Your Thoughts on Generations / Kirk's Death

[digifan]

We know Generations was meant to be a cross over from TOS to TNG era but it didn't turn out as intended. If anything I agree Kirk's death would of make a deeper impact if his action within Deflector Controls was drawn out. Maybe with him watching the ENT-B pulling away from the trap and at the same time allowing him to see himself disappearing into the ribbon.

What got me puzzled is how did Guinan knew Kirk was trapped within the Nexus for 78 years? Why did Kirk and Picard chose to exit Nexus on the planet when Guinan said anyone who was trapped within the Nexus can leave at anytime and at any point in time at will?

Will these questions lead to new Trek novels about the Nexus? Stay tune...

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Trekker4747 said:
Who's nit-picking?

It's not a tiny thing that Picard did NOT, infact, live in Victorian England!

I was being somewaht snarky. Of course Picard's Nexus experience is awful and unimaginative, for all the reasons you claim. And Kirk's silly Nexus fantasy--complete with a voice actress whose single line-reading was so cringe-inducing it could probably trigger epileptic fits--is even worse. Add to that the moronic K'leavage Sisters and the criminal wasting of Malcolm McDowell (topped only by the criminal wasting of F. Murray Abraham in Insurrection) and the obviously-(poorly)-scripted-as-Bones-and-Spock dialogue for Chekov and Scotty and... Well, Picard's Christmas could have been spent in a Neolithic cave (complete with kewl 24th Century ornaments to tell us "this is teh futor" and subtly remind us about the threat to an alien race we've never met and give not a shit about) and I don't see how it would have hurt the movie any more.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Guys, you're forgetting one small detail...
Captain Picard's family is very traditional.

 

[Trekker4747]

Peach Wookiee said:
Guys, you're forgetting one small detail...
Captain Picard's family is very traditional.

Not that traditional and Picard wasn't that traditional either.

In "Family" even Robert, his wife, and Rene wore contemporary clothes and didn't dress of the Victorian era.

There's "traditional" and then there's dressing like they did 500 years ago. Traditional people today don't go around dressing like it is still the Renaissance.

 

[Vulcanian]

Generations was mildly enjoyable, though could have been better

Kirk's death was pathetic

 

[Jack Bauer]

It was Picard's fantasy to be in Victorian England. Are all his fantasies intended to be set in his own time period? Sure it came off as lame mainly because Christmas has barely even been mentioned in the 7 billion Trek episodes ever made.

 

[DonIago]

Maybe they dress up for Christmas in the Picard household...

And you should _see_ what they do for Labor Day. My god, the pastels...

My gripes in no particular order-
1) The destruction of the E-D, specifically the poor handling thereof. Oops, looks like we were hit one too many times indeed...

2) The Enterprise being outgunned by a relatively ancient bird-of-prey. At least in the novelization Data _does_ detect an unauthorized signal, though he doesn't have time to trace it. Also the novelization mentions the Enterprise changing shield frequences (the sisters keep up with it).

3) The Captains leaving the Nexus when they do. Funk that, go back to Ten Forward and take Soran into custody. If you're looking for incriminating evidence, check out a certain concealed section of the observatory and Veridian (don't even tell me all of that stuff was beamed down from the BoP).

 

[Brutal Strudel]

I did enjoy the Jupiter II slide-out scene. My favorite part of the movie.

 

[new_mercury]

Sorry guys but I actually quite like this film. The nexus bit is obvioulsy what Picard thinks of as family, the 19th century ideal, obviously if he'd had a family they wouldn't be Victorian but it's a fantasy and it can be whatever he wishes. Mine would probably be on a Starship!

Kirk's death: if it had finished on the E-B I would have felt robbed. If he had died the original way- I would have felt robbed. As it is I feel it's a fitting end.

 

[Trekker4747]

It was Picard's fantasy to be in Victorian England. Are all his fantasies intended to be set in his own time period?

One of the kid's Christmas Presents was a spacship-looking thing (plus Picard was in uniform) so it would seem that it wasn't supposed to be Victorian England but still a contemporary time period.

