10 Star Trek Moments That Broke Our Hearts
1. Here's To You, Lads
It would have been both easy, yet fitting, to place 'The Needs Of The Many' at the top of this list. That will be saved for a future list, as sadly Star Trek will always have options when it comes to heartbreaking moments. One scene that this writer simply couldn't leave off this first list was those few moments aboard the holodeck of the Enterprise-D, when a certain old engineer visited the bridge of his ship, one last time.
Scotty's toast to his fallen shipmates is, quite simply, the most heartbreaking moment of the franchise. A certain historical context helps here as well. This is a Scotty who believes himself completely alone, out of time, and in the way. The Generations-issue aside, he believes himself to be the last survivor of the original Enterprise, having traveled to the future in his own technological way. The score is sombre and haunting, while the juxatposition of the Original Series aesthetic alongside the then-modern Next Generation aesthetic is beautifully jarring.
Seeing Scotty as we knew him from the movies sitting on the bridge of the ship that we knew from the series has its own nostalgia as well. Yet, we come back to that last toast to fallen comrades. They're all gone, or so he believes. For him, there is only a lonely future to look forward to, and our collective hearts break for the man. James Doohan delivers one of his finest performances in this sequence, offering a scene that is at once haunting, affecting, and, of course, heartbreaking. As the man said - here's to you, lads.