With such a massive universe created by one franchise, it is no surprise that when the time came to tell the story of Star Trek with a new cast, expectations were high. Star Trek: The Next Generation started off on a rocky footing but eventually gained the respect and admiration of not only old Star Trek fans, but a new generation (pun not intended) of loyal watchers. But the original series had spawned six feature films that were seen by a wider audience, while The Next Generation was enjoyed by a smaller, but fiercely loyal television audience. And so, when the big screen torch was set to be passed on to The Next Generation, the writers had quite the task in front of them. They had to appeal to a wider audience, while not alienating two very different sets of fans: lovers of the original series and the newer viewers of The Next Generation.
No, I will not be deciding today which Star Trek is better: the original or The Next Generation. And no, I will not be determining who is the better captain: Picard or Kirk. Those are epic questions for the ages, which I will be happy to address in a more detailed fashion in some later post. Today I set out to determine which is the better film: Star Trek: Generations or Star Trek: First Contact. It has been widely believed that Generations was a rocky introduction of the Next Generation cast to the big screen. It was not until First Contact that they finally got it right. Which film is truly better? Let's find out. ***Warning: Spoilers to follow***
Since we are talking about films based on television shows, it is important at this time to have a brief discussion on what makes these mediums fundamentally different. The majority of television shows have a relatively stable status quo lurking in the background after the resolution of every individual story. With the exception of serialized drams (a subject of an upcoming post, by the way), most television shows are about the evolution of one story over a 45-minute period. The resolution of the story is in the solving of the puzzle or the end of the small conflict contained in that story alone. The episode might deliver some kind of minor theme or illuminate a character in a way we haven't seen before, but rarely is there such a radical change that there is no going back. In other words, the story could have never actually happened and the universe it is contained in wouldn't be any fundamentally different. You could miss the episode and not miss an extremely crucial development. Even special episodes like end-of-season cliffhangers and midseason 2-parters tend to introduce the possibility of a major change, but then bring us back to where we were originally. One important reason for this is that television is seen as more of a means of simple, weekly entertainment. The audience just wants to watch stories with its same favorite characters over and over. Sudden and radical changes are just too upsetting, complicated and evolving storylines require too much effort to follow on a consistent basis. Both the original Star Trek television show and Star Trek: The Next Generation operated on these guidelines.
But a good film cannot operate in this way. It cannot introduce or assume a status quo only to return to it at the end with little to no changes occurring. While the characters or events in a television show can change gradually over the course of 100 episodes, a film gets only one 2 hour chance to tell you a story where something significant happens. Characters change, evolve, or die, events change dramatically, and a theme unifies the importance of what we just witnessed. Part of this is expectation: we expect a film to operate on a larger scale than a TV show because it has a bigger budget, has significantly less frequency than a TV show, and the film industry is something that we have culturally built up to be a big spectacle. But, the more important factor is structure. With only one chance to tell a story, it better pack a punch. Even if the end is happily ever after, the difficulty of reaching that stage must have been high or the weaving of events complex. Imagine Luke Skywalker returning to Tatooine with no understanding or the larger forces at work in his universe or Sarah Connor remaining as naive and helpless as she was before she learned of the existence of the Terminators. The strength of a film is in the scope of the journey taken and the power of the conflict won or lost. To return to a point in the story where the outcome of the conflict did not really matter in the long-run would completely destroy a film's purpose.
And thus we arrive at the task of Star Trek: Generations. Not only must it find an identity among the original series vs. next generation debate, it must also break from the procedural past of the television shows. It is literally serving as a bridge between the past and the present: it is a passing of the torch from one generation to the next. Enter Ronald D. Moore: a long-time writer and producer in the Star Trek universe that called for more serialization, less cliches, and significant character development throughout his tenure. Chosen as one of the co-writers of Star Trek: Generations, Moore set out to establish that this film was not going to be the gentle ride of the television shows where everyone is happy at the end and nothing significant has changed.
In the first act of the film, we see several members of the old crew (though sadly missing Bones, Spock, and Sulu) escort the new, younger crew of the Enterprise on their first mission. Upon leaving space dock, they receive a distress call from two refugee ships that have encountered some kind of spacial anomaly that is wrecking havoc on their systems. It is obvious that this new, inexperienced crew is not ready for the challenge, as the first ship is destroyed. Typical of his normal bravado, Kirk takes over and determines that the last ship could be freed by initiating some wibbly wobbly, timey, wimey science thing and races to the lower decks to save the day. Kirk's plan manages to save a fraction of the refugees before the second ship is destroyed. The Enterprise is hit with a massive bolt of energy but is able to get away just in time. Distracted by the celebration of their survival, the crew does not know that Captain Kirk has been killed in the blast.
