Generations (very, very long review)

Star Trek: Generations (long review)
Captain Picard: Patrick Stewart
Lt. Commander Data: Brent Spiner
Captain Kirk: William Shatner
Soran: Malcolm McDowell


I need to preface this review by stating that I am a huge Star Trek fan. I grew up on the original and Next Generation series, and love Deep Space Nine. By the time I was 7 or 8 I had every single episode of the original series memorized. I have had a crush on Spock since I was 10. I know who the two female Klingons in this film are. I know that the sole black actor (who plays a human) with dialogue in the film is Tim Russ, and that he has appeared in three of the Star Trek series, co-starring in one of them. I not only know that there is a joke about Deanna Troi crashing the Enterprise, I know why it is funny. While I don’t dress up in full Star Trek regalia and congregate with others at the many conventions (all right, I have been to a couple, but I never wore a costume!), it is safe to say that I can be considered, perhaps, somewhat of an expert on Star Trek. As such, it can only be expected that my review will be slightly (ok, very) biased, and very long.

So here we go.

After a rather boring span of opening credits, the movie immediately shifts into high gear. A champagne bottle floating through space crashes into the brand spanking new Enterprise B, commemorating its maiden voyage. On board as a guest, to the media’s excitement, is the retired Captain James T. Kirk, there to watch as a brand new captain take the first Enterprise Kirk will not command. It is clear that neither the retired captain nor the young, new captain are comfortable with this situation. Both Scotty and Chekov are along for the ride, providing moral support. They also gently tease him about the nauseating hero worship he is forced to endure. After nearly 30 years , the chemistry between these three actors is so strong, and their interaction so effortless, it is as much fun to watch them as it seems to have been for them to be in this movie. Of course, within minutes, Kirk is put into a situation where he can save the day, and another Enterprise, once more. Only this time, he sacrifices his own life in the process. It is a hero’s death worthy of Captain James T. Kirk. The entire fifteen minutes that Kirk is on the screen at the beginning features a combination of light humor, intense action and a bit of serious drama. It is also the high point of the movie.

My disappointment in the rest of the film has nothing to do with Kirk being a better actor, or that I love him more than the Next Generation crew. He isn’t and I don’t. It’s that while the writers seemed to have had no problem writing for the original characters, they had no clear idea how to transfer the newer characters to the big screen while also bridging the two generations. This is a bit shocking since they had been writing for the Next Generation characters for four years by that point. There are various problems big and small that permeate the movie, not all of it connected to the writing.

The technical aspects were a mixed bad. A surprising misstep is the music. Even the worst Star Trek movies feature, at the very least, interesting and memorable music. Some have great music. An hour after watching this film, I couldn't remember a single note. I do remember that it was boring. On the other hand, I was surprised to find the lighting of the movie, particularly the contrasts of dark and light in Picard's Ready Room to be stimulating, and one my favorite aspects of the film. The worst technical feature is undoubtedly the combination of direction and editing, resulting in something that looks like an extended television episode rather than a film that belongs on the silver screen.

A minor annoyance is the genesis of an embarrassing tradition: Worf is turned into little more than a joke. Pavel Chekov was made to look like a bit of an idiot in the original Star Trek show for comic relief, but in the films, he was written as a mature character. It worked very well because by the time the second film was released, Walter Koenig was noticeably older. Worf moved in the opposite direction, despite Michael Dorn looking older, even under a ton of makeup. While the Klingon did provide some comic relief in the show, as well as on Deep Space Nine later, Worf was always treated with respect. In the movies, he is written as a buffoon half the time. Some of the things he had to do in the succeeding movies are too embarrassing to think about. I hope he got well paid. Ironically, one of the writers of this film went on to write the best Worf episodes on Deep Space Nine. He also went on to be the show runner of the new Battlestar Galactica. Proof positive that one bad movie does not necessarily reflect on a writer’s skill.

