The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion: Revised Edition
Page 58
One of the last decisions to be firmed up before shooting was the chief villain and supporting cast, since so many roles were, in effect, pre-cast by Trek’s regulars old and new. “We went through many, many conundrums before we came to him,” Carson recalled of the casting of Malcolm McDowell, whose credits included A Clockwork Orange and Time After Time. “Star Trek scripts are not full of grunts and groans; they’re quite literate, and you need actors who can use those words. And he’s one of those very fine actors who can turn a word into something very special by the way he treats it. He’s absolutely a match for them all.”
The director also revealed an even later decision. Practically on the eve of filming, the feature’s think-tank opted not to use Blackman’s new Starfleet uniforms. The new design featured the three duty colors in a two-piece outfit with a jacket-flap motif reminiscent of the movies’ maroon tops. An earlier Blackman creation, the DS9 jumpsuit, was chosen instead. “When we eventually saw all of the costumes together,” Carson recalled, “we decided that perhaps with the bridge and the other refurbished sets, we needed to strengthen those ties to these characters that people have seen for seven years, to keep that familiarity, and we decided changing the costumes might be too much of a jump.”
“Heat and Harshness”
As rewrites wrapped and cameras readied to roll the cast and crew of Generations got a lesson in the differences between TV and film media, recalled Ronald D. Moore. “It was like the script we did for television in a month—it was just intensely focused and we kept doing it and churning it out—I’ve never written so many pages in such a short amount of time as I did on the final episode,” he said. And then the feature, for a year … they were two very different experiences, as far as development and getting them done. And the irony is, they were both shooting at the same time there for a week or so.”
STAR TREK GENERATIONS
* * *
Stardate: 48632.4 Code:ST:G
TNG Story #177 Opened November 18, 1994
Directed by: David Carson
Story by: Rick Berman & Ronald D. Moore & Brannon Braga
Screenplay by Ronald D. Moore & Brannon Braga
CAST
Capt. Jean-Luc Picard: Patrick Stewart
Cmdr. William Thomas Riker: Jonathan Frakes
Lt. Cmdr. Data: Brent Spiner
Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge: LeVar Burton
Lt. Cmdr. Worf: Michael Dom
Cmdr. Beverly Crusher, M.D.: Gates McFadden
Cmdr. Deanna Troi: Marina Sirtis
Dr. Tolian Soran: Malcolm McDowell
Capt. Montgomery “Scotty” Scott: James Doohan
Cmdr. Pavel Andreivich Chekov: Walter Koenig
Capt. James Tiberius Kirk, ret.: William Shatner
Capt. John Harriman: Alan Ruck
Ensign Demora Sulu: Jacqueline Kim
1701-B Science Officer: Jenette Goldstein
1701-B Com Officer: Thomas Kopache
1701-B Navigator: Glenn Morshower
1701-B Lieutenant: Tim Russ
Journalist No. 1: Christine Jansen
Journalist No. 2: John Putch
Journalist No. 3: Tommy Hinckley
Ensign Hayes: Michael Mack
Lieutenant Farrell: Dendrie Taylor
Lt. Alyssa Ogawa, R.N.: Patti Yasutake
Transporter chief: Granville Ames
Security officer Paskall: Henry Marshall
Girl with teddy bear: Brittany Parkyn
Computer voice: Majel Barrett
Lursa: Barbara March
B’Etor: Gwynyth Walsh
Klington guard: Rif Hutton
Klingon helmsman: Brian Thompson
El-Aurian survivors: Marcy Goldman, Jim Krestaiuce, Judy Levitt, Kristopher Logan, Gwen van Dam
Picard’s “wife”: Kim Braden
René Picard: Christopher James Miller
“Matthew Picard”: Matthew Collins
“Mimi Picard”: Mimi Collins
“Thomas Picard”: Thomas Alexander Dekker
“Madison Picard”: Madison P. Dinton
“Olivia Picard”: Olivia Hack
Stunts: John Nowak, Don Pulford, Randy Hall, Bernie Pock, Pat Tallman, Eric Stabenau, Michael Haynes
Stunt coordinator: Bud Davis
* * *
Interrupted during a Holodeck party for Worf’s promotion aboard a 19th century sailing vessel, Picard is stunned to learn that his brother and nephew on Earth—his only blood relatives—have been killed in a fire. The shock leads him to ponder his life choices as “the last Picard,” but there’s little time for grieving: Romulans have attacked an unarmed stellar lab, and Starfleet needs to know why.
