Star Trek Insurrection Analysis and Review

Star Trek Insurrection was released in 1998 and pitted Captain Jean-Luc Picard against his Federation superiors. The movie explored the classic 'fountain of youth' concept, and asked questions around hard far people are willing to go to help a large group, at the expense of a smaller one, and the theme of displaced people. In this episode, I look back on this film and discuss what worked for me, and what didn't. I find I enjoy watching this movie more now than I did the first time. It missed the mark for me when I saw it at the cinema, but nowadays I can just watch it for what it is and enjoy it as a part of Star Trek history.

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a nerd

 

This is episode 25 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about Star Trek Insurrection. I’ve already covered the other 3 TNG movies on the podcast.

 

The description on Memory Alpha reads

"The Battle For Paradise Has Begun"

As the Dominion War ravages the Alpha Quadrant, an idyllic planet in the middle of an unstable region within Federation space serves as home to the peaceful Ba'ku – and a veritable fountain of youth. When the Son'a and the war-torn Federation plan to exploit the planet in order to rejuvenate themselves, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise-E must rebel against the Federation in order to save the Ba'ku and expose the atrocities that are about to take place.

 

The screenplay was written by Michael Piller based on a story by Michael Piller and Rick Berman.

It was directed by Jonathan Frakes 

And first released in cinemas on the 11th of December 1998

 

Make it so

 

This movie shows the title card and then jumps straight to footage, showing credits over the action.

It’s great music. First contact stil has my favourite music but still really enjoy the theme of this movie, and it fits the film quite well.

Also let’s appreciate the set design of this village.

We get an Idyllic view of primitive living. Looks lovely, and yet, constant manual labour is hard work.

There’s a reason people invented machines to do the mindless work so we can pursue more interesting things, which I appreciate.

This sequence definitely portrays thee people as happy

There’s a sudden Contrast in the music as the camera pans up to eveal the village is being watched. And then shock of all shocks, it’s startfleet who are watching them.

We’ve seen this before in TNG season 3 who watches the watchers. That’s the first big plot idea stolen by this movie. But it works. Makes sense this is something starfleet would do multiple times.

 

When we realise it’s Data attacking the village, we can only assume there is something wrong with the starfleet people. I mean, they were shot creepily.

The holographic suit is kinda cool. I like it.

And while Brent spiner’s green suit is a very simple visual effect, it works for me.

 

Michael Piller actually wrote a book about his experience writing this movie. It’s an interesting read. I still haven’t gone over the whole thing in detail, but what I’ve read has been enlightening. It’s called Fade In, From Idea to Draft The Writing of Star Trek Insurrection.

It really highlights the struggles of being a writer in hollywood.

As an indie author, I only have to answer to myself. Sure, I need to listen to beta reads and my editor, but ultimately, nobody but me chooses where the story goes. It’s my baby.

But when writing a movie, there are so many different voices that get to have an opinion. It’s a wonder any script ever gets completed.

So, while I may speak critically about some things in the writing of this movie, I don’t want to sound like I’m coming off too hard on Pillar. First of all, he’s a much more experienced writer than I am. Second of all, Star Trek owes a lot to this man. He came in and revolutionised the show in season 3. He made it good. And I think  a lot of the credit does belong to him. He made TNG a much more character-driven show. He shaped what Star Trek would be from here on, though DS9, Voyager and even Enterprise (which he wasn’t involved in). Our most beloved Star Trek shows wouldn't be what they are without his input.

 

This is the first time we’ve seen new dress uniforms to match the standard uniforms introduced last movie. I like them. I like them a lot.

 

Picard and crew are involved in a diplomatic mission, entertaining alien representatives. And it’s nice to see them engaging in this kind of thing. We haven’t seen them doing diplomacy in a movie before. 

 

But are we forgetting that we're currently in the middle of the most brutal war the federation has ever faced?

They try to hand wave this away by saying the federation needs all the new allies it can get right now, which does make sense. But why would they send their flagship, a sovereign class vessel, to entertain these people.

