The seventh Star Trek movie is for me one the belies the “odd number movies aren’t that good”.  It’s perhaps not Wrath of Khan or Voyage Home, but there’s a lot to like about this.  Having said that, it has a few problems, but none of which are bad enough to take down my overall enjoyment of the movie.

Admin note: Before I started doing my TV marathons, I was doing a run of movie reviews, one of which was the first six Star Trek movies. It’s been awhile since I’ve done one, and my style might have changed a bit, so to that, I’n not so sure this review (and the subsequent TNG/JJ movie reviews) will match the exact same style.

As I’ve said elsewhere, seeing Star Trek movies is mandatory for me.  I’ve seen all 13 theatrical movies in theatres brand new, and with the exception of the first one, all on opening day/night.  My mom did take my 14 year old self to see the original Star Trek movie when it was new in 1979, just not the first day.  This one was no exception.  I went to see it with my friends Lee & Brenda, as while I had moved to Texas at this point, I hadn’t gotten married, so my wife wasn’t yet with me to see this.   I have a vague memory of standing out front of the movie theatre (which doesn’t exist anymore in 2025, it’s been torn down), but little else about the actual going to the movie.

The movie itself has three distinct parts.  The first part with Kirk, Scotty, & Chekov, the middle (and largest) part which is about the Next Generation crew, and the final part which involves the part that was marketed the hardest for this one – where Kirk & Picard meet and interact with each other.

One thing about this movie before I get into the actual watching of it is that this movie has a metric ton of filmed and deleted scenes.  There are SO many of them.  Back in the early days of the Web, I found a site that had all of them online.  Things were a bit more Wild West then, so you could get away with things of that nature without being sued into oblivion.  I of course downloaded the things and have them saved, but to be honest, the quality is kind of crap.  Most are cut for reasons you’d think, but there’s one really large segment early on with Scotty, Chekov, & Kirk involving Kirk doing orbital skydiving.  It speaks to much the same kind of stuff Star Trek V spoke to with Kirk and aging, so it was rightfully cut, but there’s a ton of deleted scenes out there – FAR more (19) than are on any official release of the movie anywhere.  I really hope that all that stuff will someday get released, as the existing quality of them on the Internet is poor (granted, this is 2001 era bootleg video, but still) as the video is only at 320×200, and is obviously sourced from a crappy old VHS copy.

The release film does away with all that, and starts with a more logical point from a dramatic standpoint, the three of them arriving on the bridge of the Enterprise (that’s 1701-B).   There were supposed to be more of the TOS crew around here, but the bulk of the actors didn’t want to turn up for what was effectively just a cameo.  To be honest, that entire sequence probably would have worked with JUST Kirk, but still, it was nice to see them here.

There’s lots of fun in this opening sequence with the Enterprise B.   First of is of course the three TOS crew, which were fun to see, and especially some of the sniping between Kirk & Scotty.   There’s also a reference to Sulu here with the helmsman of this ship being his daughter.  That was never stated in the old show, but it was nice to see that retconned in that he had a family.  Love the snark with Chekov & Scotty teasing Jim about his issuing the order to get underway (“Brought a tear to my eye”).  Funny stuff there.

The ship in question here was U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701B.  It looked like the Excelsior from the last movie, and given this followed fairly quickly after that, I always felt it was a bit lazy to just re-use another ship design like that. I get that it’s supposed to be an honor for it to be called that, but I always felt they could have come up with some new ship design vs using one that had already been in use.  I always felt the Excelsior was a chunky design.  When we first saw it in Star Trek III, its look was mocked as being odd, yet now it’s an Enterprise?  I never cared for that.  Enterprise-B is never seen again after the first 10 mins or so of this movie – in any medium, so I guess it’s not that bad, but heck – TNG did a much better job with Enterprise-C in the Yesterday’s Enterprise episode of the series.  It’s partially why 1701-B was a disappointment to me.

