Movie Review:  "Star Trek: Generations"
Copyright (c) 1994, Bruce Diamond
All rights reserved




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          STAR TREK:  GENERATIONS -- David Carson, director.       
          Ronald D. Moore & Brannon Braga, screenplay.  Rick Ber-  
          man, Ronald D. Moore & Brannon Braga, story.  Patrick    
          Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Levar Burton,    
          Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Malcolm     
          McDowell, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Whoopi Goldberg,  
          and William Shatner.  Paramount.  Rated PG.              
        

          To put it succinctly, STAR TREK:  GENERATIONS is more of a
     fan's movie than anything else, perhaps even more of a fan movie
     than any other picture in the franchise.  Folks walking in cold
     to a screening won't get much out of the secondary character
     interactions if they haven't watched ST:  NEXT GENERATION a few
     times over the past seven years.  Elements like Data's "emotion
     chip" and Spot, his cat; Geordi's visor and his friendship with
     Data; Riker's relationship with Picard and his dislike for a
     captaincy that would take him away from the Enterprise; and the
     technobabble ("warp core breach," "level 12 shock wave") that has
     become a hallmark of the series -- most of these elements will be
     so much clutter to the casual viewer.  As a result, non-fans are
     left with the villain -- Dr. Soran (Malcolm McDowell), a nasty
     piece of work who never reaches his full potential -- and a plot
     that's as silly and abstract (if not existential) as the
     ludicrous "anti-time" concept that ended the TV series' regular
     run.
     
          The real attraction of GENERATIONS doesn't occur until deep
     into the third act:  the melding of the old guard with the new
     guard.  I got that familiar Trekkie lump in my throat when I
     first saw Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Captain
     Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) meet up on horseback in the
     movie's coming attractions trailer when it hit theaters in late
     summer.  "I take it the odds are against us and the situation's
     grim," Kirk says when Picard makes one last plea for the two
     captains to team up against a common enemy.  "Sounds like fun!"
     is the capper line that's perfectly in keeping with Captain
     Kirk's maverick nature while providing a nostalgic thrill for
     old-time fans.
     
          McDowell's Dr.  Soran is the threat that takes two Captains
     to stop: he's a mad scientist in the traditional mold, blowing up
     solar systems literally for his own enjoyment.  Strange as it
     sounds, the stellar explosions are engineered to influence the
     path of a ribbon of time called The Nexus.  As Guinan (Whoopi
     Goldberg), NEXT GENERATION's resident barkeep and in-house
     mysterious presence, explains it to Picard, The Nexus is a place
     of pure joy, and an intersection between all times and places.
     It's through The Nexus that the past and present Enterprise
     captains meet.  Having experienced the pure joy of The Nexus
     once, Soran's need to return to it exhibits all the characteris-
     tics of addiction.  You might say STAR TREK itself, whether in
     TV, movie, or print form, is The Nexus to which every Trekkie
     needs to return -- a place of pure joy that few others under-
     stand.
     
          The contrast between the two Captains isn't developed as
     much as I had hoped; it's mostly reduced to success in punch-outs
     with Soran (surprise, surprise, Kirk is the abler pugilist) and
     an extended discussion of duty.  The secondary characters are
     used mostly to just drive the plot along.  As is usual in the
     male-dominated STAR TREK world, the female characters have been
     given the least amount to do.  Two members of the original Trek
     cast, Scotty (James Doohan) and Chekhov (Walter Koenig), come
     along as window dressing for the first ten minutes (Leonard Nimoy
     and DeForest Kelley, the only other members asked back, de-
     clined), and most of the NEXT GENERATION cast have just a few
     lines, aside from the Data/emotion chip subplot, before they're
     cast aside for the juicy Soran/Klingon and Soran/Picard scenes.
     
          So, what does it take to translate NEXT GENERATION to the
     big screen?  Superficially, it takes retooled sets and graphics
     (to compensate for film's increased visual resolution), a
     lighting design that, at least aboard ship, seems much darker
     than it needs to be (the director of photography definitely
     decided to play with the dynamic range that film offers), a new
     Enterprise set (stellar cartography, well-conceived and
     executed), and the trashing of a starship that's become a ritual
     with the movies.  Plotwise, it didn't take all that much to
     launch a new series of movies.
     
          STAR TREK:  GENERATIONS will have made over 50 million bucks
     by the time you read these words, making it the most successful
     debut of an ST movie, ever.  Whether the fans can carry it beyond
     the first film's take (the most successful in the series) remains
     to be seen.  But how did I like it?
     
          Just fine, thank you.  Personally, I'd place it behind THE
     VOYAGE HOME (ST IV) and THE WRATH OF KHAN (ST II) in terms of
     entertainment value.
     
     RATING:  6 out of 10
