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Warning: This review contains spoilers.

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Star Trek: Generations

PG, 117 minutes
Released: 11/18/1994 (USA)
Screenplay Ronald D. Moore & Brannon Braga
Story by Rick Berman & Ronald D. Moore & Brannon Braga
Produced by Rick Berman
Directed by David Carson

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
Rating out of 4: **1/2
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When "Star Trek: Generations" was released in late 1994, Star Trek was at 
the height of its popularity. The Next Generation had wrapped its television 
run the previous May, still very highly rated. Deep Space Nine was on the 
air. Voyager was in production, less than two months from premiering. Sci-fi 
magazines were devoting half their issues to do season retrospectives of TNG 
and DS9. Trek was even on the cover of Time magazine.

It was the pop-cultural apex of Star Trek, and Generations was the 
punctuation mark for that moment, where Captain Kirk would famously meet 
Captain Picard. On opening weekend, there were sellout crowds. (There were 
no sellout crowds -- or even close -- a couple years ago for a "Star Trek: 
Nemesis" premiere.)

I was more in anticipation for "Generations" than any movie that year -- a 
year that, ironically, would end up releasing what would become two of my 
(and probably many people's) all-time favorite films (Pulp Fiction and The 
Shawshank Redemption). Strange what a decade can do. Even stranger that it's 
actually been that long.

Not even the problems with "Generations" really detracted from the 
atmosphere that the film enjoyed during its release. The film itself is 
actually very ordinary -- a hit-and-miss affair that does some things right 
and some things wrong. Maybe the best way to summarize it is that it gets an 
A for theoretical ambition but a C for actual execution. Sounds like my 
freshman year of college, also starting in 1994. The C part, anyway.

One thing you're forced to face with the opening sequence aboard the 
Enterprise-B is that bringing back original crew members -- after a 
perfectly satisfactory sendoff at the end of "Star Trek VI" -- is a 
double-edged sword. Sure, it sounds great in concept, but does it actually 
work beyond what it needs to do to set up the end of the movie? It's been 
said that the original intention was to also bring back Spock and McCoy, but 
because the actors said no, the screenwriters went with the trio of Kirk, 
Scotty, and Chekov. Does it service anyone but Kirk to abandon these 
characters  barely a third of the way into the first act of the film?

The opening sequence -- while, again, reasonable in concept -- plays like 
something of a compromise. I don't know what it is about the TNG era of 
humor, but something about it in the movies always felt a little forced (not 
like the unforced nature in many of the TOS films), and here the TNG humor 
ailment seems to carry over to the TOS characters: As Kirk and Scotty trade 
one-liners, something about the proceedings feels vaguely frail.

The Enterprise-B was the only one of the Enterprises we hadn't seen in a 
story leading up to "Generations," so it seems natural to bridge that 
Trek-history gap in a film that, in essence, is all about bridging 
generation gaps. Yes, "Generations" is without a doubt the literal 
torch-passing affair that it promised to be. It's just that it's not an 
especially satisfying experience on the whole. It's a bit of a mishmash.

A crisis forces the Enterprise-B, commanded by Captain Cameron Frye -- I'm 
sorry, I mean Captain Harriman (Alan Ruck) -- to mount a rescue mission of 
some El-Aurian refugees whose ships have become trapped in an energy ribbon 
and are minutes away from being destroyed. There are a couple good moments 
here, like when Kirk, who is only on board for reasons of publicity, can 
barely restrain himself from offering unsolicited advice; when Harriman 
finally gives up the captain's chair, Kirk sits down and relishes the 
moment, before realizing that he should relinquish the chair back to 
Harriman. Alas, there's too much meaningless technobabble involving the 
ribbon and it's gravimetric (or whatever) forces; you can see already that 
this is a TNG production as opposed to a TOS production.

