^ My only real problem with INS is the incredibly inappropriate humour - HMS Pinafore sing-along, "boobs" joke etc. There are a few weak CG shots as well.
First Contact & Insurrection
- Thread starter CaptainMatt
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Nah it holds up well enough for me.
...and me, CaptainMatt!
Yay Captain Lokai of Cheron!
heh he i just saw this on SyFY channel. One of the aliens on the holo ship fell from a buliding after being blasted by Picard and mister Data and the mat he poofed down on was viewable popping up from behind some plants that I guess were supposed to hide that mattress he fell onto. Then five seconds later the captain called Picard says Computer end program and it turns off the simulation and the aliens that just got shot are gone too. They totally disappeared! Why were there holographic aliens, but only what 2 or 3 of them. Why didnt the computer send 200 to kill picard and data. Or are the real people and the movie makers forgot what happened 4 seconds ago because they are dumb or on weed?
Then guess what happens? Picard and Data beam back up and his shirt is all wet from going in the water i suppose, and is totally baffled by a pimple on Wharf's nose, only he didnt call it a pimple he called it a gorge. O wow thats cute!
The shaving cream Bill Riker strides in talking about Troi thought that his name always reminded him of the Betazoid meaning of his nickname that she used (Bill) in 2 first seasons episodes, and decided it was time to get naked and take a bath with him, and make him look more like the Bill Riker she knew that made her a happy little counselor. Data after just getting back from his away mission is so stunned to see Bearless Bill that he does a double take! No really~ he didnt kno what happened to tall mans furry face. Picard ignores Rikers clean face because he knows that means Riker must be getting some ass from troi and this pisses him off to no end. He really wanted to be the next one to hit that. So its off to his quarters to listen to the mambo, see if those sideburns had grown in yet and then look at Anige (the chich with the big boobs down on the planet he just met)'s facebook pics. Then he decides fuck this imma go back down and visit her and see if i cant get laid.
Well thats my take on this film anyway. Now hes fighting with the bearded guy from Matrix who makes some excellent points about the metaphasic rings that he should listen to and go about his business. Hell even the admiral doesnt kno how the damn thing in rings work but he wants that planet. Screw understanding it. Were starfleet and and we want that oil. Better get it before the Klingons do.
INS was cheap in that its production values never seemed epic in a cinematic way. Look at the Baku, they are "aliens", but they look like a bunch of white people. Why? This movie had a 58 million dollar budget, why do the aliens look like white people, instead of truly alien creatures? Alien had a 11 million dollar budget and it featured a creature that looked truly alien. Its stuff like that made this movie feel cheap, rather then truly cinematic.
One of the things I like most about Insurrection is, you can talk to twenty different people and they sound like they saw twenty different movies. While I don't think this is what the production team intended, there is a looseness to the movie as to who the viewers are supposed to be rooting for. If you truly watch the movie, especially repeatedly, the identity of "good guys" become uncertain.
The "lead the audience by the nose" through the narrative that is usually so well defined in most Star Trek movies is missing. There's no big ship/machine/probe trying to mess up Earth here.
The Sona on the surface are the obvious villains, but careful viewing show that they're trying not the harm the Baku, just gather them up. (Oh, and take their fountain of youth) Between Picard and the Admiral, whose actions are the most ethical is debatable. Not even the Baku can play the completely innocent victims.
Having the Baku be indigenous to the world would have made things clearer. Have the Sona be a totally separate race would have been easy. Having Picard and the Admiral be of one mind. The planet overtly Federation, or totally outside. The muddled nature of the politics, ethics, morals, alliances, history, makes Insurrection a better movie than many of the more popular Star Trek releases.
Insurrection isn't linear and simplistic.
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I definitely have to agree with this. It features an adversary that's distinctly TNG, EVERY main cast member has something to do and at least one or two good scenes (even Dr. Crusher), the story ties into one of the most beloved races in Star Trek, and is just a really enjoyable film overall. The film ends on a great note, too, with all of the TNG crew on the bridge together looking forward to a more hopeful future as first contact with the Vulcans goes as it should. Aside from maybe All Good Things..., it's hard to think of a better sendoff.
That's true, but still Alien was made on a budget of 11 million back in 1979. INS was made in 1998, with a budget of 58 million. I can accept that in TOS they had use aliens that looked exactly like humans for budgetary reason, as well as technical limitations in the 1960s, but to have a movie in 1998, with a multi million dollar budget and have aliens who like exactly like white people, is unacceptable. I have seen random aliens in various DS9 and TNG episodes who look more alien then the Baku.
The boob and Klingon pimple jokes bug me, and the HMS Pinafore bit to a lesser extent (although, it's not cringeworthy like "Row Row Row Your Boat" was). Really not much else. As has been said many times, Insurrection is little more than a glorified two-part TV episode, one that is bested by most of the actual two-parters that TNG had over the course of its seven seasons. However, that doesn't change the fact that I still enjoy the movie overall.
