Today marks a significant anniversary for me. Opening in theaters 30 years ago on November 18, 1994, and underappreciated by many, "Star Trek: Generations" remains one of my all-time favorite movies. It showed up during a pivotal time in my life as both "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and I were making major transitions. It was leaving television and heading into theaters almost at the same time as I was leaving high school and going into the Air Force.
Mom and Dad let me watch "Star Trek," both TOS and the animated series, as a kid and took me to see "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" as one of my first movies. I loved that crew. Then in 1987, TNG was born. I spent the better part of my late childhood and teenage years watching Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew exploring space and paying homage to James T. Kirk and the other memorable characters that came before them (and some even showed up in TNG). Oh, and the new Enterprise. That incredibly beautiful Galaxy class starship with the separating saucer section. I was in love with it.
The fantastic stories and adventures that Trek was known for were comforting. Gene Roddenberry and his "wagon train to the stars" mirrored society and showed us that humanity, although imperfect and resilient, could be so much better than we are. These tales and the beauty of the ships and characters had me hooked from early on in life.
My love of Trek carried on through TNG. It just so happened that the day the final episode, "All Good Things ...", aired was also the day that I graduated from high school. Was it a coincidence? I'm not sure. After all, I was born in Enterprise, Alabama. I'd like to think my lifelong connection to "Star Trek" was just meant to be. On a side note, my graduation gift from Mom was a trip to Orlando to not only Disney World, but also a Trek convention where I got to meet Leonard Nimoy.
Picard and the crew ended their television run as I made preparations to leave home and begin a new life in the military. I knew the movie was scheduled to come out in November that year, and as fate would have it, I would go into the Air Force in September. Basic training was six weeks long, so the timing to see it on opening night might work out. At the end of basic training, they let us wander around San Antonio for a day and buy personal items as long as they could fit in a small drawer in our dorms. I bought one thing: a pack of trading cards featuring Trek artwork from all the series. I had eyes on that November prize.
After basic, I was sent to Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi, for technical training in my new job field. When I arrived, it was two weeks until opening night, and that's when I learned we new airmen couldn't go off base for our first 14 days. My first day to be able to go off base and do what I want was November 18. It couldn't have worked out any better.
That day rolled around, and I made a break for the local movie theater that night after classes. I jumped on the bus that dropped us off near the theater about 30 minutes before the movie started. I made it. I sat there, popcorn in hand, head still shaved from basic training, and I got to see one of the most anticipated movies in my life. My distraction from military life was complete.
The opening theme and credits were overly emotional for me. Dennis McCarthy wrote one of my favorite scores to this day. The crescendo of the music as the bottle of Dom Perignon flew through space to christen the Enterprise B created an unbelievable moment of joy in my soul. Seeing the new (old) ship instantly cemented it as one of my all-time favorite versions of the Enterprise. I wished more of the TOS crew would've been in the movie, but I wasn't complaining.
When they did get to the TNG crew, it was a little bit of a shock to see them in new uniforms. I had watched DS9, so I was used to the look but not on Picard and company. I was in awe of how everything looked thanks to the bigger movie budget, and stellar cartography was an awesome effect. It was great to see a new part of the Enterprise we hadn't seen before. Data was a tremendous highlight as he finally got his emotion chip installed and allowed Brent Spiner to show off his comedic skills with a little more life than we'd known in the TV series.
However, the highlight was seeing Picard and Kirk together on screen. My worlds ... my captains ... had finally collided, and I couldn't have been happier. These were two giants of my childhood. I teared up when they met. I naturally cried when Kirk died and Picard was with him. I also cried like a baby when the Enterprise saucer crashed on Veridian III and again when Data found Spot among the wreckage.
At the end of the movie, I couldn't have been happier. I finally got everything I wanted between TOS and TNG. The music, the cast, and the emotions. For 18-year-old me, it was perfect. Looking back on it, I still have the same emotions no matter how many times I see it. It still holds my personal record for the amount of times I saw a movie in the theater: seven. "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" comes in second with six times in the theater (in case you were remotely curious).
Any regular listener of our podcast knows how much I love to collect toys, and TNG is by far one of the biggest reasons I'm a collector. I grabbed practically all the Galoob figures, but the excitement hit when Playmates got the license and inundated our local stores with the ships and figures. I still have every one to this day, even though they're mostly in storage. This is where "Generations" created another treasured memory for me.
After a couple of weeks of being able to leave base and explore Biloxi, they finally allowed us to travel away on the weekends. My first weekend I was able to go back home, Mom had to drive nearly four hours to Biloxi to pick me up and take me back home to southeast Alabama. She was so excited to come get me that she asked if I wanted to stop anywhere on the way home. I had talked to her a lot on the phone after I saw the movie, so she knew I wanted to find all the toys from "Generations." Mom was always gracious with my toy collecting, so we stopped at a Toys "R' Us and a mall on the way home that Friday night. With my newly acquired and meager Air Force paycheck that I hadn't really spent any of for two months, I came out of those stores with figures, ships, and toy props. Mom also bought a couple of ships for me, but she wouldn't let me have them until Christmas.
For Christmas, Mom also gave me several "Generations" items, including a shirt, pewter figures, a couple of autographed photos she bought from QVC (she was a QVC addict, but it worked out since they routinely had Trek actors on the shows with autographed items), and a handful of other things. I still have everything she gave me that year, so that's one of my special connections to her memory.
Since the movie came out 30 years ago, I've had the opportunity to meet everyone from the TOS and TNG casts multiple times, including "Generations" actors Malcolm McDowell ("Dr. Tolian Soren") and Alan Ruck ("Capt. John Harriman"). I've seen it countless more times on VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, and streaming. It remains one of my all-time favorites because it represents a time in my life where everything was changing, yet it was one of the steady things I could hold on to that bridged my childhood and my adulthood. It gave me peace and wonderful memories as everything else was changing and I was trying to find my footing in life.
McDowell, as "Soren," gave me one of my favorite quotes that I still use to this day: "Time is the fire in which we burn." Much like time, "Star Trek: Generations" is one of my top 10 movies that keeps my passion for that franchise burning bright. Happy anniversary to the movie that has helped my memories to live long and prosper.
