Nitpicking Star Trek Generations – Molecular Limbo Causes Memory Loss

This is one of those nitpicks where the reality of TV and film production cause those of us with an internal NEED for everything to be consistent to make leaps of logic.

The reality of this nit is that Relics was written, produced and aired in 1992 for Star Trek the Next Generation’s sixth season. At that time there was no canon confirmed final fates for any of the Original Series regulars except McCoy (known to be still alive and 137 years old at the start of The Next Generation) and Spock (who was last known to be on Romulus as of Relics). Scotty casually dropping Captain Kirk’s name and the Enterprise was entirely in character in welcomed by the fans. No problems.

Fast forward 2 years, Star Trek the Next Generation is winding down. Writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga are penning the Next Gen crew’s transition to the Big Screen. The prologue is written to originally include all the TOS crew. George Takei passed because he felt it was a disservice to his character (his part was rewritten as Demora). DeForest Kelley passed because he felt that he had said goodbye in Star Trek VI. His lines were given to Chekov (some of them blatantly McCoy lines). Leonard Nimoy passed because Spock wasn’t essential to the script and there wasn’t time to re-write the script to beef up Spock’s role. His lines were given to Scotty. (I have yet to find any reason for Nichelle Nichols turning the film down).

Ronald D. Moore has acknowledged the continuity nit of including Scotty given his reaction in “Relics” by saying Scotty was included out of fondness for the character. I think it was more Braga thinking “#@$% continuity”.

The reel-ity of the two productions is that Scotty suffered memory loss being trapped in a transporter loop for seventy-five years.

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