Synopsis:

A light edit that aims to tighten the pacing by re-editing the battle and crash sequences, restore some dignity (or give some that never existed to begin with) to several of the leading characters, and incorporates Spock into the denouement.

Intentions:

Following the release of Star Trek: Picard's third season and The Roddenberry Archive's short 765874: Regeneration, I wanted to revisit the big screen debut of The Next Generation's crew, Generations. A movie I've always felt was underrated by fans and critic, Generations nonetheless is not without its problems. The characters are somewhat inconsistent and ill-served, the Nexus is poorly defined, some of the more comedic moments with Data simply — much like the Enterprise-D — do not land, and the death of the legendary Captain James T. Kirk is underwhelming in just about every sense. Some parts I felt I couldn't do anything about — the Nexus and Kirk's death, mainly, as the former would need the addition of more material than exists and the latter... well, how do you give such a legendary character a satisfying death? — but I believed I could address most of the other issues I had with the movie. Captain Harriman of the Enterprise-B is presented as youthful, inexperienced, utterly starstruck and completely out of his depth, but with a few trims he now comes across as the kind of competent senior officer one would have to be to earn the captaincy of a vessel with such a prestigious lineage. After that comes the bugbear of just about every faneditor to ever tackle this movie: Data. Brent Spiner is a wonderful comedic actor, and Data's an equally wonderful character to explore character growth with, but sometimes less is more. In the original cut Data's a quipping gag machine for most of his screentime... until he suddenly isn't, having mastered his emotions offscreen. In my edit he still grapples with his newly-acquired ability to feel, but after his initial overload he only loses his usual professionalism in moments of high stress. Two characters who get a major shafting in the original cut are Riker and Worf. The Duras sisters' plan to get through the Enterprise-D's shields is pretty clever, but should never have bought them more than a shot or two before the shields were remodulated and the Enterprise-D obliterated them (or, more likely, they retreated). My biggest edit involves merging the ship battle with the warp core breach that happens after its conclusion. Instead of Riker and Worf allowing the ship to take a prolonged beating until it ultimately exploded, the fatal damage is done with the first shot — now, with the knowledge that the stardrive section is already lost but is drawing the Bird-of-Prey's fire, the focus for Riker and Worf is to take out the hostile enemy ship while they still have access to the torpedo launchers before the entire crew are evacuated to the more vulnerable saucer section. Finally, I wanted to incorporate 765874: Regeneration into the finale to really tie up Kirk's story and plant the seed for one of the major events of Star Trek: Picard's third season. Leonard Nimoy famously turned down involvement in the movie after negotiations for him to direct fell apart. That Kirk effectively dies twice with Spock nowhere to be found was a crying shame, so finally seeing Spock wrestle with his closest friend's confirmed death is some small compensation.

Change List:

