Star Trek Generations

Star Trek Generations
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	David Carson
Produced by	Rick Berman
Screenplay by	Ronald D. Moore Brannon Braga
Story by	Rick Berman Ronald D. Moore Brannon Braga
Starring	See Cast
Music by	Dennis McCarthy
Cinematography	John A. Alonzo
Editing by	Peter E. Berger
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	November 18, 1994 (1994-11-18)
Running time	118 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$35 million (estimated)
Gross revenue	$118.1 million (worldwide)
Preceded by	Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Followed by	Star Trek: First Contact

Star Trek Generations is a 1994 American science fiction film, and the seventh feature film based on the Star Trek science fiction television series. It is the first film in the series to star the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was shot in Overton, Nevada; Paramount Studios; and Lone Pine, California. While the film did reasonably well at the box office, it received mixed reviews from critics.

Plot

The story begins with Captain James T. Kirk, recently retired, reluctantly attending the maiden voyage of the USS Enterprise-B in 2293, which is running on a skeleton crew and has several major subsystems still under construction. During the voyage, the Enterprise is pressed into a rescue mission to save two ships from a strange energy ribbon. The Enterprise is able to save some of the El-Aurian refugees, including Dr. Tolian Soran and Guinan before both ships are destroyed, but then becomes trapped in the ribbon itself. Kirk travels to the Engineering decks to alter the behavior of the deflector shields, allowing the Enterprise to escape. The Energy Ribbon makes contact with the engineering hull and causes major damage and while the crew recovers, they find the section that Kirk was in has been exposed to space, with Kirk himself missing, presumed dead.

Seventy-eight years later, during a ceremony for the promotion of Worf to Lieutenant Commander in 2371, the crew of the USS Enterprise-D receives a distress call from the Amargosa solar observatory. They find that everyone, except Soran, has been killed by the Romulans. Data, who recently installed his emotion chip, and Geordi LaForge search the station, discovering trilithium in a hidden room. As they analyze it, Soran appears and knocks LaForge unconscious, and threatens Data at gunpoint while launching a missile containing trilithium at the Amargosa star, causing all nuclear reactions within the star to cease. This sends a shock wave, capable of destroying a planet, towards the station and the Enterprise. Soran and LaForge are transported to a Klingon Bird of Prey belonging to the Duras sisters, while Data is rescued by Worf and Commander Riker just before the station is destroyed.

Captain Picard learns of Soran's past and turns to Guinan for help. Guinan explains that Soran's goal is to return to the "Nexus", the energy ribbon the Enterprise-B encountered. Picard and Data perform an analysis to track the path of the ribbon, observing the effects of the local gravitational field on it and altered by Soran's actions. They determine that Soran is likely attempting to reenter the Nexus on Veridian III by destroying its star. As one planet in the system is heavily populated, Picard orders the Enterprise to the Veridian system to stop Soran. Upon arrival, they encounter the Duras sisters who offer to trade LaForge for Picard, which he accepts. Picard is transported to the planet's surface and finds Soran working on another missile installation, shielded to prevent Picard from interfering. LaForge is brought back aboard the Enterprise, unaware that his visor is transmitting a signal to the Klingons. When the Duras sisters discover the Enterprise's critical shield frequency, they launch an all-out attack on the ship. The Enterprise is able to counterattack and destroy the Bird of Prey, but has taken critical damage to the warp core. Riker orders an evacuation to the saucer section and subsequent separation before the core explodes. The saucer section is forced to crash land on Veridian III.

Meanwhile, Picard has found a hole in Soran's shield, but is too late to stop him from launching the missile. The Veridian sun goes supernova, destroying all the planets and the Enterprise saucer section, but Picard finds himself safely in the Nexus. After encountering a ghost of Guinan, Picard finds that Kirk is also safe in the Nexus. Picard approaches Kirk as one Starfleet officer to another, and convinces him to return to Picard's present to help stop Soran. Though initially apathetic and distracted by the flood of memories, Kirk eventually agrees, and the two leave the Nexus, ending up on Veridian III minutes before Soran launches the missile. Together, they are able to distract Soran long enough to lock the missile in place, causing it to explode on the launchpad, killing Soran. However, Kirk is mortally wounded from the encounter, and as he dies, Picard assures him that Kirk helped to make a difference. Picard buries Kirk before traveling to the wreckage of the saucer section and reuniting with his crew as they are evacuated from the planet.

Cast

• Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
• William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, retired.
• Jonathan Frakes as Commander William T. Riker.
• Brent Spiner as Lieutenant Commander Data.
• LeVar Burton as Lieutenant Commander Geordi LaForge.
• Michael Dorn as Lieutenant Commander Worf.
• Gates McFadden as Commander (Dr.) Beverly Crusher.
• Marina Sirtis as Commander (Counselor) Deanna Troi.
• Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Tolian Soran.
• James Doohan as Captain Montgomery Scott.
• Walter Koenig as Commander Pavel Chekov.
• Alan Ruck as Captain John Harriman.
• Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan.
• Jacqueline Kim as Ensign Demora Sulu.
• Patti Yasutake as Lieutenant Junior Grade (Nurse) Alyssa Ogawa.
• Barbara March as Lursa.
• Gwynyth Walsh as B'Etor
• Chris J. Miller as Rene Picard

• Tim Russ as USS Enterprise-B Tactical Lieutenant. Soon after the film's release, Russ would assume the role of the Vulcan tactical officer Tuvok in Star Trek: Voyager. An episode of Voyager, "Flashback", established that Tuvok served aboard the USS Excelsior during the events of the previous film, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

• Majel Barrett as the USS Enterprise's computer voice.

