20 from Generations

All Good Things... had come to an end and the eighth season of The Next Generation was not to be.  

The TV adventures of the Enterprise-D were over but Berman,  Moore and Braga went from the show straight into production of the first of four movies for Picard and the crew. The wide variance in quality of these four instalments is always up for debate but let's not stray from the fact that Generations also marked a generation's final journey to steal the tag line from Nemesis.

Kirk, Scotty and Chekov returned for one last hurrah (because Nimoy and Kelley wouldn't)  in an epic that spanned the two ground-breaking shows. Now if you've been paying attention you'll recall that this year marked 20 years since All Good Things... which in turn means it's 20 years since Kirk wound up in the Nexus. That's right. November 18th 2014 marks two decades since the theatrical release of the seventh feature length Trek to the stars. 

So what has been Generations legacy after two decades? What has it given to the franchise?  It gave Worf something of a reason to jump ship after the destruction of the Enterprise but there has to be more than that seeing as the film wouldn't have been better or worse if that hadn't happened.

At least it allowed Shatner to bow out with some style and maybe there's something poetic about the notion of him returning to that role two decades later for Star Trek 3 and the 50th Anniversary in 2016. At least on screen Kirk didn't get resurrected although Shatner did pen The Return and a number of sequels to keep the character alive. Some characters need and deserve to stay dead to ensure their legacy survives in tact and here, with Kirk, that is essential. Here we have a launchpad to a new beginning that would not have to worry about looking over it's shoulder at all that had gone before. The Next Generation had grown up - this was it's maturing moment and the point where everything subsequent would have to take note.

Generations is the only decent gap-filler between The Original Series and The Next Generation we ever got by seeing Kirk's successor and the Excelsior Class Enterprise-B confirm the lineage through to Garrett and on to Picard. Again in the non-canon literature we are afforded an expanded narrative but Generations gives us the notion that the galaxy will still keep on being saved for the next 78 years even if Kirk isn't around to do it. I for one think this is one of Shatner's best performances as Kirk in particularly un-Kirk-like surroundings only to realise just who he is when the odds are against him and the situation is grim. 

However, while that classic era section is a wonderful little swansong, it's The Next Generation section which features more prominently with the investigation at Amargosa and the mystery of the Nexus. The events of Generations never directly impact another episode although there is that link to The Way of the Warrior although it did cement the Berman/Moore/Braga era for several years to come. Importantly it also marked a point of progress. While the original crew had very little development from The Motion Picture to The Undiscovered Country (with the obvious exception of Spock), the crew of Picard's Enterprise began to change from the characters we knew from the TV show. Here Data's emotion chip loomed large once more to be featured again in First Contact before being totally forgotten for Insurrection and Nemesis. 

Killing off Picard's relations here was a bold move but again it was one of the early signs that things did not need to be stagnant for fans and causal viewers to "get" the movie. These were people who could be moulded a bit more and the tweaks that might have happened on the series could now be experimented with and explored in a larger setting - Geordi's sight and the Riker/Troi relationship would be the two most obvious points explored in the subsequent movies but in Generations there are the first indications that we would find corrections and changes occurring more often than we may have expected on the series.Destroying the Enterprise on the other hand isn't that big a thing. After the monumental obliteration of the original Constitution Class starship in The Search for Spock the expectation of a bigger and better, all singing and dancing replacement was expected before the saucer had even entered the atmosphere, backed up by Picard's knowing and satirical comment that this would not be the last ship to bear the name Enterprise (add in his reference to letters of the alphabet in First Contact too please).

Generations hits the life/death theme straight on with each of the three main characters battling that element of reality from numerous different angles. Kirk has died and has nothing left to prove, he's out there to enjoy himself with no responsibilities and a whole universe of his imagination to explore. Picard faces the bleak truth that life isn't always fair with the deaths of his brother and his Generations  nephew off-screen. Then there's Soran and his wish to cheat reality and the mortal struggle without a care for the impact it can have on anything in his way. McDowell does a fairly good job with the character although he admitted that he didn't get it and preferred his part in Tank Girl which was also around at the same time. His motivations are fairly realistic and as baddies go, he's one of the better ones, providing that spark of insanity right alongside apparent logical reasoning and desperation. Without a doubt McDowell has certainly left his legacy on the franchise if only for being the Kirk killer - and then only in the original version.

