Goldsman’s biggest regret was not being able to bring William Shatner back to play a version of Kirk who decided to stay in Depression-era New York with Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), a soup kitchen operator he fell in love with in the episode “The City on the Edge of Forever.”
I do think Star Trek needs to be less backwards looking, but giving Shatner one last farewell that isn’t a disappointment like Generations was wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world.
Glad you do! I do actually think it’s decent TNG outing, and the 1701-D never looked better, but as something that supercede’s TUC’s very satisfying farewell to Shatner’s Kirk? It’s barely enough screen time to justify putting him on the poster, and no real new character development – TWoK already hammered home that a quiet life doesn’t suit him. I’d have preferred they let the TNG films stand on their own.
Interesting take about TNG “standing on its own”. Sure that’s valid. But the first few seasons on TNG aired concurrently with the TOS movies. It’s never occurred to me that TNG is anything but a continuation of TOS, it’s Even in the name, not a spin-off, not a reboot, not an alternate timeline (until many movies later), a continuation of a story about imperialism struggling internally with morality and existential philosophy (vs. evil empire fighting rebels). New shows are welcome to be spin-offs, reboots, and alternate timelines, but (for me) not TNG.
Well, it’s a different ship, different crew, 80 years later. It may carry on from TOS thematically in a lot of ways, but they also did a lot narratively to keep them in their own respective sandboxes. And I think that was for the best.
I’ll compare it to the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Those films are very concerned with showing us what happened to Han, Luke, and Leia, and with replicating the backdrop and villains of the original films, and I think it’s largely to the detriment of really establishing the new characters as the stars of their own films. I think the TNG approach, keeping its distance to a much larger extent, was healthier.
That’s a fair point. And I might be holding on too much to it as a perfect ending when it really was never going to be. Those characters will always be too big not to come back, whether it’s another reboot, a recast, or a terrible AI homunculus.
I do think Star Trek needs to be less backwards looking, but giving Shatner one last farewell that isn’t a disappointment like Generations was wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world.
Speak for yourself sir, I enjoy Generations very much.
Glad you do! I do actually think it’s decent TNG outing, and the 1701-D never looked better, but as something that supercede’s TUC’s very satisfying farewell to Shatner’s Kirk? It’s barely enough screen time to justify putting him on the poster, and no real new character development – TWoK already hammered home that a quiet life doesn’t suit him. I’d have preferred they let the TNG films stand on their own.
Interesting take about TNG “standing on its own”. Sure that’s valid. But the first few seasons on TNG aired concurrently with the TOS movies. It’s never occurred to me that TNG is anything but a continuation of TOS, it’s Even in the name, not a spin-off, not a reboot, not an alternate timeline (until many movies later), a continuation of a story about imperialism struggling internally with morality and existential philosophy (vs. evil empire fighting rebels). New shows are welcome to be spin-offs, reboots, and alternate timelines, but (for me) not TNG.
Well, it’s a different ship, different crew, 80 years later. It may carry on from TOS thematically in a lot of ways, but they also did a lot narratively to keep them in their own respective sandboxes. And I think that was for the best.
I’ll compare it to the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Those films are very concerned with showing us what happened to Han, Luke, and Leia, and with replicating the backdrop and villains of the original films, and I think it’s largely to the detriment of really establishing the new characters as the stars of their own films. I think the TNG approach, keeping its distance to a much larger extent, was healthier.
I don’t disagree with anything you said, but even Citizen Kane is ass compared to TUC so maybe not a good comparison.
That’s a fair point. And I might be holding on too much to it as a perfect ending when it really was never going to be. Those characters will always be too big not to come back, whether it’s another reboot, a recast, or a terrible AI homunculus.