Star Trek Fest - Star Trek Generations

That was the Star Trek the motion picture theme at one point, but now it belongs to the next generation. That fucking television series showed up and was like, nineteen eighty seven, you guys aren't using this right, We'll take it, and thus the pilfering of all things Star Trek, including all of the legacy, including all of our attention. Nineteen eighty seven HP and I first year in high school, premiere of Star Trek the Next Generation. I remember my pal Matt in our car ride to school one day saying, so do they have a supercomputer in that schnase of Data's so cruel? That was his reaction after encounter at farpoint.

I thought that was pretty funny. But we're not here to talk about the next generation, and said we are. Actually, we are talking about the latest in our journey through the Cosmos, our Star Trek fest. HP and I, Hey, say hi to the folks. HP, Hello, everybody, welcome.

Can't wait to talk about this movie. Oh my god, it's a monumental film. Worlds are colliding. Two generations, if you will, we're talking about Star Trek generations. Here's the trailer.

In a distant corner of our galaxy, a secret observatory is attacked, a brilliant scientist is found, and a mysterious rhythm of energy where past did future collide is on. It's a doorway that we call the nexus. Every ship which has approached the ribbon has either been destroyed or severely damaged. Obviously they were looking for something, and there's still no indication of why they attacked the station. I must return to the observatory immediately.

There's nothing I can do. Timing is very important, and I expected. I have an appointment with eternity, and I don't want to be late. Soone doesn't care about wheremen's or power. He just cares about getting back to the nexus.

The star is going to collapse in a matter of minutes. I will destroy everything in this system population two hundred and thirty million. Sir, Why would he destroy star? I have to stop him, but I can't do this alone. I need help.

I know someone who can. You say history considers me dead. Who am I to argue with history? You're a starfleet officer. You have a duty.

I don't need to be lectured by. I was out safe in the galaxy when your grandfather was in diapers. Now the torch of adventure is about to be passed. Eliminate them cleanon vessel be cloping directly ahead, Sir, talk about Fridge. Let's go Fridge.

We have a new problem. All right, Let's move him out. Let's go take him out ten seconds to warp corp borage right for back. Let's try and cheat death together. Walk one Engage Star Trek Generations.

Star Trek A Generations written by Ronald D. Moore and Brennan Braga from a story by Rick Berman Ronald D. Moore and Brendan Bager and Brannon Braga based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Rick Berman. You'll notice no original people involved creatively this time around. This film stars speaking of no one from the original, although I'm gonna name a bunch of the originals now.

It's stars Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Fraakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton. It feels really good saying these names HP, Brent Speiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Malcolm McDowell, James Dowin, Walter Kinigg and William Shatner as James T. Kirk. This film was released on November the eighteenth, nineteen ninety four or thirty five million dollar budget took in one hundred and eighteen million dollars. Not too bad for the final voyage of James T.

Kirk HP. What's the story? So the story is that there's this there's this ribbon. It's floating through the galaxy that contains this Foyd called the Nexus where all of your wildest dreams and wants and needs are taken care of. And Malcolm Dowell plays this villainous character named was.

Doctor Soorn, doctor sorn. Shorn, and he's so desperate he's pulled from the ribbon in a rescue attempt. They think his ship's being destroyed and they pull him out. He's so desperate to get back into the Nexus that he's hatched a plot that puts millions of lives at risk, and only Captain Picard and a certain captain of the Enterprise from about eighty years previous can hope to stop him. Let me quote television executive Frank Cross, Oh boy, does that suck.

I think you and I are going to differ quite a bit on this one. Father in Milon, I get the sense. So they know that undiscovered country was the final voyage of that crew. They're no longer interested in seeing them humping around these old people. They're no longer interested in paying them the salaries that they can now command.

Now's the time. We've got a brand new cast. We can soak these people for as much as we can. However, the brass at Paramount, unsure about this potentiality of a handoff, put out a mandate you got to have James Kirk in it. Can't You're not getting a Star Trek movie unless you put James kirkintt.

So that shackles the creative team a little bit because they're not going to now do a pure Star Trek the Next Generation film. They have to do an awkward crossover film, which to me reduces this film to part a two part episode of Next Generation Ultimate. And that is partially because of that setup. And it's a lot to do with the fact that, as much as I love these guys, it's written by Ronald Moore and Brennan Braggan. This is their first sort of feature film after having written television for so long.

To me, this movie feels like, as I said, just it feels like an extended episode of the TV show. It doesn't feel like a feature to me. And I actually I think that's a very fair criticism them alone, and I think we're going to see that maybe with some of the other next generation movies that are coming going to come down the pike. The difference, I don't disagree with what you're saying. But at the same time, I really enjoyed this.

I understand fully that this isn't necessarily the big cinematic explosion of the next generation that maybe some of us were hoping for. But at the same time, I enjoyed my time with these characters in this movie, especially Picard. I love them in this Where's the first time you've seen this? Here movie? I saw this, It would have been in the theater.

I think I saw it twice in the cinema around that time. So whenever it was released when you said, but then once it was on cable and VHS, I might have actually owned this on VHS at some point, because it didn't take a lot for me to reacquaint myself with the movie because I had seen it so many times. This movie came out in November the eighteenth, nineteen ninety four. Now around July early July. I want to say this is when I was living in Los Angeles.

I was working for an art house movie. Now, when it comes time to book movies for movie theaters, the studio will have a screening and all the various chains, the Landmark theaters, your AMC's, your regals and such all come and watch the movie, and then they put in bids for blocks to get it booked into their theater versus their competitor. Even though there was no way in fucking hell that my theater chain was ever going to book Star Trek generations, we still get the invite. So I got to see this movie three months early, and it's the exact movie that you see, So it wasn't like a test screening situation. It's this is Star Trek generation.

And so for three months I had to sit on what a fucking disappointment this movie was to me. Then I did not see it on cable. I saw it once when it came out on DVD because I wanted to reassess my feelings about it. They were a little less harsh then and probably a little less harsh this time now watching it, because I do recognize the charms in the film and there are many No I'm sounding like I'm just taking both barrels at this film. But when you think about the fact that this creative team was given the opportunity to show us how James T.

