Star Trek: Generations

Captain James T. Kirk attends the launch of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B. An emergency situation arises and Kirk, as usual, helps save the day, but he is apparently killed in the process. Seventy-eight years later, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise 1701-D is put in a desperate situation when a fanatical scientist starts destroying entire star systems. Picard is going to need some help...

With the conclusion of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1994, a TV series that dwarfed the popularity and reach of its predecessors, Paramount was keen to move the show and its popular cast onto the big screen as soon as possible. Overriding the concerns of the production team, the film was immediately put into rotation to start shooting as soon as filming was completed on the TV show and to be on cinema screens before the end of the same year. It was a tall order, leaving the cast and crew exhausted from working on the TV show for seven years and then straight into a full-length feature film.

Some of this can be seen on screen. Star Trek: Generations (the first film in the series to drop the roman numerals) is a solid but unexceptional film, something of a surprise given it features Captains Kirk and Picard joining forces to take down a mutual threat, a charismatic villain played by Malcolm McDowell. There's some entertaining comedy beats and some very good characterisation, particularly of Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) as he gets used to his "emotion chip". Most of the castmembers get at least a brief chance to shine and, in the scene where the Enterprise-D's saucer section crash-lands on a planetary surface, one of the franchise's most memorable action and effects set-pieces.

The film relies a little too heavily on the TV show for setup. Villains Lursa and B'Etor have very little motivation and if you hadn't seen them already in the TV show, you'd have no idea why them showing up is a big deal. Similarly, Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) feels like a bit of a walking deus ex machina in the film and her character has no real arc.  The story also feels a bit overworked and overcomplicated, with too many moving pieces and a TV-like approach of pressing on regardless of if the plot makes sense  (Soren not being able to beam into the Nexus from a ship already feels a bit iffy, but the jump from that to blowing up entire stars to shift the Nexus's path feels extreme). The film's big ending being a fistfight between two middle-aged gentlemen and an older one on a big rock is also rather underwhelming. Destroying another Enterprise also feels a bit gratuitous, although it is at least done in an impressive manner.

Still, it's a long way from the worst entry in the Star Trek pantheon and it has fun moments. William Shatner takes a delight in hamming up every second he's on-screen, but for once this is more charming than annoying, due to his limited screen time (he has a brief appearance at the start of the film and then at the end, more of an extended camo than the promised film-length team-up). He and Stewart make for an entertaining team, even if the gulf in their respective acting abilities is more of a yawning chasm. Malcolm McDowell can do "charming but evil" in his sleep and the film packs a lot into its running time.

Star Trek: Generations (***½) isn't going to be winning any prizes for being a classic movie, but it is a solid and entertaining piece that does its job - passing the baton from one generation to another - efficiently.

Star Trek at 50: The Next Generation on Screen

In 1992 Rick Berman summoned scriptwriters Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, along with executive producer Michael Piller and retired TNG writer Maurice Hurley, to a series of meetings. Initially Braga and Moore thought that TNG was about to be cancelled, so were surprised to be offered the chance to write a Star Trek movie. The directive from Paramount was that the film would see the final appearance of the original series crewmembers and see the transition of the TNG crew to the big screen. Hurley and Piller were also invited to write scripts, but Piller turned down the opportunity because he thought it was calling for too much competition between colleagues. In the event, Hurley's script took too long to write and Paramount instead put Braga and Moore's script into pre-production.

The moment fans had been waiting for.

Paramount handing over control of its biggest and longest-running movie franchise to a bunch of TV writers was remarkable, but it was also a display of confidence in the (mostly) young and inexperienced team who had turned The Next Generation into one of the biggest and most successful TV shows in the world. However, it nearly ended up misfiring. Braga and Moore were among the more prolific writers on the series with multiple scripts to write for the final two seasons, including the two-hour TNG finale, All Good Things. Agreeing to write the seventh movie on top of that proved to be a stretch too far, and the writers later admitted they had spread themselves too thin. Leonard Nimoy had also been approached to direct and appear as Spock, but Nimoy voiced concerns over the script and also about the limited nature of his role. In particular, he pointed out his lines could be given to another character with barely any alteration. Ironically, when he passed, that's exactly what happened when his material was instead split between the characters of Scotty and Chekov. British director David Carson was called on to direct, having hugely impressed Paramount with his TNG episode Yesterday's Enterprise and the pilot episode for Deep Space Nine.

