If some of you read or are familiar with my work in all things weeaboo then you might be surprised that I’ve never really written anything about the Star Trek movies themselves. I should also preface that the specific movies I am referring to are the “Next Generation” collection of movies, Generations, First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis. There are all of the movies before that, starring Kirk and Co. but truth be told I’ve only seen Wrath of Khan and The Voyage Home fully, though I plan to watch them all whenever I spot the BD collection or they come to Netflix. I bought the BD collection of these this weekend and thought I’d share some insight on them to the rest of you, because this blog fills up with emo shit too often lately. Needs more SPAAAAAAAAAACE!

Star Trek Generations was kind of a transition piece, between the old guard of Kirk to the new guard of Picard. It highlights the maiden voyage of the USS Enterprise-B under the command of Captain John Harriman, where Kirk is presumed dead after saving the ship and forty-seven survivors of the El-Aurian ship Lakota from an energy ribbon. This is the first chronological appearance of Guinan before she will assume her role as the bartender of the Ten-Forward Lounge aboard the USS Enterprise-D. Another survivor of that day, Tolian Soran, vows to return to that energy ribbon, dubbed The Nexus by any means necessary, and spends the next eighty years developing the means to achieve that goal.

Aboard the USS Enterprise-D, the crew hold a ceremony on the holodeck for Lieutenant Commander Worf on the old sea-faring ship Enterprise in honor of his recent promotion. The festivities are cut short for Captain Picard however when news of his brother and nephew’s death in a fire are received, followed by the ship responding to a distress call from the Amargosa Observatory, under attack by an unknown enemy. When the ship arrives and beams aboard, they find dead Romulans, and Tolian Soran, now one of the station’s researchers. Before they could fully understand what was going on, he launches a trilithium weapon at the Amargosa Star, collapsing it and causing it to go nova. A Klingon Bird-of-Prey happens to come by and pick up Soran, and you learn that its crew, led by notorious rebels Lursa and B’Etor Duras, were in league with the doctor to obtain weapons to control the Klingon Empire. They also captured Geordi LaForge, as Data, rendered immobile from his malfunctioning emotion chip, was unable to save him.

Guinan reveals the truth being her people and the ribbon to Picard, and with Data’s help in Stellar Cartography, manage to plot the world Soran would be traveling to next, Viridian III. There, he planned to destroy its sun to force The Nexus to intersect the planet and take him back. The Duras Sisters modified Geordi’s VISOR with a video feed and sent him to the ship, and Picard to the surface to reason with Soran. With this, they managed to get the shield frequency for the ship and modify their weapons to penetrate it. Data resets their cloaking device and lowers their shields long enough to destroy the ship, but not before the stardrive section of the Enterprise is crippled and the warp-core about to breach. Loading everyone into the saucer section they escape the exploding core, but not with enough time before it explodes and knocks the saucer section out of orbit and down towards the planet. The ship makes a level landing, but is damaged beyond repair. Unable to stop the missile from launching, Viridian’s star goes nova and the ribbon flies towards Soran and Picard.

In The Nexus Picard sees a possible future he might’ve had if he chose a path differently, where he had a wife and kids, and his nephew had not perished in a fire. But he could not accept this false reality, and quickly ran into James T. Kirk, also living out his past in The Nexus. After convincing him that this was not real, they left The Nexus and returned to Viridian III just before the missile exploded. They manage to defeat Soran at the expense of Kirk’s life, but the Enterprise-D still crashed on the planet and could not be salvaged. A fleet led by the Farragut arrives to pick up the crew and passengers from the shipwreck, but not before the crew says their farewells and retrieves objects, and animals, of value.

Generations for me was a hit-and-miss film. While I enjoyed the final mission of the Enterprise-D and everything that TNG created for the Trek universe preceding it, bringing it to the film made it awkward in many ways. The jumpsuits and new commbadge design from DS9 made it into this film, where many crew members, including the main cast, were in and out of TNG-style uniforms and DS9-style uniforms. The ship also felt terribly out of place, bright yellow lighting everywhere, the modified bridge, even the nostalgic red alert sound was replaced for a different sound during the battle sequences. I realize that movies are different from TV, and that things are approached on a different scale, but it just seemed like they wanted to “puff out” the ship and its crew for one final time before it would rest in the history of the franchise and they’d start fresh in First Contact. Regardless, it made for an excellent transition from old Trek to new Trek, if there is such a thing.