This was a shot across the bow of how Star Trek stories had always been told. You would be hard pressed to find a development in Star Trek lore as dark and as illustrating of the fragility of life as this. (A few similar moments have occurred in the first six Star Trek films, but still none quite as dramatic as this). Right off the bat we, the audience, are told that anything is possible. Contrary to the general feeling of the past, there are consequences to the choices made, to the risks taken, and to the perils faced. Our characters that we love and cherish face serious jeopardy for the first time. That possibility that something bad can happen is utterly crucial to making a story important and emotionally captivating.
As if that wasn't already enough, we fast-forward to the "present day" to see the current crew of The Next Generation. They are having a jolly time on the Holodeck, participating in a ritual celebrating the promotion of Worf to Lieutenant Commander. But during the celebration, Captain Picard receives a message from Earth which appears to shatter him. We learn a bit later that his brother and nephew have burned to death in a fire. This kind of sadness was never possible in a television episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was never a question whether the crew would solve their particular conflict of the week, only a matter of how. Picard has always felt a responsibility to carry on the lineage of his family, having been told from a young age how important the Picards have been to history. With the death of his only nephew, the line of Picards will now end.
We now have two separate examples of a developing theme: that time is short and death can come at any point, no matter how unexpected. When time was running out to make a decision, Kirk seized the moment and risked death to do what he thought was right. Picard's situation exists in a different context (he does not currently face imminent danger), but the truth he learns is the same. His reaction is to lament at lost time: both his lost opportunity to father a family and his nephew's opportunity to experience a full life.
We soon meet a third example of a reaction to this theme in the character of Dr. Soran. His species can live for centuries, and he was one of the refugees saved by Kirk 70 years ago. It turns out that the spacial anomaly they encountered was not a destructive force but rather some kind of time/space nexus. Basically, if you want a simple analogy, it's the Matrix. The perk is that time has no meaning there: you can travel wherever you want, experience any time that you want, make different choices in your past and live their results, etc. When those refugees from the first act were stuck in the anomaly, they were in the nexus. They apparently experienced joy at being able to see all of their loved ones again (these refugees came from a planet recently destroyed by the Borg). When they were rescued, they were ripped from their families and had to face the harsh reality of time. One man, Dr. Soran, devotes his life to recapturing this freedom from the limits of time by returning to the nexus, whatever the cost.
This is the essence of good writing. A conflict gradually develops between different characters as the course of events become clearer to them. The nature of these events and their varying reaction to them begins to unify into a singular theme. Kirk lives with no fear of time, Picard is worried about his time running out and how it will affect him, and Dr. Soran is on a mission to defeat time. The evolution of the plot will land our main character, Captain Picard, somewhere on this spectrum. Picard will try to stop Dr. Soran from bringing harm to other people in pursuit of his quest, but what would happen should he find himself in the nexus? Will he be tempted to live a different life? Will he decide to have a family and give up Starfleet? Will he warn his nephew and brother and prevent them from dying? These questions make the action interesting. When we discover that Dr. Soran is willing to destroy entire solar systems and kill millions of people to achieve his goal, the horror of what he is capable of and the dread at what he might actually do becomes real to us.
Essentially, we see Picard in the nexus doing all of the things we would expect him to do. As soon as he enters the nexus he enters a reality where he fathered many children and his nephew is still alive. He is amazed and tempted, nearly forgetting how he came into this position. But right at the brink, he remembers what has just happened. He chooses reality, and says goodbye to the possibilities that could have been had he made different choices. Picard puts his past behind him and is now at peace with it. He learns that while in the nexus, he can return to any point in time or space that he chooses, and he decides that he must return to the moment before Saron successfully destroyed the solar system.
In a rather convenient development, since Picard failed the first time and decides that he needs help, he comes across Captain Kirk who is also in the nexus. It turns out that Kirk was not killed in the anomaly, just sucked into the nexus. Picard proposes that Kirk help him defeat Saron and thus save the galaxy one more time. Kirk's interesting reaction to the nexus and Picard's proposal is that he has no interest in leaving. His current point of time in the nexus is at a crucial turning point in his life. He could either stay on Earth and marry his girlfriend, or return to Starfleet. In reality he returned to Starfleet, but this time, he was going to get it right. However, after experiencing some time in the nexus, Kirk realizes that it has no meaning because there are no stakes. He could have whatever he wants and live any moment over again in any way he choses. Time, has no meaning. Thus he agrees to help Picard stop Saron. In the climactic battle, Kirk dies in the process of making it possible for Picard to stop Saron. When faced with the choice of a dangerous reality with the possibility of death high versus a sheltered existence with no consequences in the nexus, he chose reality. The solar system is saved.
