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Star Trek: Generations (1994)
Full IMDb listing

by Andy Ihnatko

If there's a consistent flaw in most — if not all — of the "Star Trek" features, it's that their producers either don't know or don't care about the fundamental differences between making a TV show and making a movie.

You can see it in the usual superficial things that are part of Trek turf, like the props that are so cheesy that they begin to attain a sort of grandeur. What sort of gear, for instance, would broadcast journalists be using in the far-future? On another TV sci-fi show, reporters discreetly roam, remotely operating little compact cameradiscs which float silently around the room. In "Star Trek: Generations," they're wearing ridiculous headgear resembling the lining of a souvenir batting helmet. This rig illuminates the subject's face with the tiny and erratic dancing spot of a Mini-Maglite, and audio is collected by thrusting out a small brick studded with flashing lights.

And "Generations" also features the sort of the cheeseball special effects we've come to know and love. The only difference between the Flying Saucer Crash Scene in an Ed Wood movie and the one in "Generations" is that Ed Wood didn't know any better...and even if he did, he wouldn't have had enough dough to have done it any differently anyway.

But by far the movie's most fatal TV legacy is its story construction. The filmmakers just can't get it through their heads that when you're working in a medium in which you get to present a story to an audience without interruptions or distractions, rhythm is everything. They've got us for over two hours straight. That's a fantastic opportunity; it means that the pacing of the story can be precise and deliberate. You can set us up. Work out the story arc and manipulate the hell out of our emotions at every turn. Expect that we'll be thinking about previous scenes while watching the one in front of us and that we're working to tie it all together into a more wonderful whole.

"Generations'" doesn't want to hear about it. Its story is like one of those abused dogs that gets rescued and adopted by a better household. It still cowers. It keeps behaving as though it's expecting to have its continuity clubbed by a commercial every fifteen minutes. That was logical behavior in its old environment, but in its new home where stories are loved and nurtured it just comes across as weird and erratic.

There's this ribbon of natural energy travelling through space. If your ship or your planet gets in its way, it gets annihilated. But (apparently) if you climb to the top of a diving board and do a neat half-gainer into the thing unprotected, you wind up travelling along inside it, experiencing true, perfect bliss as you zip through the galaxy.

Captain James T. Kirk is attending the ceremonial christening of the Enterprise-B when there's a distress call from a pair of ships being torn apart by the ribbon. The ship and its captain are in no shape for an emergency, but they manage to pull survivors out of the thing...although Kirk tumbles into the ribbon in the process. Seventy years later, one of those who was rescued (an extremely long-lived scientist, played by Malcom McDowell) is increasingly desperate to get back into True Perfect Bliss and is willing to destroy entire planetary systems just to redirect the course of the ribbon so it'll pass around the diving board he's set up on a convenient planet. Captain Picard and the gang from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" are determined to stop him.

Actually just Picard, because the Enterprise-D is left entirely behind to deal with a separate "B" plot regarding some Klingons that the scientist had been working with.

And for good measure there's a "C" plot in which the android Commander Data plugs a chip into his positronic brain which will allow him to experience emotions for the first time.

Both of these subplots are completely separate and superfluous and seem to exist solely to make use of popular characters from the TV show. You could cut the entire Klingon bit entirely, as-is, and not affect the rest of the film at all. Indeed, thanks to the editing, while we're watching Picard dealing with the scientist we've completely forgotten about the spot the Enterprise-D is in. And in an extended sequence in which Picard seeks Kirk's help — a scene which would seem more natural if it were slung by itself between commercial breaks — we forget about the whole "billions of lives on the line" situation that Picard had left behind and it's something of a jar when we suddenly find ourselves back at a rocky cliff with Malcolm McDowell.

It's all just frustrating. The best films are those that don't waste a second of our time. Every scene is important and contributes to the movie's one larger story or theme in some way. We can focus on everything because everything matters somehow; nothing's there just to fill time or satisfy some segment of the target demographic.

Well, I guess they didn't set out to make "Casablanca." "Generations" does contain pockets of isolated fun and Malcolm McDowell's villain is up there with Ricardo Montalban's "Khan" from "Star Trek II."

But man alive, some day I'm going to go to the theater and see a "Star Trek" movie that was made with the same high level of skill and execution as the average flick based on a "Saturday Night Live" sketch. And upon that day I shall raise my wet eyes to the heavens and acknowledge that God is real and He loves us. And I'll have to pay off a $20 bet I've got going with a friend of mine if it happens anytime before 2008.

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© 2000 Andy Ihnatko. May not be redistributed without permission. Studio PR types wishing to send Andy tapes, promotional clothing, or high-end video gear in hopes of securing a positive review are advised that such efforts are futile, but they're free to try to determine how high Andy's price actually is. Mail any and all pelft to Box 279, Norwood, MA 02062. He could use a new subwoofer for his home-theater setup.

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