Star Trek Fest - Star Trek Insurrection

Welcome back midnight viewers. Now midnight viewers. Yeah, you're all midnight viewers. But Star Trek festers festival ers, festival festivus. I don't like the word festers it as a double meaning.

Oh the Star Trek festers. I kind of like that, actually, given where generally a horror themed podcast. Anyway, Welcome back to Star Trek Fest. We are now neck deep in the next generation era of cinematic offerings of Star Trek. The next generation castor fully in their element here and this film following up the mass of successive First Contact financially critically amongst fans, video game designers.

Everyone loved First Contact. Where do you go from there? Sometimes you power ahead right and you fucking and you up the ante and you make a Star Trek two the Wrath of Cohn, or you make an Empire strikes back, and sometimes you make Undiscovered Country. Not funny and kind of boring, we're talking about Star Trek insurrection. It is human nature to wonder what it would be like to never grow old, to experience utter peace and harmony, And it is also human nature for some of us to want what we do not have.

Alert Harry at Twell he's trying to remove the headpiece. Do not delay the conduct and for others to stand in their way. We are participating in the outright theft of a world. They were never meant to be immortal. Who the hell are we to determine the next course of evolution for these people?

Radiation coming from the planet's rings continuously regenerate search inetic structure. We're only moving six hundred people. We'll be able to help billions. This is the moment we planned for so many years. How many people does it take before it becomes wrong?

How many people does it take I'm wrong? Who wouldn't be tempted by the promise of perpetual youth? There are hard choices to be made. Centers, ships, don't let go of this moment. Looks like you're planning on doing some hunting.

Return to your quarters. That's in order, No uniform, no orders. The environmental anomaly may have stimulated certain rebellious instincts, which could affect everyone's judgment except mine, of course. Okay, data, what do you think we should do? Settle up, lock and load.

On December eleven, stand in defive, definitely feeling aggressive tendency, Sir hold your crowd. If the court martial is the only way to tell what is happening here, I welcome it out. Joy the rebellion, flow. Off the rams scoop standby pl. Star Trek Insurrection.

Okay, Star Trek Insurrection was released on December the eleventh. Merry Christmas, Everybody nineteen ninety eight with a budget of seventy million, a screenplayed by Michael Pillar with a story by Rick Berman and Michael Pillar, although with an uncredited last minute rewrite Let's try and add some drama to this thing by Iris Stephen Behar, who was the showrunner over in Deep Space nine. Michael Pillar should be pointed out, was one of the one of the next generation writers, one of the Deep Space nine writers, basically second string to Brandon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, who gave us both generations and first contact, showing like a general progression of entertainment and quality. Brandon Bragga and Ronald D.

Moore at this point were off writing mission impossible too, so they made the leap to the silver screen. Ronald D. Moore eventually ended up with Battlestar Galacticas Michael Pillar decides or pitches a heart of Darkness, where Picard has to track down a Kurtzi like character who was like his favorite either teacher at Starfleet Academy or a fellow student from Starfleet Academy in anyway the Romulins are involved, because they hadn't really involved the Romulins on a grand scale in this film series so far, that script has received by Patrick Stewart as no more than an episode of the television series, so it gets rewritten. What ends up happening, That whole Heart of Darkness thing gets watered down to the very first act, which is when Data goes crazy.

Data is now the Kurtz character. He's what who alerts them to the bigger problem. So instead of an entire movie where we get traveling through some alien environments and the crew going a little bit stir crazy or something interesting happening, they ended up giving us this iron Stephen Behar comes in, does what he can and then okay, I'll continue with the credits. Now directed by again by Jonathan Frakes, This and stars and once again Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LaVar Burton, Michael Dorn Gates, mcfad and Marina Sirtis and f Mrie Abraham and Donna Murphy and mister Anthony Zerby Dougherty out, Dowerty Dougherty out. You can tell Anthony Derby did not go up among Irish people because he really is making a meal of the last name doroty HP.

Yes, holy shit, what's this movie about? I'll try wait to see this movie first. We gonna do that. I always jump ahead. Okay, I think I rented this movie.

