Movie review: Star Trek Generations

119 comments on “Movie review: Star Trek Generations”

1. Actually, the one thing I liked about Kirk’s death was the “oh my” statement. It was so anticlimactic, so un-epic, so mundane that it worked for me.
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   Apart from that, you nailed it for me.
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   J.

   1. I also liked the “Oh my.” What I got out of it was that until that very second, Kirk kept thinking a last-minute save would be coming. He was still not accepting the no-win scenario until his dying breath.

      1. From the IMDB:
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         “James T. Kirk’s final two words, “Oh, my…” are a spontaneous ad lib made by William Shatner. Shatner later explained it was Kirk’s reaction to eternity and truly going where Kirk had never gone before.”

      2. Well, to my mind, as last words go, it’s not exactly, “‘Tis a far far better thing I do now…,” y’know. If they were really good last words, they wouldn’t have required subsequent explanation. He says it was his reaction to eternity? It could just as easily have been him reacting to his bowels emptying or remembering he left the oven on.
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         Now if Captain Sulu’s last words were, “Oh my!” I’d be okay with that, just for the meta humor.
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      3. Last words of Pancho Villa:

         Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.

         (Some versions say “Make something up – tell them I said something.”)
         General John Sedgewick (after being warned to stay down for fear of Confederate sharpshooters:

         They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dis-.

         Conrad Hilton:

         Leave the shower curtain on the inside of the tub.

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         And Joe Hill’s absolute last word, as he stood before the firing squad and the commands “Ready … Aim …” were given, was “Fire!”

      4. Peter David: It could just as easily have been him reacting to his bowels emptying or remembering he left the oven on.
         Luigi Novi: LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      5. I don’t think they required subsequent explanation. It was pretty obvious to me what he was going for, the first time I saw the movie.

      6. “James T. Kirk’s final two words, “Oh, my…” are a spontaneous ad lib made by William Shatner.
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         Yeah, well, then Shatner is to adlibbing what Shatner is to writing books, which is why other people write his books…
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      7. I always thought the best real life last words were those attributed to Oscar Wilde: “Either that wallpaper goes or I do.”
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         I think the best fictional last words would likely be those of Josiah “Jed” Bartlet, former leader of the free world on “West Wing.” We never saw his passing, but you’d just have to think his final utterance would be, “Okay…what’s next?”
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   2. In my uneducated opinion (ain’t we all…?), his final line was easy to write – SIMPLE to write. Anyone who’d ever seen two episodes of Star Trek could have written it.
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      (Ext., Picard kneels by Kirk. Kirk is dying, staring into the sky, seeing something neither we nor Picard can see.)
      KIRK: Spock… (Kirk dies.)
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      I would have cried like a baby – as I think a lot of Star Trek fandom. Y’know, people who GET Star Trek. But again – what do I know.

   3. I take exception to the above comment that “I think a lot of people—including the filmmakers—lost sight of the fact that Kirk is more than just a captain. He’s legendary. He’s epic. He’s bigger-than-life, which Picard never was and never will be.” THAT’S RUBBISH. How can you forget that it was William Shatner who back in the 1980s or 70s told trekkies in a convention to “get a life”. I think Captain Picard was fabulous. I also find that the STNG and STV series both have far fewer dud episodes than the original series had. I still spew over the “useless women who have nothing better to do than trap men” who are a feature of the Original series. So boring to see women continously portrayed as man-traps in the Original series, and this is coming from a good looking woman (myself) so I dont say this out of jealousy.
      Picard had his own style and brought his own richness to the character. I do not understand why some guys swoon over William Shatner’s portrayal like he is some sort of demi-god.

      1. I’m puzzled why it took you six months to find this particular entry. Nor am I entirely sure why you’re turning this into some manner of gender based thing (although I have some guesses). However, if you want a few reasons:
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         1) Kirk says “I surrender” in order to buy a few minutes so he can kick his opponent’s ášš. Picard says “I surrender” in order to give up.
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         2) Picard goes on shore leave, spends most of it telling a gorgeous woman to leave him alone, and squares off against a Ferengi in Bermuda shorts. Kirk goes on shore leave, he hooks up with his long lost love and beats the living crap out of a former tormentor.
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         3) Picard plans strategy by sitting around in a “conference lounge,” listening to everyone’s opinions in a leisurely fashion, and then says “Make it so” to whoever was the last person to speak. Kirk sits at attention in a “briefing room,” has to keep Spock and McCoy from killing each other, and puts together a synthesis of ideas from all the opinions expressed or, even better, comes up with his own idea.
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         4) Picard bases entire strategies and has debates on how to obey the Prime Directive. To Kirk, the Prime Directive is the thing someone quotes at him right before he does whatever the hëll he wants and in the last minute of the episode, Starfleet drops him a line and says, “Do whatever you want; we trust you.”
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         Hëll, I’ll give you an example drawn right from “Generations.” When Picard confronts Soran on the suspension bridge, the packed audience I saw it with was quiet, attentive. “What’s going to happen now” was everyone’s thought? When, ten minutes later, they replayed that sequence and it was Kirk standing there with that classic, smug Kirk smile, the audience erupted with cheers, because we all knew here’s a guy capable of giving Soran the ášš-kicking he so richly deserves.
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         I don’t understand some of your criticisms at all. Shatner told fans to “get a life?” You DO realize that was in a comedy sketch in “Saturday Night Live,” right? He didn’t write it. You think STTNG had a better percentage of beating Sturgeon’s Law than STTOS did? That’s debatable, but even if I accepted the premise, that has nothing to do with the iconic value of Kirk vs. Picard.
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         It’s not that guys swoon over Shatner’s portrayal. But if you insist on casting it in gender terms, then consider this: to geeky teenaged boys (of whom I was one) who are at the mercy of bullies and are too nervous to approach girls, here was this guy who could either kick the crap out of, or make love to, pretty much anything in the galaxy, at his discretion. People can argue over who was the better captain all they wish, but to my generation, Kirk was our Hero.
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      2. You guys convinced me that both Kirk and Picard suck. Congrats.

2. I’m curious, given your comments regarding Star Trek: The “Motionless” Picture…What did you think about the director’s cut released to DVD a little while back? Personally, I felt that this version, with completed special effects and far better pacing, greatly improved what was a pretty lackluster original theatrical experience.

   As for Generations, I recall a renowned critic (Roger Ebert, I think!) noting how this futuristic film with all its futuristic artifacts relies on a creaky, rusty bridge for the climax!

   Oh my!, indeed.

   1. Never saw that version.
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      Do they optically improve upon the fugly uniforms? Because until that version comes out, I don’t think I really wanna sit through it again.
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      1. Alas, the costumes remain pretty ugly. Nonetheless, if you’re curious you may want to give the “director’s cut” a look-see. It is, at least in my opinion, a far better film than the rushed theatrical version.
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         Don’t expect it to rival the best of Trek (whether in movie or TV form), however. There remain flaws, but the overall experience is better.

3. I don’t technically disagree with any of this review, but I actually loved Generations. It’s my second favourite after IV.

