But that is the situation presented. You ignore the epic / heroic fight that happened moments before he fell.
I don't know how you can ignore such a critical scene that is directly linked to his demise.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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I don't know how you can ignore such a critical scene that is directly linked to his demise.
It IS hard to describe. The audience does not have a connection to what is happening. Yes, Kirk is saving a planet. But we don't know these people. We don't see them before or after. It's just not very engaging.
When Spock dies saving the Enterprise we know EXACTLY who he is saving.
When Decker gives up his life in The Doomsday Machine we know he is mourning his crew and he is trying to save the Enterprise (kinda). "Rigel" doesn't really enter in to it.
The Iron Giant (take THAT, Kleenex box!) is saving a town (and Hogarth and his mom and Dean). And not only is it heroic but we know that is going to hurt our other characters like the Dickens.
Maybe that's what it really comes down to: It doesn't matter. Nobody cares if there is a line in the script that says "A planet was destroyed" without a lot more work than Generations put into it. How broken up are we over the planets that Nomad sterilized?
And nobody (but us) cares that Kirk died. He "died" 80 years ago and we saw the people who missed him. (It's VERY moving.) But in the 24th century Kirk says his last words, Picard puts a bunch of rocks over him and the Courage fanfare plays. And nobody ever mentions it ever again.
Oh. And the fight really isn't very epic. Kirk vs. Mitchell was more epic. Even Kirk vs. Kruge was more epic.
You try having a epic Fisticuffs battle at 63 y/o, I think he did reasonably well against a 51 y/o Malcom McDowell portraying Soran who's centuries old.
Patrick Stewart was 54 y/o at the time.
Granted, none of the 3x men are ANYWHERE close to their young prime selves in terms of physical athleticism; but that's to be understood given the context of the battle.
If you want the most epic of "Physical Battles", then it's a 'Young Person's Game'.
You aren't going to be seeing that out of older folks, I watch Pro Wrestling, so I know what they can & can't do when people get older.
Given how old they were, I thought it was pretty good for their age, and considering none of them are athletes to begin with, it was pretty good for what it is.
So... Why write a fist fight for these guys? Earlier in the film Kirk was climbing up and down ladders. And it was EPIC.
This is of course one of the many fails of the idea of the Nexus (number one is that it is impossible to get out of except it's actually super easy, barely an inconvenience): Picard has all of space and time to choose from to stop Soran. And he decides his best course of action is an unarmed attack on a crazy man with a gun. (And who knew what else?) "But it's OK, because there are TWO of us now!"
Yes, I know, going back to when Soran BOARDED the Enterprise and immediately arresting him is boring. (But awesome.) So don't write it so that is clearly an option.
Oh good Zod. SERIOUSLY?!? I need to go lie down now.
Yep. 54. And if you really want some GEN-related culture shock look how Alan Ruck's aged since 1994.
Now he could play a convincing Admiral John Harriman.
Now he could play a convincing Admiral John Harriman.
When I think of Kirk's death in GENERATIONS, I think of the end of BABYLON 5's "COMES THE INQUISITOR".
"This is my cause! Life! One life or a billion, it's all the same."
And the inquisitor goes on to say if she sacrifices herself to save Sheridan, she'll just die alone in the dark and with no one knowing she did sacrificed herself to save another.
And she was fine with that.
Doing something like sacrificing your life to save others IS a noble thing. When others hear about, you are rightfully called a hero.
But doing that and NO ONE knowing what you did? I would actually put that as even more heroic, because it is TRULY a selfless thing to do.
Kirk dying to help save a planet's population that will never know who he is... that is truly heroic.
So put me in the camp of looking at Kirk's death as heroic and being fine with it.
"This is my cause! Life! One life or a billion, it's all the same."
And the inquisitor goes on to say if she sacrifices herself to save Sheridan, she'll just die alone in the dark and with no one knowing she did sacrificed herself to save another.
And she was fine with that.
Doing something like sacrificing your life to save others IS a noble thing. When others hear about, you are rightfully called a hero.
But doing that and NO ONE knowing what you did? I would actually put that as even more heroic, because it is TRULY a selfless thing to do.
Kirk dying to help save a planet's population that will never know who he is... that is truly heroic.
So put me in the camp of looking at Kirk's death as heroic and being fine with it.
You really hit the nail in the head here. The execution is just so weak in Generations. Ziyal’s death in DS9 elicited more of an emotional reaction in me than Kirk’s in Generations. Which is crazy because I love Kirk and consider him a cultural icon, while Ziyal was just fine but hardly a franchise lynchpin.
I’m also still ridiculously annoyed that Kirk’s body wasn’t taken back to Earth for a proper state burial and was instead hastily buried on the (nameless, I can’t remember?) planet as though he were Picard’s dead pet hamster or something.
Moore and Braga deserve a public flogging for that movie’s epic failings
There's been a lot of memes written about the thin line between heroes and villains, and how every villain is "the hero of their own story." The hero and villain usually also have similar origins. They're both usually people that have grown up abused, impoverished or been wronged. They're people who feel they or the ones they care about are owed a certain sort of justice from their perspective. And they use their abilities to go beyond the rules to achieve their ends.
I've always thought that the line which separates heroes and villains in stories is selfishness and sacrifice. The root of all evil is selfishness, and at the base of all heroic nobility is sacrifice.
A hero will sacrifice everything, even their own lives, to help the people they care about.
A villain's actions are in service of their own desires and wants (whether those desires started out pure or not), no matter how many people get hurt or in the way.
What makes Spock a hero is that he chooses a "third way" to the "Trolley Problem," by sacrificing himself to save the Enterprise. What makes Kirk and the rest of the crew heroes are they're willing to sacrifice everything to save Spock.
I'm not sure if it would have worked (especially since according to reports they couldn't get most of the TOS to come back, since some said they felt The Undiscovered Country was a good ending for their characters), but if I were going to rewrite Generations from the ground up I would have possibly made it a movie where there isn't a villain.You really hit the nail in the head here. The execution is just so weak in Generations. Ziyal’s death in DS9 elicited more of an emotional reaction in me than Kirk’s in Generations. Which is crazy because I love Kirk and consider him a cultural icon, while Ziyal was just fine but hardly a franchise lynchpin.
I’m also still ridiculously annoyed that Kirk’s body wasn’t taken back to Earth for a proper state burial and was instead hastily buried on the (nameless, I can’t remember?) planet as though he were Picard’s dead pet hamster or something.
Moore and Braga deserve a public flogging for that movie’s epic failings
Have the Enterprise-A and Enterprise-D get caught in the Nexus at different points in history but find each other within it. You can use the fantasy of the Nexus as a way to explore the characters and learn more about them and their issues (e.g., Picard's regrets about family, Data's uncertainty about emotions, Kirk's being a man without a purpose anymore, etc.). One key difference I would make is that the Nexus is NOT exactly a heaven-ish place. It's more dream-like, and can go in either direction. Or maybe even people have gotten tired of its fantasies. Maybe there are people there who want out and that can be "heroic" element of trying to save everyone that has been caught in the Nexus over the history of time.
Between the Nexus fantasy sequences then have the main story be about the two crews coming to a point where they DISAGREE about the proper way to escape the Nexus and return to their respective realities. And let that be the main conflict that carries the movie. Create a dilemma where Kirk and Picard lead their crews in arguing for what is "right."
I don’t really agree with any of that, but +1 for The Iron Giant reference.
Actually, that’s not true. They should have had a funeral scene for Kirk. He deserved a better farewell. A hero’s send-off.
I’m assuming he did the first time, but we didn’t see it.
Tell that to the Script Writers, but given how old they were, and on how they were on a random M-class planet in the middle of the desert with basically limited to no arms, that's the best they could think of to make it some what "Fair" & "Achievable" that either side could win.
True, but he was on the Enterprise-B.
But the person has to be willing to leave their own created "Paradise" from their own mind / memory.
That requires convincing the person to leave and them having the will to join you.
For Kirk, since he's a StarFleet Captain, I'm sure "Duty Calls", especially when a future successor Captain of the USS Enterprise asks for help.
Who knows if Soran had a "Plan B/C/D", but they knew exactly what "Plan A" was and what needed to be stopped to prevent Soran from achieving his end goals.
But gathering evidence at that time to arrest him would've been hard, since he hadn't committed crimes "YET".
It's easier to deal with him after you have the knowledge of what happens and just stop him from accomplishing his end game.
Because of the visual of the death. It's not the facts or the logic; it's s visual that does not work for me.
I don't understand why it has to work for everyone.
You know, the MOVIE doesn't say that this isn't exactly what happened. Picard buries Kirk out of respect and necessity. All Picard knows is that he's stuck on this rock and his ship isn't answering for some reason. Maybe he's stranded. Once he is in contact with civilization presumably they would recover the body of galactic hero James Kirk who met his demise in amazing and unlikely circumstances relayed by Picard.
Funny enough, all of the secondary material (such as Shatner's books and the OTOY shorts) say that they left Kirk's body there.
So Gunian was just surprisingly weak / unmotivated? Or thought that Picard would be too?
1,000 %!
Considering that part of her still wants to go back to "The Nexus" after all this time since she's been away, I can see why she thought that about Picard or other folks.
But that's her being cautious given the temptations that it brings.
You've never been to a play where they had to bring in the understudy?
I see that video as mostly proof by vigorous assertion. Bond had hotel and plane reservations made in that name all that time. He wouldn't have used his real name for that, so James Bond must be a cover name.
He's right about people getting too worked up about it, though. It's fiction, not a documentary or simulation.
Bond as Lazenby married Teresa, and the rest pretended to have married her to maintain the James Bond cover.
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