3 things that worked and 3 things that didn’t work in Star Trek Generations
By Chad Porto
What Didn’t
Using the Duras Sisters
The Duras Sisters were fine villains in the world of a television show, but when you get to the movies, you have to up the ante. Having a pair of villains that the heroes have crushed in practically every encounter didn’t make a bit of sense. When The Original Series films brought back Khan Noonien Singh, they did so because he was every bit of James Kirk’s equal, and had proven to be a character with depth that they could further explore. The Duras Sisters never had that depth or scene-stealing quality that Khan had.
How James T. Kirk’s run ended
Killing off James T. Kirk wasn’t a bad idea, how they did it was. The original ending had Kirk dying by getting shot in the back. The re-worked ending that fans got had him ride a piece of scaffolding down the side of a mountain. Neither ending to the character was valiant or heroic. One was a loss in a fight, the other was what happens at some water parks. A better way to have had William Shatner end his run of Kirk would’ve been sacrificing himself to allow his crew (or the TNG Crew) to return home. This felt far weaker and didn’t really fit with the epic nature of the character.
The Nexus
The Nexus sucked. It’s a space ribbon that destroys anything it touches but can also put you into a heaven of sorts, where time has no meaning and the plot doesn’t matter. It was a weak idea, probably done just to create a different path to getting Picard and Kirk together. There was obviously a better idea on the table and it should’ve been used…