A new video adds a moving epilogue to the death of Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek: Generations by adding a scene with Leonard Nimoy's Spock.
Before the release of Star Trek: Generations, the seventh feature in the franchise, all fans really knew about it was that Captains James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard would finally share the screen. Even though Kirk was thought to be long dead by the time of
The Next Generation, fans were upset that Generations resulted in what seemed to be an ignominious end for the man who made a career of turning certain death into a chance to live. A new video from the Roddenberry Archive gives this controversial moment a moving epilogue using impressive deepfake technology.
Since Vulcans are a long-lived species, Leonard Nimony's Spock showed up in The Next Generation for two episodes, involving his quest to bring the Romulans into the Federation. While that's a mighty task, it meant he was canonically alive when Picard brought Kirk out of the "Nexus,"
or the sci-fi thingamajig that allowed Kirk to survive some 150 years after his birth. The Roddenberry Archive is an initiative in partnership with OTOY, an Academy Award-winning visual effects company, to celebrate everything Star Trek's creator Gene Roddenberry inspired.
One project offers a 3D virtual tour of the bridge of every ship named "Enterprise." Yet, they are also creating new videos using the late Nimoy's likeness. And in a video titled "765874 – Regeneration," viewers get to see the aftermath of Star Trek: Generations, including Spock visiting Kirk's makeshift grave on Viridian III.
James T Kirk lying under rubble, blood on his mouth before dying in Star Trek Generations The biggest moment in Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard was the Enterprise-D's return. The ship that carried the crew for seven seasons was destroyed in the final act of Generations.
However, Geordi La Forge revealed that the saucer section was recovered from the planet, allowing him to restore the ship (using the stardrive section of the USS Syracuse).
The video from the Roddenberry archive opens with images of the Starfleet effort to recover the vessel so as not to contaminate any future civilizations that evolve on the planet. Yet, the saucer section of the Enterprise wasn't the only thing left behind on the planet.
While William Shatner and Patrick Stewart got to share the screen, some fans felt a bit cheated that Nimoy didn't join the party. "765874 – Regeneration" gives fans a wordless scene in which the elder Spock visits the grave of his friend.
It's not his permanent resting place, which makes sense given Starfleet's desire to respect the Prime Directive. Picard showed that Kirk's remains, like Picard's from Season 1, are stored in the mysterious Daystrom vault. While Spock likely didn't know about all that, it makes sense that he'd want his best friend to have a more fitting final resting place.
The video is remarkable because of how subtle the "performance" is from the computer-generated Spock. Naturally, Vulcans are not emotional characters, even the half-human Spock. Strange New Worlds, a The Original Series prequel, focuses on that struggle more than other installments have.
Still, fans can see the emotional turmoil on Spock's face after he picks up his old friend's Starfleet badge. The video then cuts to a scene of a younger Spock, likely after his own return from death, looking out the window of a Starfleet building on Earth.
Fans are funny, especially when it comes to something like Star Trek. Throughout the entire run of The Next Generation, there was no question that Kirk was dead and gone. The series never mentioned when or how, but the return of other
The Original Series characters only underscored that Kirk was no more. So, when the storytellers brought him back for Generations, they felt they were resurrecting him. Killing Kirk was meant to return the universe to that status quo. Instead, fans felt Kirk was "alive the whole time," and the callous trio of Rick Berman, Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga killed him.
Kirk's death was heroic, though more accidental than fans may have liked. Yet, there is a poignancy to it because death doesn't care what a legend a person was in life when it comes to them. And the other problem was The Next Generation cast that survived mourned the ship more completely than the captain who made its name legendary.
This coda featuring Spock, a person who intimately knows how spectacular Kirk's life was, makes the moment from Generations "hurt" more, but in the way that fans want their stories to pull at their heartstrings. It's unclear what the Roddenberry Archive is doing with these Spock videos, but this one is a moving moment that Star Trek: Generations was unable to deliver.
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