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1995-11-18
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TF01
3,Generations - Movie Review
4,Negative Reviews of the film...
Tim Smith
-----------
I won't bother boring you with the plot of this, the latest in the
successful series of Star Trek movies as you will have either seen it
by now or have read the plot in some magazine. What I will do is tell
you what I think of the film and whether it works or not.
I can quite happily watch this movie and enjoy as a science fiction
spectacular. What I cannot do is watch this movie and enjoy it as a
Star Trek spectacular. Why? Well, read on.
1) The old lot are back.
As we know, the beginning of the movies sees Kirk, Chekov and Scotty
on board the Enterprise B. I have no problem with this. It was good
to see them again and made me realise that they could quite easily
have made another movie with the original cast, but Sulu having a
daughter?! As Kirk said, when did he find time to have a family? Not
a mention, not even a hint in any previous film or television
episode, and now, all of a sudden he has a daughter in her early
twenties!
2) Captain Incompetant.
Poor old Harriman. He was a nice enough bloke and came up with some
ideas, but he didn't really know what he was doing, did he? He may
well have been reasy for a command sometime but it certainly wasn't
this one. There is no way Starfleet would put someone so unsure of
himself in charge of any starship, let alone the Enterprise B. Of
course the reason why the character is written like this is so Kirk
appears more heroic, but that's a very crude way of writing. Why not
have Harriman injured?
3) No medical staff, no tractor beam, no torpedoes, no sense.
I ask you, is it either sensible, or believable that they would allow
a ship without any torpedoes, medical staff or tractor beam out of
dock? I don't think so.
4) Scotty, have you lost your mind?
Relics, written by Ronald D. Moore. Generations written by Ronald D.
Moore. Yes, you all know this one. If Scotty had seen Kirk die, how
come he assumes it is Kirk who rescues him in "Relics"? The answer,
the writer thought we wouldn't notice.
5) Game for a laugh.
What can I say about the way Data was portrayed? The all singing, all
dancing, all swearing android. Again the result of crude writing. No
insult to those who liked Star Trek V, but the supposedly humerous
antics that Data gets up to in Generations (Mr. Tricorder, singing et
cetera) are at the same purile level as the humour in Star Trek V. As
for the swearing, I just don't think Data would do that, and anyway
it doesn't belong Trek. The only other time there was swearing was in
5 (again, not justified) and 3 (which I didn't like, but could be
argued to be understandable).
6) The Next Generation.
A lot of assumptions are made in this movie, particularly concerning
the Next Gen' crew. The writers just assume that everone who is
watching Generations is cognizant with the show. The characters and
their relationships with each other are never explained in any great
detail. Now that's okay for you and me, but for those who haven't
seen the show before it can be confusing.
7) Where have all the light bulbs gone?
Just why, oh why, was the Enterprise lit like it was? As with a lot
of the writing, it is all too crude and obvious. About as subtle as a
sledge hammer and as effective as lead balloon.
8) The special effects.
For the whole, they are pretty good. There is a really nice shot of
Soran awaiting the energy ribbon, but the crashing of the
Enterprise's saucer section is awful. It's like someone has thrown a
frisbee onto a model railway.
9) The plot doesn't make sense.
Picard is in the nexus. Picard can go anywhere and anytime. Why go
back to just before Soren launches the missile? Surely it would make
more sense to go back to the observatory and arrest him? Geordi
wouldn't be kidnapped, the Enterprise wouldn't have been destroyed
and Kirk wouldn't have died. In fact, he could have gone back to the
bridge of the Enterprise B just after it had left the energy ribbon.
10) Bridge on the captain.
I'm sorry to say that Shatner didn't deliver his farewell speech at
all well. It sounded like he had just woken up rather than fallen
several hundred feet. Of course he shouldn't have died at all, but he
shouldn't have been in the movie. I know that Gene Roddenberry was
not the sort of person who would want everything set in stone and
unchangeable but these are major plot points and I don't think that
he would be pleased.
