"Time is the fire in which we burn..."
- Dr. Soran
"...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..."
-Captain Picard, Star Trek Generations (1994)
- Dr. Soran
"...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..."
-Captain Picard, Star Trek Generations (1994)
As uneven as Generations is, the few moments like these where Picard engages Soran in a philosophical debate make it close to worthwhile. Picard has another great line about how our mortality defines our existence as well.
ReplyDeleteThere's a good/thoughtful movie in there, which unfortunately gets derailed by several really bad decisions.
Hey Jim
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you. Shatner gives the film a real lift in the last act (and blows Stewart off the screen...); but the movie suffers from the inattention to scientific detail and reliance on technobabble.
Like, Soran couldn't just wear a thruster suit in space and wait for the Ribbon to happen by him? Lame!
Equally lame is Captain Picard's reaction to a cloaked Bird of Prey. "What?!!!"
In Star Trek III, Kirk VISUALLY detected a cloaked bird of prey and got in the first licks with a skeleton crew of five and a badly damaged Enterprise.
In Generations, Picard lost the Federation flagship to a Bird of Prey. D'oh!
JKM
Not to mention that Picard bursts into tears on more than one occasion. It's a whole combination effect in which he seems diminished next to Kirk in terms of ability, confidence, and machismo. Of course then the pendulum swung to a ridiculous extent the other way by the time of Nemesis.
ReplyDeleteHey Jim -- Gosh, I hope it isn't impolitic to say it, but Picard cries way too much in Generations for my taste.
ReplyDeleteIt just seemed...wussy. He had good reason to cry (and I would have cried too given the circumstances), but I just don't know that it was the image that Picard needed to project in the first Next Gen movie.
And then they had to spend the next movie macho-ing him up to make up for the crying.
Which never seemed to fit either. Janeway in a sleevless gray shirt kicking ass...yes. Picard...no.
And that assessment is not about sex or looks; it's about believability and character. I believed Janeway would do it (in Macrovirus or whatever the Voyager episode was), but it felt forced and hokey with he tea-sipping, prissy Jean-Luc.
best,
JKM