The federation diplomatic core is tied up with dominion negotiations. Ok.

But this isn’t the hard negotiating. That appears to have already been done. This is a party. Any minor ship and crew could have done this. 

The enterprise should be out there fighting for the survival of the federation.

 

Michael Piller and Rick Berman both wanted to do a light-hearted movie.

And while I don’t have a specific objection to that, this hardly seemed like the time.

 

I can understand why they felt this way. First Contact was a much darker Star Trek movie. And both DS9 and Voyager were in pretty dark times at this moment. DS9 was in the midst of the Dominion War, and Voyager had recently been through a frightening encounter with the Borg and Species 8472.

Frankly, I was loving it. This was one of my favourite periods in Star Trek history. But I like the dark stuff. And it wasn’t so dark that I felt the need for relief. I mean, this was hardly Battlestar Galactica.

Some might have wanted some relief from that the darkness in Trek, but not me.

This movie felt very out of place. ….. Very out of time…...to me.

 

I do like the conversation in the turbo lift, that hints at these being difficult times for the federation. Including picard’s line. “Anyone remember when we used to be explorers?”

 

And then we meet Worf.

Picard asks him what the hell he’s doing here.

And his voice fades out as he gives his explanation.

I hate this. I really really hate this. 

What a bloody cop-out!

 

First contact had a very good valid reason for Worf to be on the Enterprise.

Theoretically, so did Nemesis, although they mishandled that as well.

 

The aliens that Picard is welcoming as a Federation protectorate look awesome. Very nice makeup design by Michael Westmore.The thing the alien puts on Picard’s head is silly.

I think perhaps it was supposed to be amusing. I dunno.

 

In a lot of ways, this movie feels like an extended TV episode. I think from the moment Rick Berman told Michael Piller he wanted the next movie to be more light-hearted and comedic, it was never going to have the epic feeling that the last two movies had.

 

Star Trek IV was practically a comedy. And it worked. It’s a favourite movie of most Star Trek fans, including me. But I think that’s an outlier. It shouldn’t have worked as well as it did, but somehow, it did.

They were deliberately trying to model this movie on Star Trek 4.

See here’s the problem.

Comedy in Star Trek can work. DS9 did some hilarious episodes. (They also did some real stinkers in the name of comedy). But we were getting 24 episodes a year at the time.

We were getting a movie every couple of years. To dedicate an entire movie to comedy. Well, it feels like a bit of a waste to me.

 Anyway, let’s see how this plays out.

 

So data was scheduled to observe the baku village for one week. He should be back on the enterprise by now. And admiral dougherty is calling, asking for Data’s schematics.

Data has taken the other starfleet observers hostage and is refusing to respond to orders or anser hails.

 

Dougherty very much views this as a malfunctioning piece of technology. Which, of course, it could be, but that probably shouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind when dealing with a sentient android like Data.

 

Doughtery keeps trying to discourage Picard from approaching the planet. And Picard keeps ignoring him.

And this is where we get the one and only reference to Data’s emotion chip.

Apparently, he didn’t take it with him.

What?

In generations, it was fused into his neural net, and couldn’t be removed.

In First contact, he could de-activate it.

And now, he has apparently removed it and left it on the enterprise.

This was so badly handled, in my opinion.

You see, Michael Piller wasn’t a fan of the emotion chip idea. He felt that since Data had finally gained the thing he’d wanted all of his life, that he’d lost of the most interesting part of his character.

I disagree.

And I would say that first Contact proves my point. They did some interesting stuff in that movie with Data’s emotions. They introduced new vulnerabilities to him that he’d never had to deal with before.

But the interesting thing is, in an early draft of this script, Piller actually did some interesting stuff with Data. He had him dealing with some new realities. He’d gotten what he’d always wanted, but it had brought some unexpected disadvantages. For instance, he longer enjoyed playing poker. This was interesting. He could have done a lot with this.

But instead of moving forward, he went backwards, and he essentially erased all of Data’s character development since Generations.

I was really unhappy about this.

This was a mistake.