However, what was fun is that the captain was played by Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – Alan Ruck.  He was Capt Harriman.  His time on screen is mostly nothing, and is sacrificed as a viable character to service Kirk – who jumps into action to save the day.  I always wished we got more with that character elsewhere – being captain of the Enterprise is a big honor, so who  was this guy and what did he do to become Capt of the Enterprise?

Another fun bit here is one of Harriman’s crew is played by Tim Russ, who is far more well known as Tuvok.  Russ who was up for the role of Geordi in 1987 and didn’t get it has played many background characters in Trek.  I’ve seen some people attempt to retcon this as being Tuvok in some weird undercover thing, but that never worked for me – just a fun appearance from an actor we knew elsewhere.  As far as I recall, his character here isn’t named.   Fun fact – one of Harriman’s other bridge crew is Jenette Goldstein who is most famously known for being Vazquez in the movie Aliens (and John Connor’s adoptive mother in Terminator 2).

The one thing I didn’t care for in this opening sequence was the bank of reporters.  This was something we never saw in Star Trek, and really didn’t see again afterwards.  It just felt out of place to me.  In current real world society, I know that’s a thing, but in Star Trek having reporters in Jim Kirk’s face at point blank range like that felt wrong.  I was glad when they dispensed with them (with actual on screen dialogue).

Once we get past the opening fun bits here, there’s some actual drama to be had.  While on a simple cruise (Hey, reminds me of Gilligan Island’s “three hour tour”), the ship receives a distress call, and in going to rescue the ships there, we get some cool action.  First off, one of the bits here was obviously written for McCoy and given to Chekov – it’s the bit about taking over medical stuff and drafting reporters to be nurses.  But in the people rescued are Malcolm McDowell, the overall movie’s bad guy, and Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan, making her first appearance anywhere since “Suspicions” (TNG S6).  She doesn’t have a lot to do in this early part of the movie, but she does have a larger part later on.   I really did enjoy the rescue part of this movie – it’s some good stuff.

In saving the two ships, the Enterprise itself is damaged by an energy ribbon (more on that later), but in this, Jim Kirk is lost – or at least thought to be.  We find out much later on in the movie he was in fact not killed, but it was fully played out here that he was.  Given that the pre-movie chatter was that Kirk was killed in the movie, I thought it was a great deke – much in the same way that Wrath of Khan made you think the expected character death happened right at the start.   I actually liked that.  I thought it was played well when Scotty, Chekov, & Harriman go to where Kirk was previously – was played with very little dialogue.  The aforementioned deleted scenes have a scene with Chekov & Scotty being all sad about it, but I think the “death” of Kirk here works far better in the understated way it’s handled here.  Dramatically I think it works better than the actual death of Kirk later in the movie because it gives Kirk a heroic exit – something worthy of song in Sto-vo-kor.

Then there is a time jump back to current and the TNG crew of 1701-D.   They’re all on a sailing ship (The Enterprise of course) in a comedic scene.  It’s in universe a reason to promote Worf, but it works with the sense of humor of the characters that they would do a promotion in this way (mostly Riker, but still).  There’s of course some comedy here, with Dr Crusher being pushed into the water by Data, which I thought was bloody hilarious, but the characters on screen said was not.  They were wrong.  :)   I wish we got more of the holodeck stuff on the sailing ship, I actually quite liked the way the crew looked here.  It’s definitely something that works better visually in a movie than if they did it in a standard episode of TNG.   Fun scene.

The fun ends when we get a distress call from an observatory who was attacked.  In a later segment we find out that Picard’s family back home was killed (brother, sister in law, nephew).  This was an off screen death, and was the same characters we saw in the TNG episode “Family”.   I always felt it was a senseless death, and while we were unlikely to ever see these characters again, I remember being annoyed at the casual discarding of the characters.  Oh sure, it was done to further a plot of Picard being alone, and making his eventual logic in both being inside and escaping from the Nexus later on a thing, but I wish there was another way to have done that.  It also makes Picard moody for a percentage of the movie as he doesn’t tell anyone what’s happened and delegates a lot of things.  As much as I don’t like the casual discarding of the characters, we do get some good acting by Patrick Stewart here.  This is paid off somewhat in the Nexus scenes when Jean-Luc has a fantasy of having a family he never had.