La Forge and Data—who is at times to be overwhelmed by the long-delayed installation of his emotions chip—soon unravel the mystery. The Romulans’ target is trilithium, a potential super-explosive that Dr. Tolian Soran has secretly stabilized for use on the station. The scientist is a long-lived El-Aurian like Guinan—and a survivor of a temporal energy anomaly that claimed the life of Starfleet’s legendary James T. Kirk some 78 years earlier.
Soran is rescued by the Duras sisters, his backers, who are hoping to use the weapon to control the Klingon Empire. On their ship he tortures hostage La Forge to get him to reveal what Picard knows about his incredible project—the systematic destruction of whole stars to reroute the energy ribbon so that Soran can be reunited with the part of him retained in its “nexus,” a joyful otherworld of eternal fantasies.
When the Enterprise heads for Soran’s next target, the populated Veridian system, Picard exchanges himself for La Forge, who unknowingly allows the Duras sisters to penetrate the starship’s shields. In a brief battle the Klingons’ vessel is destroyed, but Riker must order the drive section evacuated and separated when the Enterprise suffers a warp core breach. In turn, the shock wave from that explosion slams the saucer section into Veridian III’s surface, where the survivors pick up the pieces after a nerve-wracking ride.
Meanwhile, Picard confronts Soran one-on-one on Veridian III where the manic scientist has built another star-killer. Shocked, Picard can’t stop the weapon and is swept away with Soran as the planet and 1701-D’s survivors perish in the stellar cataclysm.
But Picard finds himself in the nexus, barely able to shake off the seductive Christmas scene of a family he never had in real life—including a still-healthy nephew René. A shadow of Guinan then helps him find none other than Kirk, who himself must be convinced to abandon numerous happy “what-ifs” to help Picard defeat Soran by leaving the nexus. They do, but Kirk gives his life in the struggle. Though their ship cannot be salvaged, the now-safe 1701-D survivors are rescued—and Picard comes to measure his life with less regret.
Captain John Harriman and Ensign Demora Sulu man the helm.
Even with the early budget scale-back, Generations still made heavy and effective use of location shooting, perhaps more so than any prior Star Trek film including the dramatic climax filmed over eight days atop a rise in the remote “Valley of Fire” north of Las Vegas, a harsh site that director Carson recalled all too well. “At one point we got blown off the rock by a very fierce dust and sand storm, and I got a piece of it in my eye and cut my cornea,” he said. “So I had to spend a day directing with a patch over my eye. Fortunately a cornea heals very quickly. I’d hoped a little John Ford might rub off on me if I wore it a few more days, but I thought I’d rather see properly out of both eyes on that ledge!”
From the highest plateau accessible by truck, the slope climbed about 70 feet to a staging area, then another 25 feet at a 40-degree slope to the launcher site before the final, nearly vertical climb of 160 or so feet to the peak, requiring ropes and a full-time safety crew. Everything from sun shade, to film equipment, to liquids for rehydration had to be hauled or carried up. Most in the cast and crew carried umbrellas or wore hats as protection against the blazing sun, with the three actors involved in the sequence doffing their hats only to shoot takes atop t
he bare upthrust of rock. The costumed actors were especially uncomfortable in the 110-degree heat, especially Shatner in his all-wool maroon uniform.
On top of all that, the Gatorade some crew members drank began attracting bees. “The heat and harshness slowed us down a lot, but it was a very beautiful place to be,” said Carson, whose production office back at the headquarters hotel in Las Vegas just happened to be based out of one Room 1701.
Shooting at other locations proved more comfortable, but still challenging. Picard’s chalet was actually a private house in Pasadena, where all but three items were moved in for the feature, including the custom-built carousel. The barn and horse jump was filmed at actor Noah Beery Jr.’s ranch, and Kirk’s cabin, whose owner gained a new kitchen and staircase built for the movie, sat atop a one-lane road that got so clogged that the plan to use a hawk in the shots was cancelled when the trainers’ vehicle got blocked out of the area.
Also memorable was the TNG cast’s first sequence, shot on the Lady Washington, docked at Marina del Rey in the Los Angeles area. For five days the ship—a full-scale replica of the first American ship to explore the Pacific Northwest and visit Japan—set out before sunup to drop anchor for filming a few miles offshore, with the filming and nautical crews totalling 50-plus. Dwyer and Zimmerman covered signs of the boat’s actual name on its bell and stern. The on-screen wheel was a phony that replaced the ship’s real steering tiller. Troi turned the wheel over to the boat’s real chief, Captain Bill, whose crew appeared on camera and lent a few more authentic terms of nautical slang to enhance Navy-vet Moore’s dialogue.
