Star Trek - Generations (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)
by David Carson
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Actor: Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Stewart, William ShatnerDirector: David Carson
Brand: Paramount
Producer: Bernard Williams
Producer: Peter Lauritson
Producer: Rick Berman
Writer: Rick Berman
Writer: Brannon Braga
Writer: Gene Roddenberry
Writer: Ronald D. Moore
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 118 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-28
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Paramount
DVD Reviews of Star Trek - Generations (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)
DVD Review: Could have been so much better
Summary: 3 Stars
Following the succes of the Star Trek film series, Paramount greenlit another television show in 1987. The show, Star Trek The Next Generation, was hugely popular (from the third season on). It aired on TV for seven full seasons, and is the highest-rated Star Trek show of the five that have been produced. A feature film was inevitable. And three years after "Undiscovered Country", we got it. "Star Trek Generations" is loved by some, and is considered by some to be one of the worst, if not the worst Trek movie. I personally think the movie is okay, but I can understand the point of view of those who hate it. It was at least better than the feature film debut of TOS, but that's not saying much. Generations suffers from several things. First of all, it suffers from being an odd-numbered Trek movie. But it also suffers from the fact that it is underplotted. The plot seems very small, and not up to film standards. That could be because, if I'm not mistaken, all of the writers had no experience in writing movies. All of their previous work had been in television. The movie moves far too slowly in some scenes. There are also many scenes which are downright disrespectful to the characters. Chiefly, the android Data. So with that in mind, let's get to the actual review.
The first twenty minutes or so was excellent. Kirk, along with Chekov and Scotty, are guests onboard the Enterprise-B for it's maiden voyage. This scene was initially written to have McCoy and Spock along with Kirk, but neither of them was interested, both feeling that they had already said their goodbyes, and the franchise should have ended. This is evident in several scenes, such as when Chekov gets two reporters to help him doctor the wounded refugees, or when Scotty figures out how to break them free of the cloud, something Spock normally would have done back in the old days. Anyway, the Enterprise-B gets underway, but they encounter some El-Aurian refugees who are fleeing a Borg attack on their homeworld. The refugee ships are trapped inside some kind of cloud, or ribbon. They enter the cloud and beam over as many of the refugees as they can, among them Guinan, the El-Aurian from the Next Generation show, and Soron, the main antagonist of the movie. At this point, the crew of the Enterprise-B are now stuck inside the cloud themselves. The captain of the ship is young and inexperienced. He asks Kirk for help, and Kirk and Scotty formulate a plan to send out a some kind of pulse beam to disrupt the hold the cloud has on them. Kirk goes down to a lower level on the ship and turns on something that helps turn on the beam. The ship is freed, but Kirk is swept out into space. He is then presumed dead.
At this point, the movie fast-forwards about 80 years into the future to the crew of the Enterprise-D. They are on the holodeck, doing some kind of promotion ceremony for Worf. Worf has to jumb up off a plank to grab a hat, for some reason. He falls off the ship (oh, did I mention they're on a 17th/18th century ship in the middle of the ocean?) and into the cold water. Everyone laughs, and then Data throws Doctor Beverly Crusher into the water along with Worf. He thinks everyone will think this is also funny, but somehow, it isn't. Data then decides to install his emotion chip in his electronic brain so that he will understand human emotion and know what to do in situations like this. This whole subplot has no business being in the movie at all. It serves no purpose, other than to humiliate a great character, and to fill up screen time. It is very disrespectful to the character. Data behaves like an idiot in this movie, laughing like a nut and making stupid jokes.
Anyway, the Enterprise finds a space station that has been attacked by Romulans. There is one survivor, the El-Aurian Soron. He claims to be a doctor who was conducting research. But when Data and his friend Geordi go over to the station to look around, he attacks them and takes them hostage. Data is unable to act, since his emotion chip has him feeling fear for the first time. Which makes you wonder why Data was sent to the station at all, if he is acting so weird. And why didn't Geordi and Data have an armed escort with them? Anyway, Soron is revealed to be working with the Duras sisters, the Klingon chicks from the TV show. This won't really mean anything if you have never seen the show, but for fans of the show, it's kind of cool how they tie off this loose end from the show. So Soron beams over to their ship with the unconscious Geordi, and the Klingon ship escapes. It turns out Soron had fired a missle into the sun of the system they are in, the Amargosa system, and the Enterprise escapes the resulting explosion and shock wave just in time.