Production

Rick Berman was asked to develop a Star Trek: The Next Generation movie in early 1993. Two different scripts were written, one by Maurice Hurley, script editor for the second season of TNG, and the other by Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga, who had co-written several popular episodes. The latter was chosen.^[1]

Leonard Nimoy declined to appear in this film, and DeForest Kelley was unable to appear since his failing health prevented him from acquiring the necessary health insurance. Their lines, as Spock and McCoy, were modified for James Doohan and Walter Koenig, as Scotty and Chekov. In Scotty's case, it created a seeming continuity error, given Scotty's dialogue in the TNG episode "Relics". In that episode, Scotty implied that he believed Kirk to still be alive, despite the fact that the scene's setting was after Scotty had witnessed Kirk's apparent death in Star Trek: Generations. The official Star Trek explanation for the inconsistency is that Scotty was disoriented when he uttered the offending line in the "Relics" episode, as he'd just been re-materialized after a 75-year stint in transporter stasis.^[2]

The director, David Carson, had no feature film experience, but had directed several episodes of Star Trek, including the popular Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" and the Deep Space Nine double-length pilot episode "Emissary".^[3]

The Generations website was the Internet's first movie-promotion website.

Music

Dennis McCarthy, a composer who had worked on The Next Generation, was given the task of composing for the feature. Critic Jeff Bond wrote that while McCarthy's score was "tasked with straddling the styles of both series", it also offered the opportunity for the composer to produce stronger dramatic writing. His opening music was a ethereal choral piece that plays while a floating champagne bottle tumbles through space. For the action scenes with the Enterprise-B, McCarthy used low brass chords and touches. Kirk was given a brass motif accented by snare drums (a touch verboten during The Next Generation), while the scene ends with a dissonant notes as Scott and Chekov discover Kirk has been blown into space.^[4]

McCarthy expanded his brassy style for the film's action sequences, such as the battle over Veridian III and the crash-landing of the Enterprise. For Picard's trip to the Nexus, more choral music and synthesizers accompany Picard's discovery of his family. The film's only distinct theme, a broad fanfare, first plays when Picard and Kirk meet. The theme blends McCarthy's theme for Picard from The Next Generation's first season, notes from the theme for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Alexander Courage's classic Star Trek fanfare.^[4]

For the final battle of Kirk and Picard against Soran, McCarthy used staccato music to accentuate the fistfight. For Kirk's death, McCarthy mated lyrical strings with another statement of the Courage theme, while a shot of Picard standing over Kirk's grave is scored with more pomp.^[4] As the film closes, the Courage theme plays once more.^[5]

Themes

As in several earlier films, Generations contrasts a man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants (Soran) with men who are willing to put aside everything they love and cherish to save others. Kirk makes the ultimate sacrifice, as does the Enterprise-D. A related theme is the contrast between Soran and Picard in handling personal tragedy. The Enterprise-B rescues Soran as his ship was being destroyed by the Nexus, and he became obsessed with going back into the Nexus. Soran's wife and children had been killed in a Borg attack some time earlier, so he seeks the Nexus as a means to return to them, ignoring the fact that the "reality" that the Nexus presents is illusory.

Picard, on the other hand, learns early in the film that his brother Robert and nephew René were both killed in a fire on Earth. He had placed all his hopes of continuing the Picard family line with them, and laments to Troi that his life path will most likely not allow him to take on that task. However, when the Nexus presents him with a scenario in which he is married and has many children, he is able to overcome the temptation to stay in that "reality", realizing that it is a falsehood.

Lt. Commander Data also has to grapple with the effects of the emotion chip Dr. Soong had made for him, which he has La Forge install in his positronic net after a very embarrassing failure to understand humor. When it fuses with his positronic net, he is unequipped to handle the rush of unfamiliar emotional input, which threatens to overwhelm him. Recognizing and overcoming his own personal failings is his story arc, which also provides many of the comedic moments in Generations.

Much of Soran's motivations are meditations on time he has spent attempting to return to the Nexus. Soran's line, "They say time is the fire in which we burn...", is based on a line from a poem by Delmore Schwartz called "Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day". Permission was sought to use this line in the film and Schwartz' name appears at the end of the credit. Malcolm McDowell was so taken with this line that he had it engraved on the watch he wears (as Soran) in the film.^[6]

Reception

Generations grossed $75,671,125 in the U.S. and $118,100,000 worldwide against a $35,000,000 budget.^[7] Although the film did relatively well internationally compared to previous Star Trek films, considering the media blitz (including the first site on the Internet to officially publicize a major motion picture)^[8] that accompanied the film and its impressive $23,116,394 opening weekend, critical reaction to Star Trek Generations was mixed. The film holds a rating of 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 42 reviews.^[9]

James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave Generations two and a half stars out of four, saying: "Despite a reasonably original story line, familiar characters, first rate special effects, and the hallmark meeting between Captains Kirk and Picard, there's something fundamentally dissatisfying about [the movie]. The problem is that [...] too often it seems like little more than an overbudgeted, double-length episode of the Next Generation television series."^[10]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times said: "Generations is predictably flabby and impenetrable in places, but it has enough pomp, spectacle and high-tech small talk to keep the franchise afloat."^[11] Jeremy Conrad of IGN gave the film a score of 7 out of 10, saying that it "feels a little rushed and manufactured," but called it "one of the better of the odd-numbered Trek films,"^[12] referencing a belief that even-numbered Star Trek films are traditionally of higher quality.

Notes

References

External links

• Official Star Trek Generations web site
• Star Trek Generations at the Internet Movie Database
• Star Trek Generations at Allmovie
• Star Trek Generations at Rotten Tomatoes
• Star Trek Generations at Box Office Mojo
• Star Trek Generations at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)