

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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