Star Trek: 765874 - Unification (short film for 30th of "Generations")

[Techwright]

I was unaware of this, possibly because it is an unlisted work on YouTube channel OTOY.

 

For the 30th anniversary of the movie Star Trek: Generations,  William Shatner executive produced this short, joined by Robin Curtis (the 2nd actor to play Lt. Saavik, Spock's half-Romulan protege) and Gary Lockwood ("Lt. Commander Gary Mitchell" from season 1 episode 3: "Where No Man Has Gone Before") to give the movie, and both the passing of Kirk, and later, Spock, an alternate ending and a proper send-off.  There is also a additional surprise in the new work.  Special visual effects were used with legendary voice actor Sam Witwer, better known for his Star Wars characters, providing the body performance for Kirk, and Lawrence Selleck doing the same for Spock.

 

 

If you're saying "what in space did I just see?"  Here's some context:

 

Spoiler

The guy suspended before a star, the one with silver eyes, is Lt. Commander Gary Mitchell, Kirk's previous best friend.  In the original series episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before", Mitchell was transformed by an energy barrier when the Enterprise attempted to leave the galaxy but encountered unexpected resistance.  Mitchell grew in immense power but also became irrational and vicious.  Kirk defeated him by dropping a boulder on him, though there was evidence Mitchell might have survived. Here, the short suggests Mitchell survived, grew in power to rival the Q ( of the Next Generation series)  and apparently stabilized.  He enacts all of what happens next, apparently moving Kirk's departing soul (from Star Trek: Generation) to a location outside of the boundaries of time and space.  Here, among others, he encounters an aged Saavik, and behind her, the son she conceived by Spock when he went through Vulcan Pon Farr in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock.   Kirk progresses in moments reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey until he reaches the side of Spock, now on his death bed in the Kelvin timeline universe. 

 

Spock's son was actually a concept they'd intended to use in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.  Saavik remains behind on Vulcan with Spock's family at the start of the movie, and that was to set up the story line of the child, but the plot was jettisoned from the final work.  As we never see Saavik again, the potential remained, and this work capitalized on it.

 

For additional info, see: https://home.otoy.com/unification/

 

Edited February 2 by Techwright
Corrected information

[Voltor]

An excellent video and a good send off for the characters.

 

That being said, I still want the Return of Kirk and if that TV series or movie must end with his demise that it be a more heroic and pyrotechnic demise then being crushed on a falling scaffold.

 

I saw the alternate footage where he gets shot in the back and that was worse.

 

Would have been better if Picard decloaks the missile, Kirk resets the docking clamps and is grappling with Soran.  Kirk knows it is about to explode and warns Picard to get back, that it is okay etc. and to remember the advice he gave him in the Nexus.  Missile explodes, Kirk and Soran are destroyed and Picard finds Kirk's captain insignia

[ZacKing]

The OTOY work has been exceptionally good.  This is what happens when you have creative people with actual talent and that care about the property. 

[Techwright]

11 hours ago, Voltor said:

An excellent video and a good send off for the characters.

 

That being said, I still want the Return of Kirk and if that TV series or movie must end with his demise that it be a more heroic and pyrotechnic demise then being crushed on a falling scaffold.

 

I saw the alternate footage where he gets shot in the back and that was worse.

 

Would have been better if Picard decloaks the missile, Kirk resets the docking clamps and is grappling with Soran.  Kirk knows it is about to explode and warns Picard to get back, that it is okay etc. and to remember the advice he gave him in the Nexus.  Missile explodes, Kirk and Soran are destroyed and Picard finds Kirk's captain insignia

 

In a sense they gave us that: Kirk running to a key spot on Enterprise B to save the ship, its crew, and the rescued passengers then having his section destroyed and pulled into the Nexus, never to be seen by his friends again.  From the perspective of Scott and Chekov, Kirk died valiantly.  We just know there was a bit more to go.

