The Roddenberry Archive is an interactive Star Trek experience that has been in development by Roddenberry Entertainment with their technology partner OTOY since 2018. Last year it was officially launched on Apple Vision Pro and on the web (at roddenberry.x.io), giving fans the ability to tour and interact with several Star Trek starships and more from across the franchise. And they have something special planned for next week, to mark the 30th anniversary of the film Star Trek: Generations.
Return to Veridian III
Star Trek Generations was released on November 18, 1994 and this teaser video gives us a glimpse of something being released on Monday, November 18, 2024. Generations culminated on the alien world Veridian III, including the saucer of the USS Enterprise-D crashing into the surface, and Captain James T. Kirk dying, helping Captain Picard and crew defeat the villain Soren. The teaser for “Unification” hints it will pick up on elements of these stories where the movie left off. Check it out…
It looks like whatever is being released next week might also tie into storylines from the third season of Star Trek: Picard. It appears Picard production designer Dave Blass has been working with OTOY. Blass shared the teaser video this morning with the message “You think you are ready… you aren’t.”
The video notes how the Roddenberry Archive is available for the Vision Pro, but OTOY’s Jules Urbach clarified on Twitter/X that the Generations experience coming next week will be “launching in tandem on the web portal in 2D.” [roddenberry.x.io]
Read more articles about The Roddenberry Archive at TrekMovie.com
They are good things about this movie but the Gigantic plot hole of not chosing to go back in time to stop Soran while he was on the ENT D is just too massive to fogive .
Yeah, I’ve always found it amusing that Picard could have exited the Nexus at any point, but he chose to do so when he was wedged inside a rock wall. Literally any other moment would have been smarter.
I always attributed that to him being compromised by the Borg as confirmed by First Contact and Picard Season 3. That movie is a lot more scary when you think the Borg were influencing to prevent a JTK return and eliminate the Federation flagship using just an outdated BOP.
I think we know very little about the Nexus (essentially a Deus Ex Machina) to know what he could have chosen. Imprecision with time travel by Deus Ex Machina is something that is to be expected (see: The City on the Edge of Forever). The writers could have used a few lines to “explain” that, but much of the magic of the movie would be lost by filling this with technobabble. The major flaw in Generations was the manner of Kirk’s death. Apart from that (and that’s a big thing), it is a great movie. Underrated, in my opinion. Very thoughtful and philosophical, without losing its nature as a good action-adventure flick.
More like a Deus Nexus Machina amirigh?!?!?
You’re right about the major flaw of Generations being Kirk’s death, but, I’m sorry, I can’t and never will regard GEN as a great movie. It could have been, but it just isn’t. IIRC, it’s got a rotten rating on rottentomatoes.com because the critics could see how weak the story was too.
Nah it was awesome.
To each his own!
But, tell me, why do you think Generations was awesome?
What’s worse, they could have papered over that plot hole with a single line of dialogue, some contrived reason why the Nexus could only send him back so far. It’s sci-fi, after all — come up with a reason!
Yep. The movie ends if Picard just does the sane thing and calls Worf before he goes to Ten-Forward. Walks up to Soran and, “I know exactly what you’re planning to do, Doctor. Mr. Worf, remove Doctor Soran to the brig until further notice.”
Worf might have wondered why, but it would have just gotten done.
I’ll go further. Go back in time and have Soran take Kirk’s place repairing the E-B. He’s capable of doing it, and that solves the problem.
Why would he though? He’d already be there and doesn’t care about anything else. What would motivate him to risk his life’s goal by having a go at repairing the D and maybe it not unfolding exactly as it did for Kirk?
Maybe he reacts poorly to one of the ship jostles and falls to his death.
IIRC, in an interview, Ron Moore even admitted that the Nexus has plot holes you could drive a truck into.
Both Moore and Braga have admitted that Nimoy was right about the script for Generations. It was extremely flawed.
Of course, Moore and Braga both had stupid requirements foisted on them by Berman and/or Paramount as far as how long and when Kirk and the other TOS characters could be in the movie.