4. It’s interesting how you mention, in the first part of your article, how Trek fans were so relentlessly positive about Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Star Trek: Generations despite those films MANY flaws, how much fans wanted to like them. The polar opposite seems to be true now, where a film will get trashed on the internet by the fan community (long before it’s released, and even if it turns out to be quite good and successful); perhaps fans got tired of having to try so hard to like genre movies. Maybe they’re trying to lower their expectations so as not to be dissappointed. Or, maybe they just get a kick out of being negative. Or maybe they’re just “playing the dozens” as it were…

   1. It’s funny you would say that, because I was just involved in another discussion along those lines about fandom’s tendency to have “It’s gonna suck!” as a default reaction, so much so that I’ve started referring to them as Suckers (which explains why it’s become such a prevalent attitude: there’s one born every minute.) The explanation I was provided was, bizarrely, was the contrary of what you just said. That there has been so much high quality genre films put out that fan expectations have been raised to a high degree. So if they see anything–stray photographs, a teaser trailer–that seems to promise anything short of greatness–they start slagging it. The contention that any movie that doesn’t seem like it’s going to be on the par of “Dark Knight” is deserving of condemnation.
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      Curiously, when I trotted out an assortment of pre-DK release fan commentary opining that Heath Ledger was completely miscast and “Dark Knight” was gonna suuuuuuck, that did nothing to deter the mindset.
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      1. One problem being that some films are terrific – THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY for instance – yet not be made with really eye-grabbing trailers in mind. You then hope word-of-mouth makes up for it, which it did. Sometimes, though, the studio has only itself to blame. A lot of fans were less than enthusiastic about the first X-MEN movie thanks to early rumours coming out of the studio that the director had decided to chop back their powers and have them wear guns. Hard not to think it’s going to suck under those conditions. Fortunately the rumours turned out to be wrong, but that still left a lot of negative publicity to overcome.

      2. Yeah, the “it’s gonna suck” attitude definately precedes The Dark Knight. And nowadays, who waits for a trailer or a set photo? I’ve heard people dissing a potential movie as soon as it’s optioned, before there’s a script or a cast, or anything. Every successive announcement just becomes more proof that “it’s gonna suck.”

5. Did Peter David ever write a review of ST: First Contact or ST: Nemesis?

   1. He did one for First Contact which will show up here eventually. I don’t think he reviewed Insurrection or Nemesis, at least not in But I Digress.

      1. Peter may not have reviewed Nemesis, but Chrisopher Priest did (and, in my mind, absolutely *nailed* it). I think you can still find it (and his reboot review) on Priest’s own site)

6. Interesting what you say about Captain John Harriman here. I recall that in one of your own novels, you managed to redeem Harriman by pointing out to the reader what had been going through his mind at that moment. You made it clear that Harriman was on an unprepared ship, trying to do the impossible, and under Kirk’s shadow. Now, when I go back to the movie and see that scene, I always keep your fixes in mind.

   1. Michael, “The Captain’s Daughter” is one of PAD’s criminally-underrated novels. The scene where Janice Rand explains the events of Star Trek III to Demora is nothing short of brilliant.
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      J.

      1. Brilliant? Naw… just ‘should come with a Surgeon General’s warning that it hurts to laugh that much.’

7. The smallness of Kirk’s death was the definitely main thing that irked me about the movie, before I read Peter’s review when it was originally published. I had a “What the Hëll were they thinking?!?” feeling for a long time afterward, wondering why such a true cultural icon wasn’t deemed worthy of having a Blaze of Glory ending. “Wrath of Khan” was one on the few movie experiences where I actually did tear up at the ending, and the death of Kirk should have been at least on that level; instead, it just left a feeling of wastefulness.

   1. I actuialy had no problem with Kirk’s death. Mostly fromthe point of view that we can’t all go out epically.
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      But I do remember thinking of this review during the Angel finale. When Lorne shoots Lindsey (though not in the back) to his utter shock and he shouts, “you don’t kill me, Angel kills me, not some.. flunky..”

      1. Kate and i are re-watching “Angel” on line.
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         We ought to get to the puppet episode today, and quite likely to the finale tomorrow.

      2. Yeah, it’s like the Lawrence of Arabia syndrome. The brilliance of that movie lies in the fact that we’re sitting through all 3 3/4 hours of this epic adventure with the knowledge that Lawrence ultimately just dies in a pointless motorcycle accident (that’s not a spoiler, if anyone hasn’t seen the movie). Sometimes the most meaningless deaths are the most poignant.

      3. But I do remember thinking of this review during the Angel finale. When Lorne shoots Lindsey (though not in the back) to his utter shock and he shouts, “you don’t kill me, Angel kills me, not some.. flunky.
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         I’m not trying to nitpick, but it’s important to note the order of what Lindsey says. He says, “You kill me? A flunky!? You don’t kill me. Angel…kills me…Angel…” The last word from his lips is the name of his greatest opponent.
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         What’s unintentionally sad is that that scene includes some genuine last words: the last on-screen appearance of the late Andy Hallett. They are tragically appropriate: “Good night, folks,” as he turns his back and walks away. Not counting a subsequent voice acting job, Andy was never seen on screen again. Tragic; I met him at several Dragon*Cons, and he was such a sweet guy.
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      4. Sometimes the most meaningless deaths are the most poignant.
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         If meaningless real life deaths as depicted in movies are your thing, then I have to recommend “The Isadora Duncan Story.”
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8. I agree with virtually everything in the review. I’ve never been one to give the Trek movies an easy pass. When I thought they were bad, I’ve said so. That said, I kind of preferred The Motion Picture. I thought that was more “true” to the Trek ethos, than virtually any of the TNG movies.

   1. Of all the movies, I find Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Really, who came up with that subtitle, anyway?), Star Trek: The Voyage Home, and Star Trek: Insurrection to be the best ones – each capturing something very important about the Star Trek franchise. ST:TMP gave us the huge scope, the truly alien, and the mysterious future. ST:TVH gave us the moments of true comedy that came through from time to time in the original series, as well as the bittersweetness that time travel can bring. ST:Insurrection gave us the ethical conflict, an example of the *original* meaning of the Prime Directive, and the fact that no, the Federation really isn’t the most advanced group out there, just probably the nosiest/busybodiest (except maybe the Progenitors).

9. .
   I saw “Wrath” in theaters several times. The story had twists and turns, tension was built effectively and when Spock dies at the end there were grown men crying at each showing I was at.
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   I saw “Generations” once in the theaters. People were generally bored and restless during most of it and, when what should have been an even bigger punch in the gut than the death of just about any other character in the trek universe occurred, Kirk’s death was met with people walking out and muttering to themselves about how stupid the entire setup was. The feeling was more one off annoyance than anything else.
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   It really is amazing to look at that film, a film that was part of a huge franchise and was the kickoff in the series for a group of characters that had developed a strong fan following, and see the many, many ways they made it in to a steaming pile of garbage that most Trek fans I know could care less about one way or another.