The only other source of humor in the film is much more pervasive, and one of the two major problems with the film: Data. I think Brent Spiner did a terrific job playing a tricky character in the television series. He imbued the android with a subtle mixture of curiosity, grace, and a sweetness that worked well in the Star Trek world. And unlike most of the characters on the show, Data was allowed to really grow. By the end of the series, he was barely recognizable as the emotionless, naïve and slightly clueless android who escorted the very elderly Dr. McCoy down a corridor of the new Enterprise in the pilot episode. The writers (and Spiner who had a lot of control over his parts in the script) threw out every single thing that defined who Data was for seven years, and created a loud, obnoxious and irritating android. In the film, Data decides to install his emotion chip he keeps on display (he got it in a very bad episode – a sign?). This could have been an interesting aspect of the movie. It wasn’t. I have seen Spiner in interviews; he is hilarious and has excellent comedic timing. For some reason, none of that comes across here. There are times he even seems to be uncomfortable. Data is supposed to be struggling with his emotions, but Spiner plays Data so over-the-top that those around him, for the most part, are reduced to little more than tapestries. Less than an hour into the movie, I actually felt sorry for every actor unfortunate enough to be standing next to him. Patrick Stewart is the only one who manages to hold his own, but it clearly took all of his tremendous skills to overcome that much melodrama. I found myself wondering how a scene between Data and Kirk would have played out in this film. Brent made Shatner look like the epitome of subtlety. I wonder what effect exposure to this overacting would have had on the Shat. It might have been epic.

Still, despite both my dislike of Data in this movie and the weird lack of good humor among the new crew, this movie still could have been salvaged. Watching the Enterprise D crash onto the planet (thanks, Deanna) is one of the greatest thrills I've ever had in a theater. The majority of the Kirk scenes are great, including The Scene where he meets Picard, which is highly entertaining. Even Malcolm McDowell managed to contain his tendency towards overacting. These could have offset how annoying Data was, and certainly the minor technical disappointments. But in order to do so, the movie needed one essential ingredient: a well-executed story. Unfortunately, the story is the movie’s greatest weakness.

The original movies often had a lot of humor in them. Everyone involved was smart enough to realize that the stories being written often had a trace of ridiculousness in its stories. They knew that the movies, just like the show, would work best if the writers and actors didn’t take themselves too seriously. It also helped that the actors worked well with this. The Generations script was primarily forcing the crew to play it straight and serious. In order for it to work it needed to execute one heck of a dramatic punch. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine excelled at this. That show featured the darkest, most powerful plots in all of Star Trek. While there was comedy, it was often of the darkest kind, and there were episodes that had none at all. But they were so well written, and so well executed, that several were nothing short of excellent. In order for there to be a dramatic punch, the audience has to care deeply for the characters. This is incredibly difficult for Star Trek films to pull off. They have to be accessible to audiences new to Star Trek while trying to stay within the framework of the vast, intricate Star Trek universe. There’s very little time to explain back stories that took years, sometimes decades, to create. If Generations could have pulled that off, it likely would have been a good film. In fact, it could have been one of the best. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t to be.

The key plot of the movie is Picard’s story. It is this pivotal plot around which everything revolves, the story on which the overall quality of the movie depends. It is literally what determines whether or not Picard will not only be able, but even want to save the universe. There, of course, is a bad guy, but the key struggle for Picard in this film is internal. As with all the Next Generation stories, there is some external force that causes the conflict. In this case, the force is called the Nexus, an energy ribbon that transports beings into a dimension in which their every wish and desire is catered to. As Guinan, adequately played by Whoopie Goldberg, tells her friend Picard, time and space have no meaning in the Nexus. You can be taking breakfast to the love of your life, only to walk through the door and find yourself in a barn standing next to the horse you happened to be thinking about. It is so enticing and overwhelming that one of the characters spends nearly a century obsessed with finding a way back in, having no problem killing hundreds of millions of life forms in the process. The plot depends on Picard not only getting caught in the Nexus, but more importantly, facing a personal crisis so powerful that having the Nexus sooth his emotional pain makes returning to his time and space very difficult. This was always going to be a difficult sell. Like Kirk, Picard has always shown more dedication to his career than anything or anyone else. What could possibly make him even think about giving it up? Patrick Stewart lobbied hard for the motivation to be that Picard is informed right before the Nexus is found that his three remaining family members are killed, burned alive. The intention was for Picard to feel devastated that he had sacrificed not just his entire life, but now his entire family line, to the job. Stewart felt that Picard’s fresh wounds would have the effect of his desire to continue his family’s legacy, helped along by his shame at having pushed that responsibility on to his recently deceased brother, becoming as powerful as the pull he feels to his career.

