Star Trek: Insurrection is a 1998 science fiction feature film, directed by Jonathan Frakes, written by Michael Piller (with the story developed by Rick Berman and Piller), and with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It is the ninth film in the Star Trek franchise, and the third to feature the cast from the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. It revolves around the insurrection of the USS Enterprise-E as they discover that Starfleet has been conspiring with a species known as the Son'a to steal the planet of the peaceful Ba'ku for themselves.
The film received a mixed reception from critics, with a general consensus that it seemed to be little more than a "glorified episode of the television series".[1]
Plot
Lt. Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner) loses control while observing the peaceful Ba'ku people on their homeworld, revealing the presence of the joint Federation and Son'a taskforce to the Ba'ku. Admiral Matthew Dougherty (Anthony Zerbe) requests the help of the USS Enterprise-E to help them capture and repair Data. Though they are able to do so, Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) becomes suspicious of Dougherty's insistence that the Enterprise is no longer needed, and instead has his crew investigate the cause for Data's malfunction. They come to find that the Ba'ku are well aware of technology but have opted to reject it, instead living in harmony with nature, and they also later reveal they are much older than they appear. Picard asks Anij, the unofficial Ba'ku leader, "You have warp capability?" to which she replies mildly, "Capability, yes...but where can warp drive take us, except away from here?"
The Enterprise crew also begins to experience the rejuvenation effects of the planet; LaForge (Levar Burton) finds his eyes can see instead of requiring Optical Implants, Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Troi (Marina Sirtis) rekindle their long-abandoned relationship, and even Picard experiences romantic feelings for the Ba'ku woman Anij (Donna Murphy).
The crew discovers that the Briar Patch, the area of space that the Ba'ku homeworld is located, contains metaphasic radiation particles, more concentrated in the planet's rings, which impart the rejuvenation effects to those exposed to them but also block communications to the rest of space. They also discover a cloaked Federation ship that contains a gigantic holodeck recreating the Ba'ku village; Data's malfunction was apparently caused by his previous discovery of this ship. Picard surmises that corrupt Federation officers and the Son'a are attempting to collect the metaphasic particles with a large harvester. This would leave the planet uninhabitable, and Dougherty, who would not allow for the destruction of the Ba'ku, prepared the "holoship" to transport the Ba'ku off the planet without their knowledge. When confronted with these charges against the Prime Directive, Dougherty orders the Enterprise to leave.
Picard orders Riker to take the Enterprise out of the Briar Patch in order to communicate the situation with the Federation while he and others beam down to the planet to help the Ba'ku evacuate to nearby caves that will prevent them from being transported. While the Son'a send out robotic probes to tag the fleeing Ba'ku, allowing them to be transported individually, the Son'a leader Adhar Ru'afo (F. Murray Abraham) convinces Dougherty to allow him to send two Son'a ships to attack the Enterprise. Riker is able to destroy one ship and cripple the other through a risky maneuver and continues to leave the Briar Patch. With their plan exposed, Ru'afo insists that they must begin to harvest the metaphasic particles immediately, only to have Picard deliver a revelation: the Son'a and the Ba'ku are the same race. The Son'a are a breakaway Ba'ku faction who failed to convince the rest of the colony to embrace "offlander" ways, were exiled and have spent a century since trying (and failing) to preserve their lives; hence their desperate attempt to harvest the metaphasic particles. Dougherty then confronts Ru'afo, who kills him when he refuses to allow Ru'afo's scheme to continue.
Picard, his crew, and the Ba'ku are eventually transported onto the Son'a ship, but manage to break free. They then use the ship to transport Ru'afo and the Son'a from their ship to the holoship, making them believe they are still in their bridge as they launch the harvester. Ru'afo eventually discovers the deception, and transports to the harvester to start it himself. Picard defeats Ru'afo and activates the harvester's self-destruct mechanism, killing Ru'afo as it explodes. The remaining Son'a are welcomed back by the Ba'ku who forgive them for their actions, this process beginning when Picard arranges a meeting between Gallatin (who, then, was Gal'na) and his mother. The Enterprise crew take one last moment to enjoy their rejuvenated selves before returning to their mission.
Cast
Cameos
Preproduction
By the start of 1998, preproduction on Star Trek: Insurrection began with set and conceptual drawings generated by Herman Zimmerman and illustrator John Eaves as early as January. Director Jonathan Frakes returned to helm his second Trek film and co-star as Commander Riker, Patrick Stewart also did double duty as Captain Picard and associate producer. With Industrial Light & Magic busy with work on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Frakes and company turned to a new visual effects house for the first time since Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Splitting the workload, Blue Sky Studios and Santa Barbara Studios were hired to contribute almost entirely digital effects with model photography limited to the explosion of the Son'a collector ship.
Music
While the commercial soundtrack release for Insurrection featured more music than Jerry Goldsmith's previous release, First Contact, still much of the score was left out. This inspired fans of Star Trek and movie music to compile a "bootleg" score featuring almost double the music as heard on the album. The "Complete" Star Trek: Insurrection score remains a heavily traded and sold score, though none of the proceeds went to Goldsmith.
Reception
Insurrection received mixed reviews from mainstream film critics. Reviewers Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel were split in their response, one thumb down from Ebert, one thumb up from Siskel. Ebert wrote in his Chicago Sun Times review that he felt the movie's problem lay in its morality play, stating that he wasn't sure that 600 Ba'ku lives weren't worth sacrificing to help billions of Federation citizens. Siskel, however, felt differently, and though he died not long after screening the film, his wife later told Michael Piller that it was the only Star Trek movie Gene Siskel truly enjoyed.
Box Office
Insurrection grossed $70,187,658 in the U.S. and $112,600,000 worldwide against a $58,000,000 budget.[2] The previous Star Trek movie, First Contact, grossed $92,027,888 in the USA and $146,027,888 worldwide.
Video game
Though not a direct tie in to the film, the PC video game Star Trek: Hidden Evil (Activision, 2000) is a sequel both to this film and to "The Chase," a sixth-season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It revisits the Ba'ku homeworld, and features some of Insurrection's Ba'ku and Son'a characters in minor roles (and in most cases voiced by actors other than the ones in the movie), although most of the game's storyline takes place in an underground complex that turns out to have been constructed by the proto-humanoid race revealed in "The Chase."
Deleted scenes
Several scenes were cut before release of the movie:
- An extended library scene in which Riker and Troi throw small paper balls at each other. This scene also includes some lines by the librarian (Lee Arnone-Briggs) and a Trill officer (Max Grodénchik)
- A scene in which Picard and Anij kiss each other.
- A scene in which Picard spills cheese on a PADD displaying the Briar Patch.
- The actual ejection of the warp core.
- Data reporting the condition of the Captain's Yacht being "precarious" and then beaming out before it explodes, explaining why the yacht is ultimately absent in the end.
- Data punching some Son'a on the Ba'ku planet and nailing them with isolinear tags.
- The line "There will be no cover-up" on the Son'a ship.
- The original version of the fight between Picard and Ru'afo contained an additional scene. After Picard was beamed away by the Enterprise, Ru'afo fell into the rings of the Ba'ku planet and was regressed into a young child. This scene was cut from the final film, but a "Young Ru'afo" (played by Phillip Glasser) is still listed in the credits.
- Armin Shimerman was originally to appear at the end of the film as his Star Trek: Deep Space Nine character Quark; the scene was filmed, but Frakes felt it did not fit in with the rest of the film and cut it.[3]
Many of these scenes were included as a supplement in the 2005 Special Collector's Edition release of the film.
References
External links