   1. It’s entirely possible that there was a much better script to start out with. The problem is that rewrites in the “Trek” office, as near as I can tell, were all about sanding down the edges. I’m reminded of Leo McGarry describing his job in “West Wing” as being hall monitor, making sure that no one ran too fast or went too far. Anything that was original or exciting was typically smoothed out until it was, well, boring.
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      I’m reminded of when I was approached by Pocket to write the first original “Voyager” novel. I read the series bible and got very enthused about it. The premise was really exciting: a starship manned by basically mortal enemies, out in the middle of nowhere, no resources available, and who were constantly plotting with and against each other to either seize or keep control of the vessel. It was like the French Foreign legion in the middle of the ocean, trying to get back to land on a boat filled with pirates.
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      And then I read the scripts and they bore no resemblance to the bible. Every bit of major conflict had vanished. Everything that made it interesting was gone. I wound up passing on the assignment because I was just so disgusted by what the series could have been as opposed to what it was.s
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      1. .
         To a degree, it really doesn’t matter to me how it got there in the end. The fact that the movie I saw in theaters stunk on ice is what mattered to me.
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         It made Picard look like a bigger wuss than just about any of even the worst TV episodes, didn’t seem to have any idea where it was going with half of its plot ideas and it blew one of )what should have been) the great Trek moments of all time.
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         Remember, Malcolm McDowell blew a plot point early on when he gave a quick interview where he declared he would go down in series history as the guy who killed Kirk. It may not have been fair to the movie, but that immediately set up expectations of something epic. People went in to the thing expecting Kirk’s final battle and expecting it to at least try to live up to his history. What we got was a sissy slap fight between Kirk and a villain that most people felt was about as threatening as a toothless dog with two missing legs that ended in a poorly thought out and stupid way.
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         Look, I likes me some bad movies. There’s no way that anyone who has ever read some of the thread that several of us have hijacked and turned into horror movie discussions could ever confuse me with someone who has high standards about what I’ll watch and enjoy. But, dámņ, that movie was bad on so many levels and such a let down given what it was supposed to be.

      2. That answers something I’d been wondering about. When I watched the first episode of Voyager with its main crew, a group of rebels, and one Starfleet officer very close to dismissal, I thought there was going to be a lot more in-fighting, more characters challenging the rules of Starfleet. Interesting to find out that the show wasn’t going to originally be as safe as it proved to be. I eventually stopped watching the Voyager that aired, but would have probably watched every episode of the version where peace was far more precarious.

      3. .
         Yeah, the show became safe in its execution and, when that wasn’t working for them, they decided that they would rather try to boost ratings with 7 of 9’s bra size rather than any real character work. Sadly, it seemed to work out well for them for a while.

      4. Boy, do I hear THAT vis-a-vis the Voyager bible. I never saw the original bible, but I certainly heard about the premise from a lot of different sources. The premise, in my opinion, had enormous potential — and they proceeded to (almost deliberately, IMO) turn their back on virtually all of it. We basically got TNG Season 8 for a while, and nobody was paying attention to the fact that it wasn’t going to work.

      5. Generations always felt that this was first a Picard vs. Kirk type affair and everything else was shoe-horned into place later. Maybe even the writers were patting each other on their backs thinking they hit a homerun… Brent Spiner was the only reason to watch the movie. Even the novelization, if I remember correctly, had scenes in their that could have been useful.

         As for Voyager it had a great premise and beyond that no one cared to think what they could do with it. It’s like they didn’t care because it’s star trek and it’ll be on for 7 seasons no matter what. It would have been cool if they would have toned the technology down – a Lost in Space Robinson Crusoe mix. Have you ever noticed that it rarely pays to be the best and newest starship in the Federation.

      6. I gave up on that series when the bad writing made itself evident with the very first episode, before they had the chance to fritter away the enemies thrown together concept. I’m not a highly trained Starfleet officer yet, while watching the show, real time, no hindsight, I came up with three ways they could have accomplished their goal of denying the Array to the Kaizon(sp?) yet still made it home. For instance, a couple of those tri-cobalt devices beamed onto the Array set on delay timers allowing them to get away. Kaizon might have found one, maybe, but both? Sure it would have ended the series early, but at least it would have made sense. As it is they used sloppy writing to put the characters in an artificially created situation. Feh.

      7. Yeah, what was up with Voyager? They had this great premise, but spent the whole series ignoring the inherent conflict between the characters. Instead, they spent every episode wondering if they “could just squeeze Voyager through that tiny gap!” Oh, and figuring out ways to NOT go home. “Oh, hey, it’s Q, he can send us home by snapping his fingers, and he’s offering to do it, but we don’t want any favors from HIM, we’ll just take the long way home, even though it’ll take decades!” I gave up after that.
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         I did love Roxann Dawson, though.

      8. We basically got TNG Season 8 for a while, and nobody was paying attention to the fact that it wasn’t going to work.
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         Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by “work.” If you mean creatively, yeah, I’m right there with you. On the other hand, the series ran seven seasons. It accomplished what it was supposed to do: keep The Franchise going.
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         That’s the problem. You have a whole bunch of people at Paramount who are operating under one dictate when it comes to Star Trek: Don’t Screw It Up. So instead of trying stuff that’s new and different, the default reaction is to try and stick to what’s worked before. DS9 was arguably different, but was never quite as popular as other “Star Trek” series. I always thought that Kurt Busiek had the best explanation for that. Basically, DS9 was “Gunsmoke.” Now, who was the most interesting guy in Dodge City? Obviously the answer is Matt Dillon, the marshal charged with keeping the peace. Who keeps the peace on DS9? Odo. So who’s Sisko? He’s the mayor. Who gives a dámņ about the mayor of Dodge City?
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      9. Yeah, the show became safe in its execution and, when that wasn’t working for them, they decided that they would rather try to boost ratings with 7 of 9′s bra size rather than any real character work. Sadly, it seemed to work out well for them for a while.
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         My memory of this period (I only watched the show erratically) is that it became more interesting around this time because the Borg were better enemies than the ones they’d been dealing with the first few seasons; it wasn’t just Seven of Nine, though I’m sure she did her part.

      10. Good point about the mayor of Dodge City. Pity that the best thing, to my mind, about VOYAGER is that it spawned one of the best video games in the franchise – STAR TREK VOYAGER: ELITE FORCE where the Vulcan security officer decides that they’re on their own, surrounded by potentially hostile forces, so they need to be prepared. Whereupon he creates a SWAT-like team – of which the player is a part – who are issued all the best toys and told they’re “weapons free”, ie do what it takes, just get the job done. Not very Federation-ish, but made perfect sense in context. If only the series had been more like that. It also doesn’t help that the studio didn’t seem to ‘get’ what had worked well in the original series. 1 – Strong characters who worked well off each other. 2 – Hiring actual, top-notch science fiction writers to do the stories/scripts. TNG had a few good ones (PARALLELS, BEST OF, and a few others) but generally came across more as a soap opera. 3 – A good director who can get things done efficiently. Set up the situation, ratchet up the tension, solve the problem, move on. The best of original series had very little ‘dead time’ (no red shirt comments, please), and in things such as DOOMSDAY MACHINE (my favourite, all time), ULTIMATE COMPUTER, TRIBBLES, CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER, every frame of film was devoted to THE PLOT. No unnecessary scenes – Kirk’s romance of the week, for example – just get the story told. Something the later series weren’t as good with.

      11. We basically got TNG Season 8 for a while, and nobody was paying attention to the fact that it wasn’t going to work.
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          Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by “work.” If you mean creatively, yeah, I’m right there with you. On the other hand, the series ran seven seasons. It accomplished what it was supposed to do: keep The Franchise going.
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          Absolutely agreed. Late in TNG’s run, I was lucky enough to have a quick face-to-face conversation w/ Ron Moore, and he said, “Nobody wants to go down in history as the guy who broke Star Trek.” That was both one of the most honest things I ever heard and one of the most frustrating, for all the reasons previously discussed.

