My 90's and 2000's Experience: Star Trek Generations

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Sorry for my absence last week, but I decided to take the week off as there wasn't really anything that I really wanted to talk about. This week however is a different story. Today is the 30th of the theatrical release of Star Trek Generations, the first movie to feature the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So let's get into it.

Released on November 18th, 1994, my first encounter with the movie was when my dad and I went to see the 1994 live action version of The Jungle Book and I saw that the theatre we were at was playing the movie, so I asked my dad if we could go see that instead, not understanding that the tickets we were given were specifically for The Jungle Book, and not just a gift card for the theatre we were at. He said no and explained to me why. This was in January, 1995. I also had the movie's poster up on the wall at home, which was cool.

For Christmas in 1994, or maybe in 1995, my brother, my sister, and I each got an action figure from the movie, I got Picard, my sister got Guinan, and my brother got Worf. Because I hadn't seen the movie yet, I didn't know that the uniforms that the Picard and Worf figures had on were designs that had been scrapped in favour of the uniforms originally introduced in the first episode of DS9. I still thought they were cool though as they kinda reminded me of the uniforms worn by the TOS characters from The Wrath of Khan to The Undiscovered Country. Except for the base that came with her for her to stand on, the Guinan figure came with the exact same accessories the original figure from the TNG line came with, except here, they were orange instead of blue. The base was the combadge design made for the movie, but debuted in the season 3 premiere of DS9, rather than the original combadge design from TNG.

I eventually saw the movie on VHS when it came out in the summer of 1995. However, this release wasn't the retail release. It was the rental release. Back in the 80's studios often put their home video releases out to the rental market first, before releasing them to the public. By the summer of 1995 however, that was a practice that nobody used anymore, with the exception of Paramount for their home video releases of Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, and Star Trek: Insurrection for whatever reason. 

My parents rented it for us. While it's not the most popular Star Trek movie, it's still one of my favourites. I think because it has Kirk and Picard teaming up to take on a threat that Picard and his crew couldn't handle on their own, which was something the movie was heavily marketed on. Of course I was shocked by the destruction of the Enterprise-D, though nobody else was apparently because Paramount included it in the movie's trailer, like they'd done with the destruction of the Enterprise in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock a decade earlier, and would do again 22 years later with the trailer for Star Trek: Beyond.

I think I also like this movie because even though they used the TNG sets, they modified them to look more cinematic. The bridge especially looks really good. Though watching it explode was heartbreaking as this was how the production crew destroyed the TNG sets since the show was over, and they needed to re-dress certain sets like the transporter room, corridors, holodecks, shuttlebays, cargo bays, turbolifts, and possibly sickbay for Star Trek: Voyager, which was set to debut in January, 1995.

I also like Data's journey in the movie, from getting his emotion chip installed, to learning how to control his emotions rather than the emotions controlling him. I kinda felt that Scotty and Chekov were superfluous in the movie. But that's because they were only there because their dialogue was so generic that Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley refused to come back since the dialogue wasn't specific to Spock or McCoy. Which is unfortunate. Especially because Spock could've had a much larger role in the movie as he still would've been able to assist Picard and the crew in locating Kirk. So, here's the scenario for this that I came up with.

On the Enterprise-B in 2293, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are on the ship with Captain Harriman and Ensign Demora Sulu. Kirk dies as he does in the movie, but Spock does not believe he is dead or anything like that. And neither does Guinan, who was also there during that era. Then, on the Enterprise-D in 2371, Picard and his crew are having difficulty in stopping Soran, and knowing that Spock believes Kirk is still alive, Picard recruits him to help locate Kirk before Veridian III is destroyed alongside the Enterprise, just as the ship is in the movie. 

My dad finally got Generations on VHS after the retail version came out in early 1996, and of all the Star Trek movies, I think this one, along with Star Trek III, and Star Trek V, is the one I watched the most, even by the time I got Nemesis on VHS in 2003, it was still the Star Trek movie featuring the TNG cast that I watched the most.

 

Sometime in the mid to late 2000s I got Generations on DVD. Specifically the 2004 two-disc special edition DVD release. Then in 2019 I ended up downgrading to the 1998 single-disc DVD release, along with First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis. I decided I didn't need both versions, and I didn't need all of the bonus features on the special edition DVDs, so I got rid of the four special edition DVDs for the TNG movies, and replaced them with the four single disc releases.

I vaguely remember my dad having the comic book adaptation of Generations published by DC Comics, along with the comic book adaptation of the TNG series finale, "All Good Things...", which was also published by DC, but I don't know what happened to either of them. I did get a copy of the comic for my own collection a few years ago, and I really enjoy it. 

