Earlier this week:The end of the Cold War, masterfully rendered via Klingons.Next week: The Borg.
And, looking back 22 years later, it is an especially strange way to approach thatspecificfinale.
The problem: Picard has come unstuck in time, Billy Pilgrim-style.
(Q is God if God was a rich brat who loved Terrence Malick.)
All Good Things… is, in short, not the episode anyone would recommend starting with.
Theoretically, I should have been confused.
But I loved it.
It also stands on its own, the way we used to assume a movie was supposed to.
Stewart had back-up: TheNext Generationcast members, who always seemed game for anything.
All Good Things… is a perfect thing, I think.
Kudos to them all.
That same year, they made the worstStar Trekmovie ever.
Truthfully, I dont want to relitigateStar TrekGenerations.
)Moore and Braga are both successful enough to look back on the film with bracing honesty.
And quite frankly, I dont think it had a good concept driving it.
Truthfully, I dont want to nitpick.
Yes,Generationswastes every good opportunity baked into its premise.
Movies do cost more, usually, and usually have a longer production cycle.
But lets accept that the longer-and-costlier paradigm applies here.
We have already established that more money does this franchise no favors.
(How To Make a GoodStar TrekMovie, In Two Simple Steps:1.
Cut his budget in half.
)Generationsuses the added budget on more special effects most notably theEnterprisecrash scene but also on location shoots.
Theres a force field Picard cant get through, so he sits around.
TheEnterprisecrashes into a planet one of the last great pre-digital effects created by ILM.
Oddly, probably accidentally, the whole conceit ofGenerationsis an explicit counter-attack on what definedNext Generation.
Never mind the fact that none of these fine 50-plus actors look particularly physically threatening.
Film can make you believe anything.
(Film can make you believe William Shatner has a full head of hair.)
But this film sends Patrick Stewart crawling through a rock crevasse and demands him to pretend to be trapped.
How do you take this thing that was a TV show and make it into a movie?
But weirdly, none of this makesGenerationsfeel bigger, nor particularly cinematic.
TheStar Trekmovies seem to get smaller when they make a run at get bigger.
Maybe that is a lesson about movies and maybe its a lesson for TV shows, too.
Maybe Kirk and Picard needed something like that: More huddling, less battling.
And so there are lessons to take away fromGenerations, and the series finale that preceded it.
More explosions arent better.
This summersStar Trek Beyondreportedly cost $150 million, making it roughly oneStar Trek Generationscheaper thanInto Darkness.
That might be good news.
InStar Trek in television, in movies less really is more.