 

Actually, I've been saying since Generations came out that they made one serious mistake, which, had they corrected, might have given the needed heroic status to Kirk regardless of the method of his send-off.  I'm talking about the civilization he saved.  At no part in the final work did we see the billions of people on the nearby inhabited world.  They were only casually mentioned: a cold statistic, nothing more.  Had they taken even a minute to show us this civilization: children playing, artists creating or performing, lovers strolling in the park...all the best things that connects us emotionally to a civilization, then knowing a legend had to be sacrificed to save them would have seemed a worthy, heroic cause.  We did have the Enterprise crew trapped on the planet during its destruction, but the viewership has seen that go wrong before, multiple times, and the crew escape a permanent death.  The potency was not as great.

[ShardWarrior]

On 2/3/2025 at 5:11 PM, Techwright said:

Actually, I've been saying since Generations came out that they made one serious mistake, which, had they corrected, might have given the needed heroic status to Kirk regardless of the method of his send-off.  I'm talking about the civilization he saved.  At no part in the final work did we see the billions of people on the nearby inhabited world.  They were only casually mentioned: a cold statistic, nothing more.  Had they taken even a minute to show us this civilization: children playing, artists creating or performing, lovers strolling in the park...all the best things that connects us emotionally to a civilization, then knowing a legend had to be sacrificed to save them would have seemed a worthy, heroic cause.  We did have the Enterprise crew trapped on the planet during its destruction, but the viewership has seen that go wrong before, multiple times, and the crew escape a permanent death.  The potency was not as great.

 

A couple of things here. 

 

First, a very minor nitpick.  Veridian IV had a stated population of 230 million.  The population was not in the billions. 

 

Second, the focus of the story at that point and the dramatic impact of the scene was Kirk's death.  Cutting away to a scene introducing random, nameless people who the audience were never introduced to and did not know would have totally detracted from that. 

 

Lastly, the real mistake with the writing of this film was killing off Kirk to begin with.  It was not necessary and I personally feel it was a mistake to include the original cast to "pass the torch".  The original cast had their ride off into the sunset at the end of Star Trek VI and that was enough.  The TNG cast was well established at this point and could easily carry a film on their own without needing to include the original cast members. 

 

The story in general had many other issues.  The whole concept of the Nexus was confusing at times, especially given that Guinan tells Picard he can return to normal space at any point in time, Picard chooses to go back literal minutes before Soran launches his missile.  Why not go back to the moment he first met Soran and detained him?  Killing off Picard's brother and nephew off screen was a mistake as well in my opinion. 

 

I would like to add that I do enjoy this film for the most part.  Shatner is the best part of it in my opinion.  He is exceptional in the scenes at his house as he slowly comes to the realization of what is going on and where he is. 

 

Despite its many flaws, Generations is still far and away better than the J.J. Abrams and Kurtzman garbage.

[Techwright]

6 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

A couple of things here. 

 

First, a very minor nitpick.  Veridian IV had a stated population of 230 million.  The population was not in the billions. 

 

Second, the focus of the story at that point and the dramatic impact of the scene was Kirk's death.  Cutting away to a scene introducing random, nameless people who the audience were never introduced to and did not know would have totally detracted from that. 

 

Lastly, the real mistake with the writing of this film was killing off Kirk to begin with.  It was not necessary and I personally feel it was a mistake to include the original cast to "pass the torch".  The original cast had their ride off into the sunset at the end of Star Trek VI and that was enough.  The TNG cast was well established at this point and could easily carry a film on their own without needing to include the original cast members. 

 

The story in general had many other issues.  The whole concept of the Nexus was confusing at times, especially given that Guinan tells Picard he can return to normal space at any point in time, Picard chooses to go back literal minutes before Soran launches his missile.  Why not go back to the moment he first met Soran and detained him?  Killing off Picard's brother and nephew off screen was a mistake as well in my opinion. 

 

I would like to add that I do enjoy this film for the most part.  Shatner is the best part of it in my opinion.  He is exceptional in the scenes at his house as he slowly comes to the realization of what is going on and where he is. 

 

Despite its many flaws, Generations is still far and away better than the J.J. Abrams and Kurtzman garbage.

 

First point - yes, thanks for that correction.

 

Second - It would not be necessary to show the population after a point in which Kirk came into the picture.  It could be shown at a point preceding Picard entering the Nexus.  Possibly even in the astronavigation room as either a "duckblind" video of the society pulled up on the screen, or a cut-away with perhaps Data narrating over it with info from a previous "duckblind" operation.