In the course of the rescue attempt, the Enterprise-B is damaged, and 
Kirk -- inside one of the damaged areas -- is swept out into space and 
presumably killed. This prologue, while necessary and functional and kind of 
entertaining, is not much more than that. It's a stage-setter that obviously 
will come up later. The fact that Guinan shows up in this prologue provides 
an obvious clue (to regular TNG viewers, anyway) that this is part of a 
master plan.

Move forward 78 years, where Worf is being promoted in the holodeck of the 
Enterprise-D. The setting is a sailboat at sea -- named Enterprise, of 
course -- and it's one of those sequences (albeit one that's perhaps too 
earnest) that lends more cinematic appeal to the proceedings by filming on 
location and drawing the nautical parallels that always characterized the 
TOS films.

Interestingly, one of the inherent drawbacks of essentially relaunching the 
show as a film series is that the screenwriters have to bring non-followers 
up to speed. Consider the scene after Worf falls into the water, where Data 
expresses his confusion to Geordi about what is and isn't funny. This scene 
would not have to be explained to us on the TV series, and here seems forced 
upon the characters, as if to say, "Okay, now we're going to bring all you 
unfamiliar audience members up to speed!"

One thing "Generations" gets right is the scope of its storytelling. Unlike 
"Insurrection," for example, which felt like just another routine TNG 
episode, the events of "Generations" take on much more significance than you 
would see in a typical TV episode. Promoting Worf, giving Data emotions, 
killing Picard's brother and nephew, killing the Duras sisters, blowing up 
and crashing the Enterprise, wiping out entire solar systems -- these are 
the kinds of bigger things that should happen in a movie adapted from a TV 
series.

Anyway, let's start with Data. In a character development that took a 
certain amount of guts, the producers finally decide to let him install the 
emotion chip that had been sitting on his shelf for the past year. (Never 
mind that the emotion chip would be negated two films later; in this movie 
it was a good idea.) It's a milestone for the character, and filled with 
promise. Unfortunately, the writers don't do very much with it, especially 
early on, in scenes where Data laughs incessantly until everyone else 
(including the audience) starts to get annoyed. I'll admit that I laughed at 
some of this goofiness (to this day I still quote, "I cannot help myself!" 
in situations that warrant that punch line), but there just isn't much depth 
to the overall arc. As I said before, A for effort, C for execution.

Picard's arc is also a good one in theory, touching on the whole 
aging/mortality theme that was made so memorable in "Star Trek II." In 
practice, however, it's not all that great. I wasn't much moved by the 
deaths of Picard's brother Robert and nephew Rene, and while Picard has 
every reason to grieve, I've never been a fan of the crying scene where 
Picard breaks down. (Indeed, it's a scene that I have mocked in the past.) 
Patrick Stewart is a fine actor, no doubt, but there's something about this 
scene that just doesn't work. I think, in a way, we simply don't want to see 
the captain of the Enterprise sitting in the dark, crying.

Having the main storylines follow mainly Picard and Data would become the 
template for the rest of the film series. The remaining characters are 
supporting players in the tradition of TNG as a TV series. That's fine; it's 
a big cast and we need a clear focus on a couple storylines.

The movie's villain, Dr. Tolian Soran (Malcolm McDowell), a 300-year-old 
El-Aurian, is set up in the movie's prologue on the Enterprise-B and is then 
found by the Enterprise-D crew in the wreckage of the Amargosa observatory, 
which was attacked by Romulans. Here the movie throws up a smokescreen to 
give the plot more "plot"; the Romulans are in fact irrelevant to the movie.

Soran is not one of the Trek films' best villains, but he's also not one of 
the worst. He's not evil so much as obsessed and unbending in his goals 
(even if it means destroying entire planets and their populations as a side 
effect, which I guess qualifies as an evil byproduct). McDowell is good at 
dispensing ominous lines as personal philosophies, such as, "They say time 
is the fire in which we burn," which points toward his quest against his 
mortality. Later, on the planet surface, Picard and Soran will share some 
worthwhile dialog about mortality. "If there's one constant in the 
universe," Soran says, "it's death."

