Quark and the Dabo Girls' Deleted Scene from Insurrection

Admiral Janeway was one of the few really fun things about NEM but at least it was her - a recently-promoted Admiral at Starfleet Command with jurisdiction over Picard - and not Seven stuck into the plot just so we can see what she looked like after returning home to Earth.

Turns out the near-20-year-wait was just fine. We didn't get closure on her character at the conclusion of "Endgame, Part II(VOY)" so I sure wasn't needing closure in a TNG movie produced just one year later.

Unfortunately Janeway's actual dialogue in Nemesis could literally have been spoken by anyone, as it had nothing to do with her character or anything that happened in VOY. It's almost like the scriptwriter wrote the lines not knowing who they were going to cast for that part.

The Doctor in First Contact was a good cameo.

Yes it was, because it had something to do with the overall plot of the film. Quark's cameo was just tacked-on nonsense at the end of the movie for no reason.
 
I can see the Quark cameo getting cut because of laypeople in test screenings scratching their heads and asking "who is this?" The TNG cast was obviously well-known by this point to just about anyone in pop-culture. Anyone to do with DS9 would've been more niche, as their ratings attest to.
 
I had no idea this scene existed and I'm shocked it wasn't cut at the script stage, it's awful and makes zero sense.

Why would quark seemingly drop everything on DS9 and go to the planet to start a new business? Why start it literally right where the Baku lived and not anywhere else on the planet?
Why does Picard act like he has the right to make any decisions when it comes to the planet? The federation and starfleet have no jurisdiction whatsoever, that's the reason Picard disregarded orders, basically told his superior officer to go fuck himself and started the titular insurrection in the first place and suddenly he acts like he gets to decide who gets to "bother" the Baku and who doesn't?
The planet is about to become a federation protectorate? Says who? How much time passed since the end of the battle? Did Picard contact starfleet command and the federation council, told them he kinda disregarded orders which led to the admiral's death and might have soured relations with the Son'A but it's okay because reasons and they all immediately folded and declared a protectorate? Doesn't that take time? Wouldn't details need to be negotiated with the Baku? And even if all of that happened at warp speed, Picard still said "about to become" so it's not yet, so Quark had every right to be dismissive of Picard. But even if the planet was already a protectorate, Picard still wouldn't been a decision to make decisions, the decision makers would be the Baku.

Did the Baku have an opinion on this? Who says they would be opposed to a spa or ten? Maybe not directly next to their village but they were generally very welcoming to outsiders coming in including the scientists who spied on them and the surviving Son'A, the movie literally ends with them beginning their reconciliation. But Quark building a spa is somehow a step too far? Despite his plan actually being way more benign than the federation's plan of kidnapping the Baku in their sleep and then making the planet uninhabitable?
"There will be no spas on this planet" ... Why not? What's the argument against them? Maybe not right where the Baku live but not anywhere else either? There could be 500 million visitors on the planet at once and the Baku wouldn't be bothered and could keep living their tech free hippie lifes. I don't know if the writers noticed but planets tend to be quite big and have lots of space. Even if we ignore the rest of earth, the american writers writing the movie should know from their own real life experience that most of their country is empty despite more than 300 million people living in it but somehow 600(!) people in one(!) village need an entire planet empty to be able to live their lifes in peace?
And then the line " ... which will end any and all attempts at exploitation by people like you". Seriously? Picard just fought his own people because they were going to exploit the planet in the worst way and he's already climbed back up on his high horse to look down on others?
If I had been a Baku in that moment I would have given Picard the sideway here, he's making decisions as if he's in charge of the planet and is randomly arresting civilians for wanting to build a spa?

The scene relies on the audience knowing that ferengi are generally greedy and have no problem exploiting others for their benefit but you cannot assume that but even with that knowledge Quark's plan is still the best presented to us.

Son'a plan: Destroy the planet, use the health radiation for our benefit!
Federation plan: Kidnap the Baku, then destroy the planet and use the health radiation for our benefit!
Picard's plan: Don't destroy the planet, health radiation for Baku only!
Quark's plan: Don't destroy the planet, build a spa, health radiation for everyone!

A truly awful scene, atrocious writing that makes everyone except Quark look like a douchebag.
 
A tangential question about this that I’ve had… The show never goes there, and kinda keeps it vague, especially since it was a family show on over-the-air television in the ‘90s, but what exactly are the Dabo girls?

Are we to assume they work for Quark only as the hot restaurant hostesses who are eye candy? Or are they supposed to be sex workers and Quark is essentially their pimp, like the owner of a bar that also has a brothel over it in a western saloon?

