Star Trek: Generations (3)

DVD, Star Trek: Generations (1994) film, In-Depth Review Part III

One special thing about the film is the Nexus. Constraint breeds innovation, and the writers didn't want to do a standard time travel story, either backwards or forwards, so they came up with the novel solution of holding Kirk in this phenomenon for all those years, yet without any time passing for him, a bit like Scotty in 'Relics,' but more elegant. The connection is the long-lived race of El Aurians, of which Guinan is a member, and Soran, the villain, intelligently tying Guinan into the story from both ends and providing a credible source of information for Picard. Soran is one of the three best Trek film villains, and I don't say that lightly. He has the menace of a stereotypical bad guy, but intelligence and irony, a world-weariness towards compassion that probably makes him a psycho as he doesn't seem to care about anyone and can commit brutal acts at any moment, such as when he knocks Geordi unconscious with one surprise blow.

Soran is confident in himself and his abilities, both mental and physical - I love the way he has no regard for the Klingons at all, showing himself far above them by his unconcerned manner, where a normal person would be cowed by their enormous size and belligerence. They don't quite know what to make of this intrusive ally on their ship, their mistresses, the Duras sisters obviously need him, meaning they can't damage him without provocation, such as when he smacks B'Etor in the mouth for being careless. Even when bundled by all these Klingons he doesn't show any alarm because he knows they need him for the weapons they're after. He also seems to be a trained fighter, one of the many skills a person would pick up if they lived for hundreds of years, which makes Picard's job that bit harder. McDowell's piercing eyes and stark shock of white, spiky hair with a long, black coat gives him a very memorable visual role, and his good man turned bitter through the death of his family and homeworld was strong enough to be used again for Nero in 'Star Trek XI' and Annorax in 'Voyager.'

The Away Team to the Observatory is one aspect that I can understand might give people cause to say the film is like an episode because it is so reminiscent of those scenes in which they would go aboard some abandoned ship or facility, but it's lit so well, and references the Breen, a race which was almost a legend: they were mentioned here and there over the years, but it wasn't until 'DS9' they were seen, and not until the end they played a significant part, so that just one of many links on the path to becoming a defined race. Almost as mysterious remained the Romulans, the dead one with a mashed up face and suitably green blood being the only example to show up in the first three 'TNG' films, and the first with a V-shaped forehead in all the films.

Shortly after Soran shows up with the detail of his scar from the time of the Enterprise-B's rescue mission, the only sign of the years he's lived through. Again, I love the lighting from the Amargosa star in Ten Forward and the moment played with Picard that speaks so precisely to his recent experiences is expertly written. Guinan and Soran not quite making eye contact, the scene is heavy with foreboding. The disparate pieces out of time are slowly coming together. When Soran shows his true colours he does it in style. Energy weapons in Trek usually have a long barrel - the Klingon Disruptor a prime example, but Soran carries a very different kind. It has a long handle, but a very short barrel which can arc up to a firing position. It also looks like a weighty piece, thanks to the shiny metal build quality and fires a real blast that knocks holes in the scenery and makes the phaser beam seem quite tame. This is another thing JJ Abrams may have taken from this film for 'Star Trek XI' as the 'phasers' in that act like Soran's weapon, sending out fast and powerful bolts of energy.

Some may see Data's cowering on the Observatory as an insult to the character, but I see it as part of his arc in the film. He realises he has a need for emotion to continue his growth, he finds problems with the means to achieve that, and by the end he has learned to accept it as part of himself, leaving the question hanging for how he will develop in the next film. The visuals of his head almost bursting when the chip malfunctions is much like the Kazon that blows himself up in 'Basics,' a 'Voyager' episode that came later. Brent Spiner's face can seem so extreme, like a mannikin gone crazy, when Data emotes and there's an element of horror about the scene as he gets more and more hysterical. I would have enjoyed the line about a joke he'd just got from seven years ago even more if it had been referring to a real moment in an episode, but at least the heritage of the pilot is mentioned. The script is very well written, full of funny lines and pulls off this change in mood admirably.