      12. I know Roddenberry had been gone for some time by the time Voyager rolled around, but wasn’t “no inter-crew conflict” one of his hallmarks?

      13. I know Roddenberry had been gone for some time by the time Voyager rolled around, but wasn’t “no inter-crew conflict” one of his hallmarks?
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          It sure was, and it was the worst single contribution to the Trek ethos he’d ever made. Not only was the no-conflict dictate anathema to good drama, but it didn’t even make sense within their own continuity. There was plenty of crew conflict in TOS (find me one episode where McCoy and Spock weren’t at loggerheads) and yet somehow, in the intervening decades, the entirety of humanity turns into the Getalong Gang? C’mon.
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          Gene’s dictate was one against which the writers strove mightily. By all accounts, they hated it. I’m not saying that the moment he was dead the crew should have gone mental. But that edict should have passed with him. In any event, they shouldn’t have come up with a concept so rife with dramatic potential as “Voyager” and then waste it.
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          PAD

      14. Wouldn’t “No inter-crew conflict” meant pretty much just the actual armed fights and such? I never saw the Bones/Spock stuff as conflict, it was more of a game they played. Besides, these people were supposed to be professionals. Other than the occasional discipline problem, it’s not like we see crew-on-crew battles raging across the Nimitz in real life. Crew-on-crew fighting just seems like a cheap way to create tension.

   2. One of my favourite comments on both Generations specifically, and the odd/even dichotomy in general…

      1. Heh. Very nice.
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         I persistently claimed for about a year that ST5 never existed. About eleven months in, one of my apartmentmates decided to test my resolve by bringing a friend over to watch it.
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         I came home, saw them watching it, and said, “Why are you both sitting around watching a test pattern?” Hilarity, as they say, ensued.

10. I’ve never understood why Generations wasn’t a full blown x-over with the original crew. A crisis so big it needed both crews would have attracted even casual sci-fi moviegoers almost for sure.
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    I actually think the shooting in the back could have worked, but it would have been in the, er, execution. Imagine this: Soran shoots Kirk in the back with a look of cruel glee on his face, a la Alex in A Clockwork Orange. Picard, enraged that such a great man in Starfleet history, perhaps *the* greatest was killed that way, uncharacteristically loses it and proceeds to beat Soren to near death, only regaining his composure just before a blow would have been fatal. He says, “No, not this way.” Maybe Soren still dies later and maybe Picard kills him, but in a way that’s more within Picard’s usual style.

    1. I actually think the shooting in the back could have worked,
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       Only if the shooter was Uncle Fester.
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       1. …And If he was yelling, “Give me Genesis!!!”

          M

       2. …And If he was yelling, “Give me Genesis!!!”
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          Wrong Uncle Fester.
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          PAD

       3. “Inna back!”

11. I recently watched “Generations” with the Ron Moore/Brannon Braga commentary track running. It was fairly refreshing to see them aware of and acknowledging the story’s shortcomings. At one point, they said something to the effect that they were so preoccupied with going about some of the studio-enforced story beats (such as Kirk’s death) in an unexpected way that doing them in an entertaining way got lost in the shuffle. As much as I disliked Braga’s imprint (along with Berman’s) on Star Trek over the years, I had to give him credit for owning his part in the movie’s shortcomings.
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    –Daryl

12. I’d argued a few years before Generations came out that Kirk’s death really should have been at the climax of ST6 — go out saving the Federation president and essentially creating the Fed/Klingon treaty. It matches the “there shall be no peace as long as Kirk lives!” claim, it gives a certain resonance to his and Spock’s discussion about history passing them by, and it certainly gives him a blaze-of-glory ending.
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    I do like Andy’s idea about how to make the shot-in-the-back ending work, though.

13. I love Generations. It’s actually my favorite Trek movie next to the fourth one. There are so many great moments: Riker’s “Fire!”, the beautiful shot of Soren standing on the platform as the Ribbon approaches, pretty much every line that Data has…
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    I also like the first movie. “No escaping the fact that it was a Very Bad Movie”? Not at all. It’s much more interesting and better made than any episode of the TV show that I’ve seen.

    1. You pretty much described the major criticism of the first movie. It feels like an episode of the series stretched out to feature length and with better production values. It doesn’t feel like a movie.

       1. That’s how I felt about Nemesis. And Insurrection, to a lesser extent. Not so much the first movie, though. It has a very different feel than the TV show. It actually reminds me more of a cross between The Black Hole and 2001, with a cinematic quality typical of that era.

       2. IMO, all of the TNG films felt like two-part TV stories to some degree or other, but much more so with with Insurrection and Nemesis.
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          Of the four, Insurrection was the only one I didn’t see in theaters, and I’ve still only seen it once. Nemesis I just hated. Generations and First Contact I liked, but they all suffer for trying to cram a TV show into a film format; only a couple of characters ever get any attention, the rest are put aside.
          .
          In the end, TNG really deserved better on the big screen.

14. I liked the movie, though it was quite flawed, and I did agree with most of the critique (especially in regard to Kirk’s demise). I do love Malcolm McDowell in pretty much anything, including this.

    Captain’s Daughter is possibly my favorite Star Trek novel of yours, especially because of Harriman’s redemption. I would have loved to read more stories about him after that.

    1. I can’t remember if they did a Harriman story in that “Captain’s Table” anthology that came out a few years ago, or not. I do know they did one for Demora Sulu, who apparently succeeded Harriman as captain of the Enterprise-B at some point.
       .
       I could forgive Generations’ other flaws, if Kirk’s death weren’t so lame.

       1. There wasn’t a Harriman story in the “Captain’s Table” series of books…Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Calhoun (!!!!) and Pike, but no Harriman.
          .
          However, PAD did have a Harriman short in the “Enterprise Logs” anthology book.
          .
          –Daryl

       2. Yeah, I was talking about the short story anthology they did around 2005 or so. Shelby, Archer, Riker, Demora Sulu, and Kira all got stories, but I couldn’t remember if Harriman had one or not.

    2. IDW gave him an issue in their Captain’s Log series of one-shots.

       1. And he had a book in the “Lost Years” series, in which I believe he actually came across as rather competent.

15. One of the things which bugged me most about Generations was Kirk’s fantasy in the Nexus. I never remembered anything about Kirk liking horses, that was a Shatner thing. I thought they missed a fantastic opportunity to get Joan Collins to reprise Edith Keeler.

    1. I remember seeing a Joan Collins statement about that episode. Time, it seems, has not been good to Joan’s memory. She said she played “Hitler’s girlfriend or something” in the episode.

       I doubt she’d have any interest in reprising the role.