At the core the legacy of is simply the passing of that torch from one crew to another. The final tie cutting which meant that The Next Generation could flourish on the big screen and surpass the expectations of its predecessor - but the reality is that the spark was bright and short-lived as fans are more than vocal that both Insurrection and Nemesis are far from up to scratch. Easily the best of the four, Generations slides well into a comfortable second and for me it's definitely a decent movie which allowed Kirk to pull out one last fistfight interspersed with more of his more classic moves from The Original Series than you can shake a tribble at and on location no less.

At the time Generations was highly anticipated; I'd read the book including that skydiving scene and the original shot-in-the-back ending which rubbed preview audiences the wrong way. The Next Generation had been a ratings winner and the expectation on the big screen was no less. The shame of it was that there was an overconfidence and maybe over familiarity that let The Next Generation down. There was no gap, no decade of mulling over possibilities, no additional maturing of the cast and no chance to spread their wings elsewhere first to shed the type-casting. One day they were shooting an episode and the next it was filming a movie. Could it be that we didn't wait long enough for The Next Generation to deserve their own movie series?

Only 11 years after Generations aired it was all over for the Berman era in 2005 as Enterprise was cancelled and the show faded for a few years. Generations was a movie of the time, oppulent with its high level guest star, self-indulgent with its references to its past and existing at a pivotal moment in franchise history where three series would exist within a 12 month period at the Paramount Studios.

The Next Generation legacy fizzled and burned in just seven short years in the cinema compared to the 13 years of the original crew. So much promise perhaps handled badly at the peak of Star Trek's success? Was it the beginning of the slpppery slope? Was attempting that lightning strike twice on the big screen tempting fate? Were we all just bored? Maybe, maybe not but for the time, this union of Star Trek's two captains was the thing to see and today, seeing Kirk and Picard side by side to save the galaxy is still worth every second.

What do you think the franchise owes to Generations? Anything? Nothing? WHy not let us know here!

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The Pinnacle of Star Trek? - Generations

It must be a good six years since I last watched The Next Generation movies and Generations in particular. Let's face it, they're not (on the whole) as good as the first six are they?!

Generations was the fourth Star Trek movie I'd seen in the cinema and the first I saw on a dodgy video before it was released on sale in shops a few months after its arrival in cinemas. To this day I have a soft spot for the movie. No, it's not one of the absolute best and the two films which lie either side in The Undiscovered Country and First Contact are significantly better but even now, Star Trek: Generations is different; unique within the cinematic history of the franchise.

To this day it still remains the only movie to unite two different series (alternative versions not included), two different Enterprise's and the only occasion where a member of the original cast dies and stays dead on screen. It is, by design, the ultimate bridge and baton-pass, even more so than Picard in Emissary, McCoy in Encounter at Farpoint or Spock in Unification. This is two captains facing one destiny and I really think sometimes that this film gets an undue battering. Perhaps in hindsight after seeing Insurrection and Nemesis it's easy to raise it as one of the stronger cinematic adventures for The Next Generation crew and there is an epic nature to the movie.

Let's just examine it a bit further - Soran might not have the same kind of vengeful goal as Khan or the lust for power that Kruge exhorted, he is perhaps the first movie villain who is doing it all for himself. There is nothing that he cares about more than returning to the Nexus and this does make him unique. As Guinan notes, he's "...not interested in weapons or power. All Soran is interested in is getting back to the Nexus...". His goal is simple and all in the way are eliminated to ensure that it happens. In fact the deaths of millions are nothing to ensure that his immortality within the Nexus is guaranteed.

Essentially that's the core of Star Trek: Generations and while 1991's The Undiscovered Country dealt with a final mission this is much more firmly drawing the line over the original crew's adventures. This is only emphasised more by the fact neither DeForest Kelley or Leonard Nimoy wanted to be involved and were replaced by Koenig and Doohan. Not all of the cast appeared and the introduction of the Enterprise-B firmly closes the door on the adventures of NCC-1701-A. Time has moved on and Kirk, Scotty and Chekov are now retired legends of Starfleet. Their time has passed - an interesting point considering this was essentially what Kirk alluded to at the beginning of The Wrath of Khan 12 years before.

