Skip to main content

Star Trek Sunday: Generations

A review by Brooks Rich

This is a very polarizing Star Trek film. I go back and forth on it to be honest. We're now in the TNG era and at the debut film of Picard and his crew, with Kirk showing up in the third act because of course. I have similar problems to this as I did with Motionless Picture. It's so boring and lifeless at times. How is this film the film debut of this crew? Really we have to start on the Holodeck? Do we need a side plot of Picard's family dying? This film is not awful but looking at the sum of it's parts, it doesn't work. It's just kind of there.

The film is about the Nexus, a strange extra-dimensional realm that transports people to a fantasy world where they get whatever they desire. The villain is Tolian Soran, played by Malcolm McDowell, who wishes to destroy a planet so it will divert the Nexus to him. There's also Klingons trying to blow up the Enterprise after they use Geordi's visor as a way to spy on the Enterprise and figure out their shield configuration. When Picard goes into the Nexus, he finds Kirk there and they team up to stop Soran and save the planet.

I don't like this film. This is not a Star Trek movie I revisit very often because I find the interesting story about the Nexus is buried under a lot of unnecessary padding. But there are people who really like this film. It is not as hated as some of the other lesser Star Trek films. It is not as bad as Final Frontier or Motionless Picture. I will give it that. I'm not sure where I rank against the two films in the TNG series that are pretty panned now. I will reassess that when we get to Insurrection. Ooo, probably the most meh Star Trek film. At least in Generations we have McDowell as Soran and the fight with the Klingons is cool. But the first hour or so just drags. There's no need for the scene on the Holodeck and the subplot with Picard's family feels like something that belongs back on the show.

This is one to just watch for yourself and see how you feel. I get it that some people get into the spiritual nature of the Nexus and like the meeting of Picard and Kirk. I do like that team up but good God do I despise how it wraps up. Really this is just the film you have to get through before reaching the film that is not only TNG's best movie but also the one that fights with Wrath of Khan over what is the best Star Trek film.

Rating: 2/5



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Forgotten Film Friday: Absolute Power

Clint Eastwood stars as Luther Whitney, a jewel thief who works in the Washington DC area. One night while he is stealing from a mansion he is forced to hide in a secret compartment with a two way mirror. From there he observes a sexual rezendevous with the wife of a powerful man and the President of the United States Alan Richmond (Gene Hackman) Suddenly the president gets aggressive and while defending herself the woman is shot to death by two Secret Service agents. Luther manages to get away with a letter opener the woman stabbed the president with. At first Luther plans to flee the country. But when he is disgusted by a statement the president makes, Luther decides to expose the crime. I miss these kind of films. The nineties was a great time for thrillers exactly like this. They are not the flashiest films but they are also not obsessed with big action scenes. It's all plot and character with them. Sure this plot might be a little out there but Eastwood makes it work. He's...

John Candy month

 What can you say about John Candy? He was a comic genius who was taken from us too soon. There were a lot of comedic heavyweights of the eighties and nineties but Candy stood above most of them. If there is a Mount Rushmore of comedy I imagine John Candy would be on it. For the month of July we are honoring this comic genius. 

Oscar bait month

 The Academy Awards. That time of the year when everyone debates what movies are truly the best and there is never a consensus and no one is ever happy. A movie can be incredibly popular and then it wins a bunch of Oscars and suddenly it's overrated and not very good or downright bad. It happens every year. But for the month of April let's take a look at those films that had Oscars on their mind and instead fell flat on their faces. Now Oscar Bait is a term that can also be applied to winners or films that did score a bunch of nominations. For example Bradley Cooper's film Maestro is very much an Oscar Bait movie even though it had a decent awards season. I want to talk about the films that did nothing. That were early contenders then either faded away eventually or just plain crashed and burned. Oscar Bait's biggest failures. What wrong here with these? Was the movie poor? Did something else just have a dominant run? Or were politics involved? Maybe all of the above. S...