In investigating the station, we are re-introduced to Malcolm McDowell’s character again.  We as the audience go “Hey, it’s that guy from earlier”, but obviously the TNG characters don’t know that.   You then instantly wonder why he looks the same 78 years later.   His reason for everything is explained later – for now he’s just a casualty on the station.    In fact this part is kind of a slower part of the movie, it’s very much got the feel of a run of the mill TNG episode.  I know we need to establish motive and whatnot, but parts of this don’t feel terribly “theatrical”.

One thing that is touched on a lot in this movie is Data and emotions.  In prior episodes, much has been alluded to a chip that Data’s creator made for him with emotional programming, something Data was loathe to explore due to problems with his brother Lore.  But in this movie he finally does take the chip.  It has some amusing side effects.  I liked that most of these scenes are with Geordi, who has long been established as Data’s best friend on the show.   Some good comedy comes from this.  And problems, too – it doesn’t all go smoothly.   Two of my favorite parts of Data’s emotion stuff is when he’s scanning for lifeforms on a planet an breaks out into a song “You precious little lifeforms” – that was funny as hell.  The other time was when the ship was crashing, Data looks at the ship in descent and goes “Oh Shit!”.  All of these were done well.  We also got a couple of scenes with Spot the cat, which I liked.

Most of the scenes on the Enterprise here were very dark.   From what I recall reading this had something to do with the fact that if they put proper lighting on the old TV show sets, they would show up poorly on screen when shot for a theatrical movie – this has a lot to do with why the ship was destroyed here so they could build something more theatrical for the next movie (1701-E).   Having said that there are some nice shots of the ship which wouldn’t be quite the same on the old show.  There’s a shot of stellar cartography which looks awesome (and is lit properly), and a few wide shots on the bridge which looked quite nice, but I do think it was TOO dark in general.

Around 40 mins in we finally get to the meat of the plot.  It’s discovered what Dr Soren (Malcolm McDowell) was doing on the station that was attacked.  During this, Data’s emotion chip overloads, and he goes offline.  It’s at this time that Geordi is captured by Dr Soren who is now free, and we find out is in league with Lursa & B’Etor, the Klingon sisters from the House of Duras from the series.   Soren sets off an implosion in a star, which threatens the observatory as LaForge and Data hadn’t returned.  In researching this we see the new set – stellar cartography, which looks amazing – definitely movie budget and new sets for sure.

There’s also a cool sub plot with Guinan which follows up with her earlier appearance on the Enterprise-B.  She appears in multiple time periods in this movie.  It’s also revealed that Dr Soren is of the same race that she is – the first (and last) time we ever see another of Guinan’s race.  I always wished we found out more about her – and why Q called her an “imp” in an earlier episode.  Star Trek Picard’s second season had the chance to dive into all that as it had both Q & Guinan in the episodes, but nothing was ever made of it.   Kind of the same here.  We always knew she could transcend times and know things from other timelines (hello Yesterday’s Enterprise), but it’s never dived into.  Here you just accept the mystery of Guinan as to why there’s all kinds of weird shit going on.  The exposition scene with Picard and her talking about Soren sets up the Nexus, why Soren is doing what he’s doing.  It’s a needed scene to drive the plot for sure, and it was nice to see Whoopi back here, and we get to see what I believe is her quarters, as she’s not wearing her hat – something else we pretty much never saw.

