Monday, November 28, 1994
by Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News (reprinted in the San Francisco Chronicle)

Los Angeles- "Star Trek Generations" is an unqualified hit. With more than $26 million grossed on its opening weekend, the first movie to feature the cast of the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" TV series enjoyed a stronger debut than any of the six previous "Trek" films.

But there's another hit in "Generations" whose success is as qualified as it is controversial. (Readers who want the end of the movie to remain secret should read no further.)

William Shatner's Captain Kirk, star of the original "Star Trek" television series and all of the earlier movies, is killed at the end of "Generations", the better to clear the spaceways for the younger crew's future big-screen adventures.

Kirk's Undoing
Kirk's death does not come as much of a surprise. Copies of the script leaked out months ago, and the matter has been debated ever since over computer networks, discussed at length through the many channels of "Trek" fandom communciation and mentioned in numerous magazines, including a current "Time" cover story and a special edition of "Entertainment Weekly."

But what is surprising -- and disappointing -- to a number of Trekkies, casual moviegoers and newspaper readers is the manner in which the beloved Kirk is dispatched.

Rather than going boldly into that good night -- say, at the helm of an Enterprise or sacrificing himself for his crew or the safety of the whole galaxy -- Kirk falls off a metal bridge that then collapses on him.

"I would much rather have gone off with Mount St. Helens," Shatner quipped. "But, short of a volcanic eruption, I'm not sure what else could have been done. However, I did save 250 million people, and Kirk's cutoff is 50 million. So I did outdo myself by a factor of four."

An Ignominious Ending
Indeed, Kirk's sacrifice does prevent Malcolm McDowell's mad scientist Soran from destroying the sun of a populated solar system. And the final conflict is more physical and personalized than the film's original, test audience-rejected climax, in which Kirk was shot unceremoniously in the back.

But still, taking a dive while "Next Generation" Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) looks on helplessly is not a whole lot more spectacular. And classic "Star Trek" fans are, at the least, unimpressed. At the most, they're outraged.

"Kirk's my hero. They can't do this to him. But they did," lamented Joyce Mason, who hosts the nationally syndicated, cable radio call-in show "Talk Trek." "I was so disappointed with the death scene, for the first time at a 'Star Trek' movie, I left the theater feeling empty.

"He was just buried on a mountain -- the hero of the century -- under a pile of rocks. No ceremony, nothing. There was nothing to attach our feelings to, nothing to identify with. I got the disdinct impression that the only thing (the film makers) were interested in was continuing 'Next Gen' at the expense of classic 'Trek.'"

Unhappy Trekkies
"This has made my heart fall out of 'Trek', to the point where I don't know if I'll continue my radio show."

Mason reports that her Friday night show, which is heard on cable TV channels that aren't reserved for video transmission, has received thousands of calls from unhappy Trekkies since March, when word of Kirk's death leaked out. The volume of negative comments has increased markedly since the film opened commercially November 17, she said.

On the next evening's broadcast, of eight in-studio guests who were invited to critique "Generations," only one did not find fault with the way Kirk was dispatched. Although most callers to the November 18 show enjoyed other aspects of the movie, they were overwhelmingly disappointed with Kirk's death.

The makers of "Generations" certainly did not intend to sow such deep dissatisfaction.

"Personally, I was a big fan of the original series," said Ronald D. Moore, 30, a veteran producer of the three subsequent "Trek" television show -- "Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine" and the fourthcoming "Voyager." Moore co-wrote "Generations" script with Brannon Braga and the film's producer, Rick Berman.

"I hope no one thinks that he goes out with a whimper rather than a bang," Moore continued. "We did reshoot the sequence because the first version lacked energy and drive, but we didn't change any of the story elements because we thought they worked pretty well. It has what we intended the scene to have a quiet last couple of moments. We felt that would have more impact and emotional resonance than if he went out in a big explosion."

Anitclimax
Many Trekkies would have preferred an explosion.

"I thought 'Generations' was really, really interesting up until the climax, where they didn't seem to know what to do with Kirk other than have him in the movie and kill him," said James Van Else, recognized "Star Trek" authority and author of numerous books on the subject.