The script was a busy one, using Guinan (played by major Star Trek fan Whoopi Goldberg) and a mysterious energy ribbon known as the Nexus to bridge the two time periods, along with the sole live-action depiction of the Enterprise-B, introducing all of the TNG characters to a more casual cinema audience and killing Kirk. The idea of killing Kirk came up in story development meetings where it was felt that the script lacked a big enough climax. Destroying the Enterprise-D was also a surprising move, but one the producers felt was emotionally correct (putting a capstone on the TNG TV show era) as well as having practical value, freeing up studio space until the next film was produced. To help publicise the film, Paramount decided to make use of the nascent Internet and created one of the first-ever websites designed to publicise a specific feature film (the website for the film StarGate went live almost simultaneously, leading to occasional disputes over which film achieved the distinction first).

Star Trek: Generations was released on 18 November 1994 to fairly indifferent reviews. However, some impressive visual effects, a decent couple of trailers, the mass crossover appeal of The Next Generation and rumours of Kirk's death ensured a strong turn-out. Generations was made on a budget of $33 million, the same as Star Trek V, but at just under $120 million made twice as much at the box office. It was a huge success for Paramount, who greenlit an eighth movie in February 1995.

Rick Berman re-hired Moore and Braga to write the script, taking time away from their new day jobs (Moore was working on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine whilst Braga had transferred to the new, second TNG spin-off, Star Trek: Voyager). Brainstorming ideas and aware they would have a larger budget to play with, they decided to combine two notions that had come up early: time travel and the Borg. The Borg had been lightly used on TNG following their defeat in The Best of Both Worlds, with the fear that over-using them would rob them of their unstoppable power. Moore believed that they would make for a fine enemy for a movie. A film would also allow the Borg to be depicted as more powerful and threatening. Their previous appearances had been cut down due to budget issues, with the iconic Battle of Wolf 359 in The Best of Both Worlds happening off-screen. Braga's notion was to have the time travel involving Earth's first contact with the Vulcans, an iconic moment in the history of Star Trek which led to the founding of the Federation. This would also allow the film to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of the franchise.

First Contact was deliberately played as a more action-driven story than previous Star Trek movies.

Jonathan Frakes, who had played Commander Riker on The Next Generation, was selected to direct the film. Frakes had directed multiple episodes of TNG, DS9 and Voyager and had won plaudits for his visual style as well as his professional attitude. Frakes won the role after several other directors were rejected for their lack of familiarity with the franchise. Patrick Stewart exercised his considerable influence on the production to give Picard a more action-heavy role in fighting the Borg on the new Enterprise-E.

The movie was originally entitled Star Trek: Resurrection (a title everyone seemed to like), but this was changed to First Contact when 20th Century Fox announced that the fourth Alien movie would have the same title.

Star Trek: First Contact was released on 22 November 1996. The movie grossed $146 million worldwide, an all-time franchise high (not beaten until thirteen years later and the J.J. Abrams movie), against a budget of $45 million (quite modest even by 1996 standards). The critical reception was mostly positive, despite some criticisms of the Earthbound storyline being lacking compared to the space-borne battle between the Borg and the Enterprise crew. One common thread amongst reviews was that First Contact was the first Star Trek movie in a long time that felt like a big event, something more than just a TV episode dragged out to two hours in length.

The ninth Star Trek movie was greenlit a few months later. Paramount were keen to revisit the success of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which had been a massive box office success as a more light-hearted, even comedic film built around a central strong SF idea. With Moore and Braga firmly committed to their respective TV series, Rick Berman called upon former TNG executive producer Michael Piller to write the screenplay. Patrick Stewart, who had a managed to get a production credit on the new film, also suggested ideas. He was particularly keen to build on the idea of Picard as an unconventional, older action hero established in First Contact. For the new movie Picard was cast as a moral rebel, who rejects an alliance of convenience between the Federation and the brutal Son'a to protect an exploited, less powerful race. In later drafts Piller ran into some problems finding the through-line of the story, but Ira Steven Behr, the showrunner of DS9, reviewed the script and helped Piller resolve several issues with it. Paramount showered the script with praise, to Piller's unexpected pleasure, and Patrick Stewart also approved of it.

Star Trek: Insurrection was criticised for a lack of ambition.

Jonathan Frakes agreed to return to direct, with Paramount impressed by his work on First Contact. The production team floundered for some time to find a title before settling on Insurrection.

