After the TNG finale All Good Things…, some fans see Star Trek Generations as a letdown.
But what if these stories had been flipped?
And perhaps the most okay-est of the okay Star Trek movies is the 1994 filmStar Trek Generations.
This meant only six months separated that TV finale and theTNGcasts feature film debut.
Yet while looking back at this moment, one could argue that these two storylines should have been swapped.
The script All Good Things we cranked out in three weeks.
In the process of saving the Veridian system, Captain Kirk is killed and theEnterprise-Dis half-destroyed and half-crashed.
In All Good Things…, three versions of theEnterpriseare totally destroyed, one by one.
On paper, clearly, All Good Things… has much bigger stakes whileGenerationsfeels like a smaller episode.
(See:The Final Frontier, Insurrection, The Motion Picture,andBeyondfor other examples.)
In a way, this would have been history repeating itself.
The film is about death.
Its about Picard losing his family in a fire.
Its about Kirk dying,twice.
In short,Generationsfeels like the end of something.
Crusher and Picard think about admitting their feelings to each other.
But in retrospect, Id argue that leaning into worldwide love forTNGwas worth the risk.
We were lucky to get a series finale as good as All Good Things… back then.
But looking at it now, next toGenerations, it feels much bigger and more momentous.
Nobody sold tickets to All Good Things… in 1994, because it aired on the small screen.