11) I've seen it all before.
I have read that to prepare for writing "Generations", Braga and
Moore watched all the previous motion pictures several times. It
shows. So many elements in "Generations" borrow from the previos
movies: the use of an incredibly powerful weapon (Star Trek II) the
destruction of the Enterprise (Star Trek III) time travel (Star Trek
IV) a renegade trying to find his own personal heaven (Star Trek V,
in fact, originally Soren was a Vulcan) the destruction of a
star/planet causing a massive shock wave (Star Trek VI) and of
course, the death of a major character (Star Trek II, again). That's
not to mention the numerous television episodes that the writers got
their inspiration from. Watch "Yesterday's Enterprise" and you'll see
that the warp core breach scenes with Geordi are virtually identical.
12) The good bit.
Malcolm McDowell is quite brilliant as Soren. In my opinion he gives
the performance of the movie and is the best villain that the movie
series has seen.
Well, thats about it. I'm sure that many others, whether they like it
or not, will come up with plenty of other points. As I said at the
beginning, I can enjoy this as a movie but as a Star Trek film it's
not all that good. Well, actually, it's pretty dreadful. I would put
it on the same level as Star Trek V. It has its moments but not
enough of them.
Rating: 30%
Sven Harvey
-------------
Stardate: 5th February 1995
Location: MGM Cinema in the Arcadian complex, Birmingham City Centre
As many of you know I wrote an article last issue (Overload!) about
my experience at an all day showing of the Star Trek movies. The
final movie in the programme was the latest in the Star Trek saga;
Star Trek: Generations.
Now to say that Generations had a bad press before it release in most
fanzines would be the grossest understatement of the (last?!) year.
With that in mind and the fact that Voyager was treated as badly
before its actual emergence and the Voyager pilot was REALLY good, I
went into watching the seventh Trek movie with an open mind.
I am not going to bore you with the plot again as I am sure someone
has gone through it already above me, but I will have to mention
certain plot points... these are potential spoilers for those who
haven't seen the movie... sorry!
The opening titles was a major let down to start off with. I had the
soundtrack to this movie quite a while before actually seeing it and
I felt a lot of emotion from the music and imagining what the opening
scene of the champagne bottle spinning through space and finally
hitting the hull of the Enterprise-B would be like. However the
actual scene was no where near as good as I had imagined it. I
imagined the bottle hitting the ship and then the spotlights
illuminating the main set of registry markings on the top of the
saucer section... no such luck just one anonymous docking port on the
side of the ship. Oh well missed opportunity numero uno.
Then Kirk steps onto the bridge of NCC-1701-B and half a tonne of
news reporters jump on him (and Scotty and Chekov). Excuse me, but
why? What are the press doing on a Starfleet ship? Why do they have
video cameras? Why not just use small tricorder like devices etc.
that don't need extra light, oh yeah and why the lights on the
reporters heads? Damn stupid scenes if you ask me! After a while
though with an emergency situation arising and Captain Harriman
showing himself to be a useless waste of uniform you think why didn't
Kirk take command a darn sight quicker? Kirk would normally be in
command the moment the situation arose!
Anyway the Enterprise-B picks up a distress call from the El-Aurians
escaping from the Borg (and why didn't Guinan mention the Borg to
anyone? Oh yeah and how did the El-Aurians get to Federation Space so
quickly?). The ship is trapped in a mysterious energy ribbon and the
Enterprise has to get close to beam the survivors aboard.
Unfortunately they have problems and Kirk volunteers to do some
engineering work in the secondary hull. The day is saved but after
the loss of some of the Enterprise's hull, Kirk seems to have been
sucked in (correction sir, that's blown out) to space.
Now call me picky but wouldn't Scotty have done the engineering work?
Plus Chekov is doing a good impression of Bones. Were these parts
written for someone else? Like DeForest and Leonard and then adapted?