I certainly didn't see it in the theater, and I can't say I saw it immediately following the release or immediately following the video release. I think I just maybe I was scared off by the reviews. I'm not sure what held me back, but I eventually rented it, and that would be the first time that I saw this movie. Now, to answer your initial question, how to sum up this movie the movie that you initially that they came up with, the Hearts of Darkness, they somehow made a movie that is more convoluted and less interesting than what you describe it is. Essentially, there's this planet that houses what you can call the Guard It's the Fountain of Youth.

There's some kind of special radiation that comes in off of these rings around it and all the residence. These six hundred some odd residents are are youthful, and it was full of vigor, and they've been there for hundreds of years. There's a separate rival race there by the way. They're called the Baku. Bakhu are living on peacefully on this planet.

It's all very idyllic. The Sona are this old, wrinkled, nasty race of people who are effectively dying out. They're in dire need of rejuvenation. They are. They have a co fact finding mission.

They're conducting a covert study of the Sona or of the Bakhu and this planet. They're discovered because as you said, data goes crazy. Effectively, what we learned to sum it all up, we'll get into the minutia is the Federation want to forcibly relocate the bak Whu from this planet. Captain Picard gets wind of this and decides to fight for the rights of these not indigenous people, but the people who have a right to live on the land that they have called their own. And it's so starts this battle between the Sona and the Federation, aiding the bak Who who will come out on top that's where we're at.

My goodness, there's some definite fucking great star trek themes going on in this movie. Geene ron Berry would be proud of the plot of this movie. I think I do think that I like the idea of a federation up to no good, and they explored that a bunch in Next Generation. In fact, there's a trope for Next Generation villains, the badmirals there have been, including Admiral Dougherty here now six rogue and or treasonous admirals within Starfleet. Clearly something is broken in Starfleet, and they inadvertently just hit the nail on the head by having Dougherty be that again here in this film.

But they that could have been a runner for a really good movie, the fact that there's a whole bad element to Starfleet, because that's what this is pointing at, and not Starfleet necessarily, but the Federation. So there's lots of moral, great star trek stuff going on here. It's just that it's all so dull, so dull, so drearily dull. And cheap looking after the grand spectacle, the epic quality of first contact. Now it's all it all basically takes place, and I think it's Tahoe or something.

It's just a bunch of It's basically just a mountainous region. I don't remember exactly where they filmed it, but that's where the majority of this takes place. They're running from these drones that are coming in and trying to spirit them away. We also have some starship combat, but we had an embarrassment of riches with ILM doing the effects for First Contact. You and I already talked at great length, bulliantly about how much we love the effects here.

None of that is an evidence I think. I don't know the specifics, but it seems very typical of Paramount's strategy to take this golden goose of a property and try to pinch pennies wherever they can after the great success of First Contact. To me, it makes no sense why they would make it. They would try to save wherever they could. It just looks so cheap.

The space stuff looks terrible. I just don't even know where to begin as far as how poor this thing photographs. And it's not Jonathan Frakes's fault. I think you and I agree that he is one of the best trek directors that we've seen I'm sure he's doing the best he can with what limited budget he has, but boy, that doesn't help things the cheapness of the production. Paramount's attitude when it comes to Star Trek reminds me of one of those Jeopardy sketches on SNL with Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds, and then I said, Oh, you just got an Academy Award nomination, what are you going to do next?

I can do a car picture with on Delaway's. That's what Paramount feels like. God, we just had this huge, fucking critical darling and Star Trek is now on top, and we've established this group of characters we can now go on forever. We were worried about the old cast getting too old and we were having to pay them too much, and now here's our chance. What do we do?

Who cares? Just put something out immediately and we're not going to pay for anything and shoot it on location but not too far. Oh boy. I first saw this movie in the theater, or rather through a booth porthole. I showed this movie, so I got to see it a bunch, and I always seem to come to the scene with the British tar but we'll get there certainly.

Yeah. Here's my problem, and this is a problem I have with all science fiction when it comes to utopian societies. First of all, there is nothing more boring in any universe than a utopia, because the utopia is always depicted exactly like this, which is a fucking ludite agrarian society where everyone is just standing around doing nothing in boring pastels. It's not like this immortality has afforded them anything. It's not like they exhibit they finally, eventually will show us that being this old and having these powers like gives you a certain control of time.