Like with “real food” over replicated food, I wonder if a Ferengi would feel the need to keep Dabo girls on staff paying them (if they were prostitutes) in a setting where the Holosuites probably serve that function.
 
I always figured they were meant to encourage the customers to keep playing Dabo - distracting them just enough to prevent them from playing well (and hence losing a lot of money to Quark).

Just how far they were supposed to go in their 'encouragement' and 'distractions' is deliberately left unclear.
 
I'm thinking Sisko wouldn't have allowed prostitution, and neither would Odo. Drinking and gambling, yes; prostitution, no. That's what holosuites are for.
 
I'm thinking Sisko wouldn't have allowed prostitution, and neither would Odo. Drinking and gambling, yes; prostitution, no. That's what holosuites are for.

Sisko was established as not having it, since the dabo girl in "CAPTIVE PURSUIT" was telling him about the 'sex with the boss' clause in her contract. Sisko said he would make sure that stopped.
 
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And it's a Bajoran station, and the Bajorans seem pretty conservative about that sort of thing.
 
And a whole lot of Dabo girls seem to be Bajoran as well. Their own cultural attitudes would follow them into the job.
 
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Which is pretty baffling, seeing as they vetoed a legit DS9 reference, a brief dialogue exchange regarding the death of Jadzia.
Was there one? In the script I've seen, there's a longer exchange with Picard when he first runs into Worf on the way to the reception, but it was clearly written before the season six finale, since Picard asks how his wife is (and the answer isn't, "Still dead, just like the last one"). My assumption from how the dialog just trails off and we move over to Riker talking to Geordi was that it had been shot with the old, no longer appropriate dialog.

Code:
Before Picard can respond, he runs into Worf...

                                           WORF
                            Captain...

                                           PICARD
                            Worf, what the hell are you doing
                            here?

                        WORF                                  RIKER
                  I was at the Manzar colony       It's a little late,  
                  installing a new defense         Geordi... can it wait?
                  perimeter when I heard the
                  Enterprise was in this
                  sector...

                        PICARD                       LA FORGE'S COM VOICE
                  Stop by my quarters later;       I don't think so
                  I have a few ideas about         Commander..
                  Manzar security...
                        (non-stop to Riker)
                  Have him come to the
                  reception... we'll talk
                  here...

                  Picard moves into the banquet room, continuing to Worf --

                        PICARD                                RIKER
                  How's your bride?                The Captain wants you to
                                                   come over.

                        WORF                         LA FORGE'S COM VOICE
                  A challenge                      I'm on my way... tell him
                                                   we've recieved a
                        PICARD                     communique from Admiral
                  Then you were made for           Dougherty...
                  each other.

                                          LA FORGE'S COM VOICE (CONT'D)
                            It's about Data.
 
Was there one?
No...because it got vetoed. :)
JOHVT2a.jpg

From Michael Piller's Fade In.
 
If they didn't want to make a movie about established characters who had lives elsewhere, all the had to do was make their movie about USS Lollipop, with an all-new crew.
 
If they didn't want to make a movie about established characters who had lives elsewhere, all the had to do was make their movie about USS Lollipop, with an all-new crew.
But then they'd have to ignore or acknowledge the already established backstory, as the Lollipop was already mentioned by Riker in Arsenal of Freedom. Apparently, it was a good ship.
 
But then they'd have to ignore or acknowledge the already established backstory, as the Lollipop was already mentioned by Riker in Arsenal of Freedom. Apparently, it was a good ship.

Yeah, I just watched that episode so it was in my mind. Still, it would work, we didn't know anything any crew besides Riker and that she was a good ship.
 
What?

They deleted Quark! :eek:

How could they delete one of the best characters in all of Star Trek from this otherwise rather mediocre movie?

He should definitely had been in the movie!

:wtf: Just because Quark is a great character, forcing him in doesn't actually mean it was going to be great. The scene would have been wacky comedy, in a movie where some of the humor was already not working.
So no..... So much no.
 
No...because it got vetoed. :)
JOHVT2a.jpg

From Michael Piller's Fade In.
They didn’t allow for a character-relevant mini dialog like this (people could just understand a character might’ve been married off screen if they didn’t watch DS9) but filmed a whole sequence with Quark and with the single-most cringeworthy dialog of the entire TNG movie run‽ :cardie:
 
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:wtf: Just because Quark is a great character, forcing him in doesn't actually mean it was going to be great. The scene would have been wacky comedy, in a movie where some of the humor was already not working.
So no..... So much no.
Quark would have saved the movie! :techman:
 
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