MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Star Trek: Generations" (1994)

Okay, I'm going to level with you all, I am really not looking forward to dealing with the Next Generation movies.

They're all honestly range in quality from "ok" to "very bad". There's only one that's good.

It isn't this one.

So how did this come about? Well, from the monster runaway success of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which had had its final season end just a year before this movie came out in 1993. I don't really have to tell you what a massive hit Paramount had on its hands with that series. Other reviewers such as SFDebris and Allison Pregler have already covered the troubles with the first few Seasons of TNG, not only in production but also just in concept.

Basically put: the Next Generation should not have worked... and yet it did and to massive acclaim.

So, naturally, Paramount was wanting to make a movie about the series as far back as 1992. TNG Producer Rick Berman was tasked with getting the film going, and he brought along Trek writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga for the ride to pen the story. The entire idea was a "passing of the baton" between the TOS crew and the TNG crew. The original idea was to have the entire TOS crew involved but a combination of various members of the cast refusing to come back (either because they balked at what Paramount was willing to pay or they didn't like the script) meant that things were scaled down considerably.

Brent Spiner gets to stretch his acting chops here.
It gets weird.

Thus, our film begins with Kirk (William Shatner) joining Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) and Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) aboard the Enterprise-B supposedly in the same year that The Undiscovered Country takes place. The Enterprise-B is out for its maiden voyage under the command of Captain John Harriman (Alan Ruck - Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off). Unfortunately, because it isn't Tuesday, the ship is the only one in the area (somehow) when a massive energy ribbon is tearing through the galaxy and has captured two ships.

Kirk, being the stalwart hero that he is, takes the initiative to go below decks and get the Enterprise out of the ribbon... which results in him being missing and presumed dead.

Almost 80 years later, we find out that Klingons do not much care for sea water and Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) receives some disturbing news - his brother and his nephew have perished in a fire at his family's vineyard, meaning that he is the last Picard. This was actually done at the request of Patrick Stewart himself, originally Picard's brother was simply supposed to have died from a heart attack.

Compounding this is the Enterprise answering a distress call from a stellar observatory where Doctor Samuel Loomis... I mean, Doctor Tolian Soran (Malcolm McDowell) is found. It seems, however, that he's not a kindly scientist but a maniac who is obsessed with returning to the energy ribbon that nearly destroyed the Enterprise-B. Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) refers to it as "the Nexus", a paradise dimension of sorts. Soran is destroying stars in order to alert the course of the Nexus so he can get into it.

Also, he has Lursa and B'Etor who he is working for, promising them weapons in exchange for their help. For the uninitiated, they're a pair of Klingon sisters who have been scheming for control of the Klingon Empire for a while. Not super important here other than just being villains for the piece and reusing stock footage from Undiscovered Country because they have a Klingon Bird of Prey.

"AH! THE QUICKENING! IT OVERPOWERS ME!!!"

So I had said before that the Next Generation films range from "bad" to "ok". Where does this one land? Somewhere in the middle between the two. There are a lot of really good moments for the characters we've come to know and love. Picard having to deal with the dread of losing his family, Data (Brent Spiner) having to deal with emotions, and so on. Unfortunately, it also has... a plot that makes no sense, character motivations that make no sense, and... okay, I'm just gonna come out and say it - Kirk is completely unnecessary in this movie, which is sad for a variety of reasons that we'll get into.

Right now, as a matter of fact. So, as long as the internet has been around, we have had the great debates between various things in various fandoms. Joel vs. Mike, boxers vs. briefs, and Kirk vs. Picard. Of course in the latest case, the correct answer is Sisko, but let's just stick with what we have in this movie. Kirk and Picard are two similar, though very different men. Both Starfleet captains, but with very different modus operandi.

Kirk is your rough and tumble cowboy. While he has plenty of solutions to problems where he outsmarts his opponents, diplomacy is not really his forte, hence why he was often supplemented by other members of his crew such as Spock. He is an action hero, by series creator Gene Roddenberry's own admission, Captain Kirk is Captain Hornblower.

Picard... is not that. I know I haven't covered TNG in any detail here on the blog, but Picard is more of an orator and a diplomat, more apt to solve a problem with words than with action or violence. That isn't to say that either of these methods is wrong or that the two don't cross over in their methodologies every once in a while, but they have two very distinct, different styles.

The problem with Generations is that Kirk's action hero style is in full swing here for the five minutes that it actually is... and it doesn't really work. What should have been a massive historic moment of two captains meeting face to face for the very first time is... instead a massive underwhelming blunder. The two make eggs, Kirk has some flashbacks to moments he regrets in his life (including a failed relationship with a woman we'd never met) and eventually decides that he's bored with being in the Nexus and decides to go back with Picard.

"We're doing what?"
"Cooking eggs, Patrick. Cooking eggs."
"Really?!"

This is, I think, supposed to mirror Picard's regrets about his own family (or lack thereof) that we see when he first enters the Nexus. I think it's also supposed to mirror Soran's story about losing his family and his world to the Borg, but this is sadly yet another film where Malcolm McDowell is criminally underused as he plays a Saturday morning cartoon villain spouting a bunch of things the pretentious jerks in Psychology 101 think is understanding of how the entire universe works.

Oh, and has the ability to use this film's plot device to stop all fission within a star.

Because, y'know... science.

Honestly, though, the fact that Kirk is barely in this film and is ultimately completely unnecessary to the story apart from fanservice, which isn't presented to us well. It's the opposite of the problem you'd think there would be - Kirk or Picard being made to look better at the expense of the other. I supposed that Berman and company didn't want to do that and so to avoid backlash from either side of the divide decided to take a more middle ground... which ends with the two sort of floating in a nebulous void.

Kirk gets his big moment to come back and make a difference again, working alongside Picard to save 230 million lives from Soran's doomsday weapon... and then dies when a bridge falls on him. Like most of this film, it is almost comically underwhelming. However, it is important to note that Kirk didn't die from being a milk-drinking sociopath who was a little tired, so that is at least something to consider. And it is at least a better death than the original, where Soran just shoots Kirk in the back, but that not having tested well with audiences meaning that Paramount ordered reshoots and we got the ending that we did... which still isn't great, but is at least better than James Kirk being taken out by a shot to the back.

As I said in the beginning, the TNG films are "ok" to "very bad". This one just kind of sits nebulously in the void between the two. It's not good enough to be okay - it kind of feels like a very long version of a TV episode and not a good one - and it's not so bad that I hate it and wish they'd throw it out of canon. It just... exists. It has a few notable and even funny moments and some genuine pathos for characters... but it never goes anywhere or adds up to anything.

"It's only a model!"
"Shhhh!"

At the end, we are left with Data having emotions, Picard having learned the importance of time, Kirk buried under some rocks in the California desert - I mean an alien planet! - and the Enterprise-D is a total wreck left on the planet's surface. However, as Picard notes, this is not the last ship that will carry the name Enterprise... nor is this the last Trek film. We are, unfortunately, just getting started with the TNG films. Luckily, next time, we'll be getting into First Contact, which is the good TNG Film.

If nothing else, it's better than anything in this movie...

Star Trek: Generations was brought to us by Paramount Pictures.