It’s around here where we see that LaForge is captured and experimented on by Dr. Soren.  There was actually way more than we saw – the aforementioned deleted scenes have some extra bits here which I thought should have been included.  But still, it’s through the capture of LaForge that we get some comedy with the Duras sisters.  They’re using Geordi’s visor to spy on his life on the ship.  They were looking for a frequency to the Enterprise’s shields because it then brings us to…

The destruction of the Enterprise.  It’s the seventh movie, and the second time the Enterprise is destroyed.  I’ve already stated the real life reason.  But the actual execution of that is handled REALLY well.  It gets started when Lursa & B’etor manage to find the frequency for the Enterprise’s shields through watching what Geordi is doing.  When they do, they’re able to fire on the Enterprise at will, creating a coolant leak which leads to a warp core breach.   This has them separate the ship to save everyone.  When the star drive section explodes, it creates a shock wave which causes the saucer section to crash land on Viridian 3.

This is important because that’s where Soren is.  Soren’s goal is to get back in the Nexus, and he does that with the ribbon which he calculates will destroy the planet with him on it.   But we’ll get back to that.  The scene when Picard was on the planet and trying to talk Soren out of it was actually the slowest part of the movie, as we know that Soren won’t change his mind.  I always felt those scenes with the two of them on the planet talking were really dry, and I always wanted to get back to something else, especially as this was happening in the middle of the space battle.  That battle resulted in the Duras sisters being killed once and for all when their ship exploded.  Data’s reaction to that was funny..  Anyway, the something else that was more interesting was the Enterprise crashing.

The ship crashing is handled VERY well.  VERY well, – in fact 31 years later the sounds, the music, the acting, and the editing of the scene still holds up well – it also included a saucer separation for I believe only the third time in TNG’s era (I think it may havre just reused footage from the TNG pilot for the actual separation).  The practical visual effects of the saucer section landing on the planet are handled extremely well.   It’s easily my favorite scene in the movie – from the point that the Klingons get the code to the shields to when the ship comest to a rest in the planet, it’s some compelling action, I really REALLY like how well that’s handled. Both in 1994 and now in 2025.

But getting back to the planet…  Soren’s trick works, the planet is destroyed, the saucer section of the Enterprise is destroyed with everyone on it, and both Soren & Picard end up in this Nexus.  Where Picard finds.. yeah – Guinan.  Told you she was kind of all over the place. Picard also has a fantasy about the family life he never had, which results in a brief scene of him with his children at wife waiting for Christmas dinner.  It’s in here that Picard talks to “Guinan” about where he is, how to get back, and set things right again.  But before THAT happens, we get the grand meetup.   Picard finds out Jim Kirk wasn’t actually killed, but sucked up by the Nexus and has been in here all this time.   There’s some fun interactions between Picard & Kirk, including a line Kirk uses on Picard that reminds me a bit of the line Scotty used on Geordi about “driving starships while your grandfather was in diapers”.  They worked well together I thought, I wish we got to see them together sooner than an hour and 29 mins into the movie.  Their scenes in the Nexus were great, but it’s mostly got an odd fantasy feel as they realize what’s going on.

After more talking, which included a trip to Kirks’ farm so we can see some of Shatner’s real life affinity for horses, Picard convinces Kirk to come back with him to Veridian 3 to stop Soren and save everyone.  They didn’t go far enough back to save the Enterprise, but keep the ribbon from laying waste to the planet.   The actual fight between the three of them I thought was kind of hard to follow – it struck me in some ways as being changed with editing.  As is well known the original ending of this movie had Soren shoot Kirk in the back and kill him.  That ending didn’t play well with test audiences so they did some reshoots and edited it together – I think the fight between the three of them suffers a bit because of the edits.