The central plot device revolves around Soran's obsession with the Nexus, 
the aforementioned energy ribbon, in which "time has no meaning." Soran has 
allied himself with Lursa (Barbara March) and B'Etor (Gwynyth Walsh) in a 
scheme that would give the two Duras sisters a powerful weapon and give 
Soran the opportunity to get back into the Nexus, which Guinan describes as 
a place of eternal bliss. As a sci-fi concept, the Nexus provides both the 
film's biggest success and worst failure. I'll explain.

It's a success in that I really liked the idea of an energy ribbon traveling 
through space (which looks cool) and Soran trying to alter its course using 
the shock waves from imploded stars. This is something that is portrayed 
plausibly, is interesting, and fairly original.

The best scene in the movie is the Data/Picard scene in stellar cartography, 
which works as plot advancement, character development, and convincing 
science. The analysis of all the data and evidence is intriguing and 
believable, demonstrated both visually and with dialog. The cartography 
graphics are impressive and yet straightforward. They convey what's going on 
clearly and with visual flair; this looks like what a futuristic stellar 
cartography room might actually look like. Meanwhile in this scene, Data's 
struggle with his emotions -- and Picard's tough-love approach to the 
situation -- is good dramatically. The balance of all these plot and 
character elements is right on, acted and directed with precision.

Of course, in terms of scale and perspective, the movement of the Nexus is 
ludicrous. It must be traveling much faster than light in order to get from 
one solar system to the next in such a short amount of time, and yet when it 
gets to the planet, it slows waaaaaaay down to subsonic atmospheric speeds. 
Obviously, this is necessary for logistic and dramatic reasons for scenes 
involving the Nexus' approach. But I never understood the rules for how you 
can or can't get inside the thing. (It destroys ships and yet doesn't 
crumble a mountaintop or rip your body apart?)

Soran's plan is to implode the Veridian star so that the Nexus will shift 
course to the surface of the planet Veridian III, where he will be waiting. 
The resulting shock wave, unfortunately, will also destroy all the Veridian 
planets, including Veridian IV, which has a population of 230 million. Soran 
isn't much concerned about that. The Enterprise, obviously, must stop him. 
This leads to the requisite battle sequence with the Klingons, in which 
Lursa and B'Etor die in a scene that wants to be as satisfying as when Chang 
got blown up at the end of "Star Trek VI," but no such luck.

From an action standpoint, the film tops out with the Enterprise's 
evacuation to the saucer section and the separation of the ship -- half of 
which explodes, and the other half crashing on the planet's surface. During 
the evacuation, I always laugh and shake my head at the shot of the girl who 
loses her teddy bear; oh, come on. (It's further evidence that TNG's concept 
of civilians on starships that routinely go into battle is slightly silly.) 
But the crash sequence is long, loud, intense, and exciting. If you're going 
to blow up and crash a starship, this is the way to do it. On top of that is 
the destruction of the planet itself, which is a chilling image. This is 
some pretty good stuff, and signifies film's visceral high point.

But then things start to misfire. Picard is pulled into the Nexus, leading 
to the film's most tedious sequence, in which everything about the plot is 
explained to us -- often in ways we're unwilling to believe.

For starters, I just didn't much care for the overly idyllic Christmas 
setting with all those cloying kids. I see what they were going for here, 
but on an entertainment level, this is the sort of scene that the chapter 
skip on a DVD player was invented for.

Then there's the whole business with Guinan's "echo" in the Nexus, who 
explains to Picard (and us) how the Nexus works. How you can go anywhere, 
any time. In this case, Picard can go back and save 230 million lives if 
that's where/when he wants to go. (Apparently, the Nexus doesn't have the 
same effect on humans as El-Aurians; Guinan -- the real one, that is --  
earlier told Picard that once he was in the Nexus he absolutely wouldn't 
want to leave, but that's not at all the way it ends up working here.)