That stamp of mortality and finality is deeply branded into the whole of the experience and might be one of the most obvious messages in Star Trek's 12 movie library. Not only does Kirk die - twice, but Picard loses family in a fire back on Earth and the Enterprise-D ends up planetside. Whether Berman, Braga and Moore intended it to be this heavy-handed and signposted I don't know, but it's all very abrupt and distinctly about dealing with the finite nature of existence and that, ironically, all good things must come to an end. Kirk's death on Veridian III certainly signifies the notion that the journey for the original cast is well and truly over.

Now you might wonder why I've said this is the pinnacle of Star Trek and it's more to do with time (a factor not lost on this, First Contact or, to a degree, Insurrection). In 1994 the franchise was probably at its highest point. The Next Generation was coming to a close, filming was well underway for their first feature, Deep Space Nine was running its second and third seasons and a fourth series, Voyager was already being lined up for a January 1995 premier. The future had never looked brighter for the show and the release of a new movie could only add to the media onslaught.

The fact that the seventh movie, the first not to be suffixed with a Roman numeral since The Motion Picture, would bring together the two great Enterprise captains could, equally, only whip Trekkers and Trekkies into more of a frenzy than ever. Fortunately it didn't go down the Kirk vs Picard route of the abandoned Maurice Hurley script and even I would be hardpushed to say that it's perfect in its finished state. For me it was also the first Star Trek movie where I paid a lot of attention to the rumour mill and the behind the scenes information that would be leaked out occasionally. The two Enterprise's were one of the first things we knew about but there were some raised Vulcan-like eyebrows at home when there was the suggestion of Data having sex with the Duras sisters to get parts to fix the broken Enterprise-D.

However there's a lot to Generations that we should be proud of and is, I believe epic in terms of the story it attempts to tell, spanning almost 80 years of the Star Trek timeline and those two key crews. 

I always feel fortunate that I got to read the original novelisation of the movie as there are significant differences - the orbital skydive and Kirk getting shot in the back stand out immediately, but there are some great things about Generations that make it stand out above a lot of the other films. I thought it would be worth highlighting what we gained from the movie. I would even say that the stories around the rewrites adds to the mythos of Generations as I don't recall any other Star Trek movie receiving such massive reshoots following the test audience viewings. 

It's taken a few years for me to see the crackly, original edits of these scenes and I can say that I was a little disappointed. In fact, I'm glad the orbital skydiving was cut as the opening works much better without it. The only two points I would suggest don't make complete sense are Kirk wincing at the back injury his skydiving caused as he races to save the Enterprise-B (could be construed as old age - watch it and see what you think) and the reference to the removal of the nanoprobe from Geordi's body following his incarceration on the Klingon ship. The scene which involved the nanoprobes was filmed with the rehashed uniforms and so never made it into the cut.

Then there's the whole issue with the abandoned uniform design saga which resulted in the mix of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine attire which overloads the viewer a little. It's not a bugbear for myself as I actually was more rattled by the notion that someone forgot to pay the electric bill for the ship - why is everything so dark?! It just seems really weird considering that there seems to be no issues with the lighting in All Good Things.... While we know that things have to change to be accommodated on the big screen it is strange especially as there was no gap between production of the two installments. Indeed, the Enterprise-E is immediately more suitable for the movies because it was designed for the task while it's predecessor was most certainly not. Totally destroying the iconic bridge and showing it in all its battered glory at the end just cemented the "no going back" line.

Overall the background machinations of Star Trek's seventh feature really interest me and of all the movies it might be the one that, from a behind the scenes perspective, is the most intriguing. Certainly an area of the franchise that I love to read and find out more about.

However, as well as that I thought I would champion some of the great things that did make it to the screen and mean I won't be letting another six years pass by before my next viewing....

The Enterprise-B

"This is the first starship Enterprise in thirty years without James T Kirk in command..."

It's a redress of the Excelsior but how long had we waited to see this girl? I recall the first image that suggested "B" would be such a ship was in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual in 1991. Here, three years later it was confirmed and she came with go-faster stripes. While she gets less screen time than even the "C", it's a nice nod to continuity even though her captain is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. The fact Kirk "died" onboard her does mark her out in starship history but we don't get anything else in official onscreen canon.

