Scene Anatomy 101 09.19.07: Star Trek Insurrection
Posted by George H. Sirois on 09.19.2007
A story fit for a movie, in a different kind of way…
The year was 1996. The box office success of Star Trek Generations guaranteed that there would a future for the big-screen franchise after the original series had successfully passed the torch to the cast of The Next Generation. At the same time, a third television series – "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" – was enjoying a successful run of its own, so the Star Trek name was still very much alive in different media.
Two years after the transitional film, Paramount Pictures released Star Trek First Contact, the first in the series to exclusively star the crew of The Next Generation. The resulting film was a tremendous critical success, with a story that showed a side of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) that we had never seen before, a vengeful side. First Contact very quickly became one of my two favorite Star Trek films – The Undiscovered Country being my second favorite – and that sentiment had been shared by many other Trek fans. They were pleased to see a film that felt like an actual movie and not just another television episode.
However, the PG-13 rated sci-fi thriller – the first Star Trek film to not be rated PG – left an interesting problem: where do they go now? What kind of story does the next film tell, especially since First Contact covered all aspects of what made Star Trek what it is, going all the way back to the Vulcans first landing on Earth? Do they go deeper? Were there more loose ends in the television series that needed tying up?
Surprisingly enough, producer Rick Berman and fellow writer Michael Piller decided not to go in that direction. Instead, they presented a film that, at first glance, could not help but disappoint considering the rousing adventure that the previous chapter had been. Jonathan Frakes was allowed to sit in the director's chair again, and this time he was given a pretty difficult task to make a story that would work just as well on the television screen and make it look worthy to be in theaters. The film was released in 1998 as…
The story for this much quieter, more family-friendly PG-rated film begins when Data (Brent Spiner) seems to be malfunctioning on a distant planet he's monitoring in a little explored section of the universe known as "the Briar Patch." When he is returned to the Enterprise, the crew learns that the planet's rings contain meta-phasic particles that have a rejuvenating effect on the inhabitants. How strong are these effects? Well, Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) was born blind, yet the cells in his eyes came alive and he was finally able to watch a sunset for the first time in his life.
Picard and the crew also discover a holographic ship with an interior that is an exact holographic replica of the main town on the planet. Picard quickly deduces what is going on, since earlier he was told that the Federation was entering into a partnership with a suspicious race known as the Son'a. Led by Ro'Afu (F. Murray Abraham), this race has been slowly dying and using their technology to stretch out their faces to hide their constant wrinkles. Once Picard discovers this ship, he realizes that the Federation / Son'a partnership intends to move the 600 people living there – the Ba'ku – onto the ship and away from the planet, a forced re-location that would take these people away from their source of youth and energy.
This act sickens Picard, and he quickly captures several Son'a officers when they act out against his crew. When word of this reaches Admiral Dougherty – the Starfleet official who formed the partnership with the Son'a – he quickly goes to confront Picard. However, Picard is more than ready to get into a war of words with his superior officer. Dougherty tries to lighten the mood with a compliment.
DOUGHERTY: You're looking well, Jean-Luc. Rested.
But this compliment doesn't lighten up Picard the slightest bit.
PICARD: I won't let you move them, Admiral. I will take this to the Federation Council.
DOUGHERTY: I'm acting on orders from the Federation Council.
Acting on orders to do something like this? That flies in the face of everything Jean-Luc had been taught ever since he joined the academy? It doesn't make sense to him at all.
PICARD: How can there be an order to abandon the Prime Directive?
DOUGHERTY: The Prime Directive doesn't apply. These people are not indigenous to this planet. They were never meant to be immortal. We'll simply be returning them to their natural evolution.
A very interesting loophole, and as sickening to Picard as this is, it's a valid one. However, it still doesn't sit with him to just let this go on. He has to fight this. Every ounce in his body is telling him to stand up for the Ba'ku.
PICARD: Who the hell are we to determine the next course of evolution for these people?!
DOUGHERTY: Jean-Luc, there are 600 people down there. We'll be able to use the regenerative properties of this radiation to help billions. The Son'a have developed a procedure to collect the metaphasic particles from the planet's rings.
Picard nods, knowing where this is going.
PICARD: A planet in Federation space.
DOUGHERTY: That's right. We have the planet. They have the technology. A technology we can't duplicate. You know what makes us? Partners.
Picard can't even stomach the thought of being in the same room with someone like Ro'Afu, let alone stand side-by-side with him committing an act like this.
PICARD: Our partners are nothing more than petty thugs.
