Joining forces with some unsavory Rubber Forehead... and face... Aliens offering their technology friendship, The Federation decides that the Prime Directive is optional so that they can relocate the new-agey Space Amish inhabitants of a paradise planet. After all, Utopia Justifies the Means, right? The Enterprise crew uncovers the plot and rebels against Starfleet (hence the title) to save the day.With bigger guns, the rekindling of the Riker/Troi romance, and a generally out-of-character original cast, the movie is a far cry from Star Trek: The Next Generation, clearly created to draw in a broader audience. It is considered by some to be among the worst of the Trek films, though not without its merits.
Tropes seen in Insurrection include:
Badass Boast: "We're through running from these bastards."
Beauty Equals Goodness: Thanks to centuries of living with eternal youth, the Ba'ku look like catalog models
It's also very similar to an episode of The Next Generation where Picard's stance on the exact same situation was the exact opposite, although one can argue the strategic and scientific value of Ba'ku is a sufficient difference to change his mind.
The script has been accused of being racist in tone: the group who Picard was perfectly willing to deport were Ambiguously Brown while the Ba'ku are lily white yet they get to keep their planet. Many fans don't like turning one of the most peaceful and enlightened captains in Star Trek into a racist.
An argument that doesn't really hold water. The Boraalans of TNG were on a planet that was going to naturally die out. Picard refused to interfere with the natural order by saving them. Once forced into it he went along still trying to minimize the damage to their culture thus upholding the Prime Directive. With the Ba'ku he was again refusing to interfere, and further more damned well not going to allow someone else to simply force people off of their homeworld and then destroy it utterly. Not so the So'na could further unnaturally extend their lives, or so that the Federation (which isn't exactly a cesspool of dying people, instead a highly medically advanced civilization) can gain a new medical technology. His point stands, if they were moving six hundred people it would be just as wrong as six million. Completely different situation.
There's actually several episodes which feature a vaguely comparable situation. It's hard to think of a case where Picard actually allows a native population to be exploited, whether out of racism or some other reason, but there are at least two instances of him being asked to relocate colonists who have ended up on someone else's planet: He actually does relocate a planet of white people in "The Ensigns of Command" but ultimately leaves a group of Native Americans alone, albeit under Cardassian rule, in "Journey's End".
The important detail is that in both cases, the colonies were made up of Federation citizens, and in the case of the Native Americans, he only left them alone after they had renounced that citizenship.
Even Evil Has Standards: Dougherty is fine with forcibly relocating the Ba'ku, but draws the line at genocide. So Ru'afo kills him.
Executive Meddling: Averted; Paramount sent an astute-sounding letter pointing out the holes in the plot, even (accidentally?) offering a valid rationale for Picard's interference — namely, that the Ba'ku lack the numbers to procreate and thrive in a normal environment, and hence cannot be relocated without dooming them to extinction. Pillar and Berman must not have gotten that memo.
Fan Sequel: The sixty-episode seriesHidden Frontier takes place almost entirely in the Briar Patch and explores it extensively beyond Ba'ku, with an (obviously recast) older Artum joining Starfleet after developing a case of wanderlust from meeting Data. Many jokes can be made about it being superior to the actual movie, the show's shoestring-budget being the punchline.
Fanservice: Troi and Riker taking a bath together.
Troi and Dr. Crusher talk about how much firmer their boobs are, using that exact word. The fans weren't exactly happy.
Human Alien: The Ba'ku, they look exactly like humans.
Hypocrite: The Ba'kus clothing looks nice for a race that doesn't believe in technology like a loom. Their crops benifit from an irrigation system, and that stone dam with a wheel and chain system can't possibliy be technology. Also note that they don't seem all that ungrateful of being saved my medical technology when crushed by rocks.
Immortality Begins at Twenty: The magic radiation takes some time to have its full effect allowing children to age normally.
Invisibility Cloak: In the opening scene Data runs around cloaked while being chased by several cloaked away team members. Then later they find a cloaked ship hidden in a lake.
Love Transcends Spacetime: Anij's ability to slow down time seems linked to how romantic it makes the moment.
Machine Empathy: Picard detects that the ship's torque sensors are slightly out of alignment just because "they don't sound right."
Star Trek: Nemesis indicates that Picard was born with a rare genetic condition that gives him supersensitive hearing. Although treated in his youth to ensure that even the slightest of sounds don't cause him pain, it's entirely possible that Picard would retain extremely acute hearing (by most human standards) into adulthood.
Especially since the drug they are mentioned to be dealing is often brought up in Deep Space Nine - as the drug the Dominion uses to keep its Jem'Hadar stormtroopers in line. Which means that the Son'a are the allies of a nation which the Federation is at war with. This is actually lampshaded when Troi is clearly flabbergasted by the Federation's involvement with them, but the Phlebotinum is starting to affect her and she's too busy flirting with Riker to take the thought any further.
It's not outright stated they're Dominion allies until a later episode of Deep Space Nine. So it's possible the Son'a just happened to make ketracel-white for other people besides the Dominion and after the events of Insurrection their falling out with the Federation gave them the final push to join forces.
What other people? Ketracel-white's sole purpose is to keep the Jem'Hadar healthy. It's never stated that it has uses for other people. It was created just for the Jem'Hadar. Though, I can get around this by saying maybe Ru'afo's group was not part of the Dominion alliance.
In the Deep Space Nine relaunch novelSection 31: Abyss, Commander Vaughn says that the entire operation was organized by Section 31, and when it went bad, the deceased Admiral Dougherty was made the fall guy.
Off-the-Shelf FX: Riker's "manual steering column" is an off-the-shelf computer game joystick.
Made HilariousInHindsight since in StarTrekOnline you can use a joystick to pilot your starship, and if you own the exact same model of joystick...
Perfect Pacifist People: The Ba'ku, whose leader even says "The moment we pick up a weapon, we become one of them."
Precision F-Strike: After detonating the warp core to neutralize the Son'a's sub-space weapon:
Commander Riker: We're through running from these bastards!
Which they subvert with the kid...who's twelve. The Ba'ku settle into age stasis sometime in their mid-20s.
Redemption Equals Death: When Admiral Dougherty develops a sense of morality, Ru'afo kills him.
Series Continuity Error: Troi saying she's never kissed Riker while he had a beard. Number of times this happened in the series: four. You'd think at least Frakes (who was also directing, remember) or Sirtis would point this out.
The Needs of the Many: The last tropes you'd expect to be subverted in Star Trek. Picard chosing to help 600 Ba'ku when the technology studying the planet would bring could save literally billions.
What Could Have Been: According to Michael Piller's unpublished book, Fade In, the first draft was about Picard hunting down his old friend from the academy, Duffy, who has gone native with the Baku against the Romulans. Baku was being used as a fall guy by the Federation to ensure peace with the Romulans. It eventually ended with a Mr. Smith Goes To Washington like speech by Picard in front of the Federation council, the crew of the Enterprise about to be arrested, but stopped by a Slow Clap started by Boothby.
Internet reviewer SF Debris provided a rather interesting premise for the film: the family argument. Only half the officers would go with Picard to defend the Ba'ku while Riker and the others would stay on the Enterprise to help the Son'a. The whole outline is in Part 4 of his review.
0 reviews