It comes up from time to time. I've certainly made fun of it more than once. If I had to guess why it doesn't come up more often? ...People have bigger gripes with the movie so it gets pushed off the top ten list.
People say Insurrection would've made a great TNG 2-parter TV episode. I disagree.
- Thread starter The Rock
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Bland-y villains usually aren't so damaging to an episode ...
It did indeed feel (too) small scale but television, including even two-parters, is usually expected to be pretty small-scale. By the same idea just changing the title to Prime Directive or Conspiracy would feel maybe weirder but less underwhelming.
I think making the viewers feel uncertain, disagreeing about who is more right is generally better writing than everyone feeling, having to feel that there's an obviously right and wrong in conflict.
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The whole film does feel like a criticism or at least moving away from the more ends do/can justify means approach we saw in Deep Space Nine Season 6, it was probably scripted before a lot of the really dark/controversial episodes but it may have still been a bit inspired by them or at least their predecessors. Piller was probably at least reacting a little about thinking DSN (in general or at least, especially its DW) and maybe Voyager and FC had gone too far dark (and violent and morally conflicted), the really positive/idealistic style was more unique and better and at least hopefully would be more embraced including by the fans who had moved away from the later series and general audience.
All of the reasons you've listed are why people suggest Insurrection would have been a TNG two-parter. It's as bland and uninteresting as the later TNG seasons and has that same feel. FC, meanwhile, was a tonal shift away from TNG and the characters (especially Picard) were completely out of character. Of the two, at least Insurrection is more faithful to TNG, though that's not saying much.
I think most people say Insurrection was like a TNG episode not as a compliment but as a negative. It felt too much like the TV show not a movie, particularly after First Contact.
I personally like Insurrection, but I think that's because basically I always just longed for more TV show. I came out of First Contact unhappy. I came out of Insurrection smiling that my crew were back. I think the story was almost incidental... it *felt* like my crew again.
I personally like Insurrection, but I think that's because basically I always just longed for more TV show. I came out of First Contact unhappy. I came out of Insurrection smiling that my crew were back. I think the story was almost incidental... it *felt* like my crew again.
I don't dislike Insurrection. I thought it was reasonably fun. Nothing special. Kind of a throwaway, really. Except that, as always, I really loved Goldsmith's score. I like his Baku village theme and the integration of it with the TMP theme in the closing is one of my favorite iterations of that theme.
But I do agree the film has some issues. It's been rehashed to death, but "action hero Picard" just doesn't work for me here. I can understand and excuse it in First Contact -- he had a very, very personal vendetta against the Borg. I get that one. But here? The Picard we knew all those years would be working with all the parties involved to find a diplomatic solution.
Or, quite frankly, he might have just accepted his orders and moved on. This wasn't some rogue admiral on a clandestine mission, like Pressman. This was a guy acting on orders from the Federation council and one who, for a change, actually had a pretty reasonable argument for his position, whether you agree with him or not. And let's not forget that Picard was willing to obey his orders in "Journey's End" when he was asked to move a colony of people and had similar objections.
All-in-all, though, I find this to be a decent TNG movie outing, and I'd probably put it second after FC. Nemesis certainly makes it look good in comparison.
But I do agree the film has some issues. It's been rehashed to death, but "action hero Picard" just doesn't work for me here. I can understand and excuse it in First Contact -- he had a very, very personal vendetta against the Borg. I get that one. But here? The Picard we knew all those years would be working with all the parties involved to find a diplomatic solution.
Or, quite frankly, he might have just accepted his orders and moved on. This wasn't some rogue admiral on a clandestine mission, like Pressman. This was a guy acting on orders from the Federation council and one who, for a change, actually had a pretty reasonable argument for his position, whether you agree with him or not. And let's not forget that Picard was willing to obey his orders in "Journey's End" when he was asked to move a colony of people and had similar objections.
All-in-all, though, I find this to be a decent TNG movie outing, and I'd probably put it second after FC. Nemesis certainly makes it look good in comparison.
Plus - the comments are wrong. Jean-Luc is correct.
It's not okay to move an entire race - however small the population seems to be - from their own world. It doesn't matter, when they found it, fact is, the Bak'u were living on this planet for quite some time now. You don't move them away. And if the resources of the planet will heal bilions then put a medical treatment facility on that planet - it's big enough and the Bak'u aren't that big of a population. Build the facility on the other side of the planet, if you don't want to see them.
Bring the Son'a on that planet, too. And if the Son'A don't want that, because they want to have everything... well - Pech gehabt, I'd say. It's the Bak'us planet, not the one of the Son'A. Period.
What if the Bak'u refuse to allow the Son'a to settle there? They did exile them in the first place, after all.
They would not. We saw that at the end.
That was after the events of the film; we have no way to know that things would have gone that way without the events of the film preceding that resolution.
In that case, if the Bak'u really said "Get off this planet" ... well, I still side with the Bak'u, honestly.