 

Regarding the Nexus - yeah, that was a "don't look too deep" moment.  It would have been better had they written the parameters to be "return to the moment you entered or any point after that."  Not only that, but Soran should have been trying to use the Nexus to return to a previous point in time when his family was alive and safe, then guide them down a different path.  Picard should have chosen a point where he could have warned his brother of the coming fire, then dealt with the rest.  I do appreciate the choice of killing brother and nephew though, gut punch that it was.  Robert was already known as something of a luddite so a lack of proper fire suppression in the home would be in keeping with his nature.  As to the nephew, it was needed to reveal a deep vulnerability in Jean Luc:  the need for a family heir to provide emotional stability.  It provides the temptation to stay in the Nexus. As one who is a RL uncle and without children, I deeply connected to that. 

 

There were other problems, I felt, such as putting a nice, but unseasoned and ultimately incompetant captain to a ship with a legendary heritage.  Considering Star Fleet has the Kobayashi Maru,  as well as, of course, the rank system, the captain's flaws should have been laid bare before he made lt. commander.  But it's all script anyway.

 

I do agree Generations is better than the Abrams/Kurtzman "garbage", though I did find some enjoyment in certain parts of movies 1 and 3 of their works.  Into Darkness was Trek's The Last Jedi: utter dreck and the waste of some fine actors and special effects crews.

[ZacKing]

17 hours ago, Techwright said:

Second - It would not be necessary to show the population after a point in which Kirk came into the picture.  It could be shown at a point preceding Picard entering the Nexus.  Possibly even in the astronavigation room as either a "duckblind" video of the society pulled up on the screen, or a cut-away with perhaps Data narrating over it with info from a previous "duckblind" operation.

 

This would have been superfluous and taken away from the point of the scene which was Picard helping Data deal with his newfound emotions, which by the way was one of the dumbest things about this movie.

 

17 hours ago, Techwright said:

Regarding the Nexus - yeah, that was a "don't look too deep" moment.  It would have been better had they written the parameters to be "return to the moment you entered or any point after that."  Not only that, but Soran should have been trying to use the Nexus to return to a previous point in time when his family was alive and safe, then guide them down a different path.  Picard should have chosen a point where he could have warned his brother of the coming fire, then dealt with the rest.  I do appreciate the choice of killing brother and nephew though, gut punch that it was.  Robert was already known as something of a luddite so a lack of proper fire suppression in the home would be in keeping with his nature.  As to the nephew, it was needed to reveal a deep vulnerability in Jean Luc:  the need for a family heir to provide emotional stability.  It provides the temptation to stay in the Nexus. As one who is a RL uncle and without children, I deeply connected to that. 

 

The whole Nexus thing was an interesting idea, but didn't work ultimately and turned out to be a very bad idea when you think about it.  It doesn't make sense for Picard to say to Kirk "let's go back 30 seconds before Soran launches his super missile so that we have as little time as possible to stop him!".  The writers knew this too.  If you listen to interviews with Brannon Braga and Ron Moore over the years, they admit as much. 

 

I don't think Picard losing his brother and nephew we saw once or maybe twice was a "gut punch".  I agree it didn't have any real dramatic impact on the story.  I get that this was supposed to set up Picard being tempted to stay in the Nexus, but there were any number of things from his life or regrets that he had which would have worked just as well.  Killing off one of the main cast would have been a gut punch, not a one time guest role we saw in one episode. 

 

17 hours ago, Techwright said:

There were other problems, I felt, such as putting a nice, but unseasoned and ultimately incompetant captain to a ship with a legendary heritage.  Considering Star Fleet has the Kobayashi Maru,  as well as, of course, the rank system, the captain's flaws should have been laid bare before he made lt. commander.  But it's all script anyway.

 

Totally agree. 

 

17 hours ago, Techwright said:

I do agree Generations is better than the Abrams/Kurtzman "garbage"

 

The only redeeming thing about the JJ Abrams films is that he had a great cast to work with.  The rest is garbage.  The stories stunk.  The Kurtzman stuff is just pure sewage.