SFdebris : Generations

[kostmayer]

Maybe that's why he's more of a fighter in the later films; his defeat to Soren made him decide to learn to fight.

Maybe thats what his Captain Ahab schlock was really all about.

"And I... will make them pay for what they've done!"
"Oh really? You sure you're not embarassed you got your arse kicked by a 300 year old man and had to get Kirk to bail you out?"
"i'll show that toupee'd tubster who's the baddest captain ever - er what, no!"

[Graham Kennedy]

Things I would do to improve Generations without changing the basic plot :

1) Make clear that most folks in ships die before they reach the Nexus. I'd have had a dozen transports in the opening scene, and had most destroyed way before anybody got any peace and contentment. Make clear that this is usual, hence justifying the "not flying into it" thing.

2) Yes, have the E-D fight off the Romulans. A battle scene here to show that the E-D is a powerful, state of the art ship.

3) Picard should tone the emotions down when he's talking to Troi. Alright, he's upset. But Stewart is the master of conveying such things through quiet stoicism, not by blubbing.

4) Tone down Data. Yeah, okay, the emotion chip is malfunctioning and all that. But jeeeeeze.

5) In line with this, to make them a credible threat, give Lursa and B'Etor a Vor'Cha. When they penetrate the shields, have Geordi change frequencies and the Klingons just watch him do it and remodulate the weapons. And ave the E-D fight back bigtime, but the Klingon shields manage to hold up. For that matter, screw the fake-out with the cloaking device; the E-D wins anyway just by pounding away enough to batter the shields down. This makes them more heroic, beating cheating adversaries through strength rather than cheating the cheaters.

6) For Pete's sake, make Beverly Picard's wife in the Nexus! The woman has barely anything to do during the whole movie, and it would be a nice nod to the whole "they want to but won't" thing they've always had going on.

7) Don't make Guinan in the Nexus an "echo". It's daft. Why is she there? because in the Nexus you get what you want. And whilst most of Picard wants the fantasy... some part of him wants to be convinced to leave and do his duty. Just say Guinan is there because his conscience wished her there - it's in line with the idea of the Nexus and saves a needless clunky bit of exposition.

8) Similarly, have Picard not going too far back because he doesn't want to alter the time line too much. Make the point that he doesn't know the E-D has been destroyed, so he has no idea he can go and save it.

9) For Pete's sake, give Kirk a proper burial! In fact I might just say that his body is being returned to Earth for a full state funeral.

[Deepcrush]

GK hit it all on the head there. We need some of those naval uniforms in pics for adding to the main site. A uniform section would be cool.

[Deepcrush]

For those who don't know what Seafort and I are talking about...

[Nickswitz]

And for all of us who didn't know what they were talking about, we still don't....

Psst... They are the little blank icon...

[Deepcrush]

Its not loading right, just right click and "open in new tab".

[stitch626]

"This webpage is not available."

[Deepcrush]

Goes right to photobucket for me.

[colmquinn]

I'm just getting the word image (non clickable kind)

[Atekimogus]

What I don't quite understand is, why they killed off so many things in this movie.

First, why were they so hellbend to blow up the E-D? Like her or not, she belongs to the main cast imho and you do not change such things in such a disgraceful manner. I just do not understand the need for it. Yes the sovereign looks nice, so does the excelsior compared to the constitution class ships. So whom do they serve with such a movie? The average moviegoer does not care to much about such things and fans watching 7 seasons of TNG are pissed at the end of the movie. When they blew up the Enil it served to make a point in the movie, but here it seems just random (aka "I want my planet crash scene no matter what"). And what is almost laughable is, that they spent so much time and money to make the damn ship as fine looking on the inside and the outside as she ever was...and then blow her up (the lightining beeing a matter of preference imho. The movie watched in HD did seem much brighter strangly). Now I have no idea what it costs to design and build a complete new ship and sets but I imagine not having this costs would have payed for a nice Borg battle we where cheated out off in first contact, but hey just watching to the radio and listening how the battle unfolds has a charm of its own:)

Second, why did they kill Kirk? Don't get me wrong, his death doesn't bother me that much but once more I just do not understand the need for him beeing in the movie in the first place. Did they really believe, that people won't watch a trek movie if there is no shatner in it?

Since most of the star trek movies are supposed to be entertaining they end on a positive note, with the villain beaten, the universe safe again etc. but not so generations. In one swoop you loose the most iconic captain and the iconic starship of 7 seasons and no matter how much they babble about time at the end, this leaves a foul taste in the mouth.

I pity the art department, set designers and composer - providing one of the most beautiful star trek scores of all time - who wasted their talend on this movie, a real shame.

[Reliant121]

My biggest bugbear was purely the death of the E-D. Yeah she's a flying space hotel, but that space hotel has the firepower to decimate pretty much anything in any other of the AQ/BQ fleets (besides maybe a Negh'Var, but the Galaxy has maneuverability on its side). E-D should have gone out having burned her phaser arrays into oblivion, having exhausted every last torpedo in a desperate attempt to crack the sister's ship and only being destroyed because a last shot from the Vor'cha knocked her engines out. The E-D was insanely capable of warfare but never got the chance to exercise her might.

Thats the only reason I like NEM: Seeing the E-E let rip.

[Mikey]

Agreed with all of GK's points... and it was nice to see Picard in some proper frogging on the bridge. But Seafort - Alex' Soren's handgun is the only proper one in 'Trek? You mean the one with the needless complication of the rotating mechanism which both takes time to move into firing position AND moves the barrel off a humanoid's natural firing axis? The same one with the barrel so ridiculously short it makes a .38 Police look like a sniper rifle?

[Sonic Glitch]

I believe their reasoning for killing the E-D was that, regardless of how good they made it look, nothing about it was designed to be shot movie-style. In fact isn't that part of the reason the E-nil is upgraded in TMP? They could do what they could to fix it, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a TV ship, designed for 4:3 and not 16:9 (or whatever the movie widescreen ratio is). I'm not saying it's particularly good reasoning, but it's their reasoning.

The only part I really disagree with is over the beginning: I like the wine bottle, and part of me feels that if they had gone with the original plan, we'd only be complaining that shatner had this huge over-the-top entrance that was really unnecessary given the rest of the film.

[Tsukiyumi]

...But Seafort - Alex' Soren's handgun is the only proper one in 'Trek? You mean the one with the needless complication of the rotating mechanism which both takes time to move into firing position AND moves the barrel off a humanoid's natural firing axis? The same one with the barrel so ridiculously short it makes a .38 Police look like a sniper rifle?

I think he means the fact that it could actually blow sh*t up, as opposed to just leaving little scorch marks.

[Captain Seafort]

I think he means the fact that it could actually blow sh*t up, as opposed to just leaving little scorch marks.

Indeed. In most firefights the away teams avoid getting wiped out because weapons are pathetic. In Generations they avoided getting wiped out because Soran can't shoot straight (unsurprisingly - he's a scientist, not a soldier).