Captain Picard on the holodeck.
To cover a fogged-in day offshore, Ron Moore devised a way to film scenes wth the holodeck arch on the dock rather than aboard the cramped ship—but he still had to overcome the rocking motion of the boat when matching up the live and matted-in footage! The cast and crew’s equipment and personal effects were stored in bags decorated in period decor. Each bag read “Doohan (Dwyer’s wife) & Dwyer, Ship’s Chandlers, Est. 1840, Fine India Hemp Lashings.”
“Trivial Matters”
Despite its feature-film proportions, Dwyer still applied the austere approach throughout Generations: Geordi’s torture chair was a redecorated birthing chair, with hand props from “dirtied up” nosehair clippers and little flashlights. Kirk’s deflector room components were highly modified back massagers; Starfleet sickbay items were coin-changers, remote control units and back massagers attached to small thermos bottles; barbell-shaped neck massagers became Klingon bunk “headrests”; and—in the finest tradition of the original series as well as TNG—packing for resistors and TVs, and radiator covers became set decor forms, especially on the Klingon bridges. “That is standing operating procedure around here, dating back to Matt Jefferies,” Dwyer noted.
Dwyer and Okuda couldn’t resist adding touches only a longtime fan could detect, thereby paying homage to Matt Jefferies, the original Star Trek art designer. Along with a display of old phasers mixed in with antique guns—and “1701” plates originally designed to be Cardassian dishes in DS9’s first season—Kirk’s rustic cabin featured a three-panel backlit showcase displaying an original Enterprise, a replica of its simple bridge dedication plaque, and photo of his crew from the film era. The cabin also sported an original painting of a cowboy on horseback at night, watching a shooting star in the background while looking out over the real-life Alabama Hills adjacent to the location site; the cowboy’s face looked surprisingly like James T. Kirk’s! And in Picard’s “chateau,” an artist was commissioned to create three of Picard’s heroic forebears: one in the flowing locks of a Trafalgar-era French officer, one in an old Starfleet uniform, and a third naval Frenchman with a burr cut and Prussian spiked mustache from World War I—this was the portrait Dwyer said Stewart liked the most. All three used the actor as a model, and he got permission to keep his choice while auctioning the other two off for charity.
The “B” sickbay included animated computer recreations of the original series’ sickbay bed monitors, complete with floating indicators and blinking red pulse lights. Meanwhile, the “B” bridge monitors not only carried the red-alert graphic of its Star Trek: The Motion Picture forebear, but featured its round monitors as well—this time, Okuda noted, without square-format readouts.
Another Okudagram data scroll revealed the S.S. Lakul as registry NFT-7793, a Warp-4 rated craft of Whorfin class with “YPS” pulse fusion (Buckaroo Banzai in-jokes) with a flight start of SD 9683.3, while its doomed sister ship of 267 passengers and crew setting out SD 9683.7 was NFT-1327, the Robert Fox. The latter was named for the ambassador of 1967’s “Amageddon Game,” as suggested by writer Moore.
Trivia-minded old-timers will also note the observatory’s placards in ’60s Trek type, perhaps including some marked “duotronic systems” (from 1968’s “Ultimate Computer” and “The Ensigns of Command”/149), and perhaps even the curve-neck Dickey brewery “Saurian brandy” bottle from the original series, used in the spacedock banquet.
However, some choices were still a matter of budget, not sentiment. Though all may not show up on camera, the stellar observatory debris included many props familiar to faithful TNG viewers—the lab elevator that housed Lal (“The Offspring”/164) and Locutus (“Best of Both Worlds, Part 2”/175), a nacelle plasma injector (“Eye of the Beholder”/270), and the original small-scale Galactic Cartography bubble console (see in “Lessons”/145), which in its larger format is still labeled for Deck 12 (“Liaisons”/154), in Room 1072.
The Klingon Captain Lursa threatens Dr. Soran.
Captain Picard in Captain Kirk’s farmhouse in the Nexus.
The shuttlecraft is new to TNG but not Star Trek: it’s the stunt double exterior used in the Star Trek V hangar deck crash of that film’s large Galileo 5 craft later cut down to become TNG’s Type 6 shuttle (“Darmok”/202, “Parallels”/263, etc.) Here it’s lettered as the Hawking, once again honoring the onetime real-life guest star (“Descent”/252).
