a long series of studio mandates that they hated. At a 2017 “Star Trek” convention (covered by TrekMovie) Braga also noted that his script underwent multiple changes during its development. Braga seemed to recall a draft of the script wherein Picard’s Enterprise-D would engage in a space battle with Kirk’s Enterprise-A, and Kirk would die on the bridge of his ship.
Paramount
1994 was a very, very busy time to be working on “Star Trek.” The final episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” called “All Good Things…,” aired in May, and it rolled directly into the production of “Generations,” which opened in theaters the following November. In the middle, there were new episodes of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” being produced, and Braga was gearing up for the January 1995 premiere of “Star Trek: Voyager.” Everything was going full blast.
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As such, Brannon Braga felt understandably overworked. He was overseeing “Next Generation” while coming up with treatments for “Generations.” At some point during the development, he and Moore struck upon the idea of the Enterprise-D and the Enterprise-A locked in a heated space battle. They figured their tagline could be “Kirk vs. Picard: One Must Die.” Sadly, neither Braga nor Moore could invent a non-contrived story that would have brought the two Enterprises together.
Braga doesn’t quite remember the details, as everything was moving so fast, but he did say the following:
“It’s kind of a blur. It just worked. We wrote ‘All Good Things…’ [and] 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. […] I think Ron and I envisioned the two Enterprises kinda locked in battle. Somehow they would meet, but [then] they would get together and fight the bad guy, and Kirk would go down on his bridge, instead of a bridge falling on him.”
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An Enterprise vs. Enterprise battle might sound cool on paper, but it would have strained credulity to see two shows, set a century apart, so conveniently overlap. Eventually, Braga and Moore hammered out the details, and wrote the scene where Kirk plummets off a broken catwalk. It was less climactic, perhaps, but it was what we got.