Star Trek: Generations

Once described as a 'torch-passing fest', this film brings together Kirk and Picard in a somewhat halfhearted manner. With a laundry-list of checkboxes to fill, this film had a lot of work to do, and achieves it with varying success.

Spoilers follow.

As well as introducing the Next Generation cast to a feature film audience, the writers were also asked to include the original crew. Since they wished to avoid using time travel, an ill-defined 'Nexus' is used to bring the two lead characters together. As well as the standard episodic fare provided by this plot device, we have Klingons, a villian who isn't a Klingon, exploding suns, and the sudden reappearence of Kirk in Picard's time, as the two men emerge from the Nexus.

They engage in a fistfight side by side, which ends in Kirk dying on a bridge. Sadly, it's not the bridge of a starship, it's a rickety metal bridge over a chasm. The bridge breaks and takes Kirk with it.

An integral part of pop culture, and an American icon in his own right, the death of Captain Kirk is neither heroic nor memorable. All his musing over death from Star Trek II is summed up in a curt 'Oh my...' before he passes away.

That said, Generations is not a bad film, although it is deeply flawed.

Record 1114 - film - Last update 28 Jul 2007, 19:49:11

Entry written by: DiscoBurgess

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