Film review by Kevin Patterson
STAR TREK: INSURRECTION Rating: *** (out of four) PG, 1998 Director: Jonathan Frakes Producer: Rick Berman Screenplay: Michael Piller Starring Cast: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner
If nothing else, STAR TREK: INSURRECTION should convince people that the supposed curse on odd-numbered installments of the TREK series has been lifted. It more or less plays like an episode of the "Next Generation" TV series with a bigger budget, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. While maybe not the best of the four TREK series, "The Next Generation" was certainly the most politically idealistic and can lay claim to two of the franchise's most consistently interesting characters: Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the android Lieutanant Commander Data (Brent Spiner).
Screenwriter Michael Piller, who has been involved in all three of the new STAR TREK series, wisely puts Picard and Data at the center of the action for most of the film. As the film begins, Data is on a survey mission with a team from Starfleet secretly observing a race known as the Ba'ku, who have abandoned their technology in favor of a return to a simpler, more agricultural way of life. Suddenly Data turns against the other team members, exposing their secret observation post and telling the Ba'ku that the team are their enemies. Picard and the rest of the Enterprise crew are called in to handle the situation, and after apprehending Data, discover that he suffered an injury which rendered inactive all of his artificial brain except for his moral/ethical subroutines.
Soon the situation becomes clear: there is a special kind of radiation emitted by the ring system of the Ba'ku planet which prevents the aging process. A rogue Starfleet Admiral, along with some seedy aliens, have decided to move the Ba'ku against their will in order to take advantage of this radiation. When these plans are discovered, Picard objects on the grounds that they would be violating Starfleet's Prime Directive, which states that all alien civilizations must be allowed to develop independently. The impatient aliens then prepare to kill the Ba'ku as well as the Enterprise crew. From this point on, INSURRECTION follows the reliable formula for a STAR TREK action/adventure story by splitting up the crew between one group on a planet and/or a hostile spaceship while the other group fights a space battle with the aliens. In this case, Picard, Data, and several other Enterprise officers go to the planet to protect the Ba'ku from the alien onslaught, while First Officer William Riker (Jonathan Frakes, who also directed) takes command of the Enterprise.
The biggest success of INSURRECTION is the way it handles some of the philosophical questions underlying this latest TREK adventure. At this point in the storyline, Picard and his crew have been relegated mostly to diplomatic duty, as Starfleet's war with the invading Dominion (a story arc from the "Deep Space Nine" TV series) has strained their resources and forced them to concentrate on the political rather than on exploration and science. As he spends more time with the Ba'ku, we can see that Picard is considering that he might prefer to return to a simpler form of exploration, that of human relationships and community, given that he probably won't be getting back to quasars, solar systems, and wormholes any time soon. The use of technology has always been a source of controversy and moral dilemma in the STAR TREK universe, but I don't recall ever seeing the technology-driven futuristic idealism of the TREK franchise questioned so directly.
If anything, the filmmakers push this aspect a little too far, as the screenplay seems to be so ga-ga over the utopian community of the Ba'ku that it never questions the morality of their decision to exile anyone who wants to take another try at a technological society. Aside from that, the only other noticeable problem is the often sophomoric humor that arises out of the effects of the anti-aging radiation on the Enterprise crew. The giggly romance between Riker and ship counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) is so corny that one wonders if Frakes and Sirtis had been receiving some radiation treatment themselves when they performed these scenes, and Picard breaking out into a samba dance in his quarters isn't far behind on the silliness meter. There is some slightly more credible, and seemingly less radiation-induced, attraction between Picard and a Ba'ku woman, but it still comes off as a movie romance rather than a real one.
STAR TREK: INSURRECTION is certainly not the best of the movie series: FIRST CONTACT and THE VOYAGE HOME, at the very least, are clearly superior, and a case could be made for THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, THE WRATH OF KHAN, and maybe even THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK as well. Nevertheless, its entertaining mix of sci-fi adventure, character development, and philosophical questions about humankind and its future makes it easy to see why STAR TREK has indeed managed to live long and prosper.
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