       1. “Hey, Joan, it’s your agent. Paramount called. They want to pay you $100,000 for two days work on the next Star Trek movie reprising some guest part from the old TV series.”
          .
          “Outstanding. I’m in.”
          .
          “Good, I’ll send over the pages and a video of your previous appearance.”
          .
          She’s an actress in her sixties and casting directors aren’t beating down her door. She’d have done it.
          .
          PAD

16. To my mind, there are two big problems with Generations. The first is the production. No sooner do they wrap the series than they start the movie prep with the same people. Stories that would work for an hour with commercial breaks can’t/shouldn’t/aren’t able to be expanded out to two hours. Writing for TV and writing for the big screen are different because writing for TV you’re writing for people in their living rooms. Movies, even bad ones, are seen in a theater. It’s an Event. People have to wear something other than their jammies. This movie lacked any sense of epic feel. It felt like a TV episode with delusions of grandeur.
    .
    The second is the ensemble nature that Trek had developed. Original series, you have Kirk, Spock, McCoy. Activity tempered by logic and passion. With the Next Gen movies, there are too many B-stories, too many faces that don’t move the tale forward looking to get a piece of tale. In what could be a gourmet feast between Picard and Soran de Large, you get a Minestrone with Data’s chip, Picard’s family, a bunch of characters who are kinda just there, with some reused effects sequences from the movie immediately preceeding it. Some things too quick, some things too long, and not especially well glued together.
    .
    Although, my best friend turning to me at the beginning and intoning in a Cameronesque “Jim Kirk, you’re my hero” did a lot to redeem the movie.

    1. With the Next Gen movies, there are too many B-stories, too many faces that don’t move the tale forward looking to get a piece of tale.
       .
       See, this is where I disagree. Only on one note, and that was First Contact, which is the only NG movie that I like.
       .
       But it was modeled off of my favorite of the films which was The Voyage Home. Time Travel, and give everyone something to do. Mind you, they didn’t get a lot to do, but there were significant scenes with the main players.
       .
       Sides that, I gave up on Trek until the reboot. Firefly was more my style.
       .
       TAC

       1. Sides that, I gave up on Trek until the reboot. Firefly was more my style.
          .
          To this day I maintain that if the show had been called “Star Trek: Firefly” it would have run seven seasons. Imagine the creative nerve it would have taken to do the show from the POV of some independent operators doing smuggling operations and trying to stay one step ahead of Starfleet which is presented here as being a bunch of omnipresent prìçkš.
          .
          PAD

17. Geordi knows that Data out ranks Crusher. Therefore, she can’t take it out on Data. But if Geordi laughs, she out ranks him. So…he’s sucking up. lol

    1. He’s got a lower rank than she does, but a higher post, so it’s a little messed up. He’s the only character who goes the entire fifteen years without being either offered or given a promotion too.

       1. Nah, Crado…Geordi started off at a Lieutenant JG, then got a boot to full Lieutenant at the start of season 2, then Lt. Commander for season 3 on, with a final promotion to Commander at the end of Nemesis.
          .
          Now, poor Harry Kim from Voyager…not only did he NEVER get promoted beyond Ensign during the full seven year run of Voyager, but he remained at Ensign while Tom Paris – a convicted criminal who’d been discharged, received a full commission to Lieutenant, got demoted to Ensign, then re-promoted back to Lieutenant.
          .
          –Daryl

       2. Hmm, a ‘k’ seems to have drifted off there…
          –
          Also, for some reason, I thought you meant Data. He’s the one who was perpetually stuck. So that’s a double fail in my post. Move along. Nothing to see…

18. I was never really a fan of STAR TREK. I watched a few of the movies and TV shows more because that is what’s expected of a sci-fi fan than out of any real love. And, with time, I started to like it even less, even becoming something of a hater.
    .
    And PAD is right. This movie sucks. It sucks big time. The way Kirk was killed off in a very undignified manner is a cause of gleeful derision for those of us that dislike Trek.
    .
    (And I must say that I’m confused by the hatred for the MOTION PICTURE. Sure it was boring and non-threatening and sentimental. But I do think a lot of the TV series was exactly like that. I’d assume that if you’d like one of them, you’d like both of them)

    1. Expectations are different for a TV series episode and a movie, and when you make something twice as long you also don’t want to make it dull.

19. Moore and Braga’s commentary realy helped me accept Generations. They knew they were in over their heads. It helps that Moore went on to make DS9 (Kirk or Picard? Sisko!) and BSG. We know he has authority now when it comes to sci-fi so we can watch the movie and go, “He wasn’t completely out of his mind.”
    .
    Kirk should have died alone on the deck of a ship, perhaps watching a V-Jer style “awakening” first hand. I say this for a few reasons. First, the only good part of Star Trek V (I think it’s V) is when Kirk reveals that he believes that he’d die alone.

    Secondly, some kind of vague, celestial explosion consuming the Enterprise (Maybe he’s on the battle bridge as everyone else is carried to safety?) would allow Kirk to look into his fate and more accurately convey the original meaning behind “Oh my.” It was supposed to mean that he’d seen something in the distance. Thus, even in the after life Kirk can continue to be an explorer.

    Finally, by the time Generations rolled around nobody was really a match for Kirk. Khan was dead and he was the last real villain that bothered him. In Star Trek III the villain only survives due to Kirk’s handicaps and in Star Trek VI Kirk simply doesn’t know WHO the enemy is (and of course, the real enemy is his won prejudice). That’s different from being in direct, constant opposition with someone like Khan.

    This essentially means that Kirk would have to be killed by the scenery (or plot, if you will). This is a pretty terrible example, but characters portrayed by popular action movie stars will die in this manner. Nobody will buy that Bruce Willis is going to die to a lesser named actor. To kill Bruce Willis he needs to die by blowing up an asteroid.

    Yes, I just cited Armageddon as an example of how to do something properly. That is only to show how bad Kirk’s death was.

    1. Save that Moore’s “authority” with respect to sf went away again with BSG’s conclusion, as well as the revelation they were going so far in making it up as they went along that they had no idea who the Final Five were going to be when they introduced the concept. And the Cylons never made any sense almost from the get-go. And I write that both as a former AI researcher and someone who ended up saying “So, ‘They have a plan’. At this point, given all the contradictions and turn arounds, they must have gone through Plans A through Q and be on Plan R or so.”

       1. My wife’s version was, “And they had a Plan. But that Plan didn’t work out as well as they’d hoped, so they came up with another Plan. That one failed, too. Now they’re just Winging It.”

20. Finally, you review a movie that I’ve both seen and remember! (I’ve seen “The Crow.” I don’t, however, remember it. I don’t think I’ve seen any other movie you’ve reviewed so far…)
    .
    One of my friends and I *still* make jokes about something being ready Tuesday. And we’re still trying to figure out how there wasn’t any other ship in the solar system – y’know, ships with all their parts and equipment. The home of the UFP. The home of Starfleet. And there’s NO OTHER SHIP around? Most of the movies, they at least try to explain it – they’re out in the back-end of nowhere, the other ships have all been damaged/destroyed in battle, etc. Hëll, even in TMP, at least they technically had a full complement and all their equipment when they were inexplicably the only ship in the area.
    .
    I always put the Scotty continuity error down to getting some braincells scrambled. 70-odd years in a transporter buffer is bound to have some negative side effects.
    .
    I kinda liked Kirk’s “Oh my.” His entire death was rather anticlimactic… so should his last words be, if only to fit. Besides, how easy is it to come up with decent last words when you’re lying there inches from death’s door?
    .
    Just think: The entire movie could’ve been avoided if Picard had simply decided to come out of the Nexus a few years earlier, stolen a shuttlecraft, found Soren, and piloted it into it. Then hopped back out of the Nexus shortly after he first went in. Or heck, just given Soren the shuttle and then gone on an archeological dig under an assumed name.
    .
    I also think that when they were poking around the Enterprise’s debris, and Riker said “I always thought I’d have that chair someday,” Picard should’ve picked it up and given it to him. Or had Data in the scene and done it, still working on his humor.
    .
    Lifeforms… tiny little lifeforms… you precious little lifeforms… where are you?