It’s such a shame. Putting Picard and Kirk together should have been so much better than what we were given. I don’t know about others, but I thought those two characters had some real chemistry there. Also, Shatner and Stewart had a fun time working together and became friends. They were both regretful about how Kirk ended up. Probably because Stewart was bummed that too that it should have been better and he wanted to do more with Picard and Kirk too.
The DVD commentary with Moore and Braga is a good listen. They don’t pull any punches about the flaws in their script.
Can you give me a rundown of what they said, Wiley? I’ve got the bluray but I generally do not listen to an entire film with commentary.
i usually use text commentary so it no distraction while watching and you still get the gist of what they are saying about the film
Well speaking of…. https://youtu.be/38LevpSHj2Q?si=PoldLy1DcijPrgGl
I quite like Generations, the main thing that annoys me is the reused explosion from ST6. It looks totally wrong and out of place, and really cheapens the movie.
The inconsistent uniforms, pretty lame defeat of the Enterprise D, and the Nexus plot hole annoy me a bit. Oddly enough, I never minded Kirk’s death though. He went out fighting. I respect that.
Wait, was that Yeoman Colt? From The Cage? I’m feeling this
A better question is this: Has Yeoman Colt become some sort of “Time Lord” or something? Maybe something like Gary Seven and Wesley Crusher?
Good chance. She’s been in all of the 765874 shorts, which are named after her serial number. Check out the others on OTOY’s YouTube channel if you haven’t already.
765874
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng8qTIythnA
765874 – Memory Wall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzeznWVQu5o
765874 – Regeneration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KXU2Ob8gYY
Why do you think it’s Yeoman Colt? Besides the fact the character has zero to do with any of those events, it’s also much farther in the future.
It is Yeoman Colt. That was established by the release of the earlier shorts in the series.
OK, I honestly don’t remember that. But if so then I guess it’s a time travel/alternate universe type of thing.
Yes, that is Yeoman Colt. She has been featured in all the Roddenberry Archive/OTOY videos in her original uniform, the TMP uniform and now the JJverse uniform.
Well, this is interesting. I thought she looked familiar.
So is this like a CGI star trek story or something told by the Roddenberry Archives. I guess they must have got Paramount’s approval, right?
Is there an actual story here or just suggestive trailers?
Everything so far has just been moody atmospheric trailers and I don’t expect they will be creating anything with a substantial narrative.
The Roddenberry archive is more about having detailed digital models of things like the interiors and exteriors of starships along with other props and costumes etc I believe.
Their short term goals seem to be towards users exploring these models in VR, but their long term goals seem to suggest they plan for it to be a reference library for future Star Trek productions.
I imagine whatever they have planned for the anniversary of Generations is likely an extended version of the videos they’ve already released, designed more as an advertisement to pique fan’s interest in the archive itself rather than an actual fully fledged Star Trek story.
Well if that’s all it is, that’s a real shame. It’s coming across as an extended tease now for, well, nothing.
I do love the representations they’ve created though. I guess there’s no plan to sell them on a cd rom or digitally like they did with the old Bridge Simulators (that no longer work with the current versions of Windows which totally sucks).
Well if this does turn out to be something with more narrative qualities I will be pleasantly surprised. I would eat up a Star Trek production that had this atmosphere.
They are certainly building a story of sorts referencing V’Ger, Kirk’s Body being analysed at the Daystrom Institute, the destruction of the Enterprise etc. it could be just random iconic moments thrown together but if they manage to weave a story into that I’m here for it.
Given Dave Blass’ tease at the end of the article “you thing you are ready… you aren’t”, it’s enough to hold out a glimmer of hope!
Yeah, a glimmer, I guess.
But so far, it’s like those fan teasers. No real story and nothing canonical. It’s all looking like a big tease. If they don’t actually follow through, then, well, I think that sucks.
They should release something like this if they could get a story with it for the 60th Anniversary. There does not seem to be anything planned for the anniversary yet. The movies if ever made may not make it in time. I do not believe any of the current series are planning anything special. This would be a nice nod to TOS especially if you could get the remaining cast involved in some way.
The previous episodes have all had a story, but they definitely don’t spoon-feed it, and they leave a lot up for interpretation. Being familiar with the Marvel Star Trek: Early Voyages comics from the nineties is a big help.