This type of heavy drama hinged on the audience being able to connect with Picard’s pain. It is here where the tight confines of all Star Trek movie plots collided with a terrible decision by the writers. Although character development wasn’t exactly a defining feature of the television show, because of the character back story restrictions forced on all Star Trek movies, not to mention there being too many characters, there is even less time for it in Generations. As such, every second of it needed to count. For some reason, the writers wasted time that could have been used carefully developing Picard's story by focusing more than they should have, more than they needed to, on Soran. The result of this decision sank the film. Both story arcs ended up being unsatisfying. The writers spent just enough time hinting that Soran was a complex, interesting guy, but not enough for the audience to make an emotional connection. Picard's internal agony never makes much of an impression on the audience, other than a sense that it is highly melodramatic. There was just too much time between each scene specifically designed to show how much he was hurting. The audience doesn't even find out the cause until more than 45 minutes into the film. Not only that, but his indecision in the Nexus is practically nonexistent. He spends most of his time trying to convince Kirk to come back with him. This all resulted in making Picard's story arc seem completely useless, and worse, making him pale in comparison to Kirk. The writers tried to have their cake and eat it, too. What they ended up with is a film that is shallow and a waste.

It is easy to see why the writers didn’t want to choose. On the one hand, there is Malcolm McDowell who, somehow, some way, managed a subdued, interesting performance. There are hints throughout the film that the writers had a fascinating idea for how this character worked. Here was a man who lost everything, but for a brief moment was able to live as if he had gotten it all back. Then to his horror, he is jerked back without his consent to his own time. Unable to face it, he spends decades doing nothing but trying to find a way back. There are aspects to that that would have been interesting to explore. On the other hand, you have Patrick Stewart, who is a great actor, not to mention the star of the film. The best episodes of the show were ones that featured Picard struggling internally. Starting off the chain of Next Generation movies by showcasing the tremendous acting skills of the star would have made for a hell of an entrance to the big screen. The writers could have highlighted that this crew was different, more serious, precisely because it was led by an actor who could keep the drama from turning into melodrama. Instead, the writers made the amateur mistake of not choosing which angle to fully explore, probably thinking they could do both. This one mistake condemned the film to mediocrity.

One final point about the film, and this one has upset me since the first night I saw it back in 1994. Kirk’s first death is vastly more heroic and fitting than his second one. Going out while single-handedly saving the new Enterprise that was next in line after the one he cared so deeply about is poignant. Being brought back and not directly, single-handedly saving anyone was not worthy of a man such as James T. Kirk. Not to mention that his death the first time got it right: he died alone. Another example of the film's inability to offer any type of real meaning to the audience.

This review is long not (only) because I’m a huge Star Trek fan. For the past few years, I have been lamenting how the Next Generation movies just aren’t that good, and trying to figure out why. First Contact performed the best, but even that one isn’t great. I certainly wouldn’t put it in the same category as Star Trek II. This disappoints me because I think this crew could have been used well enough to make some really good movies. The problem is that the writers tried to follow the same formula used in the first six movies with a cast of characters that wasn’t designed for that. The best Next Generation episodes were far more cerebral, and allowed Patrick Stewart’s, and to a lesser extent Brent Spiner’s, acting to really shine. In the films, Picard was forced into being more of an action hero than he really was, Data remained coarse and Spiner a little awkward, and the rest of the crew became completely interchangeable.

Except Generations. I really think that the writers for this film meant to create a script that wrote the Next Generation characters the way they were designed to be. Unfortunately, because of the major writing mistakes with the script, they just couldn’t pull it off. So, the writers, and I suspect even more the producers, decided to just stick with the tried and true formula of keeping Star Trek lightly humorous and full of action. I think this is why all of the movies headlined by Captain Picard, even First Contact, don’t stand out. They’re barely even Star Trek, and they are definitely not marked by what defined the television show: a good balance between a morality-focused story, good, subtle acting, and action. The Next Generation did have action, but it rarely ever overpowered the dramatic power of the story. At least the best episodes didn’t. And finally, frankly, the cast seems to have been incapable of handling the type of humor every single actor in the original show handled effortlessly.

I firmly believe that if the writers had turned in a better script, chosen to focus less on Soran and more on Picard's emotional trauma, and reduced the number of characters, the movie could have established a different model for the Next Generation movies. If that had happened, I think we would have seen some excellent movies that played to the talents of Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner. They would have been very different from the first six Star Trek films, but they also would have had their own identity. It’s sad that we never got this.