Picard and Data go to the starlab (or whatever it's called) to try to figure out what Soran is up to. In the middle of this, Data stands up and says that he wants to be shut down. He feels terrible that he let Geordi get captured, and says that he cannot control the emotions. Picard, who has just learned that his brother and nephew died in a fire, is also struggling with keeping his emotions under control. He refuses Data's request, saying that Data must gain control of his emotions, and that he needs Data's help to get through this crisis. Now, this scene is the one scene where Data's emotions are actually taken seriously, but it is just out of place here. You shouldn't just stop the movie to talk about Data's emotions. Especially during an exposition like this. Picard and Data learn that Soron just wants to get back into the Nexus, a dimension where all you feel is joy. The ribbon from the beginning of the film is a doorway to the Nexus. The explosion in the Amargosa system pushed the ribbon off-course and towards the Veridian system. Soron plans to destroy the Veridian star as well, because the resulting shock wave will push the ribbon right into Veridian three, where he will be waiting to be picked up. Enterprise heads to the Veridian system to try to stop Soron. When they get there, they find the Duras sisters on their ship, but no Soron. He is somewhere down on the planet. Picard gets the Duras sisters to beam him down to Soron's location so Picard can try to talk some sense into him. They also send Geordi back to the Enterprise. They call this a prisoner exchange, for some reason. Picard is alone with Soron on the planet, and his crew does not know his coordinates. Picard had his phaser and his communicator taken by the Klingons, so he has no way to contact the Enterprise or defend himself. Now let me illustrate what just happened here. Picard, the captain of the most powerful ship in the Federation fleet, agrees to a prisoner exchange, instead of just saying "Send over our engineer, and send us Soron's coordinates. If you don't, we'll blow you up.
So after this massive plot discrepancy takes place, Picard tries to talk Soron out of his destructive plan. He cannot get at Soron, because they are separated by a force field. Back up in space, in space, the Klingons attack the Enterprise. The Enterprise destroys the Klingon ship, but the Klingon attack has caused a warp core breach, and they have to evacuate everyone to the saucer section. Moments after they separate from the main part of the ship, the warp core explodes, and the shockwave causes the saucer to crashland on the planet. Meanwhile, Picard finds a way through Picard's forcefield and tries to stop Soron. Soron, beats the crap out of him, however, and the missle launches as planned. I had a problem with this scene. Picard is portrayed as a wuss in this part of the film. There are many episodes on the show where Picard gets in fistfights and wins. He's not the wimp that this movie makes him out to be. What I think they should have done in this scene is have Picard win the fight, but just not have enough time to fight Soron and stop the missle. Anyway, the Veridian star is destroyed. The ribbon changes course and heads for Veridian three, and both Picard and Soron are drawn into the Nexus. Moments later, the Veridian system is completely obliterated. Picard finds himself in the Nexus, and he now has a family of his own. He realizes however, that it is not real, and he can't stay here. He then meets Guinan, or a reflection of her or something that makes even less sense. She tells him that if he wants to, he can go back to any time or place in his life. Earlier, it had been established that if you are in the Nexus, you won't care about anything but stayng there. Yet Picard breaks that spell in about three minutes. I guess they were saying that Picard is so morally strong that even something like the Nexus has no control over him.
Now Picard has the option to go back in time and start over at any point in his life. He could go back and live his entire life over if he wanted to, fix any mistakes he may have made. He could warn his family about the fire they just died in. He could go back to when he was standing in the bar talking to Soron, when there were a bunch of security guards standing around. Instead, he decides to go back to when Soron was beating the crap out of him. I know many people have pointed this out before, and the problem is, if Picard had done any of the things I just mentioned, the ending would have been very anti-climactic. What the writers should have done is have Guinan tell Picard that he can leave the nexus, but he can only go back to five minutes before he entered the nexus. This would have given a little more of a sense of urgency to the ending, and the end sequence would have played out about the same. Anyway, Picard asks Guinan's ghost thing to come back with him and help him, but she says she can't, that the real her is already there. Um, okay. Guinan then introduces Picard to James Kirk, who, it turns out, has been in the Nexus this whole time. But from Kirk's point of view, he's only been there a few minutes himself. Something about "time having no meaning" there. Picard finds Kirk at a cabin in the woods. A cabin we've never seen or heard of before. And this is what makes Kirk happy. Many people have argued that Kirk's nexus would be on the bridge of the Enterprise. But the thing is, in this scene, Kirk acts like he regrets having devoted his life to Starfleet. When Picard asks him to come back and help him, saying that it is his duty as a former Starfleet officer, Kirk says the following:
"I was like you once. So blinded by duty and obligation I couldn't see past my own uniform. And what did it get me? An empty house."