Kirk dies and craft a story around that, and it ends up being kind of the most superfluous part of this film, Yeah, it's really disappointing. So the degree of difficulty was pretty high for them because I recall, like I used to read Premiere magazine back then and other movie magazines. I don't even think Premiere's around hasn't been around for years. Anyway, the rumor was pretty early on that they were going to kill Kirk in this movie. This is a little bit like what we talked about with Star Trek two, where it was understood that Spock was probably going to be killed anyway.

The people were going into this movie with this expectation that, oh 's going to die? Did you hear Kirk's going to die? So they they kind of had a few feints in the movie to maybe paper over that notion, like he basically he essentially you think he dies within the first what fifteen minutes when they're on the Enterprise B and it's a shakedown cruise, and he is. That's their first encounter with the energy ribbon. So if you figure he's dead there, but it turns out that's not exactly the way.

That he doesn't actually die. He's been taken into the nexus and they find him later. It was just a tall order for them. I don't know any method of killing Kirk that would have satisfied everybody, including people who grew up with the series or were big fans of it and reruns. I'm not taking them off the hook for what we got because I don't think it's one of the stronger parts of this movie.

But I'm not sure what would have satisfied everybody. Let's talk about what's good in this movie. The opening scene, everything up until where Kirk dies is what I like in this movie. Do you mean. Actually dies, No, that would be the whole movie, HPN.

That's what I'm saying. No, But he doesn't die though. That's the thing. He doesn't truly die, And. For seventy years everyone considered it him dead.

They thought that he was sucked out into space, and yeah, his body was never recovered. That's fair, Okay, you're. Saying basically just talking about. This stuff with the original the stuff on the shakedown cruise is your favorite part of the movie. Absolutely, Alan Ruck as the captain of the New Enterprise.

I love that. I love Jeanette Goldstein. She's fighting aliens, she's fucking she's running tactical on the Enterprise with that hair. Love it. I wish he was in more of it.

I wish he was in the whole movie. Honestly, I had a big problem with this opening scene fa them alone. So it's Kirk and Scottie and Chekhov. They're brought on as like visiting dignitaries to kind of send the Enterprise off on there on the maiden voyage. Or what have you, clearly supposed to be Kirk, Spock and McCoy right right.

And that's what the first issue that I had is I understand that Leonard Nimoy and the Forest Kelly had issues of varying degree with the story or the fact that they had already just said farewell, it's Tar Trek six, So what was the point of bringing them back just for this quick scene that their absence is keenly felt, even though it's a nothing of a scene for them. But so as part of this extra part of this sort of the festivities of having them on board. There's all these reporters and cameramen and have all these cameras affixed to their head, and there's all this. Commotion that I hate all of it. I not only just do I hate, but because they oversell the idea that they're just crowded with journalists on this cruise.

But at one point things go south and they've got to try to rescue these ships from this energy ribbon. And for some I don't know why they did it. For some reason, they leave all these journalists on the bridge as they're dealing with a very serious crisis. I don't know why. I mean, Alan ruck is meant to look in experience and out of his depth in this, and that's the point.

But by the way I've been thinking about it, that's actually insulting. That man is a captain of a starship. In fact, he's the captain of the Enterprise, and they make him seem like a boobis well what. I a little bit that I read about his character and in the background he's supports. Apparently he was supposed to have been like a wealthy scion of a scion of a wealthy family who has kind of pulled through the ranks as part of his family's influence.

And if you look at it that way, it makes sense where he's a bit ineffectual. But having said that's not my problem isn't with him being an ineffectual boob. My problem is once the shit it's the fan and they're at red alert, why the fuck do they leave these journalists on the fucking bridge of the enterprise fatherm alone when everything is the first thing he should have said was get these journalists out of here. We're dealing with a serious crisis here red alert. Clear the bridge, Yeah, clear the bridge of all non essential personnel.

Get these these civilians off here where you know that didn't make That makes no sense at all to me. I agree with you. There's a lot of really bad shit in this movie. Sure, And that's look you're going to hear through the course of our discussion that spoiler alert. I like the movie a lot more than Fought Him Alone.

That's not to say that I think this is a perfect movie. It's far from it, but I find it it has its charms, which we'll get into. Did you think the CGI bottle of Dom Perignon was charming. No, did you look up the action figure of James T. Kirk in his space suit where he was supposed to be the one breaking the bottle initially?

No? Was it was an actual produced action figure of him. It was supposed to be Kirk out there smashing the bottle himself along the on the hull of the Enterprise. But I would have been goofy. You know what else would have been goofy nothing this Once they discovered that they weren't going to get Nimoy and Kelly back, they should not have ponied up replacements.

They It should have just been Kirk alone. Remember when he said he was going to die alone. That this should have been the fulfillment of that prophecy. They should not have even had the daughter of Sulu on the bridge. He should have felt completely isolated during those scenes.

And you can tell that they just gave the lines that were meant for Spock and McCoy to to Scotty and Checkov, because at one point Chekhov goes to the cameraman and says, you and your now nurses come with me to the sick bay, like you're gonna help me with the sick. Chekhov wouldn't say that, Bones would say that he's the one who would conscript these journalists as makeshift medical personnel. And then Scotti takes over the science station. Huh, how curious. It Just I get it.

They did the best with what they had, but it's not a great sequence for that because they're so conspicuous by their absence Spock and McCoy. There's so much lame. But is it made up for by the longing in James T. Kirk's eyes when he's looking at the captain's chair. I think it is.

He's good in this because look, we talk about how Hammy William Shatner is an actor, and that's undoubtedly true, but he could He's also capable of some surprising performances, and this is one of them. He's also capable of flying down ladders. Still, yes, because when he flies into action here, that's him, man. He's zooming and zipping and bopping and dropping. Yeah, he's got to get to some gobblygook array to do the thing that's going to make the thing happen.