There are two ways to respond to the third act of this film: with frustration at the massive plot hole, or with admiration for the expression of its theme. The enormous plot hole comes from the notion that a person can leave the nexus and return to reality at any point or time. Why is that the case? We have no idea. But more importantly, doesn't this completely solve the problem? Couldn't Picard return to the Enterprise before any of the trouble started and simply arrest Sauron? Then no solar systems are blown up, no one is killed, the Enterprise is saved, and it's nice and simple. He could even return to an earlier time, before his nephew and brother are killed too. Kirk could return to his time and prevent himself from dying by erecting a force field or altering the timing of his actions. In effect, the whole movie could be undone. Our characters are in jeopardy and their choices have consequences...unless they come across a space anomaly that allows them to travel wherever they want in space and time. The writers knew they could not just allow Picard to jump back in time to the beginning of the film without ruining their credibility, so they had to ignore this massive plot hole. Also, they made Kirk die again, for real this time, to attempt to give the third act some emotional impact. But this just feels like a cheap trick to pull at your heart strings. His death wasn't the logical result of the choices he made, but rather something that did not have to happen. It happened because the writers wanted to infuse emotion in a way that wasn't earned. To the astute observer, this massive plot hole nearly destroys the film.
Before I get to the second way to respond to the third act, I should remark on the one character whose development is completely out of place in this film: Data. Throughout the Next Generation series, Data has been one of the most fascinating characters. An android that wants to be human, Data's attempts to understand humanity have always been an interesting mix of heartwarming and comic. When he doesn't quite understand humor or how people interact with each other or what to do in a social situation, we are reminded of our own fragility. His pursuit to make himself more human gives us something both inspiring and funny. But when the writers try to bring his story to Star Trek: Generations, they fail significantly. In a film that is intentionally dark and filled with surprisingly sad circumstances, Data's comic relief is jarring, if not downright annoying. His actions are precipitated by the installation of an emotion chip into his processor. Throughout the film he has difficulty controlling his humor, sadness, fear, grief, and happiness. The best example of this is in Act II when the Enterprise is attempting to develop a plan to stop Sauron. They know that the entire solar system will be destroyed if they don't stop him and everyone is on edge. But Data is feeling happy, so when he is asked to scan a planet for lifeforms, he does a little song routine. Yes it's fun, and hilarious, but completely out of place. It undercuts the seriousness of the jeopardy our characters are in.
Perhaps more importantly, his character progression is a sub-plot that never has any connection to the larger theme. In plenty of circumstances, this can be used as an effective storytelling device. A story can follow two different characters with different dramatic needs and do so successfully. But, the way this is done is for those characters to, at some point, meet and impact each other in some fundamental way. Look at Independence Day as a good example. Capt. Steven Hiller and David Levinson have entirely different dramatic needs in the first two acts, but come together in the third act for a common purpose.
That is not the case here. In Act I Data installs the emotion chip. In Act II, his fear prevents him from helping his best friend Geordi from being abducted by Sauron. His regret and guilt are too much to bear until Geordi returns unharmed and forgives Data. He tells Data that he was only being human. This is what precipitates Data's happiness and bursting into song. Unfortunately, in Act III the Data subplot is completely dropped until the end of the film. In the worst way possible, Data flatly states that having a myriad of emotional states, he believes he can now control them. He just states this. Why can he now control his emotions? How has he come to cope with feelings of fear, shame, and happiness? We never see it, so his statement is meaningless. He even contradicts himself a moment later. Upon discovering that his cat Spot has survived the crash unharmed, he cries. But, he doesn't understand why he is crying and surmises that perhaps his emotion chip is malfunctioning. In the matter of a minute, his actions completely undercut the meaningless statement he just made about controlling and understanding his emotions. What was the point? If Data had contributed to the resolution of the action in the third act, his sub-story would have fit into the larger whole. It would have been the perfect moment to redeem himself from his failure of fear in Act II and brought his emotions into a controlled understanding. But alas, we get nothing but an expository statement with no backing.
Despite these missteps, I still believe that Star Trek: Generations is a good film. While my feeling on this has fluctuated over time, I now believe that focusing on the massive plot hole of the third act misses the forest for the trees. If you suspend disbelief, if you pretend that for some logical reason Picard could only return to that precise moment in time, the resolution of the action throughout the film as a whole remains a remarkable expression of a single theme. Kirk looks back on the life he lived, the choices he made and concludes "It was, fun." Sauron was so obsessed with defeating time that it consumed him. And Picard faced his test: he had the chance to live in the nexus and change the choices that he had made. But he knew that a real existence does not work that way.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived. After all Number One, we're only mortal."