But what do they do with that nothing? They're just looking at more trees. Man. And look, if that is immortality, if that's the only way to achieve it, beam these fuckers off the planet and start healing some people throughout the federation. Yeah, and the bit with the Federation.

Obviously, no one should be forcibly redirected or exiled somewhere, taken from where they've chosen to live. I'm not advocating that, but I will say that Doerty does make a case that Okay, there's six hundred people, now, it's not adequate. I don't remember if it's adequately explained, but six hundred people on a planet, which seems sort of silly. Isn't there enough room for them and the sauna? Put that aside.

Darty's perspective on this is that we can study how this fountain of youth effect with the radiation is achieved, and we could theoretically, we could help billions of people. We could create new standards of health and rejuvenation that we have never thought of. We could heal, we could cure disease, we could do all this great stuff. Can't help, but think that's a fairly compelling argument to make. I don't know if maybe they just overlook the idea of maybe negotiating with the Baku and saying, look, here's the deal.

Can we make a deal here and we can save billions in exchange for your six hundred will put you in eternal comfort for the rest of your lives. You guys have already lived six lifetimes over six earth lifetimes over so that I do want to mention that, at the risk of sounding like I want to see them relocated, I'm not advocating that, but it is a very interesting proposition here, and I'm just saying Picard just dismisses it out right, and it is worth consideration. Obviously, let me echo my political sentiment as far as relocation forced relocation of anybody by saying, fuck Ice and fuck Andrew Jackson for that matter. And people are where they are and leave them alone. Sure, Like I said, I'm in no way advocating that.

I'm just saying it. It's worth more discussion than they give it in the movie. In fact, what you just said is exactly the problem with the movie, because they never bring this proposition to the Baku. There's never a discussion amongst the Baku, because that is a very compelling argument. We've now lived six eight ten, like they've been there for three hundred years.

They've lived so long, like maybe some of them don't want to do it anymore, you know what I mean, they've done or the problem with this movie is it's positive that this technology that potentially could help billions throughout the galaxy to extract the energy from the rings of this planet. Only the Sona have this technology, right, so they have to deal with but do they actually can't they just tell this tiny little one ships Sona crew to go fuck themselves. And then bring in three starships and get their best engineers out there studying this thing. We'll have this in five years. We've seen that we'll have it, and well, and we'll have it.

Yeah, exactly, Jeordie Leforge, let's just put Jordi on it. They put it on it. Within five years, will have a renewable way to do this. We won't just have to kill a planet in order to pull this out. And see that's the thing that the argument that they're going to help heal billions, How they're just going to use up this unrenewable resource.

Yeah, at least if the Federation comes in and puts their own people on it. If you have put it, if you have Jordia LaForge doing this, you are assured that this will be done in the most compassionate and reasonable way possible. And if at the end of his study, let's say it's Jeordie Leaforge, the end of his study of this phenomenon, if he says, look, I've been over this thing six ways to so there's no way we can accomplish this without effectively draining the planet of all this power. And there's no way of knowing if we could recreate it. I'm sorry, but maybe this isn't for us.

We'll have to just punt on this idea. Okay, that's fine. You studied it, you gave it a shot. The Sona are so impatient, and that's all embodied in their leader, played by f Murray Abraham in the most infantile and grating like he Now, let's get touch on him just a little bit here. He's again another in a long line of hammy over the top star Trek villains, but he somehow greats the worst because of what he's called what his characters called upon to do.

I think had Christopher Plumber been playing the Sona part here, all his hammy bullshit would have come off as at least menacing, yeah, and not whiney. F Murray Abraham resorts to this, exactly what you said, This like petulant, like whiny fuckery. It's just you want to punch him in the face all the time. He ends up being the worst star Trek villain as far as the cinema goes. Yeah.

