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I watched Star Trek: Generations last night for the first time in several years, and the first time since having seen the Star Trek movies with the "old" ("classic"/"original recipe") cast.

Things bothered me this time around that I'd managed to overlook the other times I'd seen it. I can't stop thinking about it. Perhaps I'm more bothered by lazy writing than I was as a teenager.

I don't know who to talk to about these things, so I'm going to talk about it here.

Fatal Flaw # 1: Why does everyone insist that Data pushing Beverly into the ocean is unfunny? I'd dismissed this in the past as just sort of far-fetched (clearly, it was the funniest possible action he could've taken at that moment, even funnier than dunking Worf) but everyone acts like he's suggested exhuming the corpse of her dead husband and initiating a violent Klingon mating ritual on his dusty remains. Really?

It bothered me this time because Data's failure to realize the un-funniness of the prank was the catalyst for his having Geordi install the emotion chip. It's a pretty significant plot point for Data, and it's predicated on the flimsiest of excuses. Data's prank was funny. Any dolt could see it.

Fatal Flaw # 2: If the settings and situations in the Nexus aren't real (as confimed by Shatner saying, "This isn't real, is it? None of it is real"), and if the blowing up of the star/planet/Enterprise has already happened, how can traveling back through time in the Nexus to a fake version of Veridian-3 possibly have any impact on the outcome? How can you use a fake version of reality to change actual reality?

The star was already blown up. If going back to fake-Idaho isn't going to repair Kirk's relationship with Antonia, then going back to fake-Veridian-3 isn't going to prevent Malcolm McDowell from blowing up the sun. I don't get why that's an exception.

Fatal Flaw # 3: If Guinan is just an echo of herself left behind in the Nexus, how can she effect change (i.e., how can she take Picard back to fake-Idaho to hook up with Kirk?) How can she even have a conversation? What, in fact, IS an "echo of herself"? It's clearly something sentient and able to communicate and drag people around in Nexus-world.

Argh. I hate that this movie turns out to suck, because I actually do enjoy this movie.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 2:31 PM | shower me with attention