Not all that obvious... honest.
Then we are whisked from the 23rd to the 24th century to witness
Worf's promotion ceremony on the sailing ship Enterprise (in a
holodeck). Will gets his own back on Worf for taking Deanna during
the latter part of season 7 but a majorly unneccesary plot
development was the death of Picard's brother and nephew (but were
they? They certainly weren't the same actors in the photos!)
Unfortunately the film then stumbles into further trouble, simply
because it IS Star Trek! Compounding on the errors with Scotty
earlier on, some of the crew of the Enterprise-D underwent some
inverse-character development! Picard became the cold character of
the early 1st season episodes while Riker became less experienced!
Data was given emotions and reacted as he should have done...
initially. Unfortunately his changes were taken miles too far. I can
understand Data being engulfed by a massive fit of laughter, as he
has only laughed once before properly (thanks to Q) but turning a
tricorder into a hand puppet? I don't think so. Data being scared and
overwhelmed by it, fair enough but not saving Geordi? In that
situation a Data with emotions would have got rather angry (because
Geordi is his friend) and was more likely to do Soren some damage.
On top of all of this, Riker allows Picard to beam down (via the
Klingon vessel) to stop Soren and instead wears a uniform that really
doesn't suit him at all while landing the saucer section! Beverly
doesn't do much except evacuate everyone from sick-bay into the
saucer section (not far to go considering sick-bay IS IN the saucer
section) and isn't around for the majority of the movie. Troi seems
to gain a cockney accent while a bunch of Klingons in an underpowered
little old bird of prey manage to destroy the Galaxy Class Federation
flagship while the Enterprise fires off a couple of pathetic (by
Enterprise-D standards) pot shots to completely destroy the little
SCOUT ship. The actual scene of the events leading to the warp core
breach is more than dodgy as it is an almost carbon copy of
"Yesterdays Enterprise"!
The reason that the Enterprise should be destroyed? Because someone
thought "That could be fun!" ARRRRGGGGGHHHH!
The saucer landing sequence is also less than convincing and probably
worse than the BBC's sequence used for the crashing of the Scorpio in
Blake's 7. The saucer is the wrong colour, the surroundings look far
too green and the saucer does look too much like Centre Parcs when
stationary. A particular insult to a brilliantly designed vessel.
The film does have good points. Some of the effects, especially the
rendered effects are gorgeous and there are some great moments in the
movie. Unfortunately the complete lack of continuity with Star Trek,
Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
(remember Lursa and B'Etor visited the station) doesn't allow the
movie to actually work within Star Trek lore. As a movie it is
exciting and fun to watch. As a Star Trek movie it is disgraceful and
a total cock-up.
If Rick Berman and Co. had taken Star Trek: Generations, fixed all
the continuity cock-ups and not destroyed the Enterprise at the end
(maybe by ejecting the warp core?) then switching places between it
and "All Good Things..." would have resulted in far more happy
people.
The only way the people behind this movie are going to get back in my
good books are by following it up with a fully Next Gen movie
featuring Q, the Borg, and a Nova class USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-E,
with Frakes directing. AND then a series of Captain Sulu TV movies
(Enterprise-B?). But then again the likely hood of Viacom/Paramount
being intelligent at the moment isn't too high!?!
The movie isn't the worst in the series, that is still Star Trek V's
crime but it does fall into the same category as the second and sixth
films as good movies but terrible Star Trek movies. At the moment I
can only bear to watch Star Trek IV out of the movies. Unless the
added material in the Laserdisc or VHS video version do make a marked
difference I am afraid that, as I did with Star Trek V, I will have
to think very carefully about buying this.
Overall score: 40%
Paul Chan
-----------
A Review of Star Trek: Generations (by someone who hasn't even seen
the film!).
