All my non-trekkie friends after seeing Nemesis: "...why did you waste two hours of my life with such a horrible movie?" Or something to that effect.
I do hope there's people who like it or are sentimental towards it and maybe it's even their favourite film. Same with all these films and shows. I love Star Trek 5 despite it's flaws. I also think there's an interesting factor on when you become a fan and what's around at the time. I became a fan because of the TOS films but for a long time I was not a fan of the TOS show. There's people who may have first watched Star Trek as these films or are fans of Picard without having to be a fan of TNG. It's fascinating.
There's a number of things I like about INS, but the questions raised by the story as presented just make it impossible for me to call it a good film. If the aspects I like were retained in service of a better story, I might have liked it more. Hell, if the story had been executed in a more competent manner I might have considered it one of the best Trek films for raising questions of moral ambiguity along with the likes of "Tuvix", "Cogenitor", etc.
To add to what you said earlier comparing TFF and INS, I used to hate TFF. It was the last star trek movie I saw as a teenager and caused me to lose interest in Trek altogether. I didn't see anything trek related on small or large for years until a friend asked me to go see FC at the theater. That's how bad I hated it. But I've made my peace with it. It made some dumb decisions but its ambitions just didn't match the budget. There were a lot of things I would have done very differently about it. If it had had the special affects of, say ROTJ, people would have loved it. It is the most like a TOS episode. But like INS, I doesn't feel cinematic enough, as it is. But nothing feels less cinematic than INS. For all the problems that could be fixed in TVH with a bigger budget, and NEM with a better director, INS is just unfixable. It's not broken, it's just the best it can be, and it's not good enough. It's just a middling plot that treads over territory Trek had already gone over many times.
Kind of just an anecdote but I remember the Saturday morning of Insurrection's opening weekend my Houston UPN, which aired Deep Space Nine as well as Voyager, reran "Emissary" (I guess, kind of, the most TNG-ish episode of Deep Space Nine) with commercial bumpers including movie cast comments promoting Insurrection, I still have fond memories of fun hype from that.
Thye should have just split the difference. First half of the movie is the same, but they convince the admiral to stop the relocation. Everyone except the Son'a are happy. They fly off and get a Dominion fleet and then we get a nice epic battle in space and on the planet. Ties the movie with DS9, gives a big battle scene against the Dominion, and Picard and company can still play commando on the surface.
I think the later TNG movies made it pretty clear that for one reason or another the TPTB behind the TNG films didn't especially want to incorporate elements from DS9. Would they have even included Defiant in FC if it wasn't the most sensible way to get Worf into the film? More's the pity, from this humble viewer's perspective.
Right, but if they hadn't included it in the first place then destroying it wouldn't have even been an option. I'm with Ira on that one, personally.
I’ll never forget going to the cinema to see INS, all hyped up after having really enjoyed FC. And then gradually getting this sinking, sinking feeling. What’s going on here? It felt so cheap and clapped out; a film just chugging along on autopilot. The attempts at “comedy” were cringeworthy (that shuttle chase scene was particularly egregious) and even the special effects seemed unconvincing. It could be Jonathan Frakes’ worst directing, but I blame the weak script more than anything. Was this really the same guy that wrote “Best of Both Worlds”? If I’m being generous I’d say INS is middling Trek fare. But I can never accept that it’s a good film; it lacks just about everything that would characterise great filmmaking. It didn’t feel cinematic at all and it really didn’t have a strong enough plot or characterisation. There’s a kernel of a good idea in there, but I just don’t know how I’d have salvaged it.
Been a long time since ive seen Star Trek Insurrection. That the one where Riker is beardless and Worf has a big zit on his nose?
I haven't seen Insurrection in ages. Oddly enough, I enjoy it despite its flaws and issues. But I can't find myself getting the disc and rewatching it. Which I have for other Star Trek movies. I should really give it another shot.
I was disappointed that Data’s little Scout ship wasn’t used later, or the shuttles. A lot of work went into AVATAR—the Prequel…it would have been nice to have seen those assets reused.
The complete lack of logic in the plot kills this movie for me. An entire planet and you can’t just put another base on the other side? Need of the many concept abandoned. And it’s not like they were native to the planet! Ugh! Just re thinking about it cause ps me to absolutely HATE this movie.
I remember in the cinema the alarm bells ringing in the first five minutes when data went nuts at the village. I remember thinking then 'what the hell? This just looks like they've wheeled a set out from the series' - it just looked so small and cheap. Not remotely befitting a $70m motion picture.
Ironically if the Son'a had just told the Feds "Hey, we're indigenous to this planet," then it would have become an internal matter and, if the Klingon Civil War had been any precedent, the Feds would have had to bugger off until it was settled.
But they did want the Federation assistance/cooperations, I guess because otherwise, also pretty out-of-character, the Feds would have resisted allowing them to enter or at least seem to use their territory.
It just doesn't make any sense, because the Federation clearly didn't do their research (despite having an observation post on the planet!) or they would have known the Son'a were related to the Baku. I might venture that Dougherty knew but suppressed the information, except that my recollection is that once he knows that he wants to abort the project (and like an idiot confronts Ru'afo by himself). What the Son'a should have done is snuck in and dealt with the Baku one way or another on their own (internal matter!) and then asked the Federation for support. Just like how if the Duras sisters had won the Klingon Civil War and Toral had been appointed Chancellor, the Federation would have been stuck either dealing with him as the recognized head of the Klingon government or probably entering another period of uneasy relations.