I don't know what it is. It's all technical babble, but he makes his way to an isolated part of the ship that explodes. They're going to use the raar array. They're going to blast plasma through that. Ordinarily they would just use the nests, but because of the nature of the cloud, they can't really direct than the cells.

Where the plasma is going to go is this star trek. Here's the analogy. It's like throwing salt under the tires. Well, no, I thought they said they were going to shoot a photon torpedo to do something, and then yes that every answer is like they were, yeah, go ahead. They were going to do a photon trpeter to accomplish exactly what I'm saying.

That it would disrupt the field enough that they could break free and put the ship in reverse and get out of there. But they didn't have any photon torpedoes, so then they jury rigged this energy weapon version. Yeah, and that's that's how it ends up. They believe that Kirk is dead because that part of the ship is ripped away in an explosion, and then Chekhov and Scottie and the captain, Captain Ruck or whatever his name is, go down there and they're like, oh my god, there's nothing there. And they said was anybody out here and they say I that's what Scotty says, I one person, and it's believed for the ensuing seventy years that's where James Kirk lost his life.

But we later find out that he was just sucked into this nexus, this place where dreams come true, and he's been stuck there for seventy years. It was Captain Harriman, by the way. Yeah, So we jump forward now, and in order to kick things off in the most next generation method way possible, we're going into the hollow deck. We're going aboard the Enterprise, the tall ship Enterprise, ah, the Fantasy, the tall ships. Okay, so they're promoting Lieutenant Commander Wharf to Commander Warfare, and so they're going to make them walk the plank.

H They're all dressed in period clothing, so it's all eighteen cent nineteenth century rather garb. I'd like to just say this because I am that nerd. Why is it not a frigate? We're talking about the Enterprise. It should be massive.

Johnny Depp was commanding a larger ship than this version of the Enterprise. I remember when they cut to the back and they show the name Enterprise on the back of it, and they show you how slim the whole ship was. I remember thinking, oh, man, I'm watching a TV. Show one of the things I liked, and this is unreasonably fond of this part because it's a corny sequence that there's always been this obsession with the next generation with like the HMS Pinafore and musicals about seafaring and all this kind of corny stuff. Anyway, they do make Wharf walk the plank to get his mantle of office, which is this hat.

This not a tri corner hat, but it's whatever. It's an old ship hat, like officers hat. I don't know what you call it. Anyway, as a joke, Riker asks that the he tells the computer remove the plank where he was supposed to say, retract the plank, So the plank goes away. It just disappears because it's the holid deck.

But what I like what they did is you see this shot of Wharf's legs, and it's a slow motion bit where you can actually see that his legs all of a sudden have like weight to them, like they're no longer held up by the plank. It's almost cartoonish in the way that it's conveyed. But I was like, that's how that would happen if something just vanished right from under your feet, like your muscles would kind of flow downwards with gravity and you'd fall into the water. I don't know, I just that's a silly moment. But I liked it.

Father Blah, Okay, it. Didn't add anything to the movie. It just was a little bit of her similitude in the middle of this ridiculous hollow deck adventure. And I got to say, like, it almost makes me feel like they're not actually like a semi military crew on a ship like the flagship of Starfleet, because they have all this time to do this ridiculous piffle with the holi deck and they're pretending to be sailors in the nineteenth century. It's like, don't they have work to do?

Aren't they busy like keeping the peace in the galaxy? They have time to do this bullshit. Didn't like the sequence much at all. Excuse me? So Starfleet are explorers and no more nowhere is that better demonstrated than in Next Generation where remember those first couple of years.

Geene Roddenberry kept all the drama to an absolute minimum. Because they live in a utopia. I guess so. But here everyone's on display, including Commander Data and Jordy his best pal, and Jordy and or rather, Data is just still trying to figure out humor because they're still banging that goddamn drums. So he knocks Gates McFadden off the ship, thinking this will be hilarious.

And the only reason I bring it up is when Gates McFadden goes tumbling off the ship, she turns into Patricia Tallman, who played Barbara in the remake of Knight of the Living Dead, the Tom Savini remake. So she's a stunt woman in this movie. Yeah, we met her at that Fangoria convention that time. That's right. We shared an elevator with her.

Yeah, yeah, she does turn into It's weird, but Gates McFadden actually was. I believe she was like a choreographer or something. I remember watching some behind the scenes look at Labyrinth, and there she is. She's choreographing like magic dance. I was like, what the hell is doctor Crusher doing in the middle of this dance studio?

But I guess that's that was her vocation originally was a dance choreographer. Well, they did utilize that. Remember when she taught me, she was teaching Data how to dance. Ah, that's true, that's true. Okay, so who cares fucking data?

Data has got to put in the chip. He's going to put in the chip. But before that happens, we get some bad news. Arch Yeah, out of this fucking simulation. Already put me back in the twenty fourth century where I belong.

Thank you. And this is a real heavy beginning to this film because we is the characters who die, we have met, They've had episodes dedicated to them. So if you're this is here's the thing where again I'm not trying to I'm not trying to just keep saying the same thing over and over again that this is just an episode of the television series. But a lot of the meat of this film, a lot of the drama, and a lot of the connection are one hundred percent dependent on you having watched the series, Like the gravity of Jean Luke Picard losing this nephew who meant everything to him. I mean, we get it just as human beings.

If you showed up and didn't know that story, but the fact is we met that kid, and we've seen the love well. It would have been enriched having that knowledge of the show. But they I thought they did a pretty good job of laying out who the kid was and what he meant to Picard. I don't disagree that maybe it would be a little more impactful if you knew the history, but I don't think it was essential in this case. I think it's his nephew that he cared for very deeply.

Who But more to the point, and there's a wonderful scene with him and Troy where he talks about she kind of gets him to admit that he's so upset because this is the last of the Picard line. He obviously, Jean Luke Picard, Captain Piccard never married. This was his only brother. The brother had this son named Renee Renee, and so that's why he's especially broken up about this whole thing, is that now there's nobody left to carry on the Picard bloodline. Yeah.