Data’s arc in this movie was about him learning what it’s like to be a child. It’s something we might have seen as a subplot in a TNG episode. And I found it very unsatisfying.

 

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

 

Anyway, given this strange turn of events with Data, Picard decides to delay Worf’s return to Deep Space Nine, and ask him to join them. I’m not sure that’s especially warranted, story-wise, but it keeps Worf in the movie.

Picard all but disobeys the Admiral here, by setting a course for the briar patch.

I guess Dougherty didn’t explicitly forbid him from coming, he just discouraged it. He said “It’s not a good idea. Just get me Data’s schematics.”

 

Picard thinks something is off about this whole affair.

This is also the first appearance of the new Admiral uniform. In DS9, while most characters wore the new grey movie uniforms, admirals continued to wear the bright red admiral uniform. It was a bit glaring. We actually see Admiral Ross transition to the new uniform during the early part of season 6, after this movie had shown.

 

And this is our introduction to Ruafo, the movie’s alien villain, played by legendary actor F Murray Abraham.

 

Although he’s hardly recognisable under the alien prosthetics. And frankly I’m not sure this movie gives him a chance to really show why he’s such a legendary actor.

 

I like the dinosaur-esque aliens that work for the Sona.

The Sona ship is also pretty cool. A bit of a unique design for Star Trek.

 

I also like the ship that data is flying. Very federation, but quite unique. Bigger than a shuttle but smaller than a starship. And quite different to a runabout.

 

The visual effects for the briar patch are nothing out of the ordinary by today’s standards, but at the time they looked amazing, and they still look great today. There’s some clear inspiration from real hubble telescope images.

 

Riker and Troi are investigating the sona, to see what they’re all about.

Not only have they enslaved two primitive races, but they are known to have produced mass quantities of ketracel white.

Every Star Trek fan at the time knew what this was. It’s the drug used by the founders to control the Jem Hadar soldiers.

Sisko and his crew risked everything to destroy a ketrecel white facility in Cardassian space. Very recently.

We are at war with the dominion, and the Sona are helping them create the very weapons that are killing our people.

The sona are the enemy.

Troi’s question “why would we be involved with these people” is the understatement of the millennium.

It makes absolutely no sense.

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the DS9 reference. I appreciate that they are again, at least acknowledging the war, but it just doesn’t work.

Riker and Troi are acting like “Oh, so they’re drug dealers. That’s not nice.” But it’s so much more than that. The sona are enemy agents. They’re working for the dominion. In season 7 of DS9, we even hear Damar and Wyoun talking about how the sona are requesting dominion assistance to protect one of their ketrecel white factories.

 

In this scene, we also get our first hints of something rekindling between Troi and Riker

 

For some reason, they changed the hologram-esque viewscreen sound from First contact with the standard cut and beep in this movie. Not sure why. It’s just another thing that gives this movie a more TV feel.

 

Picard and Worf go out in a shuttle to capture and deactivate Data.

So Picard tries to distract data by singing a gilbert and sulivan song that he’d recently been rehearsing.

I think this was supposed to be funny. It just makes me cringe.

Picard asks Worf if he knows Gilbert and Sulivan, and he says he hasn’t had time to meet all the new crewmembers. Why would Picard expect Worf to know 19th century earth composers? Sure he spent much of his childhood on earth, but still.

I think this was supposed to be funny as well.

 

The bit where the two ships are connected together is pretty suspenseful.

So they’ve captured data and they beam down to the baku village.

This movie has one big strength over most of the other TNG movies. They get out of the soundstage and do a lot of location shooting. Generations had those beautiful vistas on Veridian III but nothing in First contact or nemesis can compare to the beautiful exterior shots we see in this movie.

And as I think I’ve already said, I really like the outside sets for the baku village.

 

The baku, while aliens, look completely human. This is a general weakness of Star trek, dating back to the 60s. Back then, it was often a budgetary issue, and I guess that could still be the case even here. I read that at one point they had considered doing something to the baku, some dots on their faces somewhere, to make them look at least a little alien.

