Star Trek Generations

Date: June 4, 2020

Musical Accompaniment: Top 40 Guitar Covers, 2020 edition

Luis-style Summary: The Enterprise-B is going on it’s shakedown cruise with the press, a skeleton crew, no tractor beam, a captain who is the world’s most famous sidekick, Sulu’s kid at the helm, and three special guests: Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov. They receive a distress call and Kirk is acting like a father who is taking their child for their first driving lesson. There’s a spatial distortion that blows up one ship, no survivors, and then the other, though 47 are saved by Scotty. One of the survivors is Guinan and one is a man named Soran… this will become important later. A piece of the ship goes missing and, of course, it contained Kirk.

Fast forward 78 years later and Worf is being promoted in a ridiculous holodeck ceremony where Picard is living out his Naval fantasy. Picard gets some bad news (his brother and nephew are dead) and then the Enterprise-D gets a distress call (Romulans attacked an observatory). Guinan is tending bar in Ten-Forward and Soran, who was found on the observatory, is all distressed as he needs to get back right now, damn it Picard. Data has La Forge install his emotion chip and it’s a doozy to get used to, unfortunately leading to La Forge’s capture as Soran has them both beamed to a Klingon ship with B’Etor and Lursa.

Soran is looking for “The Nexus”, is blowing up stars to try to get there, and is using the Duras sisters with the lure of a weapon. The sisters find a way to fire on the Enterprise but are outsmarted by Worf and get themselves blown up for their trouble. Picard is on planet with Soran and is trying to stop him, which means Riker is in charge of the ship. Naturally, as Riker is in charge, they have to evacuate everyone to the saucer section and then crash land on the planet in dramatic Hollywood fashion.

Picard and Soran fight like the old men they are when The Nexus envelopes the planet and suddenly Picard is married to random redhead woman #5 with several children and René is alive and they’re all celebrating Christmas. Guinan enters the vision and nudges him along to find Kirk, who thinks it’s nine years ago and he has the chance to “do it all right” with a woman he left to rejoin Starfleet. After riding on horses, because honestly who doesn’t own their own saddle, Kirk decides to join Picard to right what Soran did wrong. They beat up Soren, Kirk dies, the Enterprise-D is successfully evacuated, Data finds Spot, and Picard tosses a priceless relic aside for a family photo album.

TL;DR: Kirk is lost in space and 78 years later he’s found by Picard, who also gets sucked into this thing called “The Nexus” because of a man named Soran. Picard and Kirk work together to kick Soran’s ass and it’s all made possible because of temporal distortions and energy ribbons. Oh, and Data has his emotion chip installed and the Enterprise-D is totaled.

Favorite quotes:

Kirk: Take us out.

Chekov: Very good, sir.

Scotty: Brought a tear to my eye.

Kirk: Oh, be quiet.

I missed the hell out of Chekov and Scotty, and maybe Kirk… but just a bit.

Captain James T. Kirk: “You know if Spock were here, he’d say I was an irrational, illogical human being for taking on a mission like that. Sounds like fun.”

Guinan: It looks like he hates it.

Data: Yes. That is it. I hate this.

La Forge: Data, I think the chip is working.

Data: Yes. I hate this! It is revolting!

Guinan: More?

Data: Please.

Data is the most adorable android.

My Thoughts and Impressions: So this movie basically boiled down to “The Kirk and Picard Show” and I am not here for it. Rather than spoil it all right at the beginning, let me take you through some random thoughts I had throughout the movie.

Why wasn’t it funny for Data to push Crusher into the water? I thought it was hysterical and was spontaneous for Data. I just don’t understand how that is the catalyst for him using the chip… and also, how was the chip restored? It was damaged in “Descent“.

Why did we see the saucer crash not once, but twice? It is just a Hollywood thing, getting their money’s worth out of the shot? I mean it’s not as bad as the shot from The Motion Picture, you know which one I’m talking about. I’m also pretty sure there’s the scene where both captains are riding horses because, well, somehow they both love horses and why not? Got to make the old guys happy somehow.

I also have no idea why Picard chose that particular moment to return to. What about in Ten-Forward, before Soran leaves the Enterprise-D or even when he’s still on the observatory? I get that it’s for the drama, but maybe they could have explained he could only go back to a time where the Nexus and he were closest? Is this why Guinan has spidey-senses when something has fucked with the space-time continuum? I really needed more Guinan in my life, and she was no where to be found in Season 7, sigh.

I was sad that Kirk died, but it was the way I always imagined he would die… on one last mission. He explains to Harriman that “risk is part of the game if you want to sit in the chair” and he fucking loved that captain’s chair. I hated that we only got 5 minutes of Chekov and Scotty, none of Uhura, and only a brief mention of Sulu. I’m okay with not getting any of McCoy, he showed up on TNG at least, and there was no reason for Spock to be there with his ambassador duties. It was a fitting end to the OG Enterprise crew.

I also came to the realization, while writing this post, that Picard is vaguely like Leroy Jethro Gibbs. A fascination with redheaded women, married to the job, has a favorite drink (tea, Early Gray, hot vs. coffee, so sue me), and is a law and order kind of man. SO there are obviously a lot of differences, but those kind of struck me tonight.

I will end with the following: NEVER LET RIKER HAVE COMMAND OF THE SHIP.

Movie rating: In comparison to the other movies on my Rankings page, it would earn itself a warp 6.3, but this is only because I rate it higher than The Motion Picture (6) and lower than The Undiscovered Country (6.5). If I were to rate it independently, it’s a warp 3… so I absolutely need to go back and fix my old posts. I won’t, but I should.

TA Out!