78 years later and the crew of the Enterprise-D are called to a solar research station after it broadcasts a distress signal. On board they find most of the crew dead apart from one El Aurian, a Dr Tolian Soran. Can Captain Jean Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) figure out Soran's real agenda and what secret does the energy ribbon hold?

Generations was billed as the passing of torch movie for the Star Trek film franchise. The original shows crew was getting old and could obviously no longer cut the mustard on the big screen. Whilst, the Next Generation had literally just finished their seven season run and were a hot property. It made sense to get them onto the big screen as quickly as possible.

In hindsight it would have been nice to see the entire original series crew in the film, but many passed up the opportunity citing a poor script and the fact that film 6 (The Undiscovered Country) was as good a send off as they needed. So instead of the whole crew we have Scoty (James Doohan), Chekov (Walter Koenig) and of course Kirk. And, since only Kirk makes it past the prologue the film is more a passing of the captain’s chair than a passing of the torch.

So whilst it's not the ideal send off for the crew (although I have to say that The Undiscovered Country was a really good send off), Generations proves to be a far better Trek movie than I recall giving it credit for initially.

The inherent problem with any Trek movie is the sheer size of the cast. The Next Generation main cast numbers at seven and when you add in the three from the original series you are talking about one hell of a big principal cast. Generations manages more than Insurrection and First Contact to spread the screen time around. All the cast members with the possible exception of Gates McFadden as Dr Crusher have at least one big scene to their name.

These actors had been inhabiting these characters pretty much every day for seven years so questions would have to be asked if the standard of acting was not up to scratch. Obviously the stand out is Patrick Stewart whom is an RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) stalwart and is one of the finest actors around. In this movie he is shown to be on the verge of a break up thanks to some bad family news, Stewart mails these scenes in and again shows why he is so highly regarded.

Brent Spiner as the android Data is also worth a mention as in this movie he installs his emotion chip (which seems to have miraculously grown about ten times in since it was last seen on the TV show!). This means that we are treated to many scenes of the android experiencing emotions for the first time. Spiner had Data down to a fine art on the TV show, so to give the character this extra dimension would have been quite a challenge for Spiner. He carries it off well and it's criminal that we do not see more of this highly talented actor.

The rest of the cast are as good as they were in the TV show, take from that what you will. Many people do not like Jonathan Frakes (Will Riker) as an actor, but I like him and he does fine here. I can even handle the usually repelling Whoopi Goldberg in Star Trek. Of course there is the mystery that is William Shatner. You look at the original series and stuff like TJ Hooker and you think that the guy can't act for toffee. However, by the time Generations came round Shatner had Kirk down to a tee, almost a pastiche of the bad acting that used to plague the role. He exaggerates all the ticks and speech patterns to such a degree that the performance comes alive.

Director David Carson is a veteran of the TV show and it shows. The direction is nothing stunning with the film only really coming alive during the FX sequences. The sets were re-dressed versions of the TV sets and again this comes through, it may have cut costs, but at times the film looks and feels like an extended episode of the TV show rather than a fully fledged movie

That said the FX in the film are really quite impressive. Miniatures are the order of the day with CGI being used only in a few scenes. The Nexus (as the energy ribbon is called) is an impressive bit of CGI considering that the art was in it's infancy in 1994. Most impressive though is the crash of the Enterprise-D on Veridian III. A practical shot with miniatures, it still looks good today and is a fitting send off for a ship that holds so many memories.

Story wise the film is stuffed full of your standard Trek 'tech speak'. Temporal disturbances, gravitational pulls etc, etc. It's a lot of nonsense that basically serves as a backdrop for the main story of the torch passing from Kirk to Picard. As far as this goes it's disappointing to see that the two share very little screen time together. When they are together though it's excellent viewing, they have great chemistry together and you wish the film could have spent more time with just these two. But, as I said the size of the cast means that this was impossible.

The film is also of note because it contains the death of Captain Kirk. Kirk has survived Kilngons, Romulans, Khan, Giant Whales and even an evil version of Himself. So to see him die at the hands of a two bit bad guy like Soran is a little disheartening. Although McDowell does do very well in the role, he just doesn't have the screen presence that Khan or other bad guys have had. That said, the way the film handles Kirks death is very good. His last words (which Shatner improvised) are perfect. "Oh My......".

You also have to take into account the geek factor when you watch a Trek film. These films are not really made for a wide audience, yes the studio has to keep as broad an appeal as possible, but the film is essentially for Trek fans. So when you take this into account the teaming up of Picard and Kirk was the stuff of geek-gasms. This alone rises Generations above other mediocre entries into the cannon.