Check out this great analysis of the previous videos:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1654862321485791233.html
the inclusion of the FUGLY JJ Verse uniform doesn’t exactly thrill me ….
What I love about it, is that someone (Ensign Colt?) is about to open his photo case of the original Ent crew from ST V. The one cool thing the JJ movies did, was bring Spock’s arc full circle, and I love that. From the moment we met him he was trying to be fully Vulcan, and by TMP was starting to think about what it means to be human. By ST VI, he’s coming to terms with it, and by ST 09, he has fully embraced his dual heritage. I love that.
It’s Colt. There are clips from previous videos featured in this. It looks like Colt in the prime Universe mind melded with Spock and I am suspecting Kelvin Universe Colt has an interaction with older Spock. She is picking up the photo case younger Spock was given in Star Trek beyond. Very interesting.
Me too heyberto! You are so right!
Well, according to Wesley Crusher from PRODIGY, there are a several branch timelines from the Prime Timelne that are interconnected to each other, including the Kelvin Timeline. You know, like a knot.
Eh, agree to disagree. There are a visual choices for those films that I don’t love, and the Enterprise in particular came out looking ugly, but I like the crew uniforms.
Yeah I always liked the uniforms myself. Don’t miss that ship though, I always hated it.
The ship, particularly in 09, was fugly beyond belief. To quote the ghost of Hamlet’s father
“Horrible! O horrible! Most horrible!”
I really liked the uniforms and the ship!
Seriously!
This is cool as hell..
Wait a minute, didn’t they release this like two years ago? At the very least I definitely remember watching an extended preview linked in the trek bbs art forum back in 2022 when the Roddenberry archive was first announced…
ETA: nope, now I remember exactly when I saw it (spoiler alert for Picard S3): it was March 2023, right before the finale of Star Trek: Picard, and it tied into the Enterprise-D saucer making its grand (re)appearance in the final two episodes.
This isn’t related to this specific story, and I’m not trying to be a jerk to the site owners, but is TrekMovie just covered in ads these days? To be clear, I’m not asking this rhetorically; I’m trying to figure out if something’s wrong on my end.
I’m seeing loads of ads on TrekMovie lately. I’ve had days where I couldn’t even read the story because it got covered by a “Keep on reading” full of recommended stories, and even reloading the page didn’t get rid of it. (In fact, this popped up just as I was about to submit this comment.) I even saw one inserted into a comment on this story. Is this the actual state of the site for all users, or should I be checking for adware on my system? I’ve already done at least one scan and haven’t found anything. Though I’m not noticing it with other sites, and the “Keep on reading” largely links to other TrekMovie stories.
Yep, same nuisance for me too
Okay, thanks for confirming. It’s bad enough that I ran scans using four different malware-detection systems, but nothing showed up.
I know sites need to monetize themselves to keep alive, and I don’t fault them for that, but it’s getting so bad the site has become hard to use.
various adBlockers work wonders
As soon as a site goes to Admiral blocker detection and prevention – they lose my traffic. Which – since I’m not getting ads doesn’t really affect them I guess but still.
Unfortunately, the bills have to be paid. Hence…well…
Wow this looks like its going to be really cool. So can’t wait. And I still remember sitting in that theater when the Enterprise D was careening to an end on Veridian III and a little saddened that ship was gone forever….only to see it rise again 29 years later in Picard. I still can’t express what it meant to me seeing it revived after all that time.
Modern Trek has its ups and downs for sure, but it still does some really cool things at times. That was one of them.
Kirk had a little girl!
Looking forward to this. Hard to believe it’s been 30 years since the end of TNG and the beginning of their movie run with Generations.
Kirks body at 0:28 from Picard S3?
i was hoping this would be a video of Geordi restoring the D between Generations and Picard
The Return
That’s Spock looking down at Kirk’s grave on Veridian 3 at the beginning there…
Yeah, they featured a bit more of Spock at Kirk’s grave in the “Regeneration” video they posted a year ago.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_KXU2Ob8gYY
Although the teaser doesn’t make much sense, the visuals are brilliant! I wish I could justify an Apple Vision Pro to experience this however.