The first TNG movie not written by Braga and Moore but scribed by the series' former executive producer Michael Piller, the man who took over in the third season and saved the show. Insurrection is the re-write of his original screenplay. The original premise was essentially Star Trek: Apocalypse Now in which Data goes crazy (par for the course) but sets himself up as the leader of the Baku and Picard is sent to destroy him and does actually succeed in killing him, but then a whole conspiracy is revealed and it finds Picard and crew actually rebelling against the entire Federation and Starfleet and not just Admiral Doherty and the Son'a. It had the potential to being the darkest, grittiest Trek movie ever, but Patrick Steward (executive Producer Patrick Stewart that is) got wind of it, hated it and said, "let's do funny." Because, it worked so well in Stark Trek 5, right? Taking place in the latter half of the DS9's 7th season, they don't even try that hard to expalin Worf's presence, just a brief off-screen remark that he was at the Manzar Colony. Since you guys are going to be watching DS9 the events that were taking place at this time in Trek history and for Worf in particular, will make you realize why the fans of DS9 cried foul at his just "appearing there" because it was a TNG movie. on DS9, the Federation was fighting a 2 year-long war against the Dominion and Worf's wife had just been murdered by a Cardassian. Not the best time to give him Klingon puberty So Data can now remove his emotion chip? What, did Brent Spiner get tired of having emotions? He seems to be Season One Data again, learning to play tag in the wheat fields with little boys. Once again we see Riker's combat skills at work. Let's give a brief rundown of Riker's tactical abilities. In In Rascals he let two salvaged Klingon birds of prey, crewed by a bunch of Ferengi, cripple and capture the Enterprise. The man fired one shot! A “point seven-five burst” to “get their attention.” In Generations the Duras sisters got a hold of the Enterprise’s shield frequencies and started firing madly, Riker again, fired one phaser shot and then came up with some technological solution to getting the Klingon’s shields down. Here he fires a couple of torpedoes then essentially throws gasoline on the Son'a and lights them on fire. The Son'a. What a waste of F. Murray Abraham. if you look at the special features or read any of the behind the scenes stuff, you'll find Rick Berman constantly trying to find a new Kahn for a villian. Let's face it, there was no one that can duplicate what Montalban did with Kahn, so you really need to stop trying to come up with Trek's "ultimate villian." JJ Abrams realized this when he had a Romulan truck driver become the villian in last year’s movie. At its core it really was a Trek tale, following the Prime Directive and so forth. But it was a glorified episode with “wacky” moments with firm boobs, flotation devices, Klingon pimples, Riker shaving, Picard doing the MAMBO and a CGI little chipmunk created to pre-empt Jar Jar Binks and as annoying CGI in the late 90’s. But it did have its moments. The crew standing together with Picard to save the Baku, Geordi seeing a sunrise and Riker and Deanna finally getting together. But the whole movie collapsed with this one scene: “Mister Worf, do you know Gilbert and Sullivan?” “No, sir, I have not had a chance to meet all of the new crewmembers since I’ve been back.” Queue the bouncing ball lyrics. Who would’ve thought that Data could be incapacitated the same way Sideshow Bob was?
It's the last Star Trek film to resemble Star Trek and for that I'll praise it fondly. It should have been much, much better but I'd rate it as a solid extended TNG episode.
the second-worst of the entire Trek film series. A poor premise executed even more poorly. Lame humor, and a group(the Baku) introduced solely for this film that we don't care about and never see again. And yet, we seem to get more threads on INS than a lot of the other Trek films.
It's a flawed but highly enjoyable film. I'd take it over the mediocrity of Nemesis or the flat out unwatchable Generations any day. Hell, I'd place First Contact and Insurrection over most of the Star Trek movies.
That's just the way he talks. DalekJim never says he likes anything without saying he hates something else.
The last one that was a chore to watch? Honestly, I think Insurrection is a steaming pile of shit and would rather watch Nemesis, Generations or The Final Frontier any day of the week.
It means that Insurrection reminded me of the Star Trek TV series when Nemesis and the Abrams reboot didn't. I'm sorry if my opinion on this sci-fi film franchise upsets you. I enjoy The Final Frontier but Insurrection is better paced. Hell, TFF doesn't even have a pace .
