Star Trek: Generations Writer Reveals Original Plan For Captain Kirk’s Death

The death of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) in Star Trek: Generations remains one of the most notorious misfires in the entire Star Trek franchise, but that wasn’t always going to be the case.

At the Star Trek Las Vegas convention, Brannon Braga, one of the most significant creative voices in Star Trek history, reflected on his and Ronald D. Moore’s work on the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “All Good Things,” and the first movie to feature the show’s cast, Star Trek: Generations.

“It’s kind of a blur, it just worked,” Braga said (via Trek Movie). “We wrote ‘All Good Things,’ it was a pure piece of writing, it was beautifully made. Whereas Generations was a little more laborious and serving a lot of things and I think that shows.”

It shows nowhere more than in the unsatisfying death of Kirk, who was crushed under a bridge saving the inhabitants of the planet Veridian IV. Braga revealed that wasn’t his and Moore’s original plan for Kirk’s death, and the scenario they originally imagined sounds much more worthy of the character.

“I think Ron and I envisioned the two Enterprises kinda locked in battle and somehow they would meet, but they would get together and fight the bad guy, and Kirk would go down on his bridge, instead of a bridge falling on him,” Braga explained.

Kirk dying on his bridge, perhaps even going down with his bridge, sounds like a much more powerful ending for Kirk than what ultimately made it into Star Trek: Generations. Unfortunately, fans will have to live with the death Kirk got on screen.

In Star Trek: Generations, in the 23rd century, the Starship Enterprise is dispatched to the scene of a giant energy field about to engulf two ships. Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) averts calamity, but is exposed to the field and presumed dead. Years later, the Enterprise’s new commander, Capt. Picard (Patrick Stewart), learns that one of the disaster’s survivors, Dr. Soran (Malcolm McDowell), plans to enter the field by destroying a neighboring star. Picard now must collaborate with an unlikely ally in order to stop him.