I don't know why you're unmoved. I thought Patrick Stewart is a real blessing in this movie. He can act as he can act his ass off in that scene. He's wonderful. I'm unmoved because it's a plot thread that is there just to prove that, or just to plant the idea of regret that I don't think has ever dealt with for the rest of the movie.

This isn't like Kirk coming to Grips with old age or coming to Grips with the idea that the people he commands could die under his command. He's never believed that to be true, and that's the lesson he learns at the end of Star Trek to the Wrath of Khan. Here Picard is I don't know given that his okay, So either he's depressed because he's the last of his line, or he's depressed that his nephew is dead, or he's depressed about all these other things. None of this comes back for the rest of the movie. Well, of course it does, because that's the central piece of his experience in the Nexus, is that he gets this family, a the family that he always wanted but never had time for, and b his nephew is still alive and well in this fake fantasy land.

So of course it comes back to him. That's the reason, that is the central reason why he would want to stay in the Nexus. Yes, you're right, they do I apologize they do clumsily call back to this central notion that they never actually fucking deal with, because when we get that fantasy, fucking version of Jean Luke Icard's Perfect Life were for some fucking reason in the eighteenth century, it's like it's a fucking Dickens thing. It doesn't make any sense at all. That's what his fantasy is.

Yeah, I didn't love that. I didn't love the fact that it felt like a Christmas carol or something like they're gathering for Christmas dinner and you just know that they're having goose for dinner, because everybody in Dickens's novels had goose for special occasion. I didn't to be honest, I didn't love that either, because it felt weird and anachronistic when you're dealing with the twenty fourth century. I don't know, maybe maybe if I stopped and thought more long and hard about each piece of the puzzle here, but I just was. I was kind of along for the ride, and Patrick Stewart makes it very easy to just let him have the wheel, so to speak, because you always feel like you're in good hands.

He's a hell of an actor. Yeah, but I feel that way in First Contact, and that's a fucking great movie. Well that's that movie is supported by much better story and a much better direction. In my opinion, certainly, this is this one record by Dave Carson, who's this is his first feature and guess what he's best or where he cut his teeth episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation. Then that's really what it feels like here.

My Okay, let's just talk about the fucking Nexus for a minute. The fact is they go ahead and they concoct this idea that they're gonna have this ribbon in space that transports you to some mystical world where all of your fantasies come true, and if you come out of it, you're gonna do everything in your power to get back in there. But a part of you is also still in there because it's fantasyland next to film. Okay, So here in Star Trek we're going to abandon the science fiction part of it as our central premise. Here we're just dealing with a magical thing.

The lack of creativity when it comes to the fantasy world is fucking insane. Like I just said, his fantasy is fucking Christmas Carol. That's the perfect world for him, okay. And then Shatner's James T. Kirks is chopping wood and taking breakfast for this girl his cabin.

That's James T. Kirk's fantasy world. See, I found his fantasy world. I actually found rather bittersweet father alone, because it's all wrapped up in this notion of him his attempts to kind of disengage from Starfleet. Because as he's going through the business of preparing this breakfast and he's talking to Picard who's really desperate to try and get his help, and dealing with doctor Soren and this whole millions of people are at lizaer at Stake, but Kirk is talking and doing all this stuff, and as he's talking, you're realizing that all of this stuff, these are all moments in his life that where he either had the opportunity to propose marriage to a woman or just finally get retire and live out his life.

But in every instance he's talking about, oh yeah, this was the moment where I had to break it to Antonia that I was going back to Starfleet. But it's going to be different. But nothing that he does in his fantasy world and maybe this is a fallacy of this fantasy world. Nothing he does actually comes of anything. It's almost like he's being taunted by this Nexus that it keeps like it's like Charlie Brown the football getting yanked away from him at the last minute.

All of these moments of his life just keep getting yanked away from him, Like he goes in to try and tell this woman that he's going to marry her, but then he ends up for some reason in the stable. It's like psych Now we're going to put you in this other scene change within this fantasy world. We're not gonna actually give you what you want. And I don't know if that's if it's just clumsy storytelling, or maybe it's the Nexus trying to deal with the fact that maybe Kirk doesn't really know what he wants, so it's hard for them to craft this anti reality when maybe he doesn't know what the hell he wants out of life away from Starfleet either. I don't know.

I'm probably reading too much into that father alone, but that's what I took from it. There's always a catch everything he tries to do, and it never quite works out in the Nexus for. Kirk, just like I think this movie doesn't know what themes it's actually trying to focus on, and therefore can't actually focus on any of them. The idea here of this Nexus never pays off in any real dramatic way. It just remains a mcguffin.

What is this fucking thing, What is it doing out there? How long has it been out there? Who else is in the Nexus? And what are they up to? And here's the thing.

It's sold by all these Elorians. Malcolm McDowell's doctor Soren is an Elian. They're a race that they age very slowly. Guynan is an el Orian. The Elians are all telling us that it's this wonderland where every fantasy you've ever wanted will come true.

You will never ever want to leave, and you'll be desperate to get back to it right But once you get there, it just seems like it traps you in your regrets. It feels like Cougar and Dark's Pandemonium sideshow. Something wicked this way comes, like all your fantasies are gonna come true here in this mirror maze. Oh, by the way, that was your fantasy, living the fucking regret that you never got to experience that fantasy. The Nexus could be some creature feeding on everybody, but they don't give us any of that because they're too busy with the bullshit plot of fucking doctor Soren doing bad things out in the twenty fourth century.

Pick one of the fuck another? Is this about the Nexus or about the guy trying to get to the Nexus? The problem that I had with the Nexus, and specifically with Picard's bit not just the Christmas Carol vibe to the whole thing, but it's described by Guynan because she had been there, was on this, She was in the same crew as doctor Soren, that whole thing that happened seventy years prior with where Kirk supposedly died, and she makes it very clear when she talks to Picard in present day that once you're in there, you're never gonna want to leave, and being ripped from the Nexus is the worst possible thing that could ever happen to you. You're going to spend the rest of your life either trying to forget you were there or trying to get back to it.

