Insurrection - the good, the bad, and the very bad

[Khan 2.0]

watched INS for first time in many years the other night and I didn't find it as terrible as before.

the good

-really liked all the Picard/Dougherty Prime Directive/forced relocation debate stuff. Stewart in his Picard element. and very 'Star Trek' (despite the rather dubious argument). Zerbe was great in this

-there seemed to be a Search for Spock vibe running through with the Planets regenerative qualities like Genesis, and the crew becoming rebels (esp the lock and load scene with Picard in Admiral Kirks leather coat). maybe the TNG crew were intentionally doing their SFS to FCs TWOK.

-also abit of a strong Avatar thing going on. ok that isn't necessary a good thing but there you go

-The FX are a lot better than I remembered - in particular all the space ships above the planet FX, the Picard/Data shuttle sequence, and TWOKesque nebula (the hand phaser FX are bad though)

-The opening was a nice call back to one of TNGs best eps .

however there are a few things that really let the movie down and consign it to worst Trek movie imo

the bad

-those bumpy headed alien of the week members of Ruafos crew - they look absolutely ridiculous! why not have had other face stretched Son'a or even human members of Starfleet STID style? (which would've tied in with the Insurrection title/plot)

-the ship interior of their ship - Horrible. another federation ship would've worked better since Doherty was in charge. then there could've been an Ent vs Federation ship battle like Khan/STID (which again would've been apt with the Insurrection theme)

-the blue screen climax. would it have killed them to put some stars there? - that wouldve looked great

very bad

-really didn't like Picards woman in this. I know shes supposed to be all serine, placid but damn she was boring. Same goes for the vaguely Admiral Kirk looking husband.. they gave it a SyFy movie of the week type feel. not saying they needed to get Helen Mirran and Daniel Day Lewis but...I dunno the characters were just dull..

-oh and the kid. and data. no just no. I didn't trust Data around that kid. meaning whenever he was around the kid hed be bad...meaning bad in a 'oh no more cutesy data stuff' bad

 

[BillJ]

The Gilbert and Sullivan routine and the cinematography are gold. The rest of it is pretty bad, including the moral dilemma.

 

[sonak]

The premise and "dilemma" are hopelessly flawed. It doesn't withstand five minutes of scrutiny-example, how did the Baku, pacifists and anti-advanced technology, "expel" the Son'a from the planet?

Picard comes off like a self-righteous idiot thinking with his sex organ rather than his brain. He's insubordinate before he even knows what's going on.

Even apart from the premise's flaws, the movie feels small and boring, especially coming off of the awesome "First Contact." Most of the humor is lame and Data's character gets regressed for the sake of an annoying sub-plot.

For all of "Nemesis'" flaws, I'll gladly watch that one over "Insurrection."

 

[Cyke101]

I thought Dougherty was a better villain than Ruafo, which is pretty bad since Abraham is the bigger name -- the latter should have had the juicier parts and better development. Dougherty's own motivations aren't as clear cut, but you at least know he's going against the grain because his actions contradict the uniform. Ruafo was just another villain-of-the-week, common in so many Voyager episodes.

I also thought the movie was trying too hard to repeat First Contact. The village bombing made even less sense. Our heroes never hesitated in the TV show, true, but the guns-blazing act didn't seem to gel here. And because the villain was both cliche'd and muddy, he was too weak of a character to define our heroes.

The chase with Data at the beginning was a good way to start the movie. There was creative use of invisibility that wasn't used very often in movies back then, and Data on the run sets off a nice mystery.

 

[T'Girl]

the bad-

the ship interior of Abrams ship - Horrible. another federation ship would've worked better since Doherty was in charge.

Having Dougherty on the Sona ship, instead of a Starfleet ship, served to isolated him.

When Dougherty wanted to beam down a talk to Picard the Sona wouldn't let him. When Dougherty wanted to communicate with Riker in the departing Enterprise the Sona wouldn't let him.

When the Sona leader basically told Dougherty that the two Sona ships were going to attack the Enterprise, all Dougherty could do is say bring the Enterprise back.

It all emphasized that Dougherty wasn't in control of the situation and made Dougherty a more sympathetic character.

