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.