Jan 211994
 
one reel

Captain Kirk is pulled into a giant space-time ribbon so that he can later meet Captain Picard. There’s also some things about a mad scientist and grumpy Klingons, but they don’t matter.

Call it, Fan Service, The Motion Picture. The plot, what there is of it, is based on who signed a contract (Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, and George Takei did not or in the first case, was not allowed to) and getting Kirk and Picard to meet. This isn’t story telling. It’s an hour and a half of goofing around with pop characters and trusting that fans will think it is cool.

It is not cool.

After an opening that lets us know that Kirk is old, again (haven’t we done this—and then redone it—enough?), we get a second opening, set in the holodeck, to introduce us to the Next Gen cast, which is supposed to be funny, but isn’t. Data asks why watching someone fall into freezing water is amusing. I ask why watching people watch someone falling into freezing water is supposed to be amusing.

This film’s version of character development is Data doing a bad comedy routine as his emotion chip is activated, and Picard throwing a fit because the writers had no idea how grief works.

OK, that’s more analysis than Generations requires. This film is a mess. It is mainly remembered for the drab, pointless death of Captain Kirk. He’d had a better sendoff in Star Trek VI.

My ranking of all Star Trek movies is here.