Besides, we all know Picard's fantasies lie in trashy pop detective stories in the 1940s. If Picard had awoken in the Nexus to a family and living in the 1940s America I MIGHT give a little leeway towards the "this is his fanatasy" thing and it'd be a pretty neat nod to the contnuity of the series.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

It was my understanding that Picard was in France in the fantasy. Further, as someone who rather liked Shakespeare, Picard might've liked the Victorian look.

 

[DonIago]

Shakespeare is Elizabethan, not Victorian.

 

[Trekker4747]

Peach Wookiee said:
It was my understanding that Picard was in France in the fantasy. Further, as someone who rather liked Shakespeare, Picard might've liked the Victorian look.

Well the France/England line in TNG has always been... blury. The flashback where very Victorian England, France or not, it screamed Victorian England, not Elizabethan (Shakespere) and certainly not France.

 

[Captain Ice]

Trekker4747 said:

Aldo said:
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 fact that Picard never lived in 1896 is a good start.

The point there was that he could choose to do so if he so desired. And I think that if he were to choose to live in a different century, then Victorian era Europe would be high on the short list.

One major thing has always struck me as wrong in this movie. In Final Frontier, Kirk makes a huge deal about the fact that he has always known that he will die alone yet, when he dies, he is not alone. I know that a lot of people choose to interpret this as meaning that no one from TOS will be with him, but it still seems wrong to me that he should actually be with someone else when he dies.

 

[Trekker4747]

The point there was that he could choose to do so if he so desired. And I think that if he were to choose to live in a different century, then Victorian era Europe would be high on the short list.

But, as I said later he was NOT in the victorian era, not only did he have electricty in his home one of his kids has a spaceship Christmas gift so it's clearly not supposed to be the Victorian era but "now."

If it was "part of his fantasy to live in the past" living in Shakespere or Dixion Hill setting would've made more sense.

One major thing has always struck me as wrong in this movie. In Final Frontier, Kirk makes a huge deal about the fact that he has always known that he will die alone yet, when he dies, he is not alone. I know that a lot of people choose to interpret this as meaning that no one from TOS will be with him, but it still seems wrong to me that he should actually be with someone else when he dies.

I really think you're taking "dying alone" to literaly. Kirk was very much alone, he had no one in his life (no spouse and no kids) and none of his friends where with him. Sure, Picard was there, but Kirk was very much alone.

Besides. So what Kirk "always knew he'd die alone" what difference does that make to how he DOES die? If I say I always knew I die in a Lesbian Three-Some slathered in honey that dosen't mean that's how I AM going to die.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Well at least we got to see kirk one more time in a fist fight and kicking ass, and cooking.

 

[MyCylon]

Trekker4747 said:
Besides. So what Kirk "always knew he'd die alone" what difference does that make to how he DOES die? If I say I always knew I die in a Lesbian Three-Some slathered in honey that dosen't mean that's how I AM going to die.

If I can just chime in here, I think the difference is that Kirk's a fictional character. You don't just bring up these things if they have no meaning.
What Kirk says in TFF really made me curious as to how he might die if it were ever seen on screen. And that IMHO is the only reason to put those things there. If you're going to deal with him dying, you're going to have to deal with him dying alone.
Now, I do agree that you could argue he actually did die pretty much alone in GEN. After all, Picard is neither a friend nor a comrad nor family. But that's really up to each person to interpret as they will.

 

[RAMA]

Admittedly not a very good film. It has far too many non-sensical moments and contradications to be good. Its a shame it had to be STNG's first.

RAMA

 

[Basil]

The movie, like many of the TNG episodes, was a patchwork of mostly expository scenes. Take Picard's Christmas fantasy -- the bare minimum to tell us he has an anonymous family for the holidays and then a brief bit of an ornament which apparently is enough to bring him out of it. What really happens in terms of developed, meaningful narrative? Not much. The movie lacks much dramatic structure, and Kirk's cheesy death is flat because of it.

 

[Trekker4747]

His dream would've been so much better if it was done noir style ala Hill. But "the average movie goer" probably wouldn't get it.