Kirk now wishes he hadn't been in Starfleet? Even though he spent most of the previous movies wanting to be a starship captain? Where did that come from? So then Kirk goes up to his bedroom to ask some girl (who we've never seen or heard of before, why didn't they just use Carol Marcus, or someone we care about) to marry him. When they go into the bedroom, they realize that they are now at Kirk's uncle's farm in Idaho. So Kirk and Picard go for a ride on horses. Kirk then realizes that all of this is not real, and it is meaningless. He wants to make a difference with the rest of his life, not spend it here. So he agrees to come back with Picard. The two of them confront Soron, and after a long fight/climbing scene, Soron and his rocket are destroyed in an explosion. Kirk falls into a gorge and dies, but is happy that he got to make a difference one more time. Picard decides not to bring Kirk's body with him back to the Enterprise. He buries him, and just leaves him there. I guess it would have been hard to explain Kirk's presence to his crew. But still, Kirk deserved better than that. Picard comes back to the Enterprise to find that it has been damaged beyond repair. A few ships come to pick them up, Picard and Riker have a conversation about time, Data has another emotion thing with his cat, and the movie ends.
Based on the comments I've made about the movie, you probably think I hate it. As I said before, I think it's okay. But it wouldn't have taken much effort to make it a whole lot better. For instance, they could have cut out that subplot with Data's emotions. It was very annoying and disrespectful to the character, and it took up way too much screen time. What they could have done is had Picard go into the nexus and meet Kirk about half-way through the movie, and given Kirk much more screen time. They could have had Kirk on the Enterprise-D for the second half of the movie, and have Kirk and Picard butting heads. It would have been entertaining to see Kirk and his ego having to take orders from Picard. In the end, though, Kirk would have recognized that it is Picard's place to command his ship, and backed down to him. He would relinquish command to Picard, or pass the torch, so to speak. That's what they wanted to do here, right? Make a movie about TOS passing the torch to TNG? So why isn't that what we got? Instead, we got a long mostly decent episode of the Next Generation show. That's okay with me, I'm a big fan of the show. But I wanted a good movie, not another good episode.
Description of Star Trek - Generations (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)
The torch of adventure isabout to be passed.ProductInformationIn Star Trek: Generations it's the 23rd century and retired Starfleetofficers James T. Kirk (William Shatner) Montgomery Scott (JamesDoohan) and Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) are guests of honor aboard thenewly christened Enterprise-B. During a perilous rescueattempt Kirk is swept out into space. Seven decades laterCaptain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the crew of theEnterprise-D rescue an El Aurian physicist named Soran (MalcolmMcDowell) who harbors a deadly plan that includes the destruction ofthe Enterprise and millions of lives. Now Picard's only hopefor a future rests within the Nexus...and a legendary captain from thepast. The Special Collector's Edition includes commentariesdeleted scenes and more in a two-disc set.Product Features Audio Commentary by Brannon Braga and Ron Moore Text Commentary by Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda Motion Menus Scene SelectionThe Star Trek Universe: A Tribute to Matt Jeffries The Enterprise Lineage Captain Picard's Family Album Creating 24th Century WeaponsProduction: Uniting Two Legends Stellar Cartography: Creating the Illusion Strange New Worlds: The Valley of FireVisual Effects: Inside ILM: Models and Miniatures Crashing the EnterpriseScene Deconstruction: Main Title Sequence The Nexus Ribbon Saucer Crash SequenceDeleted Scenes: Orbital Skydiving Walking the Plank Christmas with the Picards Alternate EndingArchives: Storyboards Production GallerySpecifications Stars: Patrick StewartJonathan Frakes Brent Spiner Format: Color DVDWidescreen NTSC Languages: English French Subtitles: English Rating: PG Number of Discs: 2 Run Time: 117 minutes Directed By: David CarsonBestsellers in DVD
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