Can you watch First Contact and Insurrection back-to-back? I say absolutely! In fact, if you were watching the whole Star Trek movie series up to this point, I would think a change of pace would be welcome after three straight films of action with only varying degrees of humor. The light-heartedness of Insurrection makes it more enjoyable than it would be if it were just another big action movie like those it is sandwiched in-between. It's not one of the high points of the series, but I don't see it as the lowest of the low, either.
The Enterprise-E even rides off into the sunset (okay, it rides off through a gaseous cloud, but it's filmed in much the same way) at the end of Insurrection!
Can you watch First Contact and Insurrection back-to-back? I say absolutely! In fact, if you were watching the whole Star Trek movie series up to this point, I would think a change of pace would be welcome after three straight films of action with only varying degrees of humor. The light-heartedness of Insurrection makes it more enjoyable than it would be if it were just another big action movie like those it is sandwiched in-between. It's not one of the high points of the series, but I don't see it as the lowest of the low, either.
The Enterprise-E even rides off into the sunset (okay, it rides off through a gaseous cloud, but it's filmed in much the same way) at the end of Insurrection!
Got to disagree here; for me the HMS Pinafore sequence is pretty much as lame and cringeworthy as it got throughout the first ten movies, and easily trumps anything in TFF - it's just horrible.
As for Row Your Boat, I thought it was incredibly touching and provided a lovely bookend to the first "big three" camp fire scene at the beginning of the movie. These two scenes are amongst the best TOS character moments produced IMHO - regardless of opinion on the film's overall quality/standing.
I think another big problem with Insurrection is, it doesn't know what tone it want to set. It wants to be a light hearted adventure, but it also wants to be centered around a serious moral dilemma. These two things contradict each other. A moral dilemma is not light hearted and fun, its complex situation that often challenges someone's entire moral system. That's why Sophie's Choice isn't considered a light hearted film.
If Insurrection wanted to be a light hearted adventure they should have ditched the moral dilemma and just had a black and white story with a clear evil that needed to be beaten. If they wanted to make a true moral dilemma, it should have been a challenging gray situation, with half the crew siding with the Federation and the other half siding with the Baku. That could have been an epic story.
If Insurrection wanted to be a light hearted adventure they should have ditched the moral dilemma and just had a black and white story with a clear evil that needed to be beaten. If they wanted to make a true moral dilemma, it should have been a challenging gray situation, with half the crew siding with the Federation and the other half siding with the Baku. That could have been an epic story.
I read the comments here before replying, and I do have to agree with the assessment that the TNG films feel very much like stand-alone adventures without many continuity links (save, of course, the cast). In fact, there aren't many continuity links between the films and the TV series, either, which is disappointing. I think everyone who is/was a TNG TV series fan can point out several ways the films could have been linked to earlier events in the TNG episodes, and the omission of nearly all of those opportunities make the films seem like a complete break from the TV series, and, from what was going on at the time in other Trek series as well, notably DS9.
That being said, many TNG episodes were stand-alones themselves. I'd argue that season 6 is a good example of that. In most episodes in that season, a "reset" button had been tapped at the end. Perhaps the films were following this pattern, regardless of its flaws.
I think that TNG fans wanted to see links between films and links between the films and the TV series. In order to try and appeal to a larger demographic of moviegoers, at least the links between the series and the films were sacrificed. It was probably decided that people who hadn't seen much of the series wouldn't understand the references. However, I don't think that is a good enough reason to exclude them entirely.
That being said, many TNG episodes were stand-alones themselves. I'd argue that season 6 is a good example of that. In most episodes in that season, a "reset" button had been tapped at the end. Perhaps the films were following this pattern, regardless of its flaws.
I think that TNG fans wanted to see links between films and links between the films and the TV series. In order to try and appeal to a larger demographic of moviegoers, at least the links between the series and the films were sacrificed. It was probably decided that people who hadn't seen much of the series wouldn't understand the references. However, I don't think that is a good enough reason to exclude them entirely.
It was a mistake giving the director's chair and the screenplay-writing duties to people who did not know that much, if anything, about Star Trek.
Well put!
But I would skip both movies and just play the TV series. It's much better.
Are you a fan of SFDebris' reviews? His review for "INS" pretty much matches your points exactly.
Watched last night (lord knows why) and reminded me one of the things always bugged me. Sona go to all that perceived trouble of getting Baku offworld peacefully - presumably because of Fed at shoulder - yet are a teeny bit slap-happy with the old laser-kaboomy things that could easily kill or critically hurt someone, even if just collaterally. Though that's least of film's problems
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