The film was released on 11 December 1998, somewhat bafflingly marketed as the first "Star Trek date movie" for its focus on humour and romance. The film received mixed reviews, which surprised the studio after what they believed was a very strong script. Most of the reviews felt that the producers had made a mistake by moving away from what had worked in First Contact and instead making a glorified TV episode, and not a good one either. Many reviews criticised this lack of ambition (especially after the darker, more action-oriented and even horror-influenced First Contact), although the film certainly was not slated to the same level as The Final Frontier. Much to Paramount's relief, the critical indifference was not reflected in the box office. Against a budget of $58 million, the film took home $112 million worldwide, enough to be judged a reasonable success.

The 1990s were drawing to a close, and with it, Star Trek's golden age. The financial success of the four movies released in the decade was indisputable, but there remained the feeling that Star Trek's true home was on television. When The Next Generation began winding down back at the start of the decade, it was decided that the Trek universe was a big enough place for many different kinds of story...even one where the crew explored the final frontier by standing still.

Star Trek at 50: The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B)

The Excelsior (variant)-class USS Enterprise (registry number NCC-1701-B), built by the United Federation of Planets circa 2290-93. The ship was commissioned and launched in late 2293 under the command of Captain John Harrison. The Enterprise-B was lost in 2329, having served for thirty-six years, making it the second-longest-serving Enterprise after the Constitution-class version.

Class History

In the late 2260s and early 2270s Starfleet made the decision to radically overhaul its fleet of starships and outfit them with the latest technology. This led to the creation of more compact and efficient ships like the Miranda class and the refitting of the venerable Constitution class (in service since the early 2240s). The decision was also made to develop a new and very formidable heavy cruiser, a new flagship class for the fleet. This ship would be outfitted with weapons and defences that would dwarf older ships and would also be outfitted for long-term, deep-space exploration and scientific research.

There would also be another requirement for this ship: it would be the fastest ship in the fleet and the fastest in Federation history. Breakthroughs in warp science had led to the creation of the transwarp theory, which could propel a ship from a standing start to speeds surpassing Warp 9.9 in seconds and then sustain that speed safely and indefinitely. This would allow Federation starships to travel between systems in hours rather than days, between sectors in days rather than weeks and traverse known space in a couple of months rather than in two years or more. It would confer on the Federation a massive strategic advantage over potential enemies, and rapidly increase the speed of its  exploration of the galaxy.

So was born the "Great Experiment", the transwarp drive, and the need to design and build a new spaceframe capable of handling it. It was decided to draw on the highly successful primary/secondary hull arrangement of the Constitution class but in a vessel that was almost twice the size. By the late 2270s this design had been finalised and construction of the pathfinder/prototype ship of the class began in great secrecy. That ship was designated USS Excelsior, construction number NX-2000.

The Excelsior was completed in 2285 and transferred to Earth's new Spacedock facility to begin field tests on its transwarp drive under the auspices of Captain Styles. Captain of Engineering Montgomery Scott, respected for his two decades of service on the USS Enterprise, was transferred to Excelsior to help with the trials. However, Admiral James T. Kirk stole the Enterprise to undertake an unauthorised mission. Scott joined him, sabotaging the Excelsior's transwarp control computer so it could not pursue. This resulted in an unplanned system cascade failure that immobilised the entire ship. The Excelsior had to be towed back into Spacedock for repairs (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock).

"The Great Experiment", USS Excelsior (NCC-2000). Designed in the 2270s, built circa 2280-84 and completed in 2285. The ship was finally commissioned in the late 2280s and undertook its first long-term mission under Captain Hikaru Sulu in 2290-93.

No sooner was the ship operational again then the "whalesong" crisis of 2286 took place and the Excelsior was shut down and neutralised by an alien probe entering Earth orbit, along with the entire Spacedock and the USS Yorktown (soon to be renamed the Enterprise-A). Based on the subsequent disastrous performance of the Yorktown, it could be that the Excelsior was likewise adversely affected by the alien probe's passing and took some time to return to operational status (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).

The Excelsior finally began its much-delayed transwarp test missions circa 2287, but by 2289 these trials had concluded unsuccessfully: the transwarp drive was a failure, unable to sustain the transwarp field for very long and unable to deliver the promised speeds. However, although the transwarp drive itself was proclaimed a failure, the ship's spaceframe design was considered excellent and performed even better than had been expected in non-transwarp-related areas. In 2289-90 Starfleet finally formally commissioned the starship, redesignating it NCC-2000 and refitted it with a standard warp drive system. Captain Hikaru Sulu, formerly of the Enterprise, was placed in command of the Excelsior for its first three-year mission cataloguing gaseous anomalies in star systems in the more distant regions of the Beta Quadrant. The Excelsior was returning to Federation territory via the Neutral Zone when the Klingon moon Praxis exploded. A subspace shockwave damaged the Excelsior, which alerted the Federation to the situation. Sulu continued to monitor subsequent events, such as the trial of Captain Kirk for the murder of Chancellor Gorkon, and brought the Excelsior to Khitomer to support the Enterprise. The two starships bracketed and destroyed the Klingon Bird of Prey commanded by the treacherous General Chang, helping to end the crisis (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country).