The problem that I have, the central problem that I had with it is Picard very quickly susses out that none of this feels real, and I still have a duty to deal with this problem, so I get none of that. I would give my right arm to stay in this reality forever. He just kind of decides, this is not real, this isn't my nephew, this is not my beautiful wife, this is not my beautiful house, so to speak, and he just kind of says, well, then I'm out of here. I think that was a little too convenient. I think it probably should have been more of a war of wills within himself.

What is he giving up in order to save all these people that are being menaced by doctor Soren. That was a big problem I had with this, not the only problem, and it's there should have been more of that, because I just get the sense that both and Kirk kind of decide, Yeah, this isn't real. I can see the seams and everything that's happening here, so let's just get out of here. That doesn't track with what Guynan said earlier. Yeah, so it's just muddled.

They it's just this clumsy device ultimately to get Kirk into the twenty fourth century without really considering the story of James T. Kirk and his end. It's just oh, they will have this ribbon thing and this guy's trying to do this. That'll give the crew something to do. And then oh, like, we can get the House of Dross in here.

We'll get the fucking the Klingon sisters, Larsa and Bator, and they'll be the antagonist. By the way, I fucking hate them. I that's another big problem I had, and I didn't really look when we first saw these movies. There's easily three four five years between Star Trek movies, And because you and I are going through these in rapid succession, I'm seeing things and realizing things that I didn't realize the first time through. What I hate is how many movies have we gone through already where the Klingons are the main baddies.

Right, we don't see the Romulins, we don't see any of the other we don't see the Gorn, we don't see all of these other fan favorite villains. So when this when I realized that they were in this movie, or re acquainted myself with the idea that they were in this movie, I went, what the fuck is there no one else they could come up with that are gonna be like out for Kirk's blood or out to destroy the Enterprise. It's gotta be the fucking Klingons again. We just saw them, like more than half of these movies deal with the Klingons in some way, shape or form, and that kills me. And in fact, the last movie was about the Federation making peace with the Klingon Empire and Wharf is on the fucking ere on the Enterprise.

And I thought the Klingon Empire only had like fifty years to live back in Kirk's time. So what happened with that whole like practice being destroyed? Does that mean that they I just found another place to live and that's no longer a concern. I don't get it. No, they're thriving now that recovered.

But I mean, look Larsa and Betor, they're part of the House Duros, like I said, so they are contenders for the throne. And this is when this is all part of next generation Gowron. You remember the struggle in Gowra, and Wharf is supporting Gowron because Gowron is fighting the Duras family. And the Duras family their father is the one who blamed Wharf's father for the Kiddimer massacre and slandered the Wharf family name, and at the same time they're trying to usurp the throne with the help of the Romulans. Again, we can mention them, but they don't have them show up and actually be a fucking force in any of these movies.

And so now they're just this random chaotic element. It's like Star Trek five again. It's they're just out roaming around and they just happen to run into the enterprise like whoops. Well, at least in this one, they're in cahoots with doctor Soren. They're part of his plot and there's a deal that they make, which whatever, it's fine.

I didn't think too deeply on that, but I just was annoyed that yet again, it's like the fucking Klingons. We can't come up with something new, even in it doesn't even have to be like a race that we've already seen. This is science fiction. It could be anybody could make up a race of people to be the antagonists. They end up doing that with Insurrection in fact, to varying degrees of success, of course, But I don't know, man, it's just the Klingons is so lazy to me.

Also lazy is the fact that they're once again in a fucking brand class bird of prey, the same bird of prey we have been looking at since goddamn Star Trek three. That's Krug Ship again again. Not only are we seeing that again, it's now seventy years later, the Klingon Empire hasn't made one new class goddamn ship in that time. Well maybe not if they're still beholden to the Federation for their continued survival. Maybe they don't have the capacity to innovate.

Reach. I get it. That is a reach man like and the reason it's a reach is eventually that ship will be destroyed using the exact same shot from Star Trek six The Undiscovered Country, the exact previous movie. I remember sitting in the theater going, oh, yeah, just like Undiscovered Country. Huh, you can talk about something else that bugged me about this movie, Go for it.

So we already alluded to Data and he has this emotion chip, But there's a lot of a lot made of that in the original series. In the original Next Generation series, I should. Say, yeah, I mean from the opening from the pilot, it's Data wants to be more human. He's trying to figure out humankind and he Oh, if I could only feel emotions, I'm like Pinocchio. Yeah, and in fact that they even like Riker, even calls him Pinocchio.

And I feared in that first episode that was going to be a runner through the whole seat, through the whole series, and thank goodness he dropped that, just like I was happy that Riker grew the beard and made himself look more Starfleet material. But nevertheless, any team they banged on about Data trying to be more human was the most boring episode ever because it. Was very It was too easy. I mean, there's nothing there. They couldn't really bring anything interesting to the table story wise because we've seen it all before.

But it ultimately results in the same problem with the Vulcans. They Oh, sir, I don't understand. What do you mean? Life is not a dream that does not compute in my logical brain? What did he just become a Johnny Carson character?

Woo it did not compute. Hmmm, Oh, my goodness, look at that. I am a herm in the robot. O my goodness in. This so so, once again Data is fretting about this emotion chip and he Jordy being his best buddy.

He says, all right, Jordi, can you put the emotions? And I think it's time because I'm not getting this humor thing and I really think it's now. Here's my problem with that? Like this they this became a plot point in the original Next Generation series where the emotion chip has risks. You don't know how how his how he's going to react to it's going to be and still be the same officer.

Is it going to put other people at risk because he's not gonna be able to control his emotions. Well, that's what we see here. His He ends up losing control of his emotions at a crucial moment where Jeordi is captured by Doctor Soren and the Klingons. But my problem with this, the central issue I have with this father alone, is shouldn't Starfleet have rules about their officers undergoing some weird procedure like putting a fucking emotion chip in your head that might compromise all of your training and make you like unreliable as a Starfleet officer? Like what?