It does seem a shame that in a big screen movie, that had supposed aliens that just looked human.

Anyway

The initial conflict wraps up pretty quick. The starfleet crew are not hostages of the backu. It was data who wouldn’t let them leave. But there’s still the mystery of what data was up to.

 

And then we learn that the baku are technologically advanced. They understand positronics. They once explored the galaxy with warp drive. But they have chosen not to employ their technological knowledge in their daily life. It does seem, however, that they do not wish to lose that knowledge all together.

 

Their leader says they believe  that “when you create a machine to do the work of a man, you take something away from the man.”

I don’t agree with that statement.

 

Dougherty now orders Picard to leave the briar patch, but apparently, he’s not finished here. He says he has a few loose ends to tie up, which sounds suscisious.

 

Now Riker comes into Troi’s office to flirt.

It’s clear that something strange is happening with these two. And yet it’s welcome to see them finally sorting themselves out. I think every TNG fan is now saying “it’s about time.”

Troi’s reaction to kissing Riker with a beard for the first time was amusing. I did actually find that funny.

Anyway, something about the way these two actors work together, I really feel the emotions between them.

 

It turns out, the sona, and doughtery were lying. They shot data first, before he malfunctioned.

Why would they do that? Then his ethical and moral subroutines took over.

 

Data’s last memory of the mission is following some children in the hills in his isolation suit.

So, we beam down to the planet to try to retrace his steps.

The kids have a little alien animal as a pet. By today’s standard’s it’s not great CGI, but at the time it was pretty significant and impresive.

 

This is the beginning of Data’s relationship with the baku boy. The boy is uncomfortable around data, even afraid, because these people have rejected technology. As data says, I am the embodiment of all they have rejected.

 

Cut back to riker and troi, who are sharing a bath together. Troi is shaving riker.

Apparently, they had to very carefully place the soap bubbles around Troi’s chest so as to maintain their intended PG rating.

 

Data finds the lake. And it looks incredible. They found a beautiful place to film the scene, and the water with the snow-capped mountains stand in wonderfully for a paradise planet.

I love it.

 

Picard tells the boy that Data doesn’t breath.

Which is wrong, because it was established in Birthright part 1, in a conversation between data and Bashir, that he does breath.to maintain thermal control of his internal systems.

 

Anyway, data uncovers a cloaked ship under the lake. A federation ship.

 

The effects for the cloacked doors opening looked pretty cool. And this is the second major plot point stolen from a TNG episode.

The ship is a giant holodeck containing a duplicate of the baku village.

It seems they plan to beam them on board during the night, they wake up in a holodeck, not knowing they aren’t on their planet any longer.

 

And so this is Worf’s arc in the movie. He gets pimples. Great.

 

We get two important pieces of information from Crusher. The sona refuse to be examined, and the federation crew from the planet are in suprisingly good health. Better than they should be.

 

Picard puts it together and beams down to the planet.

The Baku came from a solar system where terrible wars with technology weapons threatened all life. They came here to escape it. They haven’t aged in 300 years. There’s a metaphasic radiation in the planet’s rings that keeps them from aging.

Aging vs growing up

 

Admiral dougharty and the Sona planned to discreetly move the baku from this planet so they can harvest the radiation for themselves.

 

Anij explains that some young baku are attracted to a faster pace of life.

Picard points out that those in the federation would sell their souls to slow it down.

 

Picard is temped by perpetual youth, but darkest chapters in earth’s history are the forced removal of a small group of people to satisfy the demands of a large one.

 

This ties in the with classic Star Trek theme of the needs of many vs needs of few.

 

There’s a nice character scene between Picard and Anij. Almost romantic.

I don’t mind the relationship between them, but ultimately, it’s just a romance of the week and will never be addressed again. I hate romances of the week. I find them a ridiculous artefact of 20th century TV. But ultimately, I, like I think a lot of others, felt this was just a distraction from the real relationship between Picard and Crusher, which still, to this day, really hadn’t been explored.

They wanted to give Picard some romance. Fine, so use the character he already has such a connection to. 