He at one point when his plan is foiled and he realizes what's happened, he lets out this, the most infantile and like you said petulant scream, and just was watching the screen slack jawed and disbelief that I really just see this. Is this supposed to be the commander of this fearsome race of people that is looking to funck shit up? No, this is a child. I it just turned me off so. Much, Luke Skywalker and Tattoine is saying, grow up kid.

Jesus Christ. The Sona also represents this weird, almost anti star trek idea where the bad guys are ugly and the good guys are all photogenetic, beautiful white people. Yes, that's true. The funny thing is white people. There's two main baku that are picards entree into the society.

It's this woman and this guy who's in the facto Bakuli. And the funny thing is, I'm watching this and I go that guy looks a lot like the guy from Hardcastle and McCormick. And wouldn't you know, Father Malone, it's Daniel Hugh Kelly from Hardcastle and McCormick. I was what is the line you draw from that? It was bizarre?

Okay, look freaks As an actor, Actors, once they get into these directorial positions, end up giving actors that that they like and maybe aren't given their due their due, and that's not that big a role, and why not give his friend right? However, the female lead, the romantic lead, Donna Murphy. So Donna Murphy when they hired her, was coming off like a string of Tony wins. She had won two Tony Awards on Broadway. So it's clear.

You get f Mariray Abraham, who is mainly a theater animal, and you want to get the best of the best, and you basically don't need a name in the role, so why not her? And you know what, I bet she is really alluring on stage. On stage, I bet from the back of theater, I bet she's absolutely sultry and delightful, and I bet in person she's absolutely saltry and delightful. On screen, she's just kind of bland. You can tell she's talented.

It's not like she's giving a bad performance. It's just such a blah it's a blast center to an even more blah universe that they've And there's. No chemistry between her and Picard at all. He's trying mightily by the way he. Is he is, and it is a little weird too.

When it really stopped and think about it. She is upwards of three hundred years old. He is effectively a child in her eyes. So that is a little odd if you follow that through line, I guess we're not really meant to. But that's a little weird.

What do they have to talk about? Have you hung around with a twenty year old HP? This is but this is to the extreme. She like, think about like someone here three hundred years old. That means they were around in effectively the seventeen hundreds.

What can you do as some buddy who's he's probably in his fifties or sixties at this fifties, let's say Picard at this point, right, that's ridiculous. You are less than a child to me. I was around during the American Revolution. Your life is a speck compared to mine. And now can we speaking of this idea though?

So this radiation, this this youthful effect, has this effect. I hate to use that word more than once. It has this effect on the whole crew. For Picard, it makes him more amorous. Let's say he feels he feels his oats a little bit with this SA.

And it improves his hearing. He can hear that the phase is out of phasery on the bridge. Just by listening, folks. I would have loved if it actually made his hair start to really grow. My god, that awesome.

What if they had made this movie ten years later with CGI I like fully on fire, They definitely would have done that. You could have done that. But some of the other side, like crew member, all the crew members are affected in some way. Some of It's kind of interesting. Jeordie's eyes actually start to grow back because he's been in contact with his planet for so long, so that he actually has to have his ocular things ocular bionic eyes taken out, which is an interesting idea.

I don't really do anything with. It, no, but we get we do get to see him for the first time, like with his beautiful eyes, and sure it's an amazing scene. It's like the only thing they give him in this and he fucking nails it. I've been rewatching Next Generation because I'm sick people, I'm sick, you fucking Star Trek Fantasy, see what you've done to me. So I'm going through Next Generation and I'm really enjoying the Jordy episodes now, maybe because he's not given as much to do or as he should be given to do in the movies.

But that scene actually creeped me out the first time I watched it because he said I had the implants removed, but I just imagined the moments leading up to that, when his healthy eyes are growing over this metal and there's got to be all this like weird pain and his eyes are focusing up for the first time and yeah, fluid dripping from the very weird. Now, just as a side note, you and I have been talking offline about this new podcast that Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes have started. It's called Dropping Names with Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes. Their first guest is LeVar Burton, and it's a master stroke because these guys have known each other for decades now. They talk about the idea that during the next generation, there's always this moment where they bring out the box they put Jordie's visor on, and the fact that number one, it was painful and it was uncomfortable for him all six or seven years of the show, but that it took what six seasons and one movie to see what beautiful eyes LeVar Burton has.

