When did the perception of Insurrection change?

[Smellmet]

Well, at least tell us why before the phaser barrage commences.

Exactly, it was big screen Trek at it worst - totally lacking any ambition and locked into the Berman era comfort zone, many people blame Nemesis for almost destroying the franchise, but it was this film where the low budget, cheap looking rot started

 

[MacLeod]

"Insurrection" would have been just fine as a TV Movie as it played out like a TV episode. However it was a theatrical release not a TV Movie it should at least try and be ambitious.

 

[Kevman7987]

Well, at least tell us why before the phaser barrage commences.

Exactly, it was big screen Trek at it worst - totally lacking any ambition and locked into the Berman era comfort zone, many people blame Nemesis for almost destroying the franchise, but it was this film where the low budget, cheap looking rot started

I always thought about it like this:

Since TOS & the TOS films were popular, Paramount decided to make a new Star Trek show and came up with TNG.
TNG starts out and begins struggling immediately so RIKER GROWS THE BEARD and Star Trek gets awesome.
During Insurrection, RIKER SHAVES THE BEARD and all of the sudden, Star Trek starts to completely fall apart.

BEARD MAGIC

Jonathan Frakes' beard magic was preventing Rick Berman and Brannon Braga from ruining Star Trek. Once he shaved the beard, nothing was cancelling out all of that backed up Berman/Braga-ruining from spilling out all over the place.

 

[Gojira]

I just watched Insurrection again last night and First Contact this morning and I like them both pretty equally. Heck, I even like Generations. Nemesis has some good moments but I like that one the least.

I do not find the complaint that Insurrectionwas like an episode a bad thing. Sure on some levels it was, but then again I found Star Trek III and Star Trek V really resembled episodes from TV so it never bothered me.

 

[DonIago]

When I go to see a Star Trek movie I want something larger in scope than an episode of the series.

 

[Smellmet]

When I go to see a Star Trek movie I want something larger in scope than an episode of the series.

Exactly, this is my problem with insurrection, on the big screen you haven't got the luxury of building character relationships over a long story arc (arguably it's already been done in the series) and for me the stakes and the peril need to be higher in the movies, this is why I like the 2 new movies more than several of the older ones.

 

[JarodRussell]

When I go to see a Star Trek movie I want something larger in scope than an episode of the series.

Luckily I don't have that problem. I like smaller films on the big screen as well.

 

[bullethead]

When I go to see a Star Trek movie I want something larger in scope than an episode of the series.

Luckily I don't have that problem. I like smaller films on the big screen as well.

I don't have a problem with smaller films either, but they need to be a lot more personal than larger scope films. The Wolverine, for example, worked because it revolved around Logan's death wish and guilt over killing Jean in X-men 3. Insurrection doesn't work as a small scope film because the focus is divided up among the cast at different points and there are no real personal stakes/motivations for Picard beyond getting laid and risking his career (which he's already done before and got cleared, so we know he's not going to lose). Sure, upholding his principles is a noble thing, but the guy already said "Sometimes the moral thing to do is not the smart thing to do" in Descent, Part 1. And then there's the hypocrisy with the Maquis thing, which just makes Picard look like a (possibly racist) asshole.

 

[Gojira]

When I go to see a Star Trek movie I want something larger in scope than an episode of the series.

I actually do not like to go the the movie theater that much so my first introduction to Insurrection was on VHS many years ago and so I never had that problem oir even realized it was more like an episode until later.

 

[DonIago]

I love television shows and I love movies, and I love movies that pick up where television shows left off, but I also have different expectations of movies than I do of television shows.

The TOS movies, even the ones I'm not especially fond of, do, to my mind, a very good job of raising the stakes for Our Heroes, or at least of feeling like they do. Plus you've got TWOK-TVH as essentially one story carried through three of the films.

By contrast, the TNG movies all exist in relative isolation to one another, and INS in particular doesn't, to my mind, do a great job of raising the stakes, especially not after FC. I guess one head-scratcher is that they could have continued with Data's emotional development through the films if nothing else, but if anything they seemed to devolve that as the films continued. I kept hoping there'd be more of a sense of continuity between the films.

As a DS9 fan, it also really began to wear on me that the TNG films seemed almost to make a point of avoiding what was going on in that series.

I wonder whether INS would have been received better as the immediate sequel to GEN.