 

Also, nice moment with geordi, where he gets to see a sunrise for the first time. 

 

Picard gives one of his famous speeches. It’s a  reasonably good one.

This planet is in federation space. The sona have the technology to harvest the particles. That means Starfleet and the Sona are partners in this. They need each other.

 

There is some nuance here, though. The sona are dying. That’s why they’re constantly going through horrific surgical procedures to replenish their bodies. The particles in this planet’s rings could save their lives. Many of them are so far gone that the slow exposure just from living on the planet won’t be enough. They’ll die before it has a chance to improve their condition.

These particles could also save the lives of the sick throughout the Federation.

 

So by refusing to vacate the planet, in a sense, the Baku are condemning these Sona to death. But can you force a group of people out of their home to help the sick? And don’t forget, these sick are enemies of the Federation, working with the Dominion.

 

And is the Sona’s current state natural? We’ll talk a bit more about this a little later, after we learn more about their nature.

 

Dougherty says we’re only talking about 600 people.

Ad Picard asks an important question. “How many people does it take, Admiral? Before it becomes wrong?”

Again, needs of the many vs needs of the few.

 

So Picard is ordered to release the Sona and leave the system.

There’s nothing more he can do, short of outright disobeying.

And so, he goes to his quarters, and removes his rank pips.

 

Now that the big secret has been uncovered, the Sona see no need to bother with the holo ship anymore. They’re just going to move the Baku by force.

 

Picard’s senior crew find him getting ready to sneak off the ship. Of course, they’re with him. I like the moment where Data points out that the effects of the radiation could be stimulating feelings of rebelliousness common to youth in all of them, except him.

To be honest, this is probably true.

But that does change the fact that they believe this is the right thing to do. And so does Data. But I like how they ask him for an objective opinion.

 

Picard’s hope is that they won’t begin the procedure while the planet is inhabited. This is likely true of Dougharty, but what of the Sona? Will they really hold back from killing the Baku if necessary?

 

Picard says “It’s too easy to turn a blind eye to the suffering of a people you don’t know.” so Riker is to take the Enterprise out of the brier patch to blow the lid on this whole conspiracy.

 

The goal is to get the baku to some caves where natural minerals will prevent them from being beamed away.

Then we get a nice action scene as fighters fly down and shoot up the village. I felt the tension.

 

Also, the Sona transporter effect is pretty cool.

 

There’s some tension between Dougharty and the Sona. They’re willing to go a lot further than he is. He still wants to keep his support in the Federation council. But Ruaffu talks him around to taking that next step over the line. He agrees to let the Sona ships go an dintercept the Enterprise. To fire on a Starfleet Ship. At a Starfleet admiral’s orders.

 

I like the scene as the Baku trek through the countryside. This gave me Lord of theRings vibes.

 

So the little boy is finally starting to talk to Data.

And we get the next stage of Data’s arc in this movie. We’ve long explored his desire to be more human, but in this story, he wants to know what it’s like to be a child. There’s a nice little conversation between him and the kid, as they discuss the constant change experienced by a child. It’s a nice enough scene, but it feels like it belongs in a season 3 episode, not a movie, and not at this point in Data’s development. He is so far past all this.

 

So the Baku have super powers. They can slow down time. That’s an astonishing thing. Or is it just the perception of time they can manipulate. But time slows down for Picard as well. So, what? She’s causing his brain to process information at an accelerated rate, so that time appears to have slowed?

Either way, that’s pretty incredible, and the movie does virtually nothing with it.

But I must say, the visual effects here are pretty cool, especially for the time it was made.

 

And then we get the weird boob scene. Data overhears Crusher and Troi talking about their boobs. And then he goes and repeats their words to Worf. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Data doesn’t have boobs. Worf doesn’t have boobs. Data knows that neither Worf or himself have boobs. And this has got to be the record for the number of times I’ve ever said boobs in a podcast. Sorry about that.

I’ve got no idea what I’m supposed to take away from this scene. Probably another of those things that are meant to be funny.

