Star Trek IX: Insurrection (1998)

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

Dir. Jonathan Frakes

The usually dependable Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner) goes ape-shit whilst on an alien planet, during an undercover mission for Starfleet. Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and his crew make it their business to find out why.

Insurrection is a mixed bag. The good bits are exciting and even sometimes funny, but for long-time fans it's obvious that it's treading old ground.

However, if you can somehow ignore that you've seen the same kind of thing multiple times already in the weekly TV series, then the story itself is entertaining enough. It's less action-filled than the previous TNG feature film, but on the flip side it contains more quiet, reflective moments, focussing on family and environmental concerns.

The many rewrites are obvious, but production values are high, and aside from one face-palm moment involving Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and a joystick, it's worth watching.

It's a significant change of pace in comparison to the moody approach of First Contact (1996), both in terms of basic storytelling and onscreen aesthetics; e.g. the idyllic outdoors location; the playfulness that's both light-hearted nonsense and genuinely relevant to the plot; the... er... singing; and even the ship's bridge is more brightly lit! While overall it's not as striking as FC, I feel that introducing a previously unseen threat more menacing than the Borg, just for the sake of it, would've been unwise and may have compromised the dramatic power of the previous film a little too much. It's not always a good idea to go bigger - sometimes the opposite is wiser.

An event on-board the USS Enterprise (E) means that Lieutenant Commander Worf (Michael Dorn) is conveniently there when needed. The script references his duties on Deep Space Nine and places itself in the shaky Star Trek timeline in relation to that by referring to the ongoing Dominion negotiations (fan speculation puts the film's happenings sometime during Season 7).

The most notable non-Trek regulars are F. Murray Abraham, Donna Murphy, and Anthony Zerbe.

It's not a film that stands out in the TNG canon, but it's arguably the last TNG adventure to feel like an actual TNG outing. Its successor, Nemesis (2002), is a different kettle of fish.

Alas, Insurrection also had the misfortune of the being the first ever Trek film to have all of its space FX rendered in CGI - including the USS Enterprise (E).

- "Yes, Captain. There are worse things than being blue." -