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| Kirk and Picard team up. Eventually. |
THE PLOT
2293:
The legendary Capt. James T. Kirk and his former crewmates, Scotty and Chekov, come aboard the newest USS Enterprise as part of its maiden voyage.. But a simple PR trek turns into something far more serious when the ship receives a distress call. Two El-Aurian ships, filled with refugees from their recently-destroyed homeworld, have been trapped by a ribbon of space/time distortion. The Enterprise has only partial function and a skeleton crew, but it's the only ship in range, as per usual.
The inexperienced Capt. Harriman (Alan Ruck) is in over his head, and turns to Kirk for help. Kirk snaps into action, along with Scotty and Chekov. The two ships are destroyed, but not before Scotty manages to beam half of one ship's complement to safety - almost 50 civilians, including a stunned Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) and an enraged Tolian Soran (Malcolm McDowell), who begs with his rescuers to "Let me go back! Let me go back!" - Until Chekov finally sedates him.
Mission accomplished - but before the Enterprise can withdraw to safety, it too becomes trapped. The only way to save the ship is to modify the shields to disrupt the ribbon. Kirk runs to Deflector Control, managing the task just in the nick of time - but not before a final blast breaches the hull at his exact position. The ship is saved, but Capt. Kirk is lost...
2371:
The Enterprise D, under the command of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, is called to the Amargosa Observatory, a science station studying a neutron star. The crew arrives to the aftermath of a Romulan attack. Only one survivor is found: Dr. Tolian Soran (Malcolm McDowell). The Romulans were seeking trilithium, a substance capable of collapsing a star. Soran insists he has no knowledge of this, and asks only that he be allowed to return to his work.
Data and Geordi beam back to the station to search for any sign of trilithium - but Soran is waiting for them. He ambushes them just as his rescue arrives: A Klingon Bird of Prey, helmed by Picard's old enemies, Lursa (Barbara March) and B'Etor (Gwynyth Walsh), of the disgraced House of Duras. The Duras Sisters beam Soran to safety, taking Geordi prisoner and collapsing the Amargosa star as they leave - A demonstration of the trilithium weapon soran has given them.
That's when Guinan informs Picard of her connection to Soran, and of his motivation. When Kirk rescued them, he pulled them from "The Nexus," a place of utter tranquility. Guinan was able to move on with her life, but Soran has spent the last 70 years obsessing over getting back. The trilithium has finally given him what he needs. He can divert the ribbon's path to the planet of his choosing. The only cost is the collapse of another star - this one a sun at the center of a solar system, populated by millions!
"I have to stop it!" Picard realizes. "But I need help..."
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| The TNG crew - in slightly different uniforms than usual... |
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: Patrick Stewart is splendid in his first big-screen Star Trek film, anchoring the movie with a solid presence. This is very much the Picard of the later television series: Contemplative, intelligent, just vulnerable enough for the audience to identify with him but still very much in command. The film pushes him into a fragile emotional state almost immediately, as he receives news that his brother, sister-in-law, and beloved nephew died in a fire. With his nephew's death, and reflecting on his own choice to never have children, he realizes that he is the last Picard. When he dies, his family name will die with him.
Picard shuts himself away in his ready room to mourn. Once Soran's purpose is revealed, however, he snaps back to command. He pushes Data out of his guilt over the role his emotion chip played in Geordi's capture, alternating between a strict tone and a gentle one until the android returns to himself. Trapped on the wrong side of a force field while Soran prepares his missile, Picard tries reasoning with the man - but even as he does so, he stays alert for any hole in the scientist's defenses, and finally finds one.
Capt. Kirk: At the beginning of the movie, when the crisis hits, every nerve in Kirk's body is crying out for him to take charge. He has to force himself not to step in. "Is something wrong with your chair, Captain?" Scotty smirks at him when he keeps standing up and sitting down again. The instant Capt. Harriman turns to him for advice, he is ready to take control, and the crew instinctively responds to the experience and confidence in his voice.
When Picard finds Kirk in the Nexus, he has been completely lulled by his paradise - a representation of his own regrets, of things he wished he had done differently. "I'm going to do it right this time!" he vows, all but ignoring Picard's pleas. Right until he jumps his horse over a creek. He realizes that he felt no fear... Because it wasn't real, which means that nothing he does in the Nexus will make any difference at all. Once he realizes that, he is more than ready to go back for one last fight in the real world.
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| Capt. James T. Kirk, in his own time. |
Riker: While Picard shuts himself away, grieving for his nephew and his family legacy, Riker directs the investigation of the station. He is again thrust into the captain's role when Picard beams down to the planet Soran is using as his base. While Picard attempts first to reason with, then to outmaneuver the crazed scientist, Riker is left to fend off an unexpectedly effective assault by the Duras sisters.
Data: Hewing perhaps a little too closely to the "A" plot/"B" plot structure of the TNG series, we get a subplot centered around Data's decision to insert and activate the emotion chip he obtained from Lore. Data's scenes in the next half-hour of the picture are extremely irritating, as the android makes childlike "Yuck" faces when Guinan gives him a foul-tasting drink, laughs like a hyena at jokes he overheard years ago, and cowers in terror when he experiences fear. Thankfully, this settles down in the second half, and Brent Spiner does some very good acting when he begs Picard to shut him down, angrily announcing: "I no longer want these emotions, sir!" But Data's scenes in the first half are borderline unbearable, and also do much to slow down the pace.
Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg's Guinan was much-missed in TNG's final season on television, so it is very good to see her return in the Enterprise D's first bigscreen outing. The decision to make Soran a member of her species, with a backstory closely linked to hers, means that she knows much of what Picard needs to know in order to defeat him. She largely becomes the voice of exposition, telling both Picard and us about the Nexus and Soran's desperation to return to it. But Goldberg's presence and her continuing strong chemistry with Patrick Stewart, makes her scenes feel more organic than they perhaps should.
Soran: I would have liked more exploration of Soran and less wacky android hijinks, as the potential exists for Soran to be a fine tragic villain. Soran informs Picard that there was a time he would not have harmed anyone. Then the Borg wiped out everything and everyone he held dear. It's unspoken, but we can guess from Picard's and Kirk's experiences that the Nexus gave him a life in which he had home and family back... And that Kirk's intervention ripped that away, making him lose them twice over. Malcolm McDowall, a veteran actor with a career that ranges from the brilliantly mad to the just plain mad, is firmly in scenery-chomping mode, but he still projects an intelligence that makes him a decent foil for Picard. Their two conversations - one on the ship early in the film, one on the planet near the climax - are highlights, and the movie could have used more such moments.
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| Picard and Data identify Soran's next target. |
THOUGHTS
Generations kicked off the TNG films, opening to big box office and extremely mixed reviews. Looking back at it more than 20 years later, I still have much the same opinion I had at the time. This is by no means a bad movie - It's entertaining, with some strong performances, excellent visual effects, and several effective moments. It's not perfect - the pace gets very slack in the middle, and the subplot with Data's emotion chip is largely unwelcome. But judged simply as a movie, it works.
Unfortunately, it's not the movie it should have been. The film's trailers promise a proper "passing of the torch" between one era of Star Trek and another. "Two captains, one destiny." From the advertising, you would think Kirk and Picard were equal leads.
What we get instead is the equivalent of a two-part TNG episode featuring a guest appearance by William Shatner. Which, if you're expecting a team-up between Picard and Kirk anytime before the last half hour, is bound to disappoint.
This problem was entirely fixable, and without even significantly changing the structure. Had the supblot with Data's emotion chip been excised and the pace of the first part of the story generally tightened, the script could easily have gotten Picard into the Nexus not long past the film's midpoint. Kirk would be reintroduced roughly 40 minutes after his exit, which would allow time for the TNG cast to re-establish itself outside his shadow without making the audience restless waiting for his reappearance. Then Picard could have taken Kirk out of the Nexus at an earlier point, on the Enterprise, allowing some opportunity to have Kirk actually interact with the newer cast.
The climax could also have been re-written to be a more fitting end for Kirk. The film offers a double climax: Picard on the planet with Soran, while the Enterprise battles the Klingons. So how about having Kirk on the Enterprise bridge, once again taking charge during a crisis to defeat the Klingons - his nemesis through both his television series and films? Kirk could die in the crash of the Enterprise D, saving the rest of the crew in the process - a more fitting end than having a bridge fall on him! Meanwhile, Picard could deal with Soran on his own - Keeping Picard from feeling like someone who needs Kirk's help to outfight a middle-aged scientist, and leaving Picard to deal with a villain who has been very much defined as a foil for him.
It wouldn't have been substantially different - but it would have allowed both captains their own parts to play in the finale, without diminishing either of them.
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| Soran prepares to return to the Nexus. |
TIME AND THE NEXUS
I should say that, outside of the missed opportunities with Kirk, I actually do mostly like this movie. I even, in contrast to many, enjoy the way the Nexus is portrayed - as a representation of The Road Not Taken.
Picard regrets his choice not to have a family. The Nexus gives him that "road not taken," presenting an idealized family with adoring children. Kirk regrets returning to Starfleet instead of asking the final love of his life to marry him. The Nexus returns him to that point in his history, giving him the chance to marry the woman and enjoy his Road Not Taken. Both men ultimately reject these paths; they aren't real, and as Kirk observes, nothing they do within the Nexus will ever matter at all. Beyond that, it's just not who these men are - There's a reason that road wasn't taken, and the choices they made were very much the right ones for them.
I also enjoy the related theme of "Time" that runs through the film. Soran is obsessed with time, telling Picard that, "Time is the fire in which we burn... It's like a predator, it's stalking you... In the end time is going to hunt you down, and make the kill." Picard feels time running out for his family name. Kirk marvels, not without regret, at how Sulu could have possibly found time for a family, with Scotty replying that if something is important enough you make the time.
Picard finally gets to pick up The Picard Sledgehammer in the end, stitching it all together for us just in case we missed it. Fortunately, Patrick Stewart plays his final homily wonderfully, not coming across too preachy as Picard rejects Soran's identification of time as a predator in favor of a more benign metaphor:
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment, because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we lived."
OVERALL
Generations' greatest weakness is also its greatest strength. This really does feel like a TNG episode on the bigscreen. The characters feel right (yes, even Data, as annoying as his subplot was). Picard is very much the contemplative character we followed on television. And while the focus may be on Picard, Riker, Data, and Kirk, every regular gets at least one moment in the spotlight.
It is not an ideal Star Trek movie, and it is certainly not an ideal TOS/TNG crossover... But it does recapture what made The Next Generation so enjoyable when it was good, and it entertains at the same time. Simply put: It's flawed - but I think the good outweighs the bad.
Overall Rating: 6/10.
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