    1. If you’re referring to the first TREK movie when you write about no other ships, the editing floor wasn’t kind to that part. The reason this was said is that the refurbished Enterprise was now the only Starfleet vessel fast enough to be able to meet the incoming threat far enough away to maybe be able to do something before it got too close to Earth. A stretch, I’ll grant, but it still makes more sense than saying they were the only ship around. Unfortunately, unlike the novel, the film doesn’t make it clear.

21. “(It is amusing to see, though, that centuries from now, journalists will still be asking those same moronic “How do you feel” questions.)”

    That’s nothing: If DC Comics’ D.C. 1 MILLION is accurate, hundreds of thousands of years in the future, there *still* won’t be new heroes, just new versions of Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, etc. But anyway…

    Flaws and all, I *liked* GENERATIONS and still do. Yes, it helps that I know the backgrounds already, and yes, the use of time travel is flawed (instead of just stopping Soran, why wouldn’t Picard go back further and save his family? it’s not like he was concerned about screwing with the timeline), but it provided a nice bridge between the original series and TNG.

    As for Kirk’s death, I thought it worked. I never liked Kirk: He was the arrogant guy who broke whatever rules he wanted, was somehow a whiz at both physical combat and starship tactics (any other TREK characters master security, then go on to master captain’s training), had almost as many one-night stands as James Bond, and somehow outfought or outbluffed every opponent there was. (As they have Kirk saying on the online Demotivational poster, “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.”) By the time of GENERATIONS, he was a living legend, but also over the hill. He wasn’t punching Klingons or exploring uncharted space, but used for P.R. stunts and photo ops. So when he has one more fight, one chance to save the planet and the ship, it’s his last hurrah, his final battle. It’s not as epic as a massive starship fight or as long as Spock’s death scene, but it felt fitting. Kirk “died” originally saving the Enterprise-B, and he died (for realsies!) again on a bridge, sacrificing himself for the new captain and the planet.

    1. hundreds of thousands of years in the future, there *still* won’t be new heroes, just new versions of Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, etc.

       PAD’s contribution to DC One Million (Supergirl) was one of the best … and not at all like that.

22. I have always been horribly disappointed in Generations. There’s the plot holes, the time shenanigans, the poor showing of everyone bar Kirk in the 23rd century sequence, the reused footage, Picard’s family, all that. However, there were two things that I hate most of all.
    –
    One is Kirk’s death. He is probably my favourite character of all time, the especially the movie version. His last words I liked, and his refusal to give up, but the actual means and methods were terrible. He wasn’t standing firm in face of death, or thinking his way through a problem, but falling off a bridge accomplishing nothing.
    –
    The second is the destruction of the Enterprise. Not the actual blowing up of the ship, but again, the means and methods. Riker, my favourite TNG character, a character who is both constantly praised for his tactical genius, but ably demonstrates it on multiple occasions in the show, generally has a willingness to take action against an enemy. A single outdated Klingon attack ship against the best Starfleet has to offer? Col. Caldwell’s line in an episode of Atlantis comes to mind; “Major, please make that ship go away.” Instead, Riker sits there and takes it. Dreadful.
    –
    I will say, though, that Data pushing Crusher off the Enterprise was hilarious. She was practically begging for him to push her.

    1. The second is the destruction of the Enterprise. Not the actual blowing up of the ship, but again, the means and methods. Riker, my favourite TNG character, a character who is both constantly praised for his tactical genius, but ably demonstrates it on multiple occasions in the show, generally has a willingness to take action against an enemy. A single outdated Klingon attack ship against the best Starfleet has to offer? Col. Caldwell’s line in an episode of Atlantis comes to mind; “Major, please make that ship go away.” Instead, Riker sits there and takes it. Dreadful.
       .
       My big problem there is this:
       So, the Duras sisters are able to get through the Enterprise’s shields because they were able to match their frequency. But, what’s standard operating procedure for fighting the Borg, since they do the same trick regularly? Frequently changing the ship’s shield frequency. The Enterprise should’ve only taken a single hit.
       .
       (And, why in the world did they have to “evacuate” Sick Bay from the protected center of the saucer section and put the patients in crew quarters with exterior viewports?)
       .
       –Daryl

       1. I seem to remember it being mentioned at one point that Nutational shields were ‘standard’ rather than something they only brought out when fighting the Borg, but either way, yes, that was stupid. And it was only one of the issues I have with the fight.

23. Peter David: and the Excelsior ships are—bar none—the most butt-ugly vessels in the Trek universe.
    Luigi Novi: Uh-uh, no way. The Oberth-class ships hold that distinction.
    .
    And in what way did this have anything to do with why we hadn’t seen it before? We knew it was a Excelsior-class ship from the getgo, since the model on the back of the Observation Lounge wall indicated this, as did the reference books. We simply never saw it because a story never came up with it.

    Peter David: Even less impressive is the ship’s captain on its maiden voyage, Captain Harriman…Ruck’s Harriman quickly turns to Kirk and asks him what to do.
    Luigi Novi: In the shot of Harriman ordering his crew to have other ships take care of the El Aurians because the Enterprise is not equipped, I always flash back to Cameron in his little car in the beginning of Ferris Bueller’s in which he contemplate not going to Ferris’s house, but then argues with himself, saying, “He’s gonna call…He’s gonna call…Okay, I’ll go, I’ll go…”
    .
    Peter David: Peter David…mourns the loss of the teddy bear who was dropped by the little girl shortly before the Enterprise went kaboom.
    Luigi Novi: It’s okay, Peter. I think I saw it floating around this space station on another network somewhere…

24. We almost all agree that Shatner’s portrayal of Kirk became a standard for any fictional starship captain (karate chopping, alien shagging, risk taking, etc.) that came later. Star Trek Generations, for me, was ironic because after years where Star Trek:TNG made such a concentrated effort to get away from that ‘kind’ of captain (which did have faults and became a source of parody – when scrutinized) as the movie played out, the contrast between Picard and Kirk – as PAD noted – was extremely evident. You simply can’t be faulted for WANTING to be a captain (i.e., hero) more like Kirk.

    What made me shake my head was Picard’s ‘action man’ turn in Star Trek: First Contact acting – well, ALMOST, Kirk-like (even down to showing his ‘guns’ – which for a man his age, gotta give it to Sir Patrick – dude was, still is, in great shape!)

    Oh, and I claim “diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks” because I like (in the following order): Enterprise-B (Excelsior-Class), Enterprise-E (Sovereign-Class) then Enterprise (no bloody A, B, C, D or E) but Constitution (re-fit).

