Star Trek: Generations/Trivia

• Absentee Actor:
  • They couldn't get Leonard Nimoy or DeForest Kelley to return as Spock and Bones for the opening scene, so Kirk is instead accompanied by Scotty and Chekhov. As a result, Chekhov seems to be acting in the capacity of a doctor when they pick up the refugees and Scotty calls Kirk "Jim".
  • In the alternate opening scene, Kirk boasts about his precision skydiving. Scotty 'helpfully' announces that Kirk was off by a few meters. Definitely a Spock line.
• Actor Allusion: Riker says he plans on living forever. Guess what his character Xanatos wants on Gargoyles?
• Actor Shared Background: Kirk is an equestrian, as is Shatner. Those horses were rented from Shatner himself.
• The Cast Showoff: This is the entire reason for the horseback riding scene. William Shatner is an expert at horseback, and having his horse walk sideways to join Stewart is pure showing off.
  • He even taught Patrick Stewart how to ride properly, Stewart having spent very little time on a horse (despite Capt. Picard's love of it).
• Executive Meddling: See They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot in the YMMV section.
• Hey, It's That Guy!:
  • The unlucky Captain John Harriman in the beginning of the movie is none other than Cameron Frye!
  • Tuvok's on the bridge as well.
  • Oh my brothers, there was a time when I wouldn't hurt a fly but then the Borg came and they taught your humble Narrator all about ultraviolence.
  • Vasquez plays a bridge officer and lives to tell the tale.
  • If Harriman is descended from Stuart, that explains a lot...
• The Merch: An extension of Playmates' Next Generation line, this all but cemented Star Trek's status as a long-runner in the toy world. Besides the figurines, there were also two new starships, one of which was a "battle-damaged" Enterprise, and the Engineering Room playset, which hooked on to the Bridge playset, and could be accessed by the sliding doors.
• Real Life Relative: Well, sort of... Kirk's horse in the film is William Shatner's actual horse, Great Belles of Fire.
• Recycled Script:
  • The Duras sisters' attack against the Enterprise-D is essentially the same as Khan's first attack against the Enterprise from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and they're defeated the same way: the Enterprise forces their ship to lower their shields, becoming vulnerable to an attack.
  • Geordi gets kidnapped, tortured, and has his visor manipulated by his abductors, just like in the The Next Generation episode "The Mind's Eye".
• Show Accuracy, Toy Accuracy: An example of the "both being made together" type. The action figures from the movie reflected certain aspects of the pre-production version, but did not accurately reflect the movie as released in theaters. For example, one problem was an action figure based around Captain Kirk in an orbital skydiving suit, which was from a scene which was filmed but cut from the theatrical release. Another, more famous problem with the figures was that all the Next Generation characters appear in new versions of their standard television uniforms: these new uniforms were intended to debut in the film, and were even designed by the costume department, but a last minute decision seen them pulled before filming began, replaced with the jumpsuits from Deep Space Nine (and Voyager). Nobody told the people making the action figures that these new costumes had been pulled, however, so all the action figures are wearing Starfleet uniforms that were never actually seen on screen...
• Throw It In: Kirk's wide-eyed "Oh, my..." just before death was improvised by Shatner. He deliberated for a while on how his character would approach death, and decided that Kirk would find it wondrous.
• Troubled Production: The Paramount execs were determined to have the film released the autumn after The Next Generation ended, resulting in an absurdly rushed schedule that started literally one week after filming on the series wrapped. Poor Ron Moore and Brannon Braga were also given an unusually short deadline to write the script, on top of numerous demands about elements that had to be put in the film. They eagerly take the opportunity to complain about this on the DVD commentary, pointing out things like how they probably could have come up with a less silly-looking way for Picard to get past Soran's force field if they'd had more time, and pointing out a blown line that was left in the final cut with Riker talking about a "big" margin of error. "If you just listen to that line, it's wrong! And nobody caught it!"
• What Could Have Been:
  • The concept of the Enterprise-D being destroyed and the saucer section crashing on a planet was devised in the sixth season of the show as a possible season cliffhanger. It was dismissed as being far too expensive and would require too much time to reestablish a new ship in the final season.
  • The original plans for the film involved the Enterprise-A fighting the Enterprise-D. Problems: a) there was no way for either crew to come out the good guy, and b) this would require budgeting, logistics, and all the other headaches for two full Enterprise crews at once. The plan was scrapped. Plus, a 23rd century Constitution-class starship vs a 24th century Galaxy-class starship would have been an utter Curb Stomp Battle, advantage Picard. Course, the D12 class Bird-of-Prey effortlessly trounced the Enterprise-D...
  • Originally, Spock and McCoy were supposed to accompany Kirk on the Enterprise-B. It's fairly obvious from the dialogue that it was changed little once Nimoy and Kelly refused to reprise their roles for what they felt was a glorified cameo: Scotty calls Kirk "Jim", while he always referred to him as "Captain", and Chekhov conscripts reporters as nurses in a no-nonsense manner.