 

The drones that tag people for transport are kinda cool. Another nice little action scene.

 

So Geordi is sitting at the helm, instead of in engineering, just so he can be in the scene. I guess he’s acting first officer, so makes sense for him to be on the bridge, to exchange opinions with Riker. When things get dicey, he does go straight down to engineering.

 

So the Sona use an illegal subspace weapon against the Enterprise. If they have this technolgoy I can’t help but wonder why the Jem’ Hadar aren’t using it against the Federation and their allies, but anyway.

It doesn’t bother me that Riker is now sitting at the helm. They’re doing a complex menouvre and it’s been well established in TNG that Riker is the best pilot on the ship.

 

So they eject the warp core and detonate it to stop the weapon.

Ok.

So now they’re stranded. It’ll probably take them decades to get to the nearest starbase now, unless they’re towed by another ship, but at least they’re in one piece.

And then we get our obligatory minor swear word that seems to have become a part of Star Trek movies since Star Trek 5. Just one per movie to keep it edgy.

And then Riker activates the manual steering column. Which is a joystick.

Ok.

I don’t really have an opinion on this. It seemed unnecessary and felt a little out of place, but whatever.

All in all, the space battle was pretty weak, but the visuals of the gas were nice for their time.

 

There’s a wounded or dead Sona soldier on the ground. Not sure where it came from, since the Sona are using automated drones to tag the Backu, but Crusher learns something important by scanning his body. So I guess it’s just a plot convenience.

 

So what happens in every movie that stars a kid? They lose something, a pet, or a teddy bear, and they run back to get it, which means our heroes have to go after them.

Yep, that happens here too.

 

So Picard an Anij are trapped by a cave-in.

Anij is injured. They need to get through the rocks quickly so he can get medical attention.

And so now, Picard also has the Baku super magic powers.

The movie makes it pretty clear it’s picard who does this, not Anij,

So...ok. Picard is a human. And he “learned” how to stop time.

The only explanation I can come up with is it’s something to do with the radiation on this planet.

So we now have super radiation that can not only regenerate human cells to prevent aging, but also grants people magic abilities to manipulate time.

That’s a lot to ask of radion. And is a number of steps too far for me.

This is the one time they actually do something meaningful to the plot with this magic power. It’s never used to solve their primary story problem. It all falls a bit flat for me.

 

Those beautiful vistas in this movie continue to impress me. It’s the main thing that keeps this movie feeling cinematic.

 

Of course there’s no reason for the drones to hover menacingly before attacking.

 

So Picard and Anij get tagged and are beamed up to the Sona ship.

Ruaffu has had enough of this. If the baku want to stay on the planet, let them. He’s going to launch the injector, which will kill everyone down there.

This is one line that Doughtery doesn’t feel he can cross, so we’ll see where that takes us in a minute.

But first, Picard reveals what Crusher learned from her scan.

The Sona and the Baku are the same race.

 

Ok. So years ago a group of young baku wanted to live the ways of the offworlders. They wanted technology. So instead of going off on their own, they tried to take over the colony. When they failed, they were exiled to die slowly.

What this means exactly, we’re not sure. We know they were young when they left the planet, so their lives haven’t been extended unnaturally at this point. It seems more than just the fact that away from the planet they became mortal like the rest of us. No, I’d say their bodies became dependant on the radiation which means that away from it, their bodies deteriorate more quickly than they should.

This opens up all kinds of cans of works.

First of all, it means that by removing the baku from their planet, we’d be killing them too.

It also means that the Baku condemned their rebellious children to death.

This movie tries to play itself very black and white, and I do agree, obviously, that what Doughtery and Ruaffu have been trying to do all this time is wrong. I believe some things in life ARE black and white. But sometimes, these issues are difficult. There is more subtlety and complexity to this whole thing than I think the movie fully allows itself to explore.

 

Dougherty now realises he’s been wrong all along. This was an important moment in the movie. Gene Roddenberry always hated the idea of the Federation being the bad guys, and Rick Berman very much carried Roddenberry’s flame. It woldn’t suprise me if a last minute redemption of dougherty was madated by Berman.

