Bean

So I got a little bored tonight and put on the Generations DVD. I really do like this movie despite some of it's flaws. The Enterprise crash sequence is still one of the most spectacular moments in Trek as far as I'm concerned. It didn't have nearly the same emotional impact as the destruction of the Enterprise in STIII, but it was just as, if not more, exciting.

Some thoughts that struck me while watching the movie though.

I think they should have held off on destroying the Enterprise until the next movie. I LOVED the "upgraded" look of the TNG sets. The lighting was perfect, the bridge modifications were great, and the look of the D in a big budget film couldn't have been done better.

The only real dissapointment I have in regards to the Kirk storyline, was that it wasn't really a true crossover. At least not a "full" one. I had always dreamed of seeing Kirk standing on the bridge of the D with the crew. If only momentarily, it would have been a much better way to "pass the torch" to the TNG crew. And it would have IMO validated the end of TOS much better than the Picard/Kirk storyline did. And more than that, it would have validated the character of Kirk. For him to have spent his life on the bridge of the Enterprise, risking his life, sacrificing everything for his duty.. for him to see the Enterprise D, still carrying on long after his own demise, it would have been like saying "See what you did, it was all worth it".

The Nexus scenes were the only real BIG dissapointment for me. Kirk's "special place" was chopping wood in the mountins and riding horseback? Oh come on. They spent all of TOS telling us that Kirks biggest love in like was that center seat. It would have been much better had Picard found him sitting on the bridge of the TOS Enterprise.

And finally, when I originally saw the movie, Chekov and Scotty didn't bother me at all. I didn't really notice McCoy and Spock were missing. Since then I have of course read about how those roles were intended to be the other characters, and even the dialogue barely changed. Now it sticks out like a sore thumb when Chekov recruits his "nurses".

All in all, I still love this movie, and I certainly don't count it among the ranks with Insurrection and Nemesis.

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--James T. Kirk

Brikar

I've said before that my opinion on "Generations" is that it's less than the sum of its parts. There are a ton of great scenes and sequences, excellent special effects, one of Dennis McCarthy's best scores, excellent performance from Patrick Stewart... but when you put them together as a whole it doesn't really work as well as you think it should.

And you're right - a lot of what brings this movie down is Kirk's story and how it just doesn't really seem to fit all that well into the movie. In concept, it's fine... but in execution, it feels like someone took a TNG movie and slapped some TOS bits onto it.

And I definitely agree about the look of the Enterprise in this movie - the lighting and sets looked fantastic. I'd wished it looked like that for a long time on the show. I remember when they did that big modification to the bridge for "Yesterday's Enterprise" I thought how much cooler it looked because the sets on the show regularly always seemed really sparse to me. They had built these massive sets but then never really populated them. The bridge and Ten Forward were so spacious, but there was rarely more than a handful of people there, and much of the bridge was wasted wall space.

I was so glad in "Generations" when the ship seemed like it finally had a crew.

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Cymro

Dude, that avatar is scary.

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Bean

Yeah, the changes to the ship really showed how well TNG could be adapted to the big screen. As for the population, we all know that was just a matter of the costs of extras, but it seems strange that the went through all those set changes for Yesterday's Enterprise, and then didn't retain at least some of them later on. They really gave the ship a "City in space' feeling which I think was supposed to be conveyed from the start.

It made the Enterprise D feel like a "ship" instead of some control room far removed from the action.

__________________
"I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

--James T. Kirk