00:00:00 Added Fanedit disclaimer and logo. 00:00:17 Added Mighty Attack Tribble logo. 00:00:29 Replaced Paramount logo with 2023 variant with Starfleet fanfare. 00:00:39 Replaced opening credits up to the title reveal, including new starfield background plate. 00:03:35 Added ambient Bridge SFX from the Star Trek: Generations score to all Enterpise-B Bridge scenes. 00:04:05 Removed Kirk's "Oh, really?" and Harriman grinning like a bashful child. 00:07:46 Removed the stammering from Harriman's "On speakers." 00:08:35 Shortened Harriman stalling over what to do about the distress signal. 00:16:11 Stabilised poorly-executed camera shake and remade the effect with a less exaggerated, more consistent shake. 00:20:35 Added the Klingon fanfare from "The Deflector Dish" from the Star Trek: First Contact score as Worf claims his officer's hat. 00:22:43 Added alternate take of "To Live Forever" from Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra as Picard and Riker are talking about the freedom of the high seas. 00:30:04 Removed Riker's report on the observatory attack to Picard. We don't need to see Riker relay to Picard that Soran wants to speak to him when Picard acknowledges that Soran asked to see him in their meeting in Ten Forward. 00:30:04 Moved Picard discussing his family with Troi to before his meeting with Soran. Removed their reaction to the star's collapse. 00:39:48 Removed Data's "Magnetic personality" quip. 00:40:26 Removed Data's "Mr. Tricorder" quip. 00:40:29 Removed Data's impression of Picard. 00:41:54 Removed Data begging Soran not to hurt him. 00:50:14 Removed slow-motion extension of Soran and Geordi. 00:50:16 Replaced shot of the Enterprise-D, which was one of the most re-used model shots on the show, with a CGI flyby created by Daniel Broadway. 00:56:11 Flipped shot of the Enterprise-D going to warp, to maintain consistency with the previous establishing shot. 00:58:01 Replaced shot of the Enterprise-D in orbit over Veridian III with a CGI recreation by Daniel Broadway. 00:58:32 Removed Riker's "Big margin for error" line and Picard's agreement. It's actually a very small margin for error. 01:00:30 Corrected the transporter FX when Picard is beamed down to the surface of Veridian III to account for the fact that he's beaming down from Lursa and B'Etor's Bird-of-Prey. 01:01:58 Removed Crusher's line telling Geordi she's removed the nanoprobe from his heart. The nanoprobe torture scene was cut from the theatrical release. 01:05:08 Removed Data's "Life Forms" song. 01:06:29 Moved scene of Geordi trying to hold things together in Engineering to immediately after the first shots of the battle, cut together with: 01:06:37 Moved Geordi declaring an imminent warp core breach. 01:06:57 Moved Picard noticing a gap in the force field. 01:08:24 Moved Worf and Riker discussing the Bird-of-Prey's weaknesses. Added impact SFX to shot where the crew are reacting to an unheard explosion. 01:08:46 Moved and re-scored scenes of the crew evacuating to the saucer section. Added camera shakes and impact SFX to emphasise the battle is still going on. 01:09:06 Moved the Klingon tactical officer's shields update. 01:09:11 Moved Riker and Data formulating the plasma coil exploit. Added impact SFX to shot where the crew are reacting to an unheard explosion. 01:09:28 Removed Riker's "They'll have two seconds of vulnerability" line, as in actuality it ends up being closer to 15 seconds. 01:09:35 Moved scenes of Crusher and Geordi assisting the crew evacuation. Battle SFX added. 01:11:07 Flipped shot of the Bird-of-Prey exploding so it is correctly orientated in relation to the Enterprise-D (and to disguise that it's a re-used shot). 01:11:14 Removed crew reaction and Data's "Yes!" No time to stand around patting yourselves on the back when the ship's about to explode. 01:45:58 Removed Kirk's "Oh my." His last words are now "It was fun." As good as Shatner's ad-lib was, Kirk should at least die with a smile on his face (metaphorically) rather than with fear in his eyes. 01:46:04 Added animated film grain to the hold on Kirk's lifeless face to disguise that it's a still frame. 01:47:19 Extended lengh of the shot after Picard walks offscreen and added long crossfade to indicate the passing of time (deleted scenes and supplemetary material establish the crew was stranded on Veridian III for 48-72 hours before help arrived). 01:47:21 Replaced shot of the crashed Enteprise-D saucer with scenes of the recovery operation from 765874: Regeneration — there's no chance that Starfleet would leave the wrecked but otherwise intact saucer of the Federation flagship for every spacefaring race in the quadrant to pick through. Colour-corrected footage, added film grain, and re-scored and re-foleyed. 01:47:35 Removed Picard's line declaring the Enterprise unsalvgeable. In canon the Galaxy-class was already being phased out by Starfleet, so while recovery was necessary it would have been a waste of resources to do anything more. 01:49:35 Added scene of Spock arriving at Kirk's makeshift grave from 765874: Regeneration. Colour-corrected footage, added film grain, and re-scored and re-foleyed. 01:50:34 Added scene of Spock briefly grieving underneath audio of Picard talking about appreciating the time we have. Colour-corrected footage, added film grain, and re-scored and re-foleyed. 01:51:54 Replaced credit roll to include 765874: Regeneration's credits, crediting all previously-uncredited actors with their characters' canonical names, and including thanks to those faneditors who have assisted in this edit. A new end credits mix using the music from the score and Jerry Goldsmith's "End Credits" from the Star Trek: First Contact score plays over the roll.

Other Sources:

765874: Regeneration by OTOY/The Roddenberry Archive Star Trek: The Next Generation Seasons 3-6 Blu-rays Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-3 Blu-rays Star Trek: The Motion Picture soundtrack CD by Jerry Goldsmith Star Trek: Generations expanded soundtrack CD by Dennis McCarthy Star Trek: First Contact expanded soundtrack CD by Jerry Goldsmith Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage digital album by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra BBC Sound Effects digital library freesound.org

Special Thanks:

Many thanks to ArtisDead, Wraith, and Eyepainter for their help, suggestions, and support.