Star Trek: Generations
For one reason or another, I have been fixated on the finite nature of existence of late. We die. Then we're nothing. It's sad. It sucks. There's nothing we can do about it. And our legacy is ephemeral at best.
But then there's the Nexus.
It doesn't matter whether religion collects on its promissory rewards, because once you're dead, you can't bitch about getting ripped off. But the Nexus guarantees you eternal happiness. This is the corporeal answer to the flighty and flawed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: herein lies nirvana. Pure, infinite, and serene. And yet it is an indulgence. An existential holodeck that replays and recreates your fantasies. 419
By its nature, it is not real. If you accept it, you are willing to embrace a dream, leaving you unfit for reality.
<PERSON> is so mindless in his pursuit of paradise that he can no longer fathom the suffering it brings to bear. But I still get it. The <PERSON> assimilated his wife and children, and the only way he can get back to them is through the Nexus. It would've been fitting if he had an entire cult following and assisting with his journey, but selfishness is the sin that is his undoing. Because even though <PERSON> and <PERSON> are seduced by the simplicity of its matrix, both are imagining a life unencumbered by duty yet unsatisfied by the fallacy of a simulation: it shows them the good life, but they are not being good to life. What is their false joy weighed against the extinction Soran precipits?
So much the better that the Nexus has no sentience of which we are made aware. It just thrives on existential bliss. What if it passed through Earth early in human evolution and begat religion?
I wanted to write this off and believe it to be a subpar initial salvo for the Next Generation. I could go on for days about how this film was pathetically structured around uniting the original and successor series, and I'd still be right. But age and sentiment blasted me between the eyes, leaving me crying before I could even reach the end.
Even the subplots about <PERSON>'s family and <PERSON> grappling with emotion are subtle, elegantly handled, and marry well with the material. Generations is also a very fitting follow-up to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, a film that deals with aging, prejudice, and ultimately the legacies we leave behind.
Bravo, Star Trek. Bravo. 80