My opinion on Star Trek 7, or more correctly, Star Trek: Generations
is coloured by the fact that I have not seen the film yet - only
clips from trailers on CIC videos of Deep Space Nine and the odd clip
from a film review. I can, however, deliver my thoughts on the film
in a biased Waterworld style :-).
I'm not going to nitpick it scene by scene (others will be doing
that) but rest assured, I've seen the script and I'm disappointed.
Overall, I think that Star Trek: Generations was doomed by being an
odd numbered Star Trek film. Paramount seem stuck in the rut of
releasing even numbered films to apologise for the shortcomings of
the odd numbered ones. Generations was a financial success by
breaking the $100 million mark but on the whole, it seems empty. Even
from the trailer, Picard seems to have gone back to the boring
captain he was in TNG seasons 1 and 2, Riker looks dishevelled and
fat as ever, and you can see the cracks in Data's makeup. The
uniforms have been changed (and from the trailer it looks like Troi
held on the to old style uniform).
Data has been completely wrecked as a character, and they just had to
smash up the Enterprise, didn't they? The Enterprise was also VERY
darkly lit - did they forget to pay their lighting bill? I know drama
in a film can be paid for with moody lighting, but the lighting in
the TV series was fixed at a bright level. The sudden change is all
too strange. Another change is uniforms, out go the old TNG uniforms,
and in come Deep Space Nine style uniforms, but why wasn't everyone
wearing them?
All these are just nitpicks of my own, but the storyline is a dead
loss - they could and should have made much more of the old/new
transition (if they had to have one), and while giving over a dozen
actors a meaningful part in the movie may have been difficult I
didn't want just Chekov and Scotty being the token TOS appearances.
The problem here lies with the transition from TV series to film.
With the bigger budget, they could theoretically do more things (and
earn more money). Why does Generations, therefore, look like a
distinctly average episode of TNG? In my opinion, a story like "Best
of Both Worlds" in 2 hours 20 minutes could have been much better. As
I said, the advantages of moving to the movies grants a bigger budget
and a worldwide audience but this is a curse.
The actors demand a larger wage packet and more screentime - you
can't promise them an episode to themselves in a fortnight. The
audience changes from a generally Trek knowledgable audience to a
general worldwide audience so you have to write for them. This means
that you have to go through the rigmarole of introducing Star Trek:
The Next Generation to a new audience - diluting the power of a
script. In other words, you get told again that Worf is a Klingon,
Data is an android, and Geordi is blind but can see. I'm sure this
doesn't help the fans feelings when they are already looking at a
film that has slayed their fond memories of the Next Generation.
The other bugbear with the transition to the big screen is the fact
that all the plot devices have to be so much bigger than on the small
screen. The Nexus is a contrived piece of writing as was Data's
emotional chip (a big embarrassing mistake in all counts). Picard's
family is killed in a fire. Data tells us the population of the
system under threat but we don't ever get to see them, so how can we
sympathise with them? Dr Soran should have been the stereotypical
maniacal geniusTM (but ends up being a pathetic desperate man). The
TOS crew needn't have been there, and Kirk's end was a poorly staged
one - they knew he had to die from the beginning so they had plenty
of time to plan it - why couldn't they get it right first time?
Finally, they just HAD to crash the saucer section didn't they? Well,
I suppose they had to give ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) something
to do.
Well, this was a very short review, and I should be able to finish it
with a high point about the film - so, I choose the still shots of
the TNG crew giving Worf the "promotion" right at the start of the
film. It's the only part of the film that looks nice. :-)
Summary: Kirk "dies" on Enterprise B; Worf is promoted; Picard's
family is killed in a fire; Soran tries to kill billions; Lursa and
B'Etor are killed (?); The Enterprise D saucer section crashes;
Picard meets Kirk; Kirk and Picard fight Soran; Kirk "dies".
That summary is just some of the major events in Generations - As you
can see, the writers basically drove an average script, loaded with
obligatory "major" film events, down the throats of an audience
composed of a good proportion of disappointed fans.