The scene where the Klingon Bird of Prey decloaks, to rescue Soran just before the Amargosa star is destroyed (another thing we see in 'Star Trek XI'!), Riker and Worf are on a tight time limit to rescue Data and Geordi, and the situation is tense. Geordi's kidnapped, the others escape to the Enterprise and just at the last second the Enterprise warps away as the Observatory is ripped apart! Thrilling! Last second escapes have always been a favourite action trope for me, so this was a fantastic moment.

A clever piece of retconning is that the Borg were responsible for the El Aurians becoming refugees, as we had already learned as early as human first contact with the fearsome cyborgs in 'Q Who,' but they are never mentioned in the 23rd Century part of the tale as presumably the El Aurians didn't know who they were at that time, but by the time of the 24th Century they do. This all cleverly ties into Annika Hansen's family going off in a ship to chase rumours long before Starfleet had any knowledge of the Borg. The throwaway reference to them was a neat connection to the next film, but also makes you wonder how many lives have been affected by their assimilation if this one El Aurian scientist can cause so much trouble.

The Stellar Cartography scene is one that could have been boring and slow as it's mainly for exposition, but by adding in Data's guilt and Picard's wise encouragement it is broken up a little. It helps that the set is a magnificent work of construction, and the graphics become almost three-dimensional, played out on the curved surface of the massive screen. It's simple, it lays out exactly what is going to happen and gives us the giant-size view of events that can be lacking in the TV episodes sometimes.

Then begins the most visually astounding sequence in the film. Using Geordi as a secret camera to discover the shield modulation of the Enterprise, much like Kirk did in 'Star Trek II,' the tension mounts, and that's just the Klingons, whose bemused frustration at Geordi's slow return to duty is hilarious. Then boom! Like the Reliant firing on the original Enterprise, the Bird of Prey suddenly lets rip catching the crew unawares, torpedoes bursting through the shields in a beautiful, but deadly display. Never had two ships fighting looked so good until this point! The scene from 'Star Trek VI' when Chang's Bird of Prey is targeted and a lone torpedo streaks through space, is borrowed for this film, as is the actual footage of the ship exploding in an eruption of fire, but it's directed just as effectively as Nick Meyer's version, with the camera zooming in on Lursa and B'Etor individually as they realise the end is upon them.

I always loved it whenever an engineering section had to be sealed off, and the damage to the D is too heavy to repair in time, leading to La Forge's evacuation of engineering with seconds to spare, and a hero roll under the descending door! Everyone gets their moments in this film, just like the series, which wasn't the case in the other films. If anyone thought everything would be alright for the D in the end, seeing the saucer separate (even this is done with more resolution and scale than ever seen before, with lots of tiny debris drifting out), and the drive section obliterated in a warp core breach made it very clear this was the last flight of the D.

Unlike the original Enterprise's demise in 'Star Trek III' there's no time for sadness as the action's just beginning. Incredible shot follows incredible shot as the saucer lights up, burning through the atmosphere and levelling out, thanks to Deanna on helm control, seen from the ground, streaking out of the sky. You wonder how it could be possible for them to land in one piece, but somehow they go down in a more level stretch than, say, the mountains all around, all thanks to Deanna. The joke of Troi being a typical 'woman driver' as her one time in the driver's seat crashes the ship (reiterated in 'Nemesis'), but actually it has nothing to do with her, and it's her piloting skills that make for a relatively smooth landing, with few casualties. A touch I love in this scene is a show of Data's superior strength to keep Deanna in her seat while everyone else is being chucked around, the bulkheads rattling and screaming in shocked dismay, like the ship itself is crying out. Even Data can't keep his feet when the ship finally comes to rest after taking out a swathe of jungle and every chair and person lunges forward. An incredible, breathtaking sequence that still looks amazing even today.

The horror of seeing the D utterly vanquished (though it does bring them home safely as Admiral McCoy once said), is not over. When Soran succeeds, the ribbon arrives to whip him and Picard away just before the planet is annihilated, meaning everyone on the D is obliterated. So much for the 'TNG' film series then, unless Picard can hook up with a new crew! Yet again, seeing a full-sized planet totally destroyed was something they used in XI, but this is actually done better in this film because in XI the planet folds in on itself, whereas this version shows the surface entirely burned off, then the internal, dusty core breaks apart in a shattering explosion. It was like nothing else I'd ever seen and is another example of the vast cinematic scale of the film. It also features my favourite visual: Soran standing atop his highest metal tower, arms stretched up to embrace the ribbon, becoming a silhouette in the vast pink and white intensity of its light. A tiny figure embracing the great unknown which is known to him - it's a powerful, beautiful image that lives long in the memory.