 

[Khan 2.0]

ok but maybe the Sona could've had a Federationy ship (not being helmed by those bumpy headed aliens of the week)

 

[Tosk]

-the blue screen climax. would it have killed them to put some stars there? - that wouldve looked great

It isn't a bluescreen. It's the way they designed the set to look.

 

[Khan 2.0]

If that's the case it just looked like a blue screen

 

[Dukhat]

It isn't a bluescreen. It's the way they designed the set to look.

If that's the case it just looked like a blue screen

Yes and yes.

 

[Smellmet]

The Gilbert and Sullivan routine and the cinematography are gold. The rest of it is pretty bad, including the moral dilemma.

^This

 

[Cyke101]

It isn't a bluescreen. It's the way they designed the set to look.

If that's the case it just looked like a blue screen

Yes and yes.

That particular shade of blue was just a poor artistic choice when it came to set design. The funny thing is, below that blue screen was indeed a green screen for the SFX crew to project the rest of the station.

(It would have sucked if that blue screen was actually a green screen with a blue screen digitally applied onto it. Talk about doubling your waste!)

 

[enterprisecvn65]

To me insurrection just seemed like they found an old unused script from TNG, added a few bells and whistles to it, and marketed it as a movie.

It is honestly the only one of the 10 films that, to me, didn't have a "movie" feel to it. It seemed just a jazzed up version of a TV episode. Would have been decent to watch on TV, but for a motion picture......forget it. It was crap and I really can't believe it didn't the TNG films. Although I thought Nemesis was FAR better and I think it suffered from Insurrection being lousy and people saying "I've had enough, time to move on." and not giving it a chance.

 

[Smellmet]

It isn't a bluescreen. It's the way they designed the set to look.

If that's the case it just looked like a blue screen

Yes and yes.

The worst thing about that scene is that it's the best set in the movie, and the nearest it comes to even looking close to a bigger than TV movie then they spoil it with that background!

 

[Cyke101]

To me insurrection just seemed like they found an old unused script from TNG, added a few bells and whistles to it, and marketed it as a movie.

It is honestly the only one of the 10 films that, to me, didn't have a "movie" feel to it. It seemed just a jazzed up version of a TV episode. Would have been decent to watch on TV, but for a motion picture......forget it. It was crap and I really can't believe it didn't the TNG films. Although I thought Nemesis was FAR better and I think it suffered from Insurrection being lousy and people saying "I've had enough, time to move on." and not giving it a chance.

Having just watched Generations because of the other thread, I honestly can't believe that that movie -- which is older and the TNG cast and crew's first foray -- is the superior product by leaps and bounds. The special effects, the set design, the lighting, the handling of themes -- that was all more cinematic than Insurrection.

 

[Smellmet]

Couldn't agree more - in fact I'd argue that there isn't a single visual effects shot in Insurrection that is superior to Generations, which is pretty unforgivable. Generations, is just a far slicker looking product in every way for me.

 

[Viper78]

I didn't think the special effects were that great in Insurrection. Not sure who did them but it wasn't ILM as they were busy with The Phantom Menace. This will be why Generations has better CGI than Insurrection.

 

[Smellmet]

The Briar patch stuff was OK but the space shots around the Baku planet looked really cheap and unrealistic, and no better than the TV series. Look at all the standout sequences in Generations - Enterprise B scenes, shockwaves and Planet destruction, saucer crash. Even the first shot of the D approaching Amagosa. Insurrection had none of that.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I liked that "they" chose to follow up FIRST CONTACT by not repeating it, just because it was successful. Oh! Here's the Borg ... AGAIN!!! Or here's the TNG crew handling the Dominion War, or whatever, just to tie it in with what was then "current" with STAR TREK on television. On the other hand, I wouldn't have stopped with the final script INSURRECTION was shot from. There's a lot of ideas in there I've always liked and think could've been done better, with the resources at hand. I do have issue with beating us over the heads who to root for: the Ugly People you don't want to look at, they're the bad guys and the Photogenic People? They're the good guys! The audience deserves SOME credit. I mean ... they're not all knuckle-draggers, they tend to be reasonably intelligent, for the most part.

