This Generations sequel would have brought Kirk back to life
Star Trek: Generations raked in $120 million worldwide, but the powers that be weren’t sure if all of that success came from fans eager to see The Next Generation on the big screen or because of William Shatner’s appearance. When another film was announced, Shatner had the idea to pair Kirk and Picard together again which, by all accounts, could have been another successful movie.
Shatner had been asked to write a trilogy of Star Trek books. After he sold the idea to the publisher, he presented the synopsis to Paramount studio chief Sherry Lansing and Rick Berman. In Shatner’s movie, the Romulans and the Borg use advanced technology to bring Kirk back to life, which fans would have loved, especially since his death in Generations was lackluster and not deserving of a captain.
Included in the film would have been both Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley, two of the original actors from Star Trek who were sadly missing from Generations. Once Kirk was reunited with his friends, he would have connected with Captain Picard and the crew of The Next Generation, and they would all have journeyed to the Borg home world in an effort to stop the threat once and for all, an effort that would have ended with Kirk sacrificing himself to save the world.
But producers wanted to do a different kind of sequel to Generations
Rick Berman believed it was best to leave Kirk dead since he technically died twice in Generations, and beyond that, the studio wanted to do a movie that was all about The Next Generation crew. Brannon Braga, according to The Fifty-Year Mission The Next 25 Years by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, had a different take on Shatner’s pitch, saying that it would have been disastrous to kill Kirk in the first movie and then bring him back in the second.
"“It would have been chintzy and would have taken away any kind of credibility we’d tried to establish. I don’t think that film would have done very well.”"
Star Trek has had other resurrections, including Spock and Captain Kirk in the Kelvin timeline so it’s doubtful that Admiral Kirk’s resurrection would have been the issue. However, bringing Kirk back only to kill him again might have been a bit too much. Still, I would have liked to have seen a more fitting death for Kirk, much like Data received in Star Trek: Nemesis. Sacrificing himself for his crew, his friends, or the world, would have been much more heroic which is what every captain/admiral deserves.