Three reasons Star Trek Generations is absolutely a Christmas movie.
Star Trek Generations was the first Star Trek film by the Next Generations crew and was the first Star Trek film to not feature the entirety of the original cast. William Shatner, James Doohan, and Walter Koenig returned as James Kirk, Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, and Pavel Chekov, giving fans a nice passing-of-the-torch moment of sorts. It felt like a celebration of what was and will be. Dare I say, it felt festive.
So festive, that if you were to consider Generations a Christmas movie, we wouldn’t argue with you.
It did come out in November, which for a time was when all the Christmas and holiday-themed movies would come out. The Santa Clause, both of the most recent Grinch films, The Holiday, Just Friends, Eight Crazy Nights, The Polar Express, Elf and so many other Christmas and holiday-themed movies come out at the end of fall and start of winter.
So is Star Trek Generations a Christmas movie? We have our reasons and here are three of them; not counting the time of the year it was released in.
Three reasons Star Trek Generations is a Christmas movie
The Nexus Christmas scene
We’re starting with the obvious because it’s obvious. After finding himself in the Nexus, Jean-Luc Picard sees his family at Christmas, complete with a gaggle of children vying for his attention and affection. It seems perfect until Guinan pops up and tells him that he’s in the Nexus, a space-version of heaven that doesn’t conform to space and time. It acts as both a place they can exist or use to move through time. It’s the mechanism that ultimately allows Picard to meet James T. Kirk.
Fans got James Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard for the first and only time
What bigger Christmas present could fans of the mid-90s ask for than seeing Jean-Luc Picard and James T. Kirk on screen together for the first time? Picard had already shared screen time with Montgomery Scott and Spock prior to this, but never Kirk. Generations gave Star Trek fans that long-awaited-for moment and while their team-up wasn’t the explosive affair we were all hoping for, it’s still something we got. That’s more than a lot of fan bases can say when it comes to two generational characters interacting.
The crew gets a new Enterprise
The end of the film sees the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D has to say goodbye to their ship. In reality, the people making the movies needed a more sleek ship to make shooting space scenes less demanding, and while the Enterprise-D has a nostalgic place in the franchise, many fans loved the re-design and introduction of the Enterprise-E. Getting a brand new ship to close out the film (even if we didn’t see it until Star Trek: First Contact) was a great thing for fans and the franchise as a whole.