INS has an appeal for some Trekkies, but it's a very dull and boring film to the vast majority of people in the mainstream audience. It was a bloated TV episode and completely innappropriate as a big screen movie. It's a crap as a movie, just crappy in a different way from the way NEM was crap. Everyone's entitled to their opinion and these are mine. I totally get many Trekkies have an air of incredible elitisim to them where they hold generally poorly recieved Trek films in high regard, i.e., TMP, INS and NEM. Almost implying that most others that despise these films are void of a proper artistic palate and that perhaps stuff like The Motion Picture or Insurrection are too artsy for some Trekkies. Again, my opinion they are failed Trek movies. Trek movies have a cult following, but the critically failed movies(TMP, INS, NEM) have their own cult following within that cult amongst some Trekkies. With INS I believe resetting many of these characters back to Season 1 of TNG, i.e. the innocent Data and the Riker/Troi romance just seemed unimaginative. Ru'afo was another madman on some mystical quest like Soran or Sybok instead of a legitmate threat. The special effects looked cheap, and were the worst since Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. I do remember back in 1998 reading about how INS was supposed to be some dark story that resembeled a heart of darkness, Apocalpyse Now premise, but the end product was far from it. All we got were a bunch of hippie White Anglo-Saxon "aliens" living technology free in SoCal (another planet) while Picard and the Federation get into a preachy debate about the ethics of rellocating these people which just isn't deep enough for a feature movie. It's OK as a TNG two-parter TV episode though. But the fact that Galaxy Quest came out the next year in 1999 with far better looking aliens from Stan Winston, a better overall story, more natural humour and even mocked the "timer countdown" while the captain gets into a fist fight didn't help at all.
I really enjoy The Motion Picture, The Final Frontier and Insurrection whenever I watch them. It isn't an elitist thing, it's an emotional reaction I can't help. Mainstream critics' opinions don't really matter to me as they never really understood Star Trek anyway.
I've always liked TFF for reasons that I can't easily define. It's like putting on an episode of TOS. A third season episode of TOS, but an episode of TOS all the same. Insurrection and Nemesis, not so much. I can see how Insurrection arguably feels the most like TNG as we knew it from TV, but there's still... something 'off' about it which I don't like. Maybe I'll just never be able to completely accept TNG as movies. It was such a class act on TV that everything they did in cinema paled in comparison. Even the much lauded First Contact.
TMP and TFF love for different reasons. INS not so much; but as I endlessly say (in my best repeat-loop moment) watching it with the Frakes-Sirtis commentary makes it so much more bearable
That's very nicely put, and from that perspective, I'm sure you can understand that different opinions are just that, and not lowest common denominator garbage and all that claptrap.
I really like it. It's a good film with a fair few goofy WTF moments but they don't spoil it for me. I like the Star Trek film franchise (Well, not where it is at the moment but I digress!), though I'd say it really pales in comparison to the TV series. The TNG movies aren't as good as the show but aside from Wrath of Khan (Which certainly can compete with TOS at its best!) and The Undiscovered Country, none of the TOS films are as good as the average good TOS episode. Insurrection looks lame compared to masterful classics like The Inner Light, The Drumhead or The Measure of a Man but The Voyage Home looks really dumb compared to City on the Edge of Forever or Balance of Terror. It annoys me that most casuals judge Trek on the film franchise. As Kirk said in STIV, "You're not exactly catching us at our best!".
Star Trek is many things to many people, but I do agree. It was born of television, and I've always felt that it was at it's best on television. Oh sure, it lost its way somewhere near the end of the Berman run. But that was a clear case of burn-out behind the scenes, it wasn't an indication that Trek was poorly suited to the medium. It does concern me too that Trek is often judged more in the casual sphere by its movies than by the (often superior IMO) television output. Evidently it reached a larger market and greater success in the cinema, but compromises were made to both TOS and TNG in order to translate them for the masses. Television Star Trek is more pure.
I can't help my own emotional reaction either when I see people parade TMP, INS and NEM as great works of art. They have their moments, even The Final Frontier has it's moments, but they will always be failed Treks to me. I will always view those who laud those movies with heavy praise as the cult within the cult being elitist and snobby. I don't believe there is any deep profound meaning in any of those Trek movies, and I don't consider them "artsy Trek movies". I think they are bad movies in general and often times unintentionally funny. I'm not changing that view and it's my right to have that opinion. Mainstream critics should matter to most people that support Trek. Mainstream critics influence the general TV audience and average movie-goer and I think most critics these days do get Star Trek. Perhaps not in 1966, but since about the 1980s to present day most critics have likely figured it out. If you don't get enough ratings or box office sales, you won't always get Star Trek. TV Guide has long been a supporter for Star Trek, but even they started harping on the franchise during the tail run of ENT.