bridge death scene wasn't the death most of us had envisioned for Captain Kirk over the years and decades and it wasn't exactly the best idea they could have come up with, I think it still works better than the original ending.
Getting shot in the back by the villain right after boasting that "the 24th century's not so tough" just didn't look or feel right, although it led to the common misconception that Soran himself directly killed James T. Kirk instead of - as in the altered ending that's in the final movie - creating the situation in which Kirk bravely sacrifices himself to help save the day. Neither death is what most fans wanted, but if I had to pick one it'd be the bridge, no hesistation or question about it.
Getting shot in the back by the villain right after boasting that "the 24th century's not so tough" just didn't look or feel right, although it led to the common misconception that Soran himself directly killed James T. Kirk instead of - as in the altered ending that's in the final movie - creating the situation in which Kirk bravely sacrifices himself to help save the day. Neither death is what most fans wanted, but if I had to pick one it'd be the bridge, no hesistation or question about it.
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