A Brief Guide to Star Trek

two iconic
Star Trek
captains, Kirk and Picard. The desire for that meeting to take place on neutral ground led to the development of the Nexus, a kind of ‘nowhere’ place outside regular time and space within which both captains would find themselves trapped.
    Unlike the choice of an experienced Hollywood director in Robert Wise to helm
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
, the first film for
The Next Generation
crew would be directed by a name familiar from the TV series. David Carson was a veteran of many TV pilots, including the $12-million opening episode of
Deep Space Nine
. His selection came only after Rick Berman had approached Leonard Nimoy. ‘We had a difference of opinion about the script’, noted Nimoy, who was also offered a cameo role in the movie. ‘It didn’t work for me.’ The benefits Carson brought to the project were many – he was very familiar with the
Star Trek
universe, cast and crew; he was equally at home directing the actors as well as handling the special effects requirements; and he had huge directorial experience across a range of different television shows. The step up from the
Deep Space Nine
pilot to a $26-million feature film was not that huge, and Berman regarded Carson as a known quantity, one that would avoid all the problems Roddenberry had faced working with Wise back in 1979.
    Many of the behind the scenes crew from seven years of
The Next Generation
moved smoothly onto working on
Generations
as the series segued directly into the movie. Although the requirements of a feature film versus a TV episode were often somewhat different, Berman was glad that most of his experienced team were able to step up their game for the big screen
Enterprise
.
    Initially, the plan was to feature the entire original series crew in the opening sequence of
Generations
, but several of the actors felt they had said a more than suitable farewell to their
Star Trek
characters in the more meaningful conclusion of
The Undiscovered Country
. Missing from the film therefore were Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, George Takei and NichelleNichols. They realised that the story was built around the meeting between Captain Kirk and Captain Picard, making their roles largely superfluous. In the end, joining William Shatner in the film were James Doohan as Scotty and Walter Koenig as Chekov.
    With only two hours to tell a movie story, rather than the twenty-six hours of the average season of
The Next Generation
on TV, Rick Berman was clear that story choices had to be made. The film would be primarily about Picard, Kirk and Data, relegating everyone else from both
Star Trek
crews to secondary status. Unexpectedly finding themselves sidelined by this focus were some of the cast of
The Next Generation
, including Marina Sirtis (Troi) and Michael Dorn (Worf ). Even Jonathan Frakes, as Picard’s right-hand man Will Riker, suffered. ‘It’s like a big Picard episode, with those on the Away Team being the B-story’, said Frakes. ‘Maybe I’ll have more to do in the next movie?’
    This was to be a problem for all
The Next Generation
films going forward: how to translate the ensemble nature of the TV series to the big screen, with only one two-hour story every few years, but a large group of characters to feature. The additional decision to feature Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan character heavily (after all, she was a more experienced movie star than someone like Sirtis), and the villain Soran (Malcolm McDowell), further limited the screen time of the more incidental regular
The Next Generation
characters.
    In the opening of the film, Kirk is teamed up with Scotty and Chekov, rather than Spock and McCoy as had originally been planned. ‘It was very odd’, said Shatner. ‘I felt very lonely without my two buddies.’ The three veterans of Starfleet are in attendance at the launch of the
Enterprise-B
when a distress call is received from a vessel transporting El-Aurian refugees to Earth. Proceeding to the rescue, the new
Enterprise
crew witnesses an energy distortion – the Nexus – that seemingly claims the life of Kirk as he saves the ship. Long-lived El-Aurian refugee survivors of the distortion include Guinan and DrSoran, who encounter the
Enterprise-D
seventy-eight years later. Soran plans to enter the temporal Nexus, at the cost of many innocent lives, so he can recreate his lost family. In an attempt to stop Soran, Picard is drawn into the Nexus where he discovers Captain Kirk, whom he recruits to help