DOUGHERTY: On Earth, petroleum once turned petty thugs into world leaders. Warp drive transformed a bunch of Romulan thugs into an empire. We can handle the Son'a. I'm not worried about that.
PICARD: Someone probably said the same thing about the Romulans a century ago.
Touché, Jean-Luc. But Dougherty isn't listening. He only has his eye on what can be accomplished with what has been found on this planet. And he even gives Jean-Luc a little guilt trip while explaining what it is they're after.
DOUGHERTY: With metaphasics, life spans will be doubled. An entire new medical science will evolve. I understand your chief engineer has the use of his eyes for the first time in his life. Would you take that away from him?
PICARD: There are metaphasic particles all over the Briar Patch. Why does it have to be this one planet?
DOUGHERTY: It's the concentration in the rings that makes the whole damn thing work. Don't ask me to explain it. I only know they inject something into the rings that starts a thermolytic reaction. When it's over, the planet will be uninhabitable for generations.
No, it can't be that easy. There has to be something within Federation regulations that Picard can do.
PICARD: Admiral, delay the procedure. Let my people look at the technology.
DOUGHERTY: Our best scientific minds already have. We can't find any other way to do this.
PICARD: Then the Son'a can establish a separate colony on the planet until we do.
DOUGHERTY: It would take ten years of normal exposure to begin to reverse their condition. Some of them won't survive that long. Besides, they don't want to live in the middle of the Briar Patch. Who would?
PICARD: The Ba'ku.
Once again, Jean-Luc, touché. And this time, Dougherty seems to be shaken by what he is doing. Picard notices this, and verbally goes in for the kill, trying his best to convince Dougherty that what he's doing is wrong, so very wrong.
PICARD: We are betraying the principles upon which the Federation was founded. It's an attack upon its very soul. And it would destroy the Ba'ku, just as cultures have been destroyed in every other forced relocation throughout history.
DOUGHERTY: Jean-Luc, we're only moving 600 people.
The words "only moving 600 people" ring in Picard's ears, angering him as Dougherty is now trying to justify what they're doing by saying the amount of people is insignificant. He's clearly grasping at straws, and Picard's going to let him know it.
PICARD: How many people does it take, Admiral, before it becomes wrong? Hmmm? A thousand? Fifty-thousand? A million? How many people does it take, Admiral?!
Sure, Picard's gotten into Dougherty's head, but there's one thing that Picard didn't quite count on: the simple fact that Dougherty outranks him. With a simple order, the Admiral lets him know that this conversation is over and he's not going to listen to a lesser officer boss him around like this.
DOUGHERTY: I'm ordering you to the Goren system. I'm also ordering the release of the Son'a officers. File whatever protests you wish to, Captain.
Dougherty turns to leave, but then offers one parting shot to Picard, letting him know that there's nothing he can do about this without risking a court martial.
DOUGHERTY: By the time you do, this will all be done.
And with that, Dougherty leaves the captain alone to his ship and to stew in his frustrations. What the Admiral wasn't counting on was that Picard would be willing to risk his future in the Federation by forcibly stopping this forced relocation from taking place by acting against the Son'a and helping the Ba'ku hide from their predators.
With all due respect to Gene Roddenberry for creating this vast universe of Star Trek, if he were alive today, this story would not have seen the light of day. Gene believed in the inevitable perfection of mankind, and if there were any sources of conflict or drama, it would come from outside forces, other species that would be ruffling the feathers of the Federation.
Roddenberry's back-and-forths with Harlan Ellison about the writing and re-writing of the classic episode "City on the Edge of Forever" are a great example of his insistence that anyone on the Enterprise wouldn't do anything harmful to another crewmate. And after he saw the rough cut of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Gene was so upset that members of Starfleet would be involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the Chancellor of the Klingon High Council, that he demanded the story be re-shaped so that only Klingons and Romulans would be the conspirators. Sadly, Gene passed away a short time after this demand, and so the story stayed the way it was.
After the critical and financial success that Star Trek: First Contact was, fans were disappointed in Insurrection with the "smaller-scale" story that would have been better suited as a television episode. However, when you look a little closer about what's happening in this film, not only do we see Federation officers acting in a way that Gene Roddenberry himself would have been shocked to see, but only one episode after the audience was shown the birth of Star Trek, they see an act that flies in the face of everything that Star Trek was supposed to be.
That's some pretty dramatic stuff, and even though it doesn't play like an epic, it turns out to be just as worthy to stand alongside its predecessors and successor in the four chapters of films featuring The Next Generation.
Next week, we'll wrap up September's Star Trek columns with a scene from the final chapter involving Picard, Data, Riker and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise-E.
