The restoration of the Enterprise-D, long thought lost since it was broken up and crash-landed decades prior in Star Trek: Generations, was one of the biggest surprises of Picard’s final season. But now we know that parts of the ship made their way back home to be restored, this touching new short imagines just how.
Created in partnership with the Roddenberry Archive, cloud-rendering graphics company OTOY has released a short epilogue to Generations aptly titled Re-Generation. It’s short and sweet, and well worth the couple minutes it takes to watch.
Using similar technology the company used to “holographically” re-create Star Trek’s original pilot, “The Cage,” the short bookends the two great losses of Generations: the destruction of the Enterprise-D, as its saucer section crash-lands into Veridian III, and the death of Admiral James T. Kirk. It’s a touching pairing, as we see the damaged Enterprise saucer being worked on by Starfleet personnel, while Spock (a digital recreation utilising footage and scans of Leonard Nimoy) mournfully recovers Kirk’s badge.
Knowing now that the Enterprise-D would make it back to Geordi at the Fleet Museum, restored in time to save the galaxy from the Borg one last time, it’s an fascinating glimpse at the stories in between decades of Star Trek history.