Star Trek Insurrection
The Next Generation crew of Star Trek had literally stumbled out of the gate in their first cinematic outing (Generations), hampered greatly by an indifferent William Shatner wearily retiring from his Captain Kirk role in what amounted to being a botched passing of the torch to Patrick Stewart’s Picard. Then came First Contact, a sleek, in the moment showdown between Picard and The Borg that also featured a scene stealing James Cromwell as the inventor of warp drive. The problem was in where to go from there for the next movie even with Jonathan Frakes (Riker) still locked in as the resident director for the franchise. The powers that be almost went with a Heart Of Darkness / Apocalypse Now type premise that would have seen Picard tracking an old friend from Starfleet Academy who had gone renegade and was now leading a rebellion against The Federation before settling on a concept based on Lost Horizon, featuring a group of people living the simple life on a paradise type planet, made even more appealing by the fact that none of them were aging thanks to a unique form of radiation emanating from the planet that allowed them to constantly regenerate. With that idea in place, the filmmakers then went for what would have been no doubt a masterstroke of story and casting: This entry was intended to be the “Q movie”, with John DeLancie in serious talks to reprise his popular and offbeat God like character from the TV series. But the talks broke off and the decision was made to go in a different direction albeit still with the Lost Horizon concept, instead employing Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham as an inherently ridiculous looking alien leader whose species has become known throughout the galaxy for both illegal drug trafficking AND genetic manipulation. Nonetheless, the story sees these obvious space criminals somehow forming an ALLIANCE with The Federation as represented by an Admiral (Anthony Zerbe) who is said to be in charge of the whole operation even as he is constantly surrounded by Abraham’s unsavory crew with not even anything resembling a security detail to call his own. This of course, continues the classic Trek tradition (with the exception of Admiral Kirk naturally) of having all onscreen “Admiral” characters be either hopelessly corrupt and / or completely embarrassing idiots, with only their higher rank allowing them to dole out headaches to either Kirk or Picard or any of our other heroes. The master plan here is for Abraham and his drug dealers to somehow steal the lifeforce radiation from the planet (with Zerbe’s Admiral laboring under the delusion that it will be used to advance medical technology and prolong the lives of billions) while also literally kidnapping the planet’s residents against their will and relocating them to another planet (presumably shortening their lives by cutting them off from their Fountain Of Youth), a tactic that quite literally pisses and shits all over the famous “Prime Directive” of Starfleet that dates back all the way to the original show from the 1960s, that of noninterference in a civilization’s culture and development (and obviously the concept of simply negotiating with these people to study their lifesource was taken off the table long ago). Despite Zerbe’s Admiral stating that all of this nonsense has been signed off on by Starfleet, what he doesn’t know is that Abraham and most of his associates are actually former residents of this paradise planet, exiled long ago for displaying rebellious tendencies and having now since been cut off from the planet’s life source which has reduced them to literally having their skin falling off their face from rapid, accelerated aging. Abraham is also secretly planning to genocide the peaceful, nonviolent people who have deliberately rejected all forms of technology in an act of sheer, deliberate revenge. Picard and his crew get involved because Brent Spiner’s Data (originally scheduled to be killed off in this chapter, an idea which Spiner was jubilant about until Stewart used his clout to change that story direction) has apparently been loaned out to help spy on this community, only to seemingly malfunction and expose the whole operation, leading to Picard and Michael Dorn’s Worf going out to capture him peacefully (but not before they have a scene where they all sing karaoke together) and eventually the whole crew heads down to the planet to see what’s going on, leading to several interesting plot threads: Riker starts feeling randy and begins shamelessly and relentlessly moving in on Marina Sirtis’ Troi, even shaving his famous beard because she doesn’t like it; Worf (still grieving over the death of his wife on the Deep Space Nine TV show) starts showing more aggressive tendencies and develops a pimple; Data befriends a child who teaches him the benefits of having fun like a child would (since Data never had a childhood himself); Lavar Burton’s Geordi discovers that his eyes have miraculously healed from the planet’s regenerative powers and finally gets to witness his first sunset; and Picard cultivates a romance with a beautiful local (Donna Murphy) who seems to possess the magical ability to make time stop. The film does go for some emotional cheap shots with the viewer in teasing certain character deaths and the finale which sees Riker in the captain’s chair engaging in a space battle with Abraham’s men and Abraham himself (a great actor given a cumbersome one note villain to play here) having a protracted final battle of wits with Picard that mostly leaves the viewer cold (think once again of the overuse of the Holodeck) that at least sees him receive an hilarious “fuck you” villain death scene pretty much sums up the failure of this well intentioned entry where the peaceful yet immortal people being forcefully relocated is directly referenced against the real life atrocities where Native Americans were going through the same ordeal, a too little too late revelation that leaves the average Trek fan wondering how all this would have turned out if DeLancie’s almighty Q had been worked into the story as the featured antagonist instead…
5/10