STAR TREK: GENERATIONS
(Dir. David Carson) VHS 8/20
As you may have realized from the snappy title, this is a movie about the interaction between the future and the past, the past and the future, the present and the past, and the past of the future: a mix of the old and the new. You see, this is not "The Next Generation." No. Remove the modifier and put it in plural- Generations. We get Kirk and Picard (and co). What we have here is a bit off a mash-up, something that reeks of executive brainstorming ("we'll get fans of BOTH"). This or may not be the case.
Regardless of that, the crew has run with the idea, and they pull off something with the usual tNG mythological flair. The generations are brought together (Picard does meet Kirk), and what enables this connection is (apropriately enough) "the Nexus." It's a place of pure joy, and those who enter lose all concern for the outside world- a kind of space-age island of the lotus eaters... The urge to enter the Nexus could be seen as a kind of nostalgia- a longing to stop time and drift into some distant, irretrievable past. Gentle, kind, glorious memories, a time before some percieved loss of innocence. Kirk is an embodiment of this past, these memories of simpler times. And yet we see him cruelly dragged into the next generation, into the world of modern filmmaking and computer effects. The transition has not been kind, as Kirk appears weathered, grey, and sagging, tucked into his velours jumpsuit (could this be, Logan wonders, old age?). The memory of Kirk's appearance from the classic show, fuzzy and distorted by time, has been taken into this glossy, big-screen setting and sharpened to a degree at which every inconsistency stands out. People age, but what we see is not an aged person. An old memory has been dredged up without compassion and forced into this world, this future, where it does not belong.
This is not the future of the past.
As you may have realized from the snappy title, this is a movie about the interaction between the future and the past, the past and the future, the present and the past, and the past of the future: a mix of the old and the new. You see, this is not "The Next Generation." No. Remove the modifier and put it in plural- Generations. We get Kirk and Picard (and co). What we have here is a bit off a mash-up, something that reeks of executive brainstorming ("we'll get fans of BOTH"). This or may not be the case.
Regardless of that, the crew has run with the idea, and they pull off something with the usual tNG mythological flair. The generations are brought together (Picard does meet Kirk), and what enables this connection is (apropriately enough) "the Nexus." It's a place of pure joy, and those who enter lose all concern for the outside world- a kind of space-age island of the lotus eaters... The urge to enter the Nexus could be seen as a kind of nostalgia- a longing to stop time and drift into some distant, irretrievable past. Gentle, kind, glorious memories, a time before some percieved loss of innocence. Kirk is an embodiment of this past, these memories of simpler times. And yet we see him cruelly dragged into the next generation, into the world of modern filmmaking and computer effects. The transition has not been kind, as Kirk appears weathered, grey, and sagging, tucked into his velours jumpsuit (could this be, Logan wonders, old age?). The memory of Kirk's appearance from the classic show, fuzzy and distorted by time, has been taken into this glossy, big-screen setting and sharpened to a degree at which every inconsistency stands out. People age, but what we see is not an aged person. An old memory has been dredged up without compassion and forced into this world, this future, where it does not belong.
This is not the future of the past.
Libellés : movies

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