I never owned it, but when I was in the sixth grade I borrowed the junior novelization of Generations from my fifth grade teacher's classroom library in January or February 1999, when I was stuck inside during the shorter recesses or the really cold recesses that we had. I don't remember much about the book itself, but I do remember that it had those eight, glossy, pages of colour still images from the movie, including one of Riker, Data, Troi, and Worf on the bridge either just after the Klingon Bird-of-Prey was destroyed, or as the saucer is crashing onto Veridian III.

Overall, Star Trek Generations is my favourite of the movies featuring the TNG cast. I still watch it pretty regularly. I own it both on VHS and DVD, and I love it. I can't believe it's been thirty years since the movie first came out. It's insane to me how that happened. The funny thing is is that I decided to do this post today because I wanted to talk about the movie. I had no idea it was the movie's 30th anniversary today until I looked at the release date on Wikipedia.

That's it for me for today. I'll be back soon with more posts. I'm not quite sure what I'll be talking about next, but in two weeks the series finale of Superman & Lois is airing so I'll definitely be talking about the end of the show after the finale airs. So join me for that in two weeks. In the meantime I have other posts I want to do before the Christmas season officially kicks off in December. So until then have a great rest of the evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

My 90's and 2000's Experience: The View-Master Stereoscope

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. Today I'm going to be talking about something I didn't think I'd be able to talk about after experiencing it in the modern day as an adult. I'm talking about the View-Master Stereoscope toys I had as a kid, as well as the reels that were made for them. If you grew up in the 80's and 90's you'll remember these little devices. So let's get into it.

This is probably the version of the View-Master you'd remember if you grew up in the 80's and 90's. It's also the one you see in shows like Stranger Things or The Goldbergs whenever the View-Master is needed in an episode. I also had this version when I was a kid, but it was actually the second one that we had. I do remember seeing one of these at the hospital or at school when I was in kindergarten or grade one. 

This is actually the first one I owned. I honestly don't remember when I got it exactly or who got it for me, I just remember playing with it alot when I was a kid. In case you don't know what a View-Master is, it's this device that you place these flimsy white plastic reels which show images from a movie or TV show or just random pictures and you press a button or slider on the right hand corner (if you're looking into the view finder) to change images, much like you would on a Stereoscope from the 50's and 60's to look at old pictures on. Each press of the button turns the reels around to change the 3-D image you're seeing. I had several reels to go with my View-Masters. Let's take a look.

First up is a random preview reel (Canadian apparently) that shows single images from three cartoons, a live action show, and random shots of Calgary, Alberta, the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario, and the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Quebec. The cartoons are just a random shot of Spider-Man that looks like a cartoon but is probably from a View-Master reel set from 1977 or 1978, an image from the 1973 View-Master reel set, Superman Meets Computer Crook, and a shot of Mickey Mouse facing the bear from the 1939 cartoon, The Pointer. The live action show is from the Electra Woman and Dyna Girl segment from The Krofft Supershow, which first aired in 1976.

The next set I had was called Hollywood Mickey. This was actually the only set that I had that was complete. I think this was just some stills that were never part of a cartoon or TV show, because I can't find anything online to suggest that the reels are actually from a previously released cartoon and for the time it was too modern, if you wanna called early 90's modern that is, for it to be from a Mickey Mouse animated TV show (Mickey Mouse Works wouldn't come out until 1999). So it was most likely stuff made specifically for this View-Master reel set. 

Believe it or not, this next set was my introduction to the live action Ninja Turtles movies. I had reels A and C, but not Reel B for the first movie. While I'd seen the original 1987 cartoon series, which was my first introduction to the Turtles, and read the Archie Comics series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, I didn't see any of the movies until the early 2010s when I got the three live action movies and the 2007 animated movie on DVD in a four-pack. So this was my experience with the first two movies when I was a kid.

Yes, I also had the first two reels for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. The reason that I didn't have all of the reels for these sets, besides Hollywood Mickey is because they were all second hand. Chances are my grandparents found them at a garage sale or something like that.

The last set we had, which I'd forgotten about until last week, is the set for Beauty and the Beast from 1991. We only had Reel B and Reel C, which goes from "Be Our Guest" to the end of the movie. I don't know why I didn't remember that. Probably because we had that movie on VHS and we watched it all the time. 

I don't have an image of it, but I remember we kept both View-Masters and the reels in a red and green The Real Ghostbusters lunch bag with Slimer on the front. The reason I even came up with this topic is because last week my dad was going through some stuff in our basement and found the second View-Master and all the reels we had. We got rid of them, but before we did, I spent an hour going through all of the reels. Which was pretty cool given that I hadn't seen them in about 20 years and I actually thought we'd gotten rid of both View-Masters and the reels back then. I'd had no idea that they'd stayed around for all those years since they were no longer in my personal possession. So it was cool discovering that we still had them stored away down here in the basement.

And that my friends is it for me for today. I've got some movies to watch thanks to my friends at the VHS Club Podcast, so that's what I'll be doing this weekend. I'll be back next week with more posts. Until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you later. Take care.