'Hokey' might be the way to describe the Nexus, and perhaps this is one part of the film that those who prefer the scientific side of Trek, despise. But they are forgetting that there has always been more than purely science in it, particularly the film series, with Spock's death and rejuvenation, and the mythical Sha Ka Ree which Sybok sought, not to mention the mysticism of the Vulcans, Klingons, Bajorans and others. For once there's a nice Christian leaning to the magical scenes, with a traditional Christmas being represented. Some might question why Picard would want children, and so many, but in the later years of the series he mellowed greatly towards them, helped by Wesley's influence and then absence, and by this point he's got to thinking about his old age and the loneliness without his crew, something later to be touched on in 'Nemesis,' even more so with his recent loss and the end of the Picard family line. Once again, the unexpected is so well delivered, with Picard blindfolded and the world seeming to spin. A fun trivia note is that Director David Carson's wife played the role of Picard's wife, and since she was in an episode ('The Loss') as a different character with an American accent it makes me wonder whether she was actually English (like her husband), or doing an accent back then.

The joyful, mysterious, though somehow sad music of wonder permeates the scene, creating an atmosphere in which everything seems perfect. It's also a good use of Guinan to have her there as an echo left behind from her Nexus encounter. In my mind it left an obvious way in which Kirk could have returned from the dead, or at least appear again, since although he died his echo would live on forever inside the Nexus - though it could never leave, someone could visit. I'd love them to have the Nexus appear in a new Trek film so that Chris Pine could meet William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy could meet him one last time, because to the Nexus, time has no meaning so it could cross into any reality. It's like a crossroads in time itself since you can go anywhere from it, but my question is, how does anyone know they've really left the Nexus? If you wanted to leave then the Nexus could create that fantasy for you. I suppose when bad things happened in Picard's life (like the Borg for example) he'd know it wasn't what he wanted, so he couldn't still be in the Nexus, but it's a thought...

At last we come to what everyone had been waiting for - the historic meeting between Picard and Kirk. Again, the unexpected rules the story, so rather than Kirk immediately accepting what Picard says, he's caught up in the moment and the desire to do things right this time, to play out 'A Christmas Carol' and avoid an empty house. Seeing the two together is funny, it's legendary, it's iconic, and if nothing else made the film special, this makes it all worthwhile. Picard has the distinction of being the only captain to share scenes with all the other main captains (bar Archer), and though he'd already met Sisko, this was the biggie. Kirk has no need to listen to Picard though he does spare him a few words in sympathy, which perhaps is the genesis of the bond between them. Both actors loved horses so it was fitting that both should get to ride in the same film. The green hills and tree-lined ridges of this part of Kirk's fantasy contrast as much with the arid, red rock and sheer blue sky of Veridian III as the difference between the space scene on the B, and the naval scenes on the water at the start - just one more attractive environment to wash over our eyes!

When Kirk makes the realisation of his situation and that he has no purpose in a purposeless place, it's one of the best moments, Picard and Kirk seeing eye to eye, with Picard still a little unbalanced by this legend with a twinkle in his eye. Kirk as he always would, chooses to take the risk and make a difference once again. I wonder if he thought about what he'd do if they succeeded and the life he might have had? Maybe the thought never had a chance to cross his mind. And why didn't Picard tell him he'd met Spock to help convince him? Whatever the case they ride off into the sparkling rays of the dying fantasy to do something worthwhile in the real world, perhaps a message to the audience not to live in your fantasy, no matter how appealing it is, because ultimately it is meaningless, but to come out now and again and do something that makes a difference to the real world.

Seeing the original version on the DVD extras was tinged with both fascination and relief, and made me so grateful that they went the extra mile (and extra $5million) - Kirk shot in the back because of a mistake Picard made? It made the team of the two best-known captains seem weak and uninspiring. Even as it stands some people still moan that Kirk's death wasn't heroic enough and I do have a glimmer of understanding for their position as on the face of it it's merely the legendary captain jumping across a broken bridge then sliding down the mountainside to be crushed at the bottom. But what's really going on here? It's Kirk, and Picard needs him to decloak the launcher to stop a probe that will shortly rush off into the Veridian star destroying the system and taking a pre-warp civilisation of 230,000,000 people with it, not to mention the crew of the D! Perhaps they should have shown the civilisation they were saving, but I for one was satisfied with the way it was shot - going off and spending money on this other planet would have taken money away from important parts of the film. The numbers themselves were enough.