By watching this film we have experienced something that was not only fun and exciting to watch, but it showed us something important and true about our existence. The main characters were acting on the basis of a fundamental conflict around one specific perspective, and that makes the action so interesting. The stakes of each scene are important because they are directly tied into the characters that are experiencing them. And if you're like me, contemplating our perspective on time and our lives is a fascinating journey in the course of 2 hours. Looking at the film in the context of the larger Star Trek universe, it is a stunning achievement. The Enterprise has all but been destroyed, Picard's perspective on his life has been forever changed, and Captain Kirk has died. That is an accomplishment of storytelling. The next film in the series, if there is to be one, has a foundation where anything can happen. Did the next film capitalize on this achievement? Let's find out.
For Star Trek: First Contact, the same writers are back. The story was conceived by Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, and Ronald D. Moore. Braga and Moore wrote the screenplay itself. How does it compare to their last effort? Let's take a look at how the plot develops. The story begins with a nightmare. Captain Picard recalls his abduction by a villainous alien race known as the Borg. They are cybernetic organisms with a collective consciousness whose primary goal is to expand and achieve perfection. They do this by assimilating millions of people and entire worlds into their collective against their will. They literally infect people with microscopic robotic devices that change a person at the cellular level until they become mindless drones. Destroyers of individuality, the Borg tap into our fears of communism and loss of individual identity. Moreover, their superior grasp of technology makes them an extremely formidable enemy. Just one Borg ship is capable of destroying hordes of Federation ships.
When the Federation fleet engages the Borg, they find themselves completely outmatched, countless ships destroyed. Picard defies orders and joins the fight. Under his leadership, the Borg ship is destroyed. But in the moment, a smaller escape vessel emerges and heads for Earth. With most other ships crippled or attending to their wounded, the Enterprise follows the Borg ship. Shockingly, it opens up some kind of spacial anomaly, which readings indicate to be some kind of temporal rift. Ordering the Enterprise after the ship, the crew witnesses Earth change before their very eyes. The planet's atmosphere has been converted to methane and nitrogen, and 9 billion Borg now inhabit the planet. Somehow, while the Enterprise was still in the rift, the Borg traveled back in time to the 21st century and did something to make it significantly easier to assimilate humanity. Upon exiting the rift, they discover that the Borg are firing at a target on Earth. The Enterprise destroys the ship, but realizes the attack on the Borg's target might have already changed history. They attacked the first human ship with warp drive, whose inaugural flight ushered in the first contact with an alien species: the Vulcans. That moment forever changed human history. And so it would seem that the stage is set: the Enterprise crew has to make sure that that flight goes off as it originally did, or their future is lost. Little do they know that the Borg transported to the Enterprise undetected and have already begun to hatch a plan of their own.
That sounds like a pretty good setup for a film, right? It is at this point, however, that the film begins to lose its steam by devolving into three separate stories. Riker, Troi, Geordi, and support crew remain on the planet to assist the humans with their first warp-drive space flight. They do not know that the Enterprise is being overrun by the Borg. On Earth we learn the story of first contact and how it united humanity in a way never thought possible. The most important character here is the reluctant hero of the space flight, Dr. Zefram Cochrane. While the Enterprise crew regale him with stories of his legend and the magnificence of his flight, Cochrane grows weary of his destiny. He cannot believe that he, a drunk who thought up this space flight to make money, would usher in the utopia that they are all talking about. In reverse, the Enterprise crew is surprised that their legendary figure is this flawed man.
Meanwhile, on the Enterprise, Picard retrieves a woman from the 21st century, Lily Sloane, who was brought up to the ship due to her exposure to radiation on Earth. At first, she is merely a plot device to get Picard to give us exposition on who the Borg are and what they did to him. As they interact, Lily discovers that Picard holds a deep-seated hatred for the Borg and will do anything to stop them. In a telling moment, he opens fire on two drones that follow them into the holodeck. He almost relishes in killing them. As the situation on the Enteprise gets worse, she is the only person willing to stand up to Picard's refusal to surrender.
Data, meanwhile, is taken hostage by the Borg. Before they could gain access to the main computer system and take over the ship, Data encrypted access to the computer. There is no way for the Borg to manually retrieve the information from his head, so they need to find a way to get him to give the information up. And so we are introduced to the Borg queen; a mysterious development for a species thought to consist entirely of drones. She is something like their leader, but is also a representation of all of their combined thoughts. How exactly that works is left intentionally vague. She now attempts to persuade Data to support their cause by enticing him with humanity. She grafts human flesh onto his arm and face, she entices him with physical sensations of pleasure, and she attempts to convince him that the Borg can offer a better glimpse of what he is looking for than the humans can.