To fill a late request by Carson for some probe “guts,” estimated at about $4,000 each, DS9 art staffer Anthony Frederickson cobbled together painted and striped plastic funnels, bowls and piping—all for about $150 total. The rockets they adorned—and the ones fired—were actual civilian products built to Zimmerman’s specs by Public Missile, an East Coast firm. A primary and two backups were ordered, with a full-blown launch landing so far away, Dwyer recalled, that the park ranger standing by ordered its remains “from four canyons over” be retrieved. “We only needed it to go 60 or 70 feet out of frame,” the decorator chuckled.
The cast was peppered with familiar Star Trek faces and other notables, including actors Ruck, perhaps best remembered as put-upon best friend Cameron in 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Russ, who had not only played a terrorist (“Starship Mine”/144) and a Klingon (DS9’s “Invasive Procedures”) but would soon join the Voyager cast as Star Trek’s first regular cast Vulcan since Spock. Lursa and B’Etor, of course, were old vets (“Redemption”/199-200, “Firstborn”/ 274, and DS9’s “Past Prologue”); actor Mack had previously been a Romulan (“The Pegasus”/264) while his character had already been mentioned (“Genesis”/271). Also appearing were TNG returnees Putch (“Coming of Age”/119, “A Matter of Honor”/224), Kopache (“The Next Phase”/224, “Emergence”/275), Morshower (“Peak Performance”/147, “Starship Mine”/244), Braden (“The Loss”/84), and Thompson (“A Matter of Honor,”/ 234 and a Dosi in DS9’s “Rules of Aquisition”).
Ironically, the players also included Goldstein, the actress whose performance as the tough space marine Vasquez in Aliens inspired Tasha Yar’s character in TNG’s embryonic days. In addition, the special TV/film production continuity allowed many of the series’ extras and standins to find work here—including felines Brandy and Monster as “Spot” (see “Descent, Part II”/253)—to lend even more subtle links to the series.
In case there’s any doubt, Moore confirmed the movie is set wit
hin a year of “All Good Things …” (277-78), around 2371. That puts the 1701-B’s christening at 2293. This estimate is backed up by Data’s 34-year “search for humanity,” with TNG’s eight-year run added to the 26 mentioned in “Datalore” (114). This reckoning means that Demora Sulu was born circa 2270, or during the time of the Enterprise refit before the V’ger incident (Star Trek: The Motion Picture), after her father’s first missions with Kirk.
At last, much of Guinan’s elusive past is nailed down, although writer Moore admitted some of it is “shaky.” Her people are distant enough to be dispersed by the Borg, but near enough for their ships to be bound for Earth, which remains unaware of the attackers (“Q Who”/142). However, Guinan had earlier said she was not on her homeworld at the time of the Borg attack, which may explain why her arrival in 2293 with other refugees is much less than the century span she dated the tragedy back to in 2365 (“Q Who”/242). It is known that she was on Earth earlier (“Time’s Arrow”/126) and clashed with Q a century before the Borg’s overrunning of her people, when she went by a different name (“Q Who”/142). Interestingly, while Guinan’s bio file was accessible enough, she had apparently managed to keep her origins a secret to all but old friend Picard (“The Child”/127). By the way, the set identified her quarters as Deck 08/Room 3150, which have an ethereal look with floating and multiple candle wicks, designed with Whoopi Goldberg’s input.
The writers revealed most of the proper names were of nondescript origin with a few exceptions: the El-Aurians are named for the ancient Hebrew “angel of flame,” while Kirk’s would-be wife Antonia comes from Antonia Napoli, a former intern and co-story writer on “Journey’s End” (272). Kirk’s dog Butler was originally Jake, named for Moore’s elder pooch who later died during filming, but Shatner changed it on-set to honor his own dog who had just died. Finally, Soran early on was “Moresh,” later changed to avoid any perceived parallels with the late David Koresh, another fate-obsessed charismatic leader. The script is filled with trivia, beginning with the Dom Perignon bottled dated “2265,” for the first year of Kirk’s mission; the 1701-D’s rescue ship, the Farragut, was named for his first post-Academy assignment. Though actor Shatner’s equine hobby is well known, Kirk’s horsemanship was not revealed until Star Trek V—unlike Picard’s (“Pen Pals”/141, “The Loss”/184, “Starship Mine”/ 244); Data’s emotions chip finally found a home (“Brothers”/177, “Descent”/252, “Inheritance”/ 262). We learn also that the Ktarians (“The Game”/206, “Birthright, Part I”/242, “Time-scape”/251, “Liaisons”/254, “Phantasms”/258) are known in Federation circles as far back as Kirk’s time, while the Picard at the first Martian Colony harks back to an historic legal document (1966’s “Courtmartial”) and at least one variety of the Klingon Bird of Prey is the Class D-12.