20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Trek Generations
Revisiting perhaps the most controversial Star Trek movie ever.
Star Trek Generations occupies something of a liminal space (pun intended) in the sci-fi franchise - it's not all that good, nor is it all that bad. It's... basically OK?
The extensively marketed team-up between Captains Kirk (William Shatner) and Picard (Patrick Stewart) is bafflingly brief and Kirk's demise remains shockingly underwhelming to this day, but director David Carson still manages to squeeze some torch-passing fun out of the whole endeavour.
Despite its massively novel and unique hook, of bridging the gap between two epochs of Trek, Generations isn't discussed much outside of the hardcore fanbase these days, and so you couldn't really be blamed for knowing little of what went on behind the scenes.
From those inevitable production stumbles to storylines that almost made it to the screen, and implications made in other peripheral media, you almost certainly aren't aware of these 20 fascinating factoids about one of the more contentious entries in the cinematic Star Trek canon.
If you've ever wondered why a certain scene felt a little off, or why a specific character was bizarrely missing from the fray, here are the answers you've been looking for...
20. Gene Roddenberry Was Firmly Opposed To A TOS/TNG Team-Up
Generations was the first Trek movie to be produced following the death of creator Gene Roddenberry in 1991, and given Roddenberry's obstinate approach to deciding which stories could and couldn't be told, the creatives decided to push forward with bold new ideas following his death.
One such concept was the creative team's suggestion of a movie that teamed the Original Series cast up with the Next Generation roster, to which Roddenberry had previously expressed firm opposition.
While it'd be easy for fans to view such posthumous chicanery as disrespectful, especially so soon after Roddenberry's death, considering the man's reputation for being stubborn, difficult, and slow to accept change, there was shockingly little outcry.
Plus, how could any card-carrying Trekkie hear about a Kirk/Picard team-up and not get excited?