Stellar Cartography

Significantly larger than the set used for The Next Generation's Lessons in season six, I still love watching this scene. On the cinema screen it was just awesome to see and is the pivotal moment in the story where both Picard and the viewer realise Soran's plan. It looks like a truly massive set and the interactive nature of the screens gave me a "Wow" moment - Star Trek had suddenly gone super-techie, absolutely embraced CGI and it looked great. A landmark sequence in the franchise it also played out the Picard/Data father/son relationship, confronting that god-awful emotion chip and it's impact on the android lieutenant commander. 

Thankfully it was played down in First Contact and virtually ignored in Insurrection and Nemesis - just the same as the dream programme. Overall it's one of my favourite movie sets due to its smooth simplicity. For me, this room and that sequence are absolutely key to the movie - not only do we get to hear about Soran's plan but get to see what it is as well.

Kirk vs Soran and Saves the Galaxy (twice)

"Actually I am familiar with history and if I'm not mistaken...you're dead."

The twist of it being Kirk standing in front of Soran on the bridge wasn't enough. The fist fight is a classic and I think it's very well staged as the two opponents dance around the structures the doctor has created. Kirk even gets to throw in a couple of his classic moves from The Original Series as part of his swansong. I'm not at ease with the fact his death comes from falling into a ravine on a bridge rather than getting shot in the back by Soran. Shatner is at his action movie best here and it's only after it finishes that you realise his last decent fight sequence was back with Kruge on Genesis...

Not content with saving the crew of the Enterprise and the Lakul survivors he drops out of retirement to save some unknowns on Veridian IV. Nice work. I preferred his send-off in the 23rd Century a bit more however - that opening "prologue" section is great. Kirk's back in action one more time doing what he does best.

The Enterprise-D Crash Sequence

"All hands brace for impact!"

Aside from there being a few shots of the crashing saucer which are obviously a model on a hydraulic arm, I think it's a great piece of the movie. Starting right from the moment the Klingons start smashing chunks out of the Galaxy Class starship you just know it's going downhill for the flagship. I'd still say that the Enterprise blowing up in The Search for Spock had - and still has - more impact but this added the stamp of finality to a lot of things. The Next Generation had moved to the movies and they were going to need something bigger and more cinema-screen friendly to take them to their next adventure. This wasn't TV anymore and it wasn't all going to end perfectly. The Enterprise really got a pummelling and went down hard. Troi would get a second chance to smash up the ship in Nemesis but she manages a much more impressive result here. It's a write-off.

While the destruction of the battle section is fairly quick, the out of control saucer crash is great aside from the few seconds I've mentioned. Seeing it drop through the clouds and eventually come to a rest are great to behold only enhanced with Riker's skyward glance through the smashed observation dome atop the bridge.

Kirk and Picard - The Nexus

"...and from his point of view, he's just got here too..."

THE best bit of the movie. Kirk appears chopping wood and it's a wonderful sequence that is every fan's dream. The two captains united and armed with some sparkling dialogue to match. Ignoring the fact it's all in a make believe world, just seeing them together is enough but the conversation on horseback was milked to high heaven for the promo campaign. A shame because it's a nostalgic moment when Kirk makes the decision to make a difference and not mope around in the Nexus for eternity. Two things of interest with the Nexus - one is that it's also Guinan's last ever Star Trek appearance and secondly how do the two captains know that they HAVE left the Nexus since it can take you to any time and place you want...?

I find that once Kirk returns to the screen the whole feel of the movie changes in the click of a finger. You feel refreshed and excited about the moment and those last thirty minutes are just great, classic Star Trek. While the sum of the parts might not be spectacular, just seeing these two interacting made this movie for me. Getting Kirk on-board the Enterprise-D would have been the greatest if it had been possible but sadly it was not to be. Notably Picard only has Archer to tick off for a complete set of commanding officers as he met Sisko in Emissary and spoke to Janeway at the beginning of Nemesis. That second instance means there are two movies where two captains appear on screen together (but not in the same room by technicality).

In my opinion Generations is not bad at all and I would watch it easily in preference to Voyager or Enterprise. There are even a few episodes of Deep Space Nine or The Next Generation that might beat it too. It's a movie about passing the torch, feeling good and giving The Next Generation a springboard to a motion picture career at the height of Star Trek mania. The shame is they fared worse than the original cast, lasting only four films and with meagre box office takings into the bargain.

Next up for viewing is the superb First Contact. I'll try and work out something a bit different to mark it out in my passing!