The tragedy of it all is Doughterty says “It was for the Federation. It was all for the Federation.”

But, you can’t bring good out of evil, can you?

So doughtery tries to stop Ruaffu and fails. Ruaffu kils him in a somwhat gruesome scene.

 

The camera zooms out before it gets too bad.

 

There’s a nice little moment when we see Picard tampering with a control panel. He didn’t succeed, but it shows that he wasn’t just sitting on his hands in that cell. Of course he’d be actively trying to escape.

 

So Picard tries to talk Gulnar out of it all. To make him feel guilty so he’ll change his mind.

It’s the same thing he tried with Soran back in Generations.

Trying to sway the bad guy with his words.

The twist is that this time, it works.

This was a cool moment and I wasn’t really expecting it, although Gulnar’s discomfort with the latest development was foreshadowed.

Picard has a clever plan. As long as ruaffu doesn’t know anything is wrong, he won’t override Gulnar’s authorisation.

Data weakens their shield and then beams the bridge crew into the holoship. Into a simulation of their bridge. The same trick they planned to use against the Baku. Nice one.

But i’m very suprused none of the bridge crew know what it feels like to be transported with their own technology. That’s a hard one for me to swallow.

We see the moment it happens. There’s a glow and Ruaffu says “What was that.” As an audience we don’t yet understand what just happened.

 

So ruafuu deploys the collect and we get to see it in all its horror, but it’s fake. Ruaffo notices a glitch in the holodeck, but it’s too late.

And we get that terrible scream. Was that meant to be reminiscent of Kirk’s Khaaaan in Star Trek 2?

Now ruaffo has to go directly to the collector to re-activate it. So Picard has to go on board and stop him.

They technobabble a way to beam Picard through the shields.

And this movie continues the trent from First contact, making Picard an action hero.

This time he gets to have a shooting fight with ruaffo.

 

So this planet has helped Riker and Troi remember how they feel about each other, and that will continue on in the next film, which is great.

 

Picard arranges a reunion between baku mother and sona son. To start the healing process.

He hopes the two groups can over come their differences.

Except those sona who are too far gona and will shortly die from their condition, of course. But we won’t talk about that, because this movie is light-hearted and “Fun”

 

Picard intends to continue pursuing a relationship with Anij. He says he’ll use his shore leave to come back to her when he can.

Of course, we’ll never hear of her again. In the end, it’s just another stupid romance of the week.

 

The movie closes out with Data playing the hay with the kid. “It’s time to go home now.”

This is the culmination of Data’s arc, learning about what it is to be a child. And it falls really really flat for me.

 

So then the crew beam back up to the ship as the TNG theme plays and the enterprise warps off to it’s next adventure.

It feels so much like a stock weekly TV ending. Nothing has changed in the universe. And apart from Riker and Troi, nothing has changed in our characters.

 

I came out of the cinema, having seen this for the first time, feeling a little empty.

Is that it?

 

There was a lot of elements in this movie that I liked, and I can enjoy this film on re-watches, but it kinda missed the mark for me.

But it’s still lightyears better than what would follow it in the form of Star Trek Nemesis.

 

So by now, I’m sure you’ve heard the news. The Snyder Cut is coming. That’s right. The much hoped-for Zack Snyder cut of the Justice League movie is going to be a reality. It’s expected to go live on HBO Max some time next year.

I’m very excited to see how Zach’s original vision plays out for this movie and perhaps bring about a better conclusion to the story arc that began with Man of Steel.

But my first thought, when I heard the news was “that’s nice, but will I get to see it?” HBO Max is an American streaming service that’s about to go online. However, there’s a lot of talk that they plan to go international with the service and it’s hoped that it will be available in many countries once the Snyder Cut releases. I’m holding my breath, hoping that Australia will be one of those. So it seems a perfect time to be delving into the DC Extended Universe movies. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. 

Next episode, in two weeks time, I’ll be talking about Man of Steel. I can’t wait to geek out over this movie with you.

Catch ya then.