If you asked me what my favorite Trek movie is, or even my favorite moment in Trek in its entirety, Star Trek First Contact would be that. The first film to feature a new ship, the Enterprise-E, and a new uniform standard that would find its way to the final seasons of Deep Space Nine, this film brought action back to the franchise and really set the bar for the TNG cast at the time. As the Dominion War rages on behind the scenes, First Contact shifts the focus to another Borg attack on Earth, only Starfleet has chosen not to allow Picard and the Enterprise to attend, despite being the most technologically advanced battleship in the fleet. Instead, an array of other ships, including the USS Defiant under Lt. Commander Worf, attempt to beat the cube back. Unconvinced that the fleet will survive, much like Wolf 359 six year prior, Picard disobeys orders and takes the ship into combat anyway, saving Worf and the Defiant as well as destroying the cube, but not before a sphere launches and creates a temporal rift. The ship follows them in and travels back to 2063, just days before Zefram Cochrane was to make his historic warp ship flight that would begin the space-faring era of humanity. The ship succeeds in destroying the sphere, but not before they inflict damage onto the town of Bozeman where Cochrane resided, and beaming several Borg onto the Enterprise undetected.

As the senior staff and engineering teams worked to restore the warp ship to flying capacity before the deadline, and Troi and Riker attempting to convince Cochrane to make the flight, Picard, Data, Worf, and Crusher along with any unassimilated crew, fight to maintain control of the Enterprise from Borg control, fighting an uphill battle as they push their control upwards deck by deck. Eager to find out what their plans were, Picard and Lily, who was beamed up from the surface previously for medical treatment, lure two of the Borg into the holodeck where he shoots them dead with a holographic Tommy Gun. Ripping a memory chip out from the body, he finds they are attempting to not only defeat Data’s lock on the computer, but build a beacon on the deflector dish to alert the Borg in this timeline, who still reside in the Delta Quadrant. He takes Worf and Hawk along in EVA suits outside of the ship to stop them by releasing the dish from the ship. While they narrowly succeed, Hawk is assimilated and subsequently killed when Worf shoots him, and then the dish after it had been seperated.

With no hope of taking back the ship, Picard orders its self-destruction and evacuates the crew, but not before going down to rescue Data. Inside he is confronted by the Borg Queen who tries to convince him to join her, as she once was by his side when he was assimilated six years ago. He initially complies for Data’s release, but Data defects to the Borg side and deactivated the self-destruct, and releases the computer. Locking three quantum torpedos on the Phoenix as it makes it into space, he fires at them before it goes to warp, but intentionally misses, allowing the Phoenix to go to warp. He double-defects back and punctures the plasma tank, and after a brief struggle, the Queen is liquified, also disabling all of the drones on the ship. The Phoenix returns to Earth, bringing with it a Vulcan ship destined to meet humanity, and the crew return to the ship and to their respective timeline, having saved it from the Borg.

First Contact has always been my favorite film for many reasons. I’m not old enough to had really experienced The Original Series and the first Trek films as much as those who were alive in the 60s and 70s, I got into Trek right around the mid-point of DS9 and shortly before the end of TNG, having really only experienced Voyager from beginning to end. First Contact brought out the fun parts of Trek I tried to emulate in my young age, commanding a ship into battle against The Borg, fighting in the corridors with phaser rifles, and winning the fight in the end. This film is considered by most to be Trek’s darkest film, grittiest, and perhaps the most “action” of them all since The Wrath of Khan. The Borg have always been a hot-ticket in the franchise, especially during the last few seasons of Voyager, but their big-screen appearance vaulted the franchise to unforseen levels. The trouble with the movie though, within the canon, is where to place it. If you go by Memory Alpha’s view of 2373, First Contact happens before the start of the Dominion War, and even before Species 8472 invades Borg space in the Delta Quadrant. Had the movie fell after these events, it would be a difficult sell for hardcore fans as one would assume the Enterprise would be a front-line ship against the Dominion, and the Borg would have shifted their focus from Earth to fighting 8472 at home. Despite all of that, with how the Enterprise-E was configured, being more of a battleship than an explorer ship like her predecessor, it made the beginning of the movie feel out of place compared to the last two-thirds. But that’s just my thing really. In the end, it was an awesome film and continues to be one of my personal favorites.

I’ll be doing up Insurrection and Nemesis another day, and perhaps more beyond that as I overload myself with Trek again. It happens.