So, was there a unification into a singular theme in the third act? No. There was a moment where all three stories intersected: the moment when the torpedos were on their way to hitting the Phoenix. But that was a plot intersection. There was no larger meaning behind these scenes. What did this whole film mean? What was it all about? Therein lies its fundamental flaw. While Star Trek: Generations unites its entire plot into telling us something about human existence, Star Trek: First Contact is a simple action film where little has changed. The few character changes that the film did attempt were largely unearned. Picard's change of heart came so suddenly as to be meaningless. One minute he was absolutely devoted to destroying the Borg, and the next he felt like he had gone too far. Why? Why was his conviction of a few moments ago something to be dismissed? Because it was extreme? In this case I would like to quote Barry Goldwater: "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of virtue is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"
The reality of Cochrane's existence as opposed to his legend was something woefully under-explored. There is no real tension that Cochrane might not be able to live up to what he needs to be, or that the flight of the Phoenix might fail. Wouldn't it have been far more interesting if the real Cochrane was killed, either in the initial attack or some time after the fact? Perhaps he might have decided to kill himself rather than face the fear of his future. And so Cochrane's legend would have to be invented by the Enterprise crew for the sake of history.
Data's character progression is really the only one of interest here, in stark contrast to the previous film. Here he discovers that there might be limits to his becoming more human. The speed at which the Borg queen brought him closer to humanity was frightening. Having flesh that was capable of being in pain and of being destroyed was a terrifying prospect for him. More importantly, the Borg queen removed his ability to turn off his emotion chip. Suddenly, he was as vulnerable as any human being. Perhaps he needed to slow down and reach humanity a bit slower than he first thought.
The Borg, while a potentially terrifying villain on paper, never amounted to anything significant. We never really learned why the Borg believed the road to perfection was in assimilating humanity, so their eventual defeat meant little. Nor was the threat they posed philosophically intimidating in any fundamental way. They were an existential threat to our characters in the moment, but they did not represent something more. Dr. Saron, by contrast, believed that time must be conquered by any means. When we saw that he was willing to destroy solar systems and millions of people to do it, that made his actions genuinely frightening. The Borg, by contrast, are boring zombies.
There was no dark moment that established that anything could happen in the course of this story. There was no equivalent of the death of Kirk in act I of Star Trek: The Next Generation. If anything, the tone of the film felt like an extended episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Everything is going to turn out ok, just enjoy the ride. And that's precisely what Star Trek: First Contact is, an amusement ride. I found myself rather bored not only by the action but by the interaction of the characters. I just did not feel like anything was at stake--that anything mattered in the plot. It was just a lot of pointless fluff. The lack of a singular, unifying theme is the biggest damnation I can give of this film. What was this movie about? What did it show me about the nature of existence and our place in it? Next to nothing.
I can't believe I am saying it, but Star Trek: Generations is the superior film. It attempted to create something that we had never seen before: a story about the Next Generation crew that did not bring us back to the status quo at the end. Even though it was not perfect, even though there was a massive plot hole, Data's character development was rather pointless and annoying, and there was some bad dialogue, this story made a great leap forward. This would be a story that would introduce the possibility that our cherished characters and situations might change in significant and meaningful ways. The reaction to this change, in large part, was fear and outrage. How dare they kill Captain Kirk? How dare they destroy the Enterprise? How dare they tell us that choices can have serious consequences and all of our lives are to be cherished because of how quickly they can change? I even think that the massive plot hole of the third act is, in part, an attempt to curtail a little bit of the backlash and fear in the audience at what is happening to their beloved franchise. Star Trek: First Contact is a return to the safe, boring story. It is an extended version of the television show. While I adored Star Trek: The Next Generation for its admiration of the human mind to solve any problem, its lack of serious consideration for the potential of dark and sad events in our existence sometimes left me bored. Most importantly, Star Trek: First Contact's lack of a unifying theme only highlights its failure as a feature film.
It should come as no surprise that after First Contact, Ron Moore stopped work on The Next Generation and became the showrunner of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for its last two seasons. In that time, building on top of what had come before in the show, he developed one of the best serialized stories in television history. In 2003, he developed and became the showrunner for the very best serialized story in television, Battlestar Galatica. But that is another story.
Winner: Star Trek: Generations
I hope you enjoyed my review. Please feel free to comment. Suggestions for upcoming reviews are much appreciated.
