Let's Talk About Insurrection:

[Lance]

Yeah, the TOS movies "felt" theatrical because each new instalment built upon the last. There was an escalation of narrative that made every movie important. Like a rich tapestry, the whole is enhanced by the exquisite sum of it's parts. I honestly think this accounts for their success. They expanded the scope of the Star Trek universe in ways that the television original couldn't.

The TNG movies abandoned that. While some broader things definitely carried through, it never once felt like the events carried any real weight, because each movie was it's own self-contained 'adventure', and one always felt the omnipresent finger on the reset button at the end of the movie.

 

[Smellmet]

Yeah, the TOS movies "felt" theatrical because each new instalment built upon the last. There was an escalation of narrative that made every movie important. Like a rich tapestry, the whole is enhanced by the exquisite sum of it's parts. I honestly think this accounts for their success. They expanded the scope of the Star Trek universe in ways that the television original couldn't.

The TNG movies abandoned that. While some broader things definitely carried through, it never once felt like the events carried any real weight, because each movie was it's own self-contained 'adventure', and one always felt the omnipresent finger on the reset button at the end of the movie.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there - like you said the TOS movies expanded the scope in ways the series couldn't, the TNG movies didn't just abandon that - they reversed it - TNG and especially DS9 featured big story arcs that involved a lot of political and military upheaval in the quadrant, the Romulans, Klingons, Borg and Dominion all had major things occur to their empires, big stories that all had major consequences.

Then Insurrection rocks up with a tale of a few pompous villagers that we're supposed to care about when I'd frankly rather phaser the lot of them and we wonder why this put the franchise on the way to trouble?

 

[Lance]

In some ways the TNG movies went down a narrative blind-alley.

In his book about the writing of Insurrection, Michael Piller talks about how, following the success of First Contact, his instinct was to provide a more 'thoughtful' story in contrast to the big action thrills of it's predecessor.

One wonders in hindsight whether this was wise, for it was the massive scale of First Contact's storyline and it's explosive action that may have contributed to its very success in the first place.

(Ironically Insurrection actually had a bigger budget and consequently LOADS more location filming on a grander scale than anything seen in the Star Trek movies to that point, but the script itself was written as this small character led piece that was almost the antithesis of that).

Nobody can deny that at the heart of Insurrection is a very 'Star Trek' concept. But it's certainly very debatable whether that is what a Star Trek movie really needs in order to be a success.....

Piller was a smart guy and a great Star Trek writer, but his decision to look at the successful action movie First Contact, and then try to make a sequel which was in many ways it's conceptual diametric opposite, might have been a contributing factor to the movie's overall failure...

 

[Smellmet]

Let's face it, they just ran out of gas. TOS had just 3 series of what is now quite 'primitive' television to base the movies on, and from the late 70's onwards special effects were really starting to come into their own, that's one of the reasons these movies flourished, they had the ability to expand on the legacy of the original series.

The TNG movies were the opposite - they had seven years of very successful television behind them, no 10 year gap between the series and movies, and all the stories had been effectively told, there was nowhere for them to go, and this combined with the unambitious script of the likes of Insurrection and they were already way behind the competition. By 2002 audiences were being treated to the Matrix and Lord of the Rings trilogies in theatres, and Star Trek ceased to be relevant to the moviegoing public.

 

[Lance]

^ I think there's definitely something in what you say. We all like to think of Star Trek as this phenomenon, but in reality TOS struggled to limp over the finishing line for three years and ultimately died a pretty humiliating death in first-run. They weren't exactly covered in glory. The movies were a kind of vindication of TOS, and they expanded the 'verse in many ways.

TNG on the other hand was the media's darling when it finished it's highly acclaimed seven year run (it had been criticized to start with but by the end everybody loved it) and went out with it's head held high. So on some level, there's was nowhere left to go except down.

On the other hand, I don't think we can summarily excuse that, necessarily. There's no reason TNG couldn't have gone on to do bigger and better things in the movies... its just that the guys behind the scenes made some bad judgement calls on what to do with the franchise.

 

[Smellmet]

It was almost as if they were scared to push for any big storylines, and bar FC went for smaller scale personal stories.When it became known that they were going to take TNG to the big screen, I was expecting big budget epic sci fi, instead we got cheaply made movies that looked like extended episodes, with zero ambition in terms of sets and visuals, none of the boldness we got with the first TOS movie which took the fight to the established blockbusters. We should have had movies that were more like, dare I say it JJ Trek in terms of look if not tone.