Starfleet also began building a series of new ships using the same spaceframe and design, now confirmed as the Excelsior-class. This class of starship would soon become the mainstay of Starfleet, with at least dozens and possibly hundreds of starships of this design being built over the next century. The Excelsior-class was still serving with honour and distinction during the Dominion War (2373-75) and ships of this class helped welcome the USS Voyager home after its seven-year exodus to the Delta Quadrant (2378). The Excelsior-class even outlasted the class that had been intended to replace it, the Ambassador, and construction of the ships only began to fall off with the introduction of the more versatile Galaxy class in the 2360s.

With the Excelsior-class entering full production circa 2290, the decision was also made to revamp and revise the design with a variant class which was even more powerful. The decision what to name the first ship of this variant was made when Starfleet - controversially - decided to retire the Constitution-class in 2293.

The USS Enterprise encounters the Nexus energy ribbon on its maiden voyage in 2293.

Operational History

Starfleet had planned to build a series of Excelsior-class starships since designing the ship in the late 2270s. However, it only enacted this plan once the spaceframe for the ship had been tested in the field. Construction of the first batch of ships began circa 2289/90, with at least one of these ships being of the new variant type. The variant type was equipped with additional impulse drives to deliver greater performances at sublight and had its hull design expanded to accommodate greater cargo and living space.

When it was announced that the Constitution-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) was being retired after seven years in service, it was decided that the first ship of the variant class would be named the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-B. The Enterprise-B was formally commissioned and launched in late 2293, just a few months after the Enterprise-A was retired following the Battle of Khitomer. Captain John Harriman was placed in command for its maiden voyage. However, Starfleet decided to invite Captain James T. Kirk and two of his former crewmen, Captain Scott and Commander Chekov, on the mission. During this mission the Enterprise-B received a distress call from an El-Aurian ship trapped in an energy ribbon known as the Nexus. The Enterprise-B successfully executed a rescue mission, but suffered severe damage to the secondary hull in the process. During this mission it appeared that Captain James T. Kirk had been killed. However, classified documents later confirmed that Kirk had been drawn into the Nexus (which acted as the gateway to a parallel universe) itself. He escaped in 2371 and was finally killed battling an El-Aurian terrorist named Soran (Star Trek: Generations).

Despite this inauspicious start, the Enterprise-B went on to serve with great distinction and honour. The ship became one of the more decorated to bear the name Enterprise before its destruction in 2329, after thirty-six years in service. It only narrowly missed out on the record set by the Constitution-class Enterprise (NCC-1701), which served for forty years (2245-85).

Ship Overview

The Enterprise-B was a variant Excelsior-class starship, predominantly based on the pathfinder/prototype design of the USS Excelsior but differing in several key respects. The Enterprise-B was one of the first Federation starships designed with a separable saucer section which was designed to operate autonomously and then rejoin the rest of the ship later on. This required the addition of two impulse drives to the saucer to allow it to function by itself. The engineering hull was also modified to allow for more cargo and living space. This proved helpful as the Enterprise-B's very first mission was an evacuation one, and this space allowed more people to be placed on board.

This variant of the standard Excelsior design later fell out of favour, with only a few other starships (such as the USS Lakota) using the same design. The relative infrequency with which the variants needed to engage in saucer separations and the much greater cost/benefit ratio of the standard class saw the Federation switch back to using the original Excelsior design from the early 2300s onwards.

*The Enterprise-B was 511.25 metres (1,677 feet) long, 195.64 metres (642 feet) wide and 86.76 meters (285 feet) tall. The ship had about 30 decks. It had a crew of approximately 750 and employed 10 dual emitter phaser banks and 6 photon torpedo tubes, some of them aft-facing. This contrasted dramatically with the Constitution-class's more modest 6 dual emitter phasers and 2 forward-facing photon torpedo tubes. The Enterprise-B could sustain Warp 9 for considerably longer than its predecessor, with a cruising speed of Warp 7 (compared to Warp 5 for the previous ship).