    1. I’ve always been amused by the Kirk/Picard dispute. The whole “Who’s the better captain?” debate.
       .
       I think it comes down to, What needs to be accomplished? If you need someone to negotiate with the enemy in a patronizing tone, you want Picard. If you need someone to thoroughly kick the enemy’s ášš, you want Kirk.
       .
       PAD

       1. If you need a god-like super-computer destroyed, get Kirk to talk to it for five minutes. Thirty if Harry Mudd is cramping his style…

       2. And if you want someone who can both thoroughly kick ášš *and* use words to bring about peace (in a less patronizing tone), go with SISKO!

          I should add that PAD’s/Kurt Busiek’s description of Sisko as the mayor on “Gunsmoke” is really selling the Sisko character, and the DS9 series in general, short. By the time we got to the show’s third season, the “Gunsmoke” analogy really didn’t apply anymore.

          It wasn’t a perfect show, none of the Treks were, but for most of its run it was the best, most daring, and fully realized of all of the Trek series.

          I wouldn’t say that it was less popular than the others either. No, it wasn’t a big as TNG was. But it still ran for seven seasons, and the show has gone on to be highly regarded by many Trek fans. Certainly more acclaimed than either Voyager or Enterprise are.

       3. So let me understand this, Shaun. You feel that a series description–which Kurt said in 1994–and that I quoted in 1995–was not fair to the series as it developed in 1996? Is that your position?
          .
          PAD

25. The biggest problem with Generations was it had Kirk in it at all. Couldn’t/can’t stand him and this was the movie for “my” Star Trek cast that I grew up with. He wasn’t on NextGen and he didn’t belong in their movie. Sorry to the Kirk lovers – but very much not a fan.

    On a side note LOVE your books, especially New Fronter. I think you may have been my favourite author back in third grade when I used to sign out piles of Trek novels from the library 🙂 Thanks

26. You know, I think nitpicking is underrated–especially in SF. To me, the more fantastic some plot elements are, the more grounded in reality the mundane elements have to be. (Forgive this tangent, but the reason I didn’t like Inception was I didn’t buy the character of the team’s client for a minute. He wants to destroy his main business competitor for purely altruistic reasons, and he can also make an arrest warrent and a murder charge instantly disappear with one phone call. Now, if the guy had instead been some kind of government operative…)

    I can give Scotty’s line from Relics a pass, but there were other things that could have been easily avoided. Who thought it was a good idea to include a line about a shuttle being full of refugees of a Borg attack? People in Kirk’s time knew about the Borg? Why the hëll was Picard so surprised, then? (Of course, as PAD correctly points out, Picard is apparently not as bright as Bill and Ted are.) Can’t get all the main actors from the original Trek to agree to do cameos in the opening scenes? No need for rewrites, just have Scotty do what Spock was supposed to do and have Checkov suddenly be a medical officer. Stuff like this tells me that They. Didn’t. Care. Even. One. Tiny. Bit.

    I don’t really have a problem with Kirk’s death, though. Given how many times Kirk’s cheated death over the years, I think the only reaction he could have had would be along the lines of “Woah, didn’t see THAT one coming!”

27. As someone once wrote, “Perhaps I’m different”. Because while I admit the first TREK movie was, at best, mediocre TREK – a rehash of the CHANGELING episode where they go inside Nomad instead of beaming Nomad inside the Enterprise. But, to my mind it was good space opera, maybe even had some elements of good science fiction. One of my all-time favourite cinematic sequence is the one a lot of fans disliked in this film. Enterprise going through V’Ger’s powerfield ‘cloud’ followed by the flyover along V’Ger’s length. To my mind the first frighteningly powerful display of a truly alien ship on film.

28. The one thing in PAD’s review is the praise for the lighting. One of the things that bugs me the most when I watch the movie is that it looks like Starfleet couldn’t afford enough light bulbs for the ship. It’s different from lighting the TV version, sure, but that doesn’t make it good.

    1. If only it were the only film to suffer from this problem. I recall ladyfriend at the time, a Herbert completist, commenting after we’d seen the original DUNE movie that “these guys have interstellar travel, personal force fields, yet they can’t afford light bulbs for their buildings?”

29. One thing (ONE thing??) that bugged me about ‘Generations’ was the expectation that maybe, just MAYBE we’d get more insight into Guinan’s character or her race. El Aurians, “The Listeners”, “The people who can hold off Q by making Dr. Strange hand gestures”, whatever you want to call them. But no… Another teased idea vanished down a plot hole.

    1. Someone should do a fan version of “The View” populated entirely by a round table of characters who are billed either as Listeners or Watchers. You’d have Rupert Giles (Buffy’s Watcher), Joe Dawson (Duncan’s Watcher from “Highlander”), the Watcher from Marvel Comics, and Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg, who’d be perfectly at home in a “View” set up.) Maybe even Frasier Crane, whose tag line was, “I’m listening.”
       .
       PAD

       1. But you also need at least one person who’d speak. Locutus seems appropriate somehow.

       2. For weekly guests, they could have those nigh-omnipotent aliens who always put a ship in a near-impossible situation to see how the crew responds. (“Well, after we conquered death and mastered needlepoint things got pretty dull. So we decided to grab the Enterprise, put it in a region of space with no stars and apparently no escape, and see what happened next.”)

       3. Ages and ages ago, I was involved in a fan “tournament” on a message board where you picked some characters and wrote a scenario where they fought the other guy’s characters. One of my characters was Spider-Man, and at the point where an omnipotent, disembodied voice intones the setup, I had him say, “What, *again*? Don’t you people have anything better to do?”

30. “Oh my…!” I knew the line in Paul said by Simon Pegg was referencing something…I haven’t slept for weeks thinking I had lost my geek credentials, thatnk you for letting me hold on them!!

31. Here’s an ending to “Generations” that wound up on the cutting room floor.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOQL3fbRCmE&NR=1

32. I’m surprised one of my pet peeves from this movie wasn’t mentioned.
    .
    Would it have been such a big deal for them to do a new Bird of Prey explosion? Did they really have to reuse the one from Trek VI?
    .
    I know it seems like a small thing, but it completely threw me out of the movie. Of course, the movie really hadn’t engrossed me much by that point, but it sure didn’t help any.

    1. They used it again in the last episode of DS9. I once saw the last 3 seasons of DS9 in a 2 week period and in the last season(specially the 1st hour of the last episode0 they reuse a lot of footage from earlier episodes.