You are right they could and should have gone on to bigger and better things in the movies - they did in small flashes of brilliance, the people in charge of the franchise just ran out of ideas and got complacent.

 

[Commishsleer]

I think all the inconsistencies in the plot could have been overlooked if only they'd made the Baku likeable and well the humour humourous.
And stop the OTT Data we saw in GEN and INS or do you Data fans just love it?

 

[Candlelight]

I'd loved to have seen the original script based on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and Picard going on a quest to bring Data back from the edge. Unfortunately Patrick Stewart allegedly didn't want to have two dark movies back to back so he asked for Insurrection to be lighter. Pity.

 

[Smellmet]

It would have been better if it was an entire planet of people that were being argued about, there would have been a much larger film with more political intrigue and larger consequences to deal with. Insurrection just came off so small and cheap, despite the great on location photography, combined with the almost total dislike I have for the Baku and you have a story I simply didn't give two shits about. We had an absolute epic end to DS9 with the big Dominion story arc and they came up with this?

 

[M-Red]

It should have never been made for all the reasons that have been discussed at great length.


However, it's grown on me personally in the last couple years. There are some good aspects of INS, despite all the slop.


If TPTB would have included the first alternate ending in which Murray morphs into a younger version of himself instead of the traditional explosion scene....imo it would have separated INS in a way that made it unique and the film would have left a more lasting impression on general audiences and the fanbase. That was an intelligent ending they unfortunately discarded.


But yeah, the film after FC should have gone in a completely different direction.

 

[Timo]

It would have been better if it was an entire planet of people that were being argued about

It would take some doing to make this work, though. Our heroes need to mistake the local culture for a primitive one, and an entire world going luddite after first becoming so industrialized and tech-savvy as to preempt all Prime Directive protection is a somewhat unlikelier prospect than a villageful of interstellar settlers doing the same.

Were the locals truly primitive and likeable and bambi-eyed tree-huggers the planetful of them all, we'd have to write a rather different plot. The positive thing about ST:INS is its slowly unfolding origami of lies, with the truth only known to the main villains originally, and the heroes acting on various false premises. In that context, we don't have to like the Ba'ku - we can (and probably are expected to) root for the bad guys and their very sensible-seeming actions, we can consider Dougherty the real hero of the story and Picard a villain, until the very final reveal.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Smellmet]

That's not what I'm suggesting I probably wasn't clear - I'm saying the population of the planet are indigenous and the Federation are simply going back on their principles in order to steal their resources - the magic rings. Great analogy for the middle east, all they had to do would be to make the people likeable - job done.

 

[Memory Alpha]

I have a lot easier time ranking the TNG movies than the TOS movies because it is easier to pick out what really is bad in the TNG movies, and I have to rank this one as probably my second favorite TNG movie. When it came out I was completely underwhelmed because it followed FC, of course. But I watched INS again a couple months ago, actually, for the first time in a long time, and it played a lot better. In a way I'm glad now that they did not try to "top" FC or they'd have come up with garbage like Nemesis.

What I like: 1) The pacing of the story and the plot (some of the movies - TOS and TNG - are very uneven in this regard), 2) that there is an element of Starfleet involved in something legitimately nefarious (Dougherty is creepy to me right from the start), 3) the romance between Picard and Anij works well and does not slow the story down, 4) the effects are great, and the cinematography is warm and involving. It's kind of an old fashioned kind of storytelling, which at this point plays well to me, and 5) F. Murray Abraham was an excellent villain. I've always been a fan of him.

 

[Smellmet]

I don't think the effects were very good. They were competent at best.

 

[Commishsleer]

3) the romance between Picard and Anij works well and does not slow the story down,

Didn't it make you suspicious of Picard's motivations?

 

[Lance]

When it came out I was completely underwhelmed because it followed FC, of course. But I watched INS again a couple months ago, actually, for the first time in a long time, and it played a lot better. In a way I'm glad now that they did not try to "top" FC or they'd have come up with garbage like Nemesis.

What I like: 1) The pacing of the story and the plot (some of the movies - TOS and TNG - are very uneven in this regard), 2) that there is an element of Starfleet involved in something legitimately nefarious (Dougherty is creepy to me right from the start), 3) the romance between Picard and Anij works well and does not slow the story down, 4) the effects are great, and the cinematography is warm and involving. It's kind of an old fashioned kind of storytelling, which at this point plays well to me, and 5) F. Murray Abraham was an excellent villain. I've always been a fan of him.

What we have to bear in mind is that this is a movie, and what is acceptable on home video in a living room enviroment can sometimes not work in a movie theater (and of course sometimes the other way around too).

Insurrection is the kind of movie that can work on home video, because it has thoughtful themes and a slower pace etc. But it's at theaters where it counts most and as a movie it failed to resonate with the audience. Something closer to FC (yes, perhaps even something closer to NEM) might have worked better as the follow-up to FC in 1999 because it's what audiences wanted. Second guessing the audience by saying "Hey, let's make something which is conceptually the polar opposite to the successful action movie" isn't good dollars-and-cents thinking IMO.

 

[Memory Alpha]

Lance,
Well, I think they were thinking along the lines of a shift in theme like what you saw from ST III to ST IV. The problem is, FC was really, really good, and so it was a near impossible thing to do to follow that up. You go too far, you get something like NEM. You don't go far enough, the reaction is meh. Expectation is nearly everything.

There is more action in INS than I somehow remember, although the confrontation between the Enterprise and the enemy ships is pretty brief, and Riker rigs a way out of it that would make MacGyver proud. Still, at least the Enterprise does not get beaten to pieces for once.

3) the romance between Picard and Anij works well and does not slow the story down,

Didn't it make you suspicious of Picard's motivations?

Eh, it was high time Jean-Luc found himself a girlfriend. I was never a big fan of the almost monk-ly avoidance of relationships for "professional reasons" that was applied to every character.

 

[2takesfrakes]

But in Picard's case, he was of a certain age and position where he might be expected to be above that sort of thing ...

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

They had Data saying 'Let's lock...and load' as if it was going to be a rousing, tightly written, action-packed extravaganza. However, I remember renting this and falling asleep half-way through and getting up to see F. Murray Abraham's Rufio* yelling for some reason.

Man I hated that line. There's a part of me which is like, it was so clearly a 'trailer bait' line. Like Carol taking off her clothes in STID, it's just one of those things where you know it's only in the script to give them something to put in the trailers.

When I attended my one and only screening they hit the "Let's lock... and load" line and some dude jumped up in his seat and enthusiastically bellowed, "YEE-HAH!"

Crickets.

The man turned sheepishly to his left and sheepishly to his right noting the audience's rather pronounced lack of spirit. Distraught he slunk down in his seat, deeply, quietly and was never seen nor heard from again.

 

[Lance]

Lance, Well, I think they were thinking along the lines of a shift in theme like what you saw from ST III to ST IV. The problem is, FC was really, really good, and so it was a near impossible thing to do to follow that up. You go too far, you get something like NEM. You don't go far enough, the reaction is meh. Expectation is nearly everything.

There is more action in INS than I somehow remember, although the confrontation between the Enterprise and the enemy ships is pretty brief, and Riker rigs a way out of it that would make MacGyver proud. Still, at least the Enterprise does not get beaten to pieces for once.

Another thing that is oft forgotten is that, due in large part to FC's success, INS was actually afforded a bigger budget than it's predecessor (most of which was spent on extensive location shooting, which even I'll admit looks gorgeous by the way ). But it doesn't really come across as more expensive on screen, the movie "feels" smaller than First Contact. And that's because it's been conceptualized as a smaller movie. There are a lot of action scenes, but they've been peppered into a story which is all about a small-scale conflict on a backwater planet, when the furtive ground of the Dominion War is all happening somewhere off-screen. That's like doing a movie about Roman centurians putting out brush-fires in the countryside while Rome burns. Even the one big ass ship-to-ship combat scene feels weaker than it really should given the budget and what DS9 was achieving on the small screen at the same time.

You know what I think its like? It was like there was this tug-of-war going on during production, between the more mellow intentions of Piller's original story, and the director's need to inject some kind of momentum into proceedings, because it's a movie and so it needed to pick up the pace and be BIG BIG BIG. As a result, neither side really gets a satisfactory outcome. The action scenes are muted by the thoughtful premise, while the story can't explore the concept with the intelligence it strives due to the need to include action sequences and goofy humor. At the end of the day nobody wins.