After all, this whole Son'A-Situation happened, because they said "no, we don't want to live like the Bak'U", so they went into space and did their own thing. And when this leads to them being ill, nearly dying, because they did incredibly stupid things - it's their problem.
^Doesn't that put us right where the movie takes us then, where the Son'a don't believe they can get what they want by asking nicely so they attempt to take it out of desperation?
I'd like to hope the ostensible good guys could show a bit more compassion though. Whether or not the Son'a had grounds for rebelling, consigning them to a slow and painful death seems pretty inhumane, and if the Bak'u really would reject them if they had asked nicely, then I don't think the Bak'u retain much of a moral high ground.
I'd like to hope the ostensible good guys could show a bit more compassion though. Whether or not the Son'a had grounds for rebelling, consigning them to a slow and painful death seems pretty inhumane, and if the Bak'u really would reject them if they had asked nicely, then I don't think the Bak'u retain much of a moral high ground.
I thought they were just old, trying to extend their life via technology?
The Ba'ku were what, 500 people or so? Planets are big. The Son'a could have just settled on another continent. No, they wanted to go back into space, then they got old, came back, and want to harves the rings of youth, making the planet uninhabitable by the Ba'ku.
Well, if the Son'A actually had asked them nicely and in a civilized manner, I don't see the Bak'U saying "Naah, frell off!" - but if the Son'A had started there inquiry with something like "We all know, that you're just a bunch of space-hippies and we're in the right" - and given the fact that Ru'afo (Ro'tin) was all like "You condemned us!", I have no doubt, that he'd started the discussion exactly like that, at least I would not look at the Bak'u and say "Well, now you have to talk to them." I'd be like "Know what? These clowns are the children, that you say, they'd be, so I have no sympathy for them, if they now have to live outside this planet." It's like I said: "Pech gehabt".
Indeed, indeed. The Son'a could've just gone to another part of the planet, but they'd decided, that they were cheated - although, they've probably shown the same childish qualities, that they've shown in the entire movie, sans the ending. And that only was, because 1) their great leader died and they knew, they'd been defeated and 2) because the Bak'u actually were nice enough to at least try to re-integrate them in their society.
Another point, that I never get, is, that the Bak'u are seen as using double-standards. Actually - no, they don't. They don't say "Don't use technology" - they say "don't use technology above a certain level."
I think, the quote goes a little something like this:
.
And with that, they don't mean an oven to bake bread (you need technology for that) or a dam - they mean stuff like computers.
I could give a shit about the Baku or the Son'a. The bigger deal to me is that they found this miracle of a planet and their first thought was to strip mine it. Maybe just build a few resorts on one side of the planet for actual sick people. Try and duplicate the planet's effects in a lab. Geordi's eyes are supposed to have unhealed by film's end, so even if they had strip mined the planet, how much of the effects would be temporary?
It's just such a non entity to me. It's "Journey's End" and Picard has a romance, and Brent gets to act like a kid. It's not even that funny, it's action is not inventive, it's villain sucks, the Baku are dull and boring.
Look at "Gambit" with the sick looking claw ship and the villain captain there, Picard going undercover and him butting heads with Riker, Captain Data and First Officer Worf, Data throwing Riker in the brig at episodes end, a morality message story about overcoming anger or something. And that's one of the bad ones!
And then suddenly Worf had a purple space bazooka
It's just such a non entity to me. It's "Journey's End" and Picard has a romance, and Brent gets to act like a kid. It's not even that funny, it's action is not inventive, it's villain sucks, the Baku are dull and boring.
Look at "Gambit" with the sick looking claw ship and the villain captain there, Picard going undercover and him butting heads with Riker, Captain Data and First Officer Worf, Data throwing Riker in the brig at episodes end, a morality message story about overcoming anger or something. And that's one of the bad ones!
And then suddenly Worf had a purple space bazooka
Well Picard does say have them live on the planet, he may be an optimist but I don't think he would make claim/offer like that if he didn't reasonably believe it could, would happen. Besides with the Sona being a lot more technologically advanced and the Ba'ku just not having technology they couldn't prevent them living somewhere else on the planet and I don't think anyone would be sympathetic to them wanting to keep others off elsewhere.
The Admiral states that the Son'a just didn't want to live there primarily, and secondarily "some" wouldn't recover soon enough (which as some critics complained felt unbelievable/inconsistent with how soon how much our heroes were quickly rejuvenated).
Slow death just means not be immortal, inevitable consequence of living anywhere except the planet.
It's true, and a flaw, that we don't get much sense of the specifics of the Ba'ku other than Anij who is overly idealized.
Which begs the question of how the Ba'ku exiled the Son'a when they rebelled. Do they no longer have technology available to them?
Based on the appearance of the Son'a and the surgery chamber that we saw, it may very well mean more than simply not being immortal.
In the end, by the Federation's own principles, using "Redemption" as a precedent, once the relationship between the Son'a and the Ba'ku was exposed, Our Heroes had no business being there in any case.
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