He just drops it in like it's nothing, But I would feel like he should at LEAs he used to have run it by Captain Picard and said Captain Picard had the emotionship and I'm ready to do this, And Captain Picard probably would have just said, mah, I make it so, I support you whatever, which would have been bullshit because a real captain would have said, hell, no, I don't know what this is going to do. What if you get into a laughing fit and start shooting everybody? I can't take that risk, can you know? So? I think that was irresponsible at a minimum, dangerous at worst.

Well, I will say that there have been entire episodes about Data's autonomy and whether or not Starfleet has any right to treat him as anything less than a member of like a living member. However, I'm sure Starfleet has rules about like if you were going to drink an entire cast of romulan Ale and then go on and away mission, you're probably not allowed to do that, and I think this would fall under that category. And Jordy LaForge would know better. He would say, we're on a mission right now. Maybe when we have some sure leave, we can try this out, but until then, let's not rush to get you to laugh at jokes correctly while we're heading toward a potential fire zone.

Yeah, and I get the autonomy thing, but this, really, this has nothing to do with that, because this isn't about him wanting to express himself or carry himself in a certain way. This is a This is akin to a medical seizure that someone like, let's say a soldier goes to their commanding officer and says, I want to have an operation where I have my hand cut off and replaced with a blade. Can I do that? Is that fine? They'd go no, because we don't know the risks and you're going to be out of commission for god knows how long, and that's just not no.

We can't take that risk. I don't agree with you. I don't think it's the same as a medical procedure. I think it might be the same as like a vulcan saying I'm going to forsake forsake logic for the next week. I'm going to give into all of my emotions.

They might go, please, don't do that. We're going to take you off of duty for the next week if you're going to be doing that, and that would probably happen here too. I think Commander Data could say I got to put in this chip. I'm sorry, it's my right as a sentient being to experience emotion and I need to do it now, and they go, okay, you can do it in your quarters. Ultimately, the last point you made is the best one, which is that there is a time and place for that.

In the middle of a mission where lives are at stake and they're relying on him to be at his best, it's not the time to put this chip in which it does have consequences. Like I said, it directly leads to him falling down on during a firefight essentially, and Jordi gets taken away by Soren and captured, and I just think it could have been avoided entirely. HP. There are some who say that time is the fire in which we burn. Let's talk about Malcolm McDonald for a second.

Not a fan of Star Trek. Took the paycheck, just like he took the tank girl paycheck, just like he took all the paychecks. But he's always great, He's. Awesome, and I love that he One of his stipulations was that they didn't make him into an alien type creature because you just didn't want to sit in the fucking makeup chair for seven hours a day. It was completely self serving and I love him for it.

Here's a second story around before this movie came out, actually, but I had already seen it, I used to pal around with an actor by the name of Rory cochrane and he did a movie called The Low Life, which was about a struggling screenwriter in Los Angeles, an independent movie, and he invited me to the cast and crew screening, and happened to be at the WGA building and we had to wait around for a screening band before we could go in, and standing off smoking a cigarette and I was out smoking a cigarette was Malcolm mcdell. And I called over to him and I said, hey, man, thank you for killing Captain Kirk, and he said it was my pleasure. I understand he took great relish in the fact that he could.

He was the one who was going to kill Captain Kirk, and that's his that's great. And yet really it seems to me that gravity is what kills Captain Kirk. Yeah, I mean he doesn't. He doesn't like stab him, and in fact he doesn't. Kirk doesn't actually expire until after sore and himself has exploded, So it's a bit tenuous but his actions did lead to Kirk's demid we were talking about Jeordi forget Well, Okay, this is not the This is clearly not the best of what the Next Generation movies are capable of, because, if we're really being honest, a lot of the sort of I don't want to call him secondary cast members, but for lack of a better term, wharfs, you're Troy Riiker.

They don't have a lot to do here. That's a problem because this next generation that one of the big differences to me between that and the original series was that the Next Generation felt like a genuine ensemble. Clearly Picard was the big draw. Patrick Stewart was the star, if you will, but you never got the sense that there was a William Shatner situation where he had to be the hero or he had to be the one to do all of the daring do and there's swashbuckling or whatever. They It was always pretty even handed as far as the episodes.

Who was the plot the main plot point of each episode. So that's a failing of this movie too, is that it's a lot of Picard, which is great, but not a lot of the rest of them. They don't all, they don't have their moment. If you will, I'm going to lay the blame on that particular dynamic on Brennan Braga, who, to me was always trying to force a new triumvirate here, which was Picard and Data and to a lesser degree Wharf that in Brandon By I've read interviews with him where he said, in his mind, those are the characters people are coming to see, and those are the characters we need to favor. Really, Wharf was one of them.

In his mind, but he couldn't really like, actually favor Wharf because there was so much other ensemble that they had to deal with. I will say that this movie, as clumsily as it handles all the different characters and how it gives short shrift to a bunch of them, it does handle a larger cast much better than any of the original cast movies. It does seem like they're sitting down to write a movie that, even if it's favoring a few characters, does get the brief that we need to give everyone a moment. Yeah, sure, and they I don't think they ever get away from the idea that Picard and Data are sort of main focuses of the story, and that's we're going to see that through the next what three or four movies that we have upcoming.

But I just feel like the it's less of a supporting cast and more of an ensemble. And I think that's one of the big, maybe the big differentiator between the original series and the next generation, and it makes these movies feel very different from anything that the original series could offer. Now, again, this isn't This is not even close to a perfect movie. And another thing I didn't like about it was it's yet another movie where they feel the need to destroy the Enterprise. This is now with the third or fourth time we've seen the Enterprise destroyed in one manner or another.

Yeah, it feels like we need a giant set piece here at the end. What are we going to do? Let's do the Enterprise and let's get rich. I do understand the let's get rid of the original television model of the Enterprise so we can update it to the next The one we get in First Contact is the Enterprise E. However, what a fucking missed opportunity here?

Hp to bring back James T. Kirk and put him at the helm of the Enterprise to deal with the Klingons, where he could sacrifice himself and the Enterprise. He could die with the Enterprise instead of clinging to a bunch of rocks in Nevada. I can't really argue. I think his death is fairly ignominious.

