Friday 1 July 2011

Tonights movie: Star Trek Insurrection - Post movie analysis!

Ok - so this is a bit later than planned. I ended up watching a programme about asteroids afterwards! :-)

Well, memory is a funny thing. Sometimes you remember something as being better than it actually is, other times you remember something as being worse.

I was surprised by how much I'd forgotten about Insurrection. I actually quite enjoyed watching it and remembering various things as it went along. I was surprised at how much action there was in it - I remembered it as not having much at all!

So how much do I agree with what I wrote earlier?

Well, I stand by my remark about it feeling like an extended episode. The storyline feels very much like something that could have been done on the TV show. Don't get me wrong - I love the Trek TV shows so an extended episode feeling is no bad thing but at the same time you expect a Trek movie to perhaps do what wasn't achievable in the TV series. Going back to what I said in my last post, the extended episode accusation was made at Generations when it was released but I couldn't really have seen them pulling off the Enterprise saucer crash sequence in the TV series - certainly not as convincingly as they did in the movie. Also, I guess Captain Kirk could theoretically have appeared in the TV show and been killed off in that... but a meeting of two captains (and subsequent death of the great Captain Kirk himself) like that really needed a more epic canvas and a movie certainly provided that.

Anyway, enough about Generations - we're talking about Insurrection here!

There's little in this movie that couldn't have been achieved in the TV show. Yes, the movie budget allows for a lush location - and the scenery for the on-planet stuff is truly gorgeous, particularly in HD! The effects sequences are also above what would have been achievable on a weekly TV show budget (in the 90s at least), particularly in terms of scale.

The real area that the movie scores in is the character side of things. Everyone gets a decent amount of screentime. Often in Trek movies select characters get the bulk of the time and the others are reduced to minor roles. Insurrection seems to get the balance right here - perhaps a lot better than any of the other movies.

I'd forgotten about the humour in this movie too - just about everyone gets a laugh at some point! Worf's Gilbert and Sullivan remark still makes me laugh!

Which seems to sum up the tone of the movie nicely. I was right that the movie is definitely a lot lighter in tone than First Contact. I guess that one was always going to be difficult to top and I suspect that those in charge of the decision making on these things realised this and decided to go the opposite direction.

I certainly enjoyed watching this movie a lot more than I remembered enjoying it before. It's a fun Trek outing with a moral message about forcibly relocating a group of people - even if there is the best of intentions behind it.

I have to admit that I like just about everything Star Trek so I was never going to be come back and say anything overwhelmingly negative about this anyway, but re-watching this was a pleasant hour and forty odd minutes. It may not have the depth or darkness of some of the best Trek movies (First Contact and, of course, Wrath Of Khan) but it's still a fun Trek outing!

So... the next Trek movie is the final Next Gen one... it's also one which seems to bring out mixed reactions from a lot of Star Trek fans. I'll save my opinion on it until I plan to watch it, which I'm hoping to do next Friday. Yes, the next one I shall be watching will be Nemesis.

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