The problem with the Nexus is that it can do whatever the plot requires and 
therefore is nothing more than a fantasy device that is too consciously 
driving the plot where it must go. Then we find ourselves asking: Why, if 
Picard can go anywhere, does he choose to go back in time only a few minutes 
instead of going back further and simply throwing Soran in a cell until the 
Nexus has passed?

There are contrivances in most movies. A good contrivance is one you aren't 
aware of or thinking about; a bad contrivance is one whose rules and 
loopholes clang loudly to the floor and provide a distraction from the 
story. This is of the latter variety.

So, Picard decides to recruit Kirk, who was sucked into the Nexus at the 
beginning of the movie. The resulting scenes are reasonable but somewhat 
anticlimactic. Picard must convince Kirk to leave the Nexus, there's some 
dialog about duty and making a difference, the performances are relaxed and 
pleasant, and there are scenes of horseback riding (which frankly strikes me 
more as a benefit for William Shatner than the movie).

The final act, in which Kirk and Picard go back to stop Soran, is workable 
but probably not what most people had in mind when they heard that Kirk was 
going to meet Picard in a Star Trek movie. There's plenty of action and 
cliche going on here, and it's always odd to see the conflict of a Star Trek 
film whittled down to three guys in a fight on a steel bridge in a desert. 
Personally, I prefer space battles. Kirk's death in this process is merely 
adequate (some would argue that it's less than adequate). If the movie is 
asking me to be moved by the passing of a legend and the passing of the 
torch -- well let's just say that I'm glad they filmed it happening, and it 
was pleasant enough to watch, but I wasn't all that riveted by it.

As a production, the film is solid, but finds itself in an odd transitional 
phase. It was shot on all the original TV sets with only minor modifications 
(reportedly there were only 10 days between the last day of shooting on 
series finale "All Good Things" and the first day of shooting on 
"Generations"). The film employed one of its TV directors, David Carson, in 
his first direction of a feature film. New uniforms, originally redesigned 
specifically for the film, were scrapped, and instead the cast switched back 
and forth between the TNG uniforms and the DS9-style uniforms, something 
some viewers found confusing.

The most dramatic changes were in the special effects (which were naturally 
amped up to suit the story and the big screen) and the improvements in the 
lighting of the existing sets (the bridge of the Enterprise-D never looked 
better).

Not so dramatic is Dennis McCarthy's adequate but underwhelming score, which 
sometimes feels too restrained, like a TV score. In particular, the main 
theme lacks oomph (and features too many similarities to the DS9 theme) and 
feels like a major step backward after Cliff Eidelman's memorable "Star Trek 
VI" theme.

The special edition DVD contains a commentary track by screenwriters Ronald 
D. Moore and Brannon Braga. It must be one the best commentary tracks yet 
recorded on a Star Trek DVD. Moore and Braga's comments lend great insight 
to the strengths and weaknesses of the storyline, in detail and with 
surprising forthrightness. I was nodding in agreement with their assessment 
of many aspects of the film. It's the sort of incisive look that has 
especially benefited from a decade of distance. They can critique the movie 
objectively.

I don't dislike "Generations" (it has several good scenes and generally the 
right feel for what TNG was all about), but it doesn't completely satisfy 
me, either. It serves its purpose in fulfilling all the franchise 
requirements that were expected of a passing-the-torch story. It's just that 
it doesn't fulfill all those requirements particularly well.

Picard says at the end, "What we leave behind is not as important as how 
we've lived." Honestly, I'm not sure what that's *really* supposed to mean; 
it's one of those vague philosophical lines that would be more enlightening 
if the thematic content of the movie were stronger overall. But the film 
itself doesn't have much to say; it's more about itself and what happens. On 
those terms, it's a pretty okay movie.

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Copyright 2005, Jamahl Epsicokhan. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this article is prohibited.

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