It's really quite something, even now when you see him, when you see him being interviewed, and you see him in the Picard season three, it's remarkable that he would spend all of that time with those eyes hidden behind a ridiculous visor. That's just a side note. No, it's not a side note. It needs to be a dress, because once you see them in this movie, you're like, really, we were robbed of that for a decade. Why it's crazy.

So that's his side effect. But then we get into the weirder part, Like some of the other crew members have weird side effects. Wharf starts to get Klingon pimples because he's going through Klingon puberty, which they don't really, it's just it's a way. It's just a cheap joke at WARF's expense. But then we have Counselor Troy.

Okay, this is great, this is awesome. Actually, this is this is good. Are you kidding me? When he's rubbing his neck that whole fucking thing, and he's like being all riker, are you kidding? That's great?

Ship man, it's funny. But then they have them in like this bubble bath and she's shaving his beard very erotically. Yeah, are you kidding? Give me moment? Very very odd, and I guess I had read something somewhere that he he purposefully shaved the beard.

Jonathan Freake shaved the beard because he was told that's him and wanted viewers of Star Trek wanted him without the beard. I would question that because I think with the beard, he's there's no one cooler than Riiker with that beard. Did they take a cross sample of the lunatic Star Trek. Fans that sounds like, Hey, you the crazy. Ones in the back, please step aside.

We've got some more questions for you. So all of this stuff is happening, This radiation is having this effect on all the crew members. But again it's not that I think For me, the biggest problem I have with this is as convoluted and Misshape in the plot, is that I could never shake the sense that this just feels like another Next Generation episode. You could have taken out a lot of the shoe leather of the of this movie, tied it up and made it into an easy hour about forced relocation and the morality behind that. There's nothing epic in scope about this movie whatsoever.

It could have been a really good two parter from the series, and that seems to be the general consensus among fans. The fans who outright hate it, the ones who have reappraised it and said it's better than you remember, they all agree though that at its heart, it's no better than that. And I lay that at the feet of Michael Pillar, one of the television writers, who is not that great a screenwriter, who just gave us what he knew, which is an episode of the show, which is fine, except we just came from first contact. We just went back in time and saved all of humanity. Like it's not time to go to a fucking spa for two hours straight?

Are you kidding me not to mention just missed opportunities. First of all, I love Admiral Dougherty. I love Anthony Zerby. Of course. Anthony Zerby for me will and always will be from Matthias in Omega Man that way, those are the old ways, brother, remember with the white Sure, oh wonderful Anthony c.

By the way, to me, he'll always be the evil scientist and kiss meets the Phantom of the Park. That to me is Anthony Zerby. That's just I sad. But that was the first thing I ever saw him, and so that's who he'll be. That's you and me and a nuts.

You are experient. So I like Admiral Jharerty, and I like that. I don't I didn't necessarily need to have him be morally conflicted by the way. I'm totally cool with him being like, shut the fuck up, card, this is happening, this needs to happen. That would have been okay with me.

But he's aboard this Sona's ship and the Sona who are really ineffectual and kind of lame, honestly, and they have other aliens attending them for some reason, these bumpy faced aliens from that never really get explained how they got involved with this mess. But why wasn't it a Federation ship and a Federation crew being puppeted by these sona Maybe the Sona could eventually take over that ship and do that, but that just seemed like a real missed opportunity considering there's no real good space battles here. The Enterprise. Look, the Enterprise would have fucking smashed them to pieces and instantly. It would have been no question, like they have to and a bunch of bullshit for that not to happen immediately, whereas they could have had a good old fashioned naval battle going on above this goddamn degrarian nonsense below.

And evidently so they did a bunch of reshoots when they were after the first test screening, and one of the things that they said was we need a bigger space battle, and everyone was like, yes, absolutely we do. And they said, but you can only do it if we can have it in like the next month because we're releasing the movie. So we didn't get a space battle. It's unfortunate. Again, all of the all the odds are stacked against this franchise for no good reason.

It just seems so shortsighted because it look here we are