.. and then there’s the death of Jim Kirk.  As I said earlier, I think the ending we got at the start of the film would have worked well for the character.  Going out a hero.  In the filmed ending in Generations, Kirk does indeed die saving people, but then falls off the side of a mountain and dies after being stuck on a ladder (hello reshoots).  Picard watches him die, and I do think in one small way the filmed version works because a few movies back Kirk said “I knew I wasn’t going to die because I wasn’t alone”.  Here he was – all of his friends were gone, was just him, so off he went.  Much was said about how it was an unsatisfying ending, people didn’t care for it – even Shatner himself revived the character after here in a novel.   I’ll say it again – if they left Kirk dead at the start of the film it would have worked. Well.  The Kirk that dies on the side of the mountain doesn’t feel like the Kirk we watched in 80 odd episodes of the original series.  The one at the start of the film did however – that’s the difference for me.  Something that actually never occurred to me in all these years until I sat down to write this.  The Kirk at the end of this film feels different than the one at the start and that’s why the ending feels off, IMO.

After Kirk allows Picard to stop the launcher from going off, it takes out Soren in a nice explosion, but Kirk paid for that with his life.  Despite what I said above, I liked Shatner’s performance of Kirk’s actual death.  I was glad that he didn’t die on his own and Picard was there, but none of Kirk’s old crew was, she he was “alone”.  That’s pretty much where the main part of the movie ends.

Kirk gets left behind on Veridian 3, buried by Picard in a stone grave.  We see Picard standing by the grave site.  I remember thinking at the time, there’s no way Starfleet (or even Kirk) would have wanted that to be his final resting place.   After this, Picard finds the crashed saucer section of the ship, and there’s a quip with Riker about having blown up his ship.  The other really good use of Data’s emotion chip happens when his cat Spot is found in the ship wreckage.  It was for me a more satisfying ending than I remember.  Not just that it’s Data’s cat, but that there was something positive put in at the end there after a whole lot of negative in the plot overall up to that point.   We get a brief epilogue showing people being rescued from the saucer section and Picard & Riker beaming off the bridge themselves to close out the movie.

My Summary

• Biggest Problem: For a film billed with Kirk all over it, he’s only in about 20 mins.
• Biggest Strength: Kirk & Picard together was good, just wish there was more of it.
• Overall Rating: B

I still think they should have left Kirk dead in the start of the film, but not having watched the whole thing through in awhile, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed parts of this.  When I reach for a Star Trek film, it’s usually not this one.  But I did really like it.  It’s better than I remembered and that alone was a joy.  I know I’m repeating myself here, but I really did enjoy this far more than I remembered in the past.  The parts I really liked were just as good, and the parts I didn’t weren’t as bad as I remembered.

The next one in the series though is really great from front to end – I predict a higher rating than “B” for that one.  :)

Legacy Stuff

In 2023, the group OTOY produced a 2 min CGI creation which showed Spock visiting Veridian 3 and the grave site of Jim Kirk.  It’s quite a cool thing, and while not canon is super fun to see.  It’s called “Regeneration”, and I’ve embedded that here.

Spoiler Stuff

A note: I have some stuff at the bottom underneath the movie poster which is of a spoiler nature if you have not seen Star Trek Picard (and especially Season 3), so I’m giving you fair warning to skip it if you don’t want see that stuff, you can stop here.

Original Trailer

Spoiler Stuff

This is the stuff I was going to bring up which would require you having seen the third season of Star Trek Picard.  It is established that at some point Starfleet went to Veridian 3 and retrieved Kirk’s body, and it’s being held at the Daystrom Institute, so Veridian 3 wasn’t his final resting place.  What isn’t said if they left the grave site there and just took his body – the easter egg in Picard Season 3 didn’t go that deep into it.  There’s an article about the ramifications of this online here at Screen Rant.

That’s not the only thing.  In the penultimate episode of Season 3, it is shown that Geordi has rebuilt the NCC-1701D.   It’s said in dialogue that he retrieved the saucer section from Veridian 3, and the warp nacelles and the rest of the ship was technically from another Galaxy Class ship, the USS Syracuse (which we’d never seen before).  It was a really badass moment for fans of TNG, but for me I really loved they bothered to pic up the established canon and explain WHY the ship was back after blowing up and crashing in this movie.  It worked for me completely.  But I’ll have more to say about that when I get to Picard Season 3.