I also wonder about how much the TNG movies suffer because they don't benefit from a massive improvement in VFX technology the way the TOS movies do relative to their respective series. If we'd waited a decade (or more) after TNG before the movies started, would that have made a difference in how they were received?

 

[trevanian]

Considering that ship VFX have not exactly improved in 15 years (the CG has, but the look of a well-executed miniature is rarely exceeded by originating full-on CG for vessels -- EVENT HORIZON and SPACE COWBOYS and STARSHIP TROOPERS certainly haven't been bettered, though I imagine GRAVITY's masterful CG VFX will redefine what quality means in a way not done since Kubrick), I don't think the reception should have been significantly different.

More about the budget and the quantity, since folks seem to need 10 times as many shots to avoid being restless (look at the TOS films and outside of TMP they are relatively low VFX shotloads ... TUC is around 100 or 130 as I recall.) But from LOST IN SPACE (something like 800 vfx shots) onward, quantity has been trumping quality in a big way.

Sometimes I think anybody doing a space movie needs to look at CORBOMITE MANEUVER and see that you don't need to be cutting outside every four seconds (in fact, you'd often be better limiting your exterior visuals to viewscreen stuff to maintain the mood of the live-action.)

 

[Timby]

Max Grodénchik's Bajoran is in the bonus scenes, not Quark's.

Trill, not Bajoran.

 

[MacLeod]

Considering that ship VFX have not exactly improved in 15 years (the CG has, but the look of a well-executed miniature is rarely exceeded by originating full-on CG for vessels -- EVENT HORIZON and SPACE COWBOYS and STARSHIP TROOPERS certainly haven't been bettered, though I imagine GRAVITY's masterful CG VFX will redefine what quality means in a way not done since Kubrick), I don't think the reception should have been significantly different.

More about the budget and the quantity, since folks seem to need 10 times as many shots to avoid being restless (look at the TOS films and outside of TMP they are relatively low VFX shotloads ... TUC is around 100 or 130 as I recall.) But from LOST IN SPACE (something like 800 vfx shots) onward, quantity has been trumping quality in a big way.

Sometimes I think anybody doing a space movie needs to look at CORBOMITE MANEUVER and see that you don't need to be cutting outside every four seconds (in fact, you'd often be better limiting your exterior visuals to viewscreen stuff to maintain the mood of the live-action.)

The trick is finding the right balance between too few shots and too many shots. They biggest part of any TV episode/film is the script, if you have a great script. The audiance can be slighly more willing to forgive some bad FX's. The best FX in the world however cannot overcome a lacklustre script.

 

[RAMA]

Ive discussed the merits and lack thereof of this movie at length before and all I really care to say about it now is that I like to watch it as a mild diversion occasionally. It's not offenisive, earth shattering, mind bending, or epic, but it does play like an expanded episode of the series, and it could do much worse than that. If I want something that is ST and is out of the box, there is ST09 and STID.

RAMA

 

[Greg Cox]

I'm not sure anyone was ever terribly excited by INSURRECTION. I remember that it was the first Trek movie I ever saw all by myself--because I couldn't find anyone who wanted to see it with me.

 

[DonIago]

Aw, I would have gone with you.

...wait, is that creepy?

(ponders the dubious merits of being able to say he freaked out a published Trek author)

 

[Greg Cox]

Aw, I would have gone with you.

...wait, is that creepy?

(ponders the dubious merits of being able to say he freaked out a published Trek author)

Oh, it takes more than that to freak me out!

 

[Therin of Andor]

Max Grodénchik's Bajoran is in the bonus scenes, not Quark's.

Trill, not Bajoran.

Ha. I knew it sounded wrong when Dick_Valentine first said it.

 

[DonIago]

Aw, I would have gone with you.

...wait, is that creepy?

(ponders the dubious merits of being able to say he freaked out a published Trek author)

Oh, it takes more than that to freak me out!

Challenge Accepted.

 

[Lance]

I'm not sure anyone was ever terribly excited by INSURRECTION. I remember that it was the first Trek movie I ever saw all by myself--because I couldn't find anyone who wanted to see it with me.

My older brother (not particularly a Trek fan) went with me to see both First Contact and Insurrection (hey, I was really only a kid at the time!). But when Nemesis rolled around, I couldn't convince him and I ended up watching that one alone. Never did get around to asking why he wouldn't take on that one...