I mean, he does help stop Soren, and I guess. Who cares why he's there? Yeah? I did. I will say this.

I did. Like when they find there's a scene in Stellar Cartography. That's the other big innovation in this movie. We get to go to Stellar Cartography. Everybody that this.

Movie loves to show those cool little next generation set pieces that we've kind of grown, like the Holidack, and now there's this room called Stellar Cartography. It's a scene basically between Picard and Data where they're trying to figure out that kind of is like the X Men, and they're trying to figure out what the deal is with this ribbon and where it's going, and what Soren's role, what's he to and putting aside. Like they have their conversation and it's effective where at a certain point Data says to him, I need to I'm requesting to be deactivated because I can't control these emotions and Picard really lets him have it. He basically shocks them back into his old self by saying, you just get a hold of yourself, Like, emotions are meant to be controlled.

You'll learn to control them. Just act like a starfleet officer. And Data's like, okay, I guess I will. That I liked. But what was cool is the manner in which Soren is influencing the ribbons path.

I thought was pretty cool because what he does at the beginning of the present day action, if you will, is he shot a missile into a star explode and exploded it basically, and they don't understand what that's all about. But through this stellar cartography scene, like, they realize that every time he destroys a planet or a star, it's affecting the gravitational fields in the surrend areas and everything is going to have to be adjusted a little bit paths of starships and so forth. So that's what Sorein is up to. He is destroying planets to alter the gravitational fields to make the ribbon go where he wants it to go. I thought that was actually a pretty I mean, it's a long way to go for that, But they established that he can't just fly a ship into the ribbon because it'll be torn to pieces before he even gets to the Nexus.

So I thought that was I thought and still think that was kind of an interesting approach to this and that whole scene that has the air of a mystery where they're uncovering what it is this guy's actually doing, and I thought that was kind of cool. I agree with you. I think it's a clever science fiction conceit and give stakes and that he's going to destroy another star that's going to to impact a Class M planet with a pre industrial civilization of millions of people. Okay, yeah, that's a great Star Trek premise. Did Doctor Soren get in the Nexus in the first place?

I guess, well, he's on a ship, but they don't really establish that the I don't think the ship flew into the Nexus. Now, when we're in the twenty third century with Captain Kirk at the beginning of the film, that he's attempting with Guynan to get back into the Nexus because he'd already been to the Nexus and somehow found his way out, and they think they're going to fly their ships into it, and then it turns out that the Nexus itself. Will terrier ship to pieces before you get in? How'd they get in? Go do that again?

I don't know. I don't know. He must have been on a planet or somewhere. I don't know. That isn't that's a fan they should have.

It's curious, isn't it. Yeah? I guess this fucking script is really fucking stupid, isn't it. Look I never said this was a perfect movie. Again, it's far from it.

But I think for me, the charms of the movie lie in the cast and everything I've seen and everything I've read about it is that these guys, it's the total opposite of the original series, basically that everybody loved working with each other, and you feel the camaraderie. It's just it's something that you can't fake. And I loved seeing these actors, these characters interact with each other, even though we don't get a ton of it with certain pairings. But love Patrick Stewart in this. I think he is pitch perfect always as Cabine Picard.

I wish there was more of him interacting with the other crew members because there's long stretches where he's either by himself or with sorein or with Kirk where he doesn't talk a lot. But that's I'm still charmed by the cast and their interactions. I maybe am being I'm overlooking a lot of the film's problems, but I love spending time with his crew. He should have been in that nexus twenty minutes into the movie. It should have been him and Kirk battling their way out of the nexus for most of the movie.

How they got James T. Kirk in this fucking movie and decided we're going to put him in two scenes and one of them is basically wordless, where they're running around on a bunch of rocks doing karate at each other. This is a grand finale. It's just running on scaffolding in our science fiction epic. What are we doing with the science fiction part of it?

We're crashing the ship again. Well, let me ask you this, father blone. We're getting to the end of it here. What did you like about this movie? Not a fucking lot?

Man, Well, I clearly, but tell me, I want to know what you liked. There must have been something. Yeah, fucking James T. Kirk dying on screen. It's a monumental thing, Like he's whatever you attached to William Shatner and how silly he is as an actor sometimes and the sort of greater public persona.

This is still James Kirk from the fucking Starship Enterprise from nineteen sixty six onward, and this is it, This is all we're getting at him, and his performance is fucking great. Man. I felt the actual in this movie, Like I said, in that opening scene where he's like a k animal where he wants to jump into action, but his restraining himself because he knows it's not his place anymore like him. His performance there is equal to or more powerful than any of the previous movies where they were attempting to deal with those issues with his aging and with his lack of or his inability to give up on gallivanting around the galaxy. And then the death scene itself I think was pretty great.

I thought he was understated and that I really like about the movie. There's a funny moment where her on at the beginning, they're on the ship and start stuff starting to go sideways, and he keeps Kirk keeps like sitting up in his chair and he doesn't really know what to do, and Scotty is sitting next to him, looks over and says, hey, says something wrong with that share, Captain, because he's just he can't like You're right, he can't help himself. He wants to spring into action. That's what he's been doing for the better part of thirty plus years. Right as soon as he hears it there's a distress call, he knows exactly what to do.

Let's go. Yeah, Alan Ruck's character. At one point, he finally just he basically admits defeat by saying, Captain Kirk, I would welcome any suggestions that you have as how to proceed here, because he's like a deer in the headlights and nothing he wants to do is ready because the ship won't have its full complement of crew and equipment until Tuesday. He keeps saying tuesday, It'll come on Tuesday. So yeah, that stuff is really good, And I think as a swan song for Kirk, it's not bad as far as Kirk's role in the whole thing.

And I found the stuff with him in the Nexus more bittersweet than you, because I think you made the point that it's more about regret than anything, and I think there's no better display of that in watching Kirk. Everything Kirk's trying to do is right, some perceived wrong, a zig when he should have zagged in life. But nothing he does changes anything. And that's said, right, But here's the thing. This is a movie that is relying on us to know who the fucking the Klingon sisters are, right.

