STAR TREK: GENERATIONS
A film review by Jon A. Webb
Copyright 1994 Jon A. Webb
STAR TREK: GENERATIONS is a real dog, without the excuses of the other two dog "Star Trek" films: I (the first, apparently they didn't know what they were doing) and V (directed by Shatner.)
Who directed this film? It is very Shatner-esque. Captain Kirk gets to show off his fighting skills, and even Picard seems to prefer combat given the choice. (He can go anywhere in the universe in time or space, and he picks the one place that will allow him to have a fight with another old guy. Come on, please.)
Another Shatner-esque touch: Picard and Kirk get to go to some place that sounds great, and it turns out to be fake snow, dumb holiday scenes complete with a Tiny Tim substitute, and K-Mart style holiday clothes. (Remember how the visit with "God" in "The Undiscovered Country" turned out to be really stupid?) No wonder they don't mind leaving.
Most of the original Star Trek cast are sensibly absent from this turkey. Only Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov show up.
So many familiar plot devices are screwed up that you wonder how they're going to make another movie. I won't give away the plot, such as it is, by revealing any of this, but I suppose Star Trek VIII will dedicate itself to undoing the damage done by its predecessor, like Star Trek III. I just hope they don't resurrect you-know-who.
"All Good Things..." is a far better film. I wonder why the same people who could make a good film like that could not get their act together well enough to put together a film that would appeal to anyone other than a Trekkie.
There's really nothing to recommend in this film. All the TNG actors seem to be under the influence of either very bad direction or some kind of depressants. Perhaps they don't want to show up the acting skills of their inferior counterparts from TOS.
I have an idea. Maybe Shatner got a clause in his contract guaranteeing him a certain type of direction, and no acting any better than his, in exchange for doing this film. That could explain it.
Don't go if you aren't a Trekkie.
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews