Originally posted by: Number20
My suggestions would be the following on making the movies into Star Trek: Phase 2 Episodes.
1. I don't know if it is possible, but could one eliminate the entire cadets on a training voyage angle from Star Trek 2? I would think that by cutting out some key lines, it would be possible. Plus, it doesn't really add anything to the story.
2. Forget about ST: Generations. That movie was about the next generation, and not really about the original cast except for Kirk. I would think that any Generations edit would have to make it an episode of ST:TNG, not Star Trek Phase 2. At least don't let Kirk die for such a poor reason and in such a lousy way, if you are going to do it. I didn't think either death in Generations was fitting for him.
Good luck on this project!

Thanks!

1. Yeppers, I think editing out the training cruise is possible, to a degree. But it doesn't seem realistic to try to digitally reduce Spock in rank. And the ship would still be full of cadets. I believe that it's normal to have a classfull of cadets on a ship (20 or 30, not 400 of them). Someday I might be able to reduce the percentage of them.

2. Good point - there are only 3 of the original cast in Generations, and 2 of them were retired.
That doesn't fit very comfortably with the end of a Phase II series. OTOH, the elders could've retired in the previous episode. It'd been a better fit (and a better movie) if Nimoy hadn't turned down Generations. His lines wouldn't have been very substantial, but it would've been a whole lot better than giving them to Koenig and Doohan.

Well, maybe Generations wont work within the Phase II framework... I figured that as long as I was rewriting history, I might as well stand history on its head, and give Phase II fifteen seasons.

I was looking forward to cutting it down to a Kirk-centric episode.

But there's 35.5 minutes of Kirk's story, so that's out. 48 minutes wouldn't leave enough to explain Soran & stuff. 96 minutes would leave it TNG-heavy. I'm still going to try to recut Gen, with Kirk alive at the end. If not as part of the PII series, then a TNG crossover with it. A crossover would sort of keep it on topic, right? :-)

I've always felt that the way they animated the energy-arcs suggested that the Nexus had a conciousness which sought out its semi-captives. And that it took Kirk in an act of frustration. OTOH, the bolt may've been attracted to a residual charge around the dish. So, either way, Kirk may have been putting himself into danger without knowing it. If that helps...

McCoy said he was 137, in the pilot of TNG. Dunno if a person might live to 144, in that century, but nobody can say he couldn't...