Cast
Picard: Patrick Stewart
Riker: Jonathon Frakes
Data: Brent Spiner
Worf: Micheal Dorn
Crusher: Gates McFadden
LaForge: LeVar Burton
Troi: Marina Sirtis
Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg
Soran: Malcolm McDowell
Lursa: Barbara March
B'Etor: Gwynyth Walsh
Captain Harriman: Alan Ruck
Chekov: Walter Koenig
Scotty: James Doohan
Kirk: William Shatner.
Directed by: David Carson; Screenplay by: Ronald Moore and Brannon Braga
Released: November 18, 1994. Domestic Gross: $76 million
My Rating: ****
The Plot
The movie opens with the Enterprise-B and its christening. Kirk, Chekov and Scotty are on board to celebrate
the launching. The voyage goes smoothly until they recieve a distress call. Two ships are caught in an energy nexus.
The Enterprise manages to save a few of the refugees, but Kirk is lost in the attempt. The refugees happen to be
El-Aurian; with Guinan and Tholian Soran on board.
Cut to 78 years later. The Enterprise-D gets a distress call from Science Station Amagosa. It seems that Romluans
have attacked, looking for Trilithium. A Dr. Tholian Soran is the only survivor.
Soon after, Data gets his emotion chip, and then Soran escapes to the station. Data and LaForge go down and find a
probe fitted with trilithium. It turns out that the substance could cause a star to implode. Data is stricken with fear
as Soran has a shooting match with Riker and Worf. The probe gets launched into the Amagosa star, and Soran leaves with
LaForge to a Klingon Bird of Prey.
That's when the records are pulled on Tholian Soran. There are hints of an energy nexus, which Picard and Data track to
the Veridian system. They predict that Soran will destroy that star as well. So, they hotfoot it to Veridian. They find
the Klingon Bird of Prey, along with Lursa and B'Etor Duras. They send LaForge over and Picard goes down to where
Soran is up to no good.
LaForge also hides a secret. Soran has implanted a camera in his visor, and the Duras sisters manage to get the frequency
of the Enterprise shields. This leads to a battle, in which the Enterprise is damaged. The Enterprise manages to tap
into a faulty plasma coil, which causes the Klingon ship to cloak. With one torpedo, the Bird of Prey is destroyed.
However, the Enterprise warp core is about to breach. The ship is seperated, but the saucer is rocked off course by the
warp core exploding. This leads to a spectacular crash on Veridian III.
Picard, on the surface of Veridian III, can't stop Soran from launching his torpedo, and the sun implodes. This causes the
nexus to pick the two of them up. In the nexus, Picard grabs James Kirk, and the two head back to stop Soran. This time, they succeed.
However, Kirk dies in the struggle.
My Comments
The director, David Carson, was a first time film director on this one, so it wasn't his fault. It was a good movie, but not really worthy
of praise like STII, IV, and VI. It had a good pace, only mired down by Soran's mindless babble on time and mortality, and by the annoying
subplot of Picard's brother dying. Otherwise, it was a decent movie.
This movie had action (the awesome battle between the Enterprise and the Bird of Prey), but the heart-wrenching finale wasn't there. Sure, Kirk
dies, but everyone expected him to. It wasn't like STII where no one expected Spock to die. Most people didn't feel the same way about Kirk as they
did about Spock, so it really didn't effect people the same way. And it looked like they were trying to draw sympathy from the very beginning.
Kirk is lost, Picard suffers a huge loss, the Enterprise is destroyed, then Kirk dies. It almost seemed melodramtic.
But, despite these negatives, the overall movie is good. It moves quickly, and the performances (even Shatner's) aren't overdone. That was refreshing.
The long-awaited release of the two-disc collector's edition has finally happened. And, after watching it again, I may have to rescind some of my earlier statements. There is very little wrong with this movie. It has a slightly different feel than the previous six, but it still is a well done piece of film. It showed that the new crew has what it takes to do feature films. Although, the rest of the world would not really see that until their next effort, First Contact.