But when we get a moment of Kirk's regret after seeing how many episodes of the series seventy nine episodes of the series, six movies, of all of his past, they invent some new things, some new situation. This girl Antonio we've never heard of before. It can't even be Carol Marcus. Like, what the fuck I did read that it was originally supposed to be Carol Marcus. But I don't know if para someone said no, you can't use that.

I assume it was Paramount said you can't use that character. So that would have maybe made it a little more impactful if it had been Carol Marcus, because. I'm just saying it's like, there's just nothing cool about the Nexus at all. Like it was fun to see Picard and Kirk together, but under these circumstances in this fantasy world world, when this is a television series trying to make their debut on it on the theatrical screens, and it's just it's just all it feels all mediocre to me. Yeah, like I said, I I'm maybe I'm coasting on the charm of the cast.

But I'm not suggesting this is the best Star Trek movie or even the best Next Generation movie. It's far from it. But I don't know. I like spending time with his crew, so it wasn't his own. It wasn't as much of a chore for me to watch it.

Here's another thing I liked about the movie. I think the best performance in it is Commander Cheese himself William Riker. His level of amusement at everybody and antagonism just fucking with people. He's just a little trickster throughout this entire movie. I really like that side of Riker.

Yeah, I felt bad for him because. I was really hoping to get that chair. I kind of hoped he would have gone and said gone and actually hefted the chair it's broken and gone one to beam up. Well. I felt bad for him because he witnesses this picard getting this news about his nephew brother dying, and he tries a couple of times to engage, engage with him and say is everything okay, Captain?

Or is anything else? And at one point he just flat out gets yelled at by Picard. I don't remember what Picard says, but he really lets him have it. And I thought that was unfair Picard, despite the pain that he's in. I mean, Riker's is number one.

These guys are supposed to be compadres. I just feel like it was unfair for him, even despite his anguish over this family loss, to not be a little more, I don't know, just open up a little more to Riker. I think it would have been nice. He didn't have to open up to Riker. What are you talking?

Get back to work. Shouldn't you be narrating a factor fiction right now? Riker does get the great hero moment when they finally are able to fight back against the Klingons, and he's the one who gets that shot where he says fire and they fire the photon torpedo and all the killingon ship. It's the real yeha moment as you're watching it in the movies, it's like, yeah, they're doing it. And then crash Enterprise right on, Ryker get rid of all that shit.

Well, you had no choice. It's because of I mean, ultimately it's what's not his fault, but it's Jeordi's the one who leads to the Enterprise's downfall because they they cock this ridiculous scheme where they take him prisoner. They put some tech into his visor. By the way, this is the last time we'll see him in his visor because next few movies he has like corneal implants or whatever they are. He's got real eyes basically, yes, But they figure out this way to spy on the Enterprise through this visor.

They're looking for the shield frequency that the Klingons are and then when they see it and they figure it out, and then that's what allows them to shoot at will or without regards to the Enterprise's shields. And that's what leads to the Enterprise blowing up, is that it has suffered catastrophic damage to the cells. They've got to do the saucer separation that we saw in far point of course, yon's. Supposed to be a big deal. We're supposed to see that all the time, Like, oh my god, I got like two ships.

But they I don't think, well, I don't know, there's probably a few of the Next Gen episodes I didn't see, But did they ever do that again? They did, actually, yeah, a couple of times. Ok. Look I'm gonna say it again. Here's what should have happened here.

Yeah, he brings Kirk back, Kirk goes to the Enterprise. They have to deal with the fucking Klingons. They separate the saucers so those they're gonna be saying. Kirk's on the battle bridge, fucking rams the goddamn Klingon ship and dies heroically. That should have been the end of this movie.

You know, would have been great. They beam Kirk over to the Enterprise and he's on the bridge and he's looking around and he sees wharf a Klingon on the bridge in the star fleet. You know, for him, he'd be like, what the fuck, what's a kling On doing it? That'd be great. Hazer's unstunned.

There's a Klingon on the bridge. What's that all about? But there you go, man, Like, let's talk missed opportunities. They bring Kirk into the twenty fourth century and he just deals with Picard and fucking Malcolm mcdonn'll put him on the Enterprise. That would have been pretty cool.

Let's have a couple of those moments just him looking at war if just like what is happening? It would have been funny. Riker could have been like, yeah, I thought she'd be a little bit taller, like just poke fun at the guy, or say yay, I read about you in history books, thought you be taller. Just I don't know. It would have been because they had a few of those moments with the other crew members.

I know Scotty was on the Next Generation and of course Bones was on the far Point episode, so it would have been funny to see them interact or fun not funny, but fun to see them interact. And Data can talk to him, and I don't know, but so yeah, I don't know why they would had felt the need to completely isolate him from the rest of the crew, unless that was somehow a stipulation of Kirk's where he has to deal with the captain of the Enterprise exclusive. I don't know who knows. It's in the past now, James Kirk is dead. Long live James T.

Kirk. I want to say again, read that comic The Last Starship. James Kirk is back. He's out there trying to get the Federation back to get a good storyline there, HP, What do we got coming up next? Baby?

We have Star Trek First Contact coming, Oh shit, which is the debut of Jonathan Fraakes in the director's chair. Very exciting. That's it. He's the best one besides Nicholas Meyer. You got a figure just based on the next movie alone when the next generation cast comes into their own, both in their own crew on display and a villainous race that belongs solely to them until then, HP, Where can people find you if they're looking for you?

All right? I co host The Night Mister Walters the Taxi podcast alongside Father Malone across from Me here, and I also host the sporadically updated Noise Junkies music podcast, and last but not least, I have a band campsite Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. As for me, you're listening to Midnight Viewing. We're on twice a week, Father Malone's Weekly round Up, and then we're either doing a fest or a horror anthology series. We're currently working our way through the Hammer House of Horror and it is fucking great.

It's the best goddamn horror anthology television series we've ever covered. Ah, go watch it right now. Until then, we'll see it in space.