33. PAD said, “I’m reminded of when I was approached by Pocket to write the first original “Voyager” novel. I read the series bible and got very enthused about it. The premise was really exciting: a starship manned by basically mortal enemies, out in the middle of nowhere, no resources available, and who were constantly plotting with and against each other to either seize or keep control of the vessel. It was like the French Foreign legion in the middle of the ocean, trying to get back to land on a boat filled with pirates.
    .
    “And then I read the scripts and they bore no resemblance to the bible. Every bit of major conflict had vanished.”
    .
    I’ve said this before about Voyager, but in light of PAD’s and others’ comments, I think it bears repeating:
    .
    The show was flawed from the start, and almost from day one, I’d use the following analogy: Imagine that during the battle between the U.S.S. Monitor and the C.S.S. Virginia (nee the Merrimac) in the American Civil War, both vessels are somehow transported to the waters off of Fiji. One ship is damaged beyond repair; the other is still seaworthy, but will have to limp home at less than full speed.
    .
    Until or unless they get back home, which I imagine would take at least a year, assuming they knew where they were, the war is essentially over for these people. Who in Fiji in 1862 knew or cared about the American Civil War? Probably no one, just as no one in the Delta Quadrant would likely care about the political disagreements between the Federation and the Maquis.
    .
    Also, if the surviving crew of the hypothetical destroyed ship tried to take over the surviving ship, what then? There are still only two real choices: Make a new home where you are, or make the long, slow journey back to the U.S.
    .
    The men and women aboard Voyager were in a quadrant of the galaxy where no one gave a dámņ about Federation/Maquis squabbles, and no matter which crew won a battle for control, it’s still a long journey home. So right away, the show’s very concept undercut a great deal of the dramatic tension in having the Federation and Maquis crews at loggerheads. That’s probably one reason stories centering around that conflict were soon dropped; and to all appearances the crew of Voyager was one crew, not an amalgam of two.
    .
    Though, if Janeway really wanted them to be one crew, why did the Maquis wear different style pips than Federation officers on their uniforms?
    .
    Now, if Voyager had been a mini-series rather than an ongoing series, the Federation/Maquis conflict in the Delta Quadrant might have worked, since you couldn’t assume that, for example, Janeway would survive just because she’s the central character. In fact, I recall there was one early episode where someone tried to convince the Doctor that he was not a hologram, and was in fact running a holographic simulation program about what would happen if Federation and Marquis personnel had to work in close quarters in stressful situations. That could have been an interesting idea for a Trek-related mini-series, a variation of sorts on the Kobayashi Maru tests.
    .
    To my way of thinking the “conflict between two disparate groups” type of story only really works if A) they’re in a location where people are aware of and have opinions about which side is right in said conflict, and thus get involved in it; B) you’re dealing with a short story or a TV mini-series, with no guarantee as to how things will work out; or C) you have a very small group of people, so that the conflict is on a much more personal level. Davidge and the Drac in Enemy Mine are stranded on a planet away from the fighting between their species. Their conflict is one-on-one. Janeway’s crew Vs. Chakotay’s crew? Too many characters to get invested in, especially when there’s nothing for them to fight about out there, and no one out there cares about their fight to begin with.
    .
    Not only does Janeway’s having the Maquis officers wear different style pips make no sense when the whole idea is to make them one crew, some of her dealings with Seven of Nine (or as she’s been referred to in some circles, 44 of D) also make no sense. I speak, of course, of Seven’s wardrobe. No, Seven wouldn’t have a Starfleet uniform since she’s not Starfleet (all the Maquis officers were Starfleet at one time, as I recall); but there’s no rational reason within the show’s narrative that Janeway would give this woman skin tight clothes and high heels to wear– an outfit no one else on board the ship wore.
    .
    “Here, Seven, let me help you reconnect with humanity by having you stand apart from everyone else aboard the ship.” That implied sentiment doesn’t seem to fit Janeway’s character. Seven of Nine’s outfit was obviously an edict from the producers and/or UPN, with no thought given to having it make sense within the fictional narrative of the show. At least on the original series all the female officers wore the miniskirt uniforms, not just one character.
    .
    But then a lot of things about Voyager didn’t make sense.
    .
    Some years back, I wrote a “conversation” between Seven and Janeway in which Seven asks about her unique wardrobe. I’ll have to dig it up some time.
    .
    PAD also said (comparing Generations to Wrath of Khan, “And let’s consider that sacrifice a moment. Spock resolutely sacrifices his life to save his captain, his ship—everything that is important to him.”
    .
    I believe David Gerrold argued in a column in Starlog that Spock didn’t sacrifice himself, because he would have died anyway. I’d have to agree with that. Spock was a goner, no matter what.
    .
    On the other hand, I do believe that it was in character for him to go down to the engine room and get the ship out of danger, so everyone else could live. As PAD said, there is a a certain “rightness” about his fate, and his last words (“I am, and always shall be, your friend. Live long, and prosper.”)
    .
    As to Kirk’s “Oh my”, I didn’t have a problem with it. You can read a lot into those two words. What is Kirk oh mying about? Maybe he did realize he left the oven on. Or maybe he got a glimpse into the afterlife. Who knows? Other than the script writers, I mean.
    .
    I suppose it would have been ironic if Kirk’s last words had been something like “take care of the Enterprise”, given that Picard’s Enterprise had just crash landed.
    .
    I’m not sure if I’d heard of Captain’s Daughter before (I stopped reading Trek novels some years ago), but based on comments on this thread, I just ordered a copy from the library.
    .
    Rick

    1. Maquis pips were a different style because they reflected field promotions rather than promotions approved by the Starfleet Command bureaucracy.

       Similarly, Wesley Crusher’s promotion from his grey student uniform to a red command uniform included a field promotion from Acting Ensign to full Ensign, which he gave up when he became a midshipman at Starfleet Academy.

    2. The first, silver uniform for Seven of Nine was explained away as having replacement circuitry which she still needed as she reduced her dependence on Borg implants. My understanding is that Jeri Ryan found it almost as uncomfortable as full Borg make-up, so it was technobabbled that later on she had shed even further her dependence on replacement circuitry, so she could wear a quasi-uniform closer in color and style to what others on the ship were wearing. Her status in the crew was apparently Captain’s Pet Project, as she sometimes exercised command authority, especially as the series progressed, even though she never wore any rank insignia.

34. My 3 favorite moments of Generations are provided by Data:
    1. His reaction when the Bird of Pray is destroyed: YES!!
    2. His reaction when the saucer section of the enterprise is falling to the planet: Oh $#!+
    3. His song and the reaction of the crew: Life forms, you tiny little life forms. You precious little life forms. Where are you?

    This was the 1st Star Trek movie I saw on the big screen so it will always hold a special place in my memory for that. I think it was the last time I went to the movies with my brother and sister at the same time (we all live in different states now). I remember been spoiled about Kirk’s dead because of the movie being released in Puerto Rico 6 days after the US release.
    .
    About the quality of the villan I’ll just say that it felt as if the writers thought that having a guy destroy whole solar systems instead of a planet was enough to make him a badass.
    .
    One scene that always bother me. When Soran send his rocket/missile/whatever to the sun. It was going up really slowly and then sudenlly it hits the sun almost instantly. Did it go to warp speed as soon as it cleared the atmosphere of the planet?
    .
    I remember and interview with the actresses that played the klingon sisters where they said they were really happy when they told them their characters were going to be in the movie. Then they realized that if they were in the movie they will probably going to kill them off.

35. My 3 favorite moments of Generations are provided by Data:
    1. His reaction when the Bird of Pray is destroyed: YES!!
    .
    I always get a chuckle out of the extra standing behind him who very subtly attempts to steal Brent Spiner’s thunder by doing the same fist pump, just very subdued, a few moments before Data’s.
    .
    –Daryl

36. The reason for the designs of the “pregnant guppy” Excelsior-class large starships and the Oberth-class science vessels (U.S.S. Grissom) is ultimately due to one person.

    You may remember that both designs first appeared in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Leonard Nimoy directed, and as the Director, Mr. Nimoy had final approval over all ship designs used in the movie. I don’t know what other designs might have been offered by the Art Department, but it was he who picked these two.

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