* The sizing of the Excelsior class has been problematic ever since the original ship was designed in 1983, as the ILM effects crew did not actually decide on a scale for the ship. Aside from the general idea that it was a bigger ship than the Enterprise, no final size determination was made. This was complicated by the lack of details on the model to compare to set details (i.e. the Excelsior bridge was a simple dome with no roof window or other element to compare to the size of the actual bidge set) and the fact that the ship model was deliberately built to be smaller and easier to shoot than the massive and ungainly Enterprise studio model. The matter was address by scaling shots in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country showing the two ships next to each other, with the Excelsior dwarfing the Enterprise.

The matter was supposed to be settled by the publication of The Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, which gave the figures above for the size of the Excelsior-class, apparently drawing on the CGI models built for Deep Space Nine's last two seasons. Although "official", these figures are not necessarily canon and contrasting figures of c. 450 metres (for length) and only 500 crewmembers are given in other sources.

The USS Excelsior confronting a Klingon K'Tinga-class battlecruiser in 2293.

Behind the Scenes
The decision to build a new, "super" Federation starship was made by producer Harve Bennett during the writing of Star Trek III: The Seach for Spock. The script called for the Excelsior, a ship larger and more powerful than the Enterprise, but coming from the same design family: a B-29 bomber compared to the original ship's B-17. David Carson and Nilo Rodis-Jamaro of Industrial Light and Magic were predominantly responsible for early designs of the ship, with Bill George finalising the design.

The idea was that the new ship would make the Enterprise feel antiquated, until Scotty turns the tables and sabotages the ship. However, many Star Trek fans liked the Excelsior - it was actually only the third Federation starship class to ever appear on screen after the Constitution and Miranda (a fourth, the Oberth, appeared only minutes later in Star Trek III) - and it went on to make brief appearances in Star Trek IV and V. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country the ship played a larger role as Sulu was promoted to Captain and placed in command of the ship. It also played a key role in Flashback, a third season episode of Star Trek: Voyager which was written to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the franchise in 1996.

When Star Trek: The Next Generation began production in 1986 it was decided that the show would be set on an Enterprise a century removed from the NCC-1701-A introduced in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. This eventually became the Galaxy-class NCC-1701-D. However, to show a sense of design continuity it was decided to have a wall display showing the intervening ships to bear the name. With the USS Excelsior proving to be a fan-favourite design, it was an easy decision to make the Enterprise-B a ship of that class. In addition to this, the writers decided to use the Excelsior model to represent other Federation starships in ST:TNG, including the USS Hood, USS Repulse and USS  Farragut. The idea was that the Excelsior-class was an experimental, cutting-edge design in the late 23rd Century but by the mid-24th had become a standard, even slightly outdated starship model.

It was originally assumed that the Enterprise-B and C would never appear on screen, but this changed in the third season ST:TNG episode Yesterday's Enterprise, which depicted the Enterprise-C. When Ronald D. Moore was given the task of co-writing the movie Star Trek: Generations, which would see the original series crew handing over to The Next Generation team, he decided to depict the events in the past on the Enterprise-B. The Enterprise-B was a redress of the Excelsior model, adjusted with new impulse engines on the saucer and extensions to the secondary hull. These extensions were to both sell the ship as a variant design and also so one of them could be blown off in the Nexus without damaging the original model underneath. Unfortunately, after filming it was discovered that the adhesive used to fix the new parts in place could not be easily removed, so the extensions were left in place. This is why the USS Lakota in Deep Space Nine's fourth season is also a variant Excelsior-class of the same type as the Enterprise-B. This was the last time that the model was used, so when it was eventually auctioned off the model was still labelled as the Lakota.

For the Voyager episode Flashback in 1996, a new Excelsior model was needed. This model was built at half the size of the original, and was used in several scenes. Although smaller than the original, the model was deemed good enough to appear several times on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as well. However, by the time that show entered its final two seasons it had transitioned to CGI. The smaller Excelsior model was used as the study and guide for these CGI versions, explaining why the Enterprise-B variant was no longer seen in the other series.

No formally canonical explanation has ever been given for the final fate of the Enterprise-B. However, several short stories and a couple of reference guides state that the ship was lost in 2329 after the crew contracted an unknown infection. The ship was presumably scuttled to prevent this infection from passing onto others. The Ambassador-class Enterprise-C was commissioned in 2332 to replace it. Although these dates have not been confirmed by any TV series or movie, every book, reference guide and new ship model released in the last few years has used these dates, making them the most consistent to be used.