We've seen it happen once, but this time when Picard meets Soran on the bridge he's not Picard, he's Kirk. Soran has met his match when Picard blocks his exit and is on the back foot from there on. Picard saves Kirk's life, how great is that! Kirk risks all to get to the device, knowing he may not survive, but that the odds are against him. That heroic leap over a ravine was no small matter for Kirk - to us he may have already sealed his death, but to him he had so much to live for, but was risking it anyway. The extreme environment adds more harshness to his death, but it's Picard's being there at the end that really makes it special, and the teamwork between them.

Kirk always knew he would die alone, a portentous vision, but one he knew was likely because he was always going to take risks even as he grew older, and one time he would slip up and that would be the time for him to die. That's how I read that line from 'Star Trek V.' He would be alone, and how much more alone could he be than a century beyond his own time when all his friends have given him up for dead, on an alien world. Yes, he had Picard with him, and technically he didn't die alone, but he wasn't making a prophecy that had to be fulfilled, it was a judgement of intuition. Spock and McCoy were not there to save him, but Picard and we were permitted to see his last breath and there's a poetry in that and a resonance that means Captain Kirk died well, simply and befitting a legend. That's without considering the fact that he actually did die alone: in the deflector room of the Enterprise-B, to all intents and purposes he was dead to his own time, dissolved into space without a trace of remains to leave behind.

And so we come to the conclusion of the film, after so many dramatic moments that had changed the Star Trek world in so many ways. Seeing the saucer section with the crew (ILM crew in fact!), walking about on its surface with the sad music playing over the scene which also has a sense of inevitability in keeping with the theme that time relentlessly takes us all. The interplay at the end between Riker and Picard that closes out the film, is beautiful and fitting, nostalgic and rueful, yet wry and plants the seeds of the future in our minds - "I doubt this will be the last ship to bear the name Enterprise." I couldn't have wished for a more appropriate ending. Even the scene some people hate, with Data finding his beloved cat Spot, is affecting to me. I've heard criticism that Data and the rest of the crew sort of fall out of the story after the crash, and while that's true, it was with good reason that everything should be reduced to the elements of Kirk, Picard and Soran - two generations defeating evil. The film, on the whole, is very well balanced indeed, with every character having moments that made their presence worthwhile, something which can't be said for all the films in the series.

Why should it be that this film stands out so much for me? To be fair, I rate most of the Trek films quite closely, and this, along with 'First Contact' is just that edge in front, just has those little extra bits, while the big bits are all right for me. In all the films I find flaws, but for some reason, the themes of ending and sadness and joy, woven through the story just call out to me more than some of the other films. Often they can be action adventures, but with Star Trek I feel it's at its best when sprinkling the icing of depth to the action cake, with an extra order of character. Adding that to such ingredients as events which leave lasting ramifications through Trek continuity, bind the two most important Trek centuries together, and weave so many connections to what's gone before, it makes for a very satisfying instalment. When Kirk dies, William Shatner ad-libbed the words "Oh my…" as if seeing something beyond his natural vision, something greater and more wondrous than even the great Captain Kirk had ever seen. He'd witnessed something greater than he'd ever encountered before, and that mysteriousness, a link to our own future, represents the intentions of the whole film. They had a shopping list of items that had to be included, but all that had to be natural and turned into a great story. And this was achieved. Watch this film again, and you'll probably find that you enjoy it more than you thought.

Even in this in-depth analysis of the film I haven't had the space or time to include every nuance that makes it special for me, but hopefully I've brought the broad strokes and many of the small pieces that make it up, into focus to explain why they're so special to me. To comment on every detail I'd probably need to write a book, but then what would be the point of watching the film? It's possible to over-analyse entertainment, and forget that at its heart it's supposed to be enjoyable. For me, this film is one of my top five films of all time, and although I've seen it so many times, I still enjoy it, and that is the paramount reason for my recommendation.

*****