Review of Star Trek: Generations

Introduction

Star Trek - an extremely popular television series followed by The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and nine movies. Generation is the seventh movie of the series and the first to feature the crew of The Next Generation - and also features one of the Voyager crew in a different guise!

I do enjoy Star Trek, but am a fan of The Next Generation and Voyager rather than the original series. The movies have a distinctly cheesy aroma about them, but are always entertaining. The main problem of late is that they tend to be little other than an extended episode of the series.

Video

The video is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. There is plenty of detail and the image is very stable throughout.

On the whole, the CGI shots of the Enterprise flying through space are very nice, but on a couple of scenes you can actually see the rectangle around the ship where it has been composited onto the starfield which is shoddy! All the other effects such as the ribbon flying through space and the fantastic Enterprise crash landing all look great, as do the outdoor locations.

Audio

The sound comes in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is of a high standard throughout the film.

The soundfield is used well, with quite a lot of background sounds when aboard Enterprise, with the dialogue very clear at all times.

There are several noteable scenes including the battle between the Klingon ship and the Enterprise and the resulting crash landing of the Enterprise.

Features

Absolutely nothing, not even a trailer!

This really is not good enough for a full price release of a successful big-budget movie.

Conclusion

I enjoyed Generations when I saw it for the first time in the cinema, and have watched the film a few times at home since then. Each time I see the film, it becomes a little bit more cheesy and I would say that although it was entertaining enough, it is one of the weakest Star Trek films - the two latest are far better although it remains to be seen how well they age.

The video and sound are of a good standard but the woeful lack of any extras seriously questions the value for money of Generations for anybody who is not a Star Trek fanatic.