The other movie Enterprise.
I haven’t done one of my “famous film spaceship” things in a while, so here’s one that I’ve had the pictures sitting around for for ages and just haven’t gotten around to organizing and writing.
Though it seems like the buzz about a J.J. Abrams-produced Star Trek movie is going to put off the inevitable retrospectives of the later movies in the series, I still have to stick with my assessment that, at some point in the future, 1994’s Star Trek: Generations is going to be looked upon as the conceptual jewel in the crown of the TNG movies. It seems like it’s really the only one of the four TNG films to even attempt the exploration of a science fiction idea (in this case the Nexus), even if its treatment of that concept suddenly takes a weird right turn in the last 20 minutes that’s never fully explained (the whole bit with Picard and Kirk apparently simply choosing to leave the Nexus and go back just a li’l bit in time). Malcolm McDowell is certainly the TNG movie villain with the most staying power (but I’m biased, as he’s a favorite actor of mine), and Generations also edges out Nemesis (for killing off Data) and First Contact (for re-inventing the Borg) for having the most lasting impact on Trek fiction as a whole (for killing off Kirk). (I also think a reassessment of the movie’s music is long overdue – as much as I love Jerry Goldsmith’s work, it all started to sound similar toward the end of his Trek tenure, and Generations represents, hands-down, some of the best music Dennis McCarthy ever put in front of an orchestra.)
But Generations is also fascinating for what it shows us. Without revamping the exterior of the Enterprise-D for her final voyage, it presents us with significant changes to the well-worn interior sets. What do all these new additions do, and why? Read on, true believers.
… Read more
