I was just rewatching GENS tonight, and was thinking that the entire thing would have been better if the opening bit with Kirk on the E-B was drawn out a bit, especially focusing in a bit more on the rescuees, and then Kirk dies in the Deflector Control Room. No Nexus resurrection. That would have a) given Kirk a death with meaning, b) eliminated the (five most revolting minutes of Star Trek I can think of after Spock's Brain) Picard Christmas sequence, and would have made for a tighter, more interesting film. Thoughts? Rob+
What's wrong with the Christmas sequence? I think it's a beautiful part of the film, marred only by the fact that Beverly should have been his wife in the fantasy.
The movie was boring and flat and Kirk's death, which should have been a punch to the throat, carried no impact whatsoever.
I have manifold objections to this sorry excuse for a movie, but the implicit suggestion that the Nexus was a natural astrophysical phenomenon really scorched my philosophical buns. Couldn't Braga & Moore have made that thing an alien artifact instead? TGT
If you don't mind my asking, if you can maintain a degree of detached disgust for the notion of a galaxy wandering wish-fulfilment/time machine, what difference does it make whether its origins are natural or artificial?
I hate the Christmas sequence as well...instead of having a family of his own, Picard should've been married to Beverly, Wes should've been there as well as Marie and Robert with Rene. A true Picard family Christmas dinner. Back on topic...at first i hated the death scene mostly because it ignored Kirk's own belief that he would die alone. Well he wasn't alone, Jean-Luc was with him but occupied with stopping Soran's machine from launching and couldn't get to Jim in time. Couldn't help but think what would happen had Spock or Bones been there. Which also makes me wonder what the original script's roles for the two character's were and why Nimoy pulled out. Admiral Young
McCoy and Spock's original roles were played by Chekov and Scotty (almost exactly, respectively) in the Ent-B part of the script. If Doohan and Koenig had passed, I'm sure Lt. Riley, Kyle and/or Rand could have ended up reading the dialogue.
^ I recently rewatched GEN myself and I've got to agree that the Christmas scene is TERRIBLE. It's terrifying to see how conservative Trek can be which is all the more jarring since it's supposed to be a view of the FUTURE. Instead, in instances like these they just get right into gloryfying the past without truly reflecting. In that scene, I hate just about everything - the house, the clothes, the kids, and as others have mentioned the fact that his wife is not Beverly. That's just wrong IMHO. Generally speaking, I think it was a mistake they came up with the whole Nexus thing. For one, it costs way too much time setting it all up. If you want to get the two captains together, have Kirk skip forward in time in a freak transporter accident or ANY form of spatial anomaly - i.e. cut right to the chase. I also think that they things are handled, this movie really hurts Picard, actually. Here, his 'holier than thou' attitued goes right through the rough. Hell, he's just human - if you're REALLY that happy in the Nexus, he shouldn't even be contemplating going back. Plus, and this is a minor complaint in comparison, he doesn't catch on to the fact that it doesn't matter at all WHEN he goes back. He can basically spend all the 'time' he likes in the Nexus (though no time passes, of course) and get back into action at any point. No need to hurry. Interestingly, this reminds me of AGT which I also recently saw again. Q should be right on Picard's back here for not 'getting' it. As for Kirk's death, it just ends up feeling disappointing. One of the main reasons in my mind is that it just feels totally unnecessary. Picard picked the point of time to return to and, frankly, it was a REALLY bad pick. With what he knew, he could have gone back even further and ended up on the bridge of the Enterprise (which is one way to bring both Captains to the bridge if you accept the movie to this point) with all the knowledge to prevent what Soran was planning. While I'm at it, here's another complaint, two, actually. I hate the fact that Data just decides to pop in the emotion chip. Shouldn't he go to Picard with this and ask first? Shouldn't he be doing this during shore leave? This nonsense leads to Geordi's abduction which leads to my next complaint: Nobody catches on to the fact that Geordi's visor has been manipulated AND the shield modulation is almost blinking off a billboard. This, IMHO, is one of many examples where the Enterprise crew (the best in the fleet, as we're told many times) is directly responsible for the dilemma or at the very least they make the situation worse. I find it REALLY hard to sit through this movie which is why I normally don't
Who says he did? The sequence clearly takes place in the future. If you can accept the Old West in Space, why can't you accept what we see in Generations?
Because nothing we've ever seen in all of Trek and Earth in the 24c suggests a regression to the Victorian era.
Doesnt mean it's not possible. All we see is a little piece of Picard's house. Perhaps he decided to buy an old fashioned Victorian House?
Victorian Home is fine and dandy. The victorian clothing he and his wife where in, plus the caroussel in the parlor, is where the problem is nor am I entirely sure they'd still celebrate Christmas in the 24c if they've mostly abandoned religon as a superstition from the dark ages. More contemporary costuming and less sacharine music could've done wonders for that scene.
You know, never in all my years watching the movie did I have that particular problem with it. Talk about nit-picking to the extreme
I admit I don't have the movie quite captured to memory, but I don't remember lines about it that suggest the Nexus's origin one way or another. Trek hasn't had many instances of the galaxy being littered with the side projects of more advanced cultures, though, and fewer as the century progresses (more's the pity), but that doesn't seem to suggest too much one way or another for a specific phenomenon.
^ I agree that it's not just a minor detail. It's even worse, actually, if this is what he wants his house in the 24the century to be like. Don't they have any good architects in that time?