Besides which ... all of the plastic on F. Murray Abraham, et al, looks just like plastic. I never bought it and I would've never asked for it, either. There needed to be much more complexity, rather than the obvious "Revenge" angle and their stooge Admiral. Had it been more "adult" a story, rather than this sort of fairy tale, it would've stood up better. Also, the Amish bullshit did not fly, with their "Oh! We can repair positronic robots, we just choose not to" horseshit. Just take that out of the equation. As it is though, whatever problems I have with the picture and its production are cope-withable. I know I'm in the minority when it comes to Anij, but I liked the effect she had on Picard, in general. Also in the minority, I happen to have liked it when Riker beckons forth The Joystick and all that. There is actually a lot to mine from in this movie, entertainment-wise ...

 

[Vger23]

Good-
Nice acting by Stewart and Zerbe
Outstanding location shooting- beautiful cinematography
Riker and Troi flirting
Data goes nuts in the teaser- and invisibility suits!
Geordi regaining his sight

Bad-
Space hippies nobody sympathizes with
Worst villian in the entire movie franchise
Awful CGi effects- less convincing than the television series
Mediocre musical score
Token space battle that was a total waste of time and money

Really Bad-
Data and Picard sing showtunes. Awful, awful, awful
Picard dances the mambo
Cheap, unconvincing production design
Data and the little kid
Data as an action hero
The entire implausible holo-ship subplot. Complete nonsense.
Battle against the dreaded tagging drones

So many have said it so many different times...so I feel bad repeating it, but:

This was a major motion picture with a multi-million dollar budget. It was a follow-up to a highly successful film that seemed to indicate that the TNG cast could have staying power in motion pictures. And, with all that, it was weaker than 75% of the TNG episodes. It was soooooo mediocre. And, even worse, if you read about the production and development if the film, it was almost like they INTENDED it to be mediocre. It was so watered down and diluted by having everyone (writers, producers, actors, studio) inputting that they took a relatively interesting story idea ("Heart of Darkness" with Data as Kurtz meets the fountain of youth with Romulans as the adversaries, if I remember correctly) and turned it into the tepid, lukewarm, uninspired, corny mess we saw realized onscreen. They purposefully watered it down. And, it was a low point of the series. In fact, I believe it was largely responsible for the lack of success of the following film and ultimately the demise of the TNG-era franchise. It was absolutely the beginning of the end.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

To me insurrection just seemed like they found an old unused script from TNG, added a few bells and whistles to it, and marketed it as a movie.

It is honestly the only one of the 10 films that, to me, didn't have a "movie" feel to it. It seemed just a jazzed up version of a TV episode. Would have been decent to watch on TV, but for a motion picture......forget it. It was crap and I really can't believe it didn't the TNG films. Although I thought Nemesis was FAR better and I think it suffered from Insurrection being lousy and people saying "I've had enough, time to move on." and not giving it a chance.

Having just watched Generations because of the other thread, I honestly can't believe that that movie -- which is older and the TNG cast and crew's first foray -- is the superior product by leaps and bounds. The special effects, the set design, the lighting, the handling of themes -- that was all more cinematic than Insurrection.

I think generations is a far better film. I think it had more plot holes and ridiculous things than insurrection but was still much better from an entertainment standpoint.
Insurrection was just filled with so much corn it was ridiculous. For the other 9 films I left thinking either "thay was pretty good" or "that was disappointing" with insurrection I just left thinking "was that REALLY a Star Trek film". It just felt like a long TNG episode and an average one at that.

Nemesis really paid the price IMHO. I don't know if the nemesis story was even created as an option for the third film. If it was it seems they were worried about doing back to back darker films. I'm not saying Nemesis was in the category of The Empire Strikes Back for Classic sci fi and it had some substantial weaknesses. Still I've seen FAR worse films (I'm looking at you Transformers) that have been hits.

IMHO insurrection was such a cluster F of a film a lot of people couldn't even get up the will to hate it. Instead they were totally apathetic and decided TNG had had its day and Nemesis paid the price despite being far better.