# [film] "Star Trek: Insurrection" A Postview, copyright 1999, P-M Agapow
Star Trek the Decaffeinated Generation are ask to clear a planet of its peace-nik native inhabitants, get self-righteous and engage in a few ludicrous fight scenes. Fin.
Delayed that it is, and futile a task that it is (how many people's minds am I going to change on the subject of "Star Trek"?), a review of the latest Trek cinematic offering is in order. But more than review the film, I'd like to think out loud about Trek, science fiction and the cinema. And although it will be interpreted otherwise, this is not a Trekkie-bash. (Or Trekker-bash.)
For those who came in late: it seems like the Federation have discovered a source of Plotdevicium on a distant planet, which acts as a fountain-of-youth. Recovery of the Plotdevicium requires the help of the Son'a, a race of aliens whose names sound like cough medicines. Naturally the Son'a insist on doing it the "Viking and coastal village way" (remember: ugly aliens are evil aliens), meaning the native Baku must be evacuated. Data goes haywire (again) and blows the cover of the undercover observers on the planet surface. (Later he is talked down by Picard singing Gilbert and Sullivan songs. Don't ask.) As the natives now have tumbled to the Federation's plan, there's nothing for it but for Picard to romance the immortal native with the highest "schwing!" factor. (And if you wanted to know, immortals look like 30-something white Californians. To contrast them with the ugly aliens, they have names like modular Swedish furniture.) Thus politicized and empowered, the Enterprise crew tells the Federation where they can stick their Plotdevicium and goes rogue to protect the natives and fight the evil and ugly Son'a.
That's not exactly a promising start, but this need not matter if it leads to some decent action or drama. This happens to some degree. (There is a few nice jokes about Worf going through Klingon puberty.) Unfortunately there are some terribly cringeworthy moments in between, many involving the Federation's most dangerous piece of technology, the android Data. (Proof that getting a plausible skintone and eye colour for robots is too hard for even the top scientists of the 23rd century.) Data gets to deadpan lines like "lock and load" and be taught the value of play by a child. (Remember those agonizing scenes in "Terminator 2" where John Connor pals around with the T1? This is much worse.) Picard's romance is lukewarm at best, so his concern for his lust-mate and her fate seems forced. Indeed there's something oddly virginal and coy about the relationships in the movie. Even when Troi and Riker romp naked in a bubble-bath, you can't believe that they'll ever actually have sex. (Or that we have left the 1980s far behind.) It's relentlessly PG. A similar comment can be made about the violence within the film. The scowling Son'a villain (played by F Murray Abraham) seems more petulant than malevolent.
Having said that, I have to give full credit to the scriptwriters for something that we should see more of but don't: a cast of mature women. A movie where you can have three significant female characters (Troi, Crusher, Anja), clearly not in their 20s anymore and not pretending to be, who are accomplished, active and sexually attractive is a rare thing. I wish this wasn't something so rare, but kudos to the filmmakers anyway.
Going back to the character of Riker , it seems Frakes is unable to direct himself as an actor. At least this is my interpretation of the terrible mugging performance that he delivers when he appears as Riker. Looking more and more like a teddy-bear on steroids everyday, it becomes hard to believe that the Enterprise crew stands between the natives and genocide when Riker is grinning from ear to ear. Given the light tone that pervades the whole picture, someone else should direct the next film, preferably one of the creators on the meatier old Trek films.
Don't misunderstand me - "Insurrection" isn't a bad film. Genial perhaps, not predictable but unsurprising, maybe lightweight. Even given the more ridiculous moments as listed above, about the worst you could say is to wish you'd waited for video. It is certainly not near the worst of the Trek series. (Number 5 has that category stitched up.) But as you watch the film, the fairyfloss texture lets your mind wander to other subjects.
Is "Trek" science fiction? Is it even speculative fiction? Barely, by the evidence of this film. Characters sprout long strings of gobbledygook in order to get themselves in and out of situations. (Pick 4 words from the following list and shuffle them together: reverse, phase, flux, radiation, energy, particle, resonance.) It isn't so much that their words are meaningless but that they are just a way to create and solve dramatic situations. This would not be so bad - it's just a story - except that the point has long been passed where there was any sort of consistency. At least two items from "Insurrection" (immortality and defeating force shields by "matching resonances") should change the shape of the Trek universe forever. Want to bet they don't? In Trek, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Indeed, Trek has stopped trying to explain itself at all. What if you had never seen any Star Trek. Could you make head or tail of "Insurrection"? What if you had just seen Trek Classic? Would that help? To a large extent, Trek has become strange people doing unexplained things in implausible ways for unapparent reasons. It pitches itself solely at the (admittedly huge) fan market, those who know. (And for whom the series is familiar people doing the same things in any convenient way for the usual reasons.) The very definition of a movie franchise, it has become a commodity. Every two years, the market shall be given 90 minutes of film. File next to bread and milk.
Is this a problem? If the Trek faithful are kept happy, what's the issue? Perhaps nothing. But I sense an opportunity wasted here, a chance for big screen SF, a chance for spectacle, a chance for Patrick Stewart to do some fine acting. As in a franchise there's a weakened drive for quality and novelty, this opportunity will probably go wanting. In 20 years time, Trek will be just like the James Bond series, pushing out more of the same, never being very bad but never being very good either.
Hmm. For such a lightweight film, I've been (unintentionally) left with a lot of thought. [**/ok] and a mild cheese on the Sid and Nancy scale.
"Star Trek: Insurrection" Released 1998. Directed by Jonathan Frakes. Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, F. Murray Abraham, Donna Murphy.
-- Paul-Michael Agapow (p.agapow@ic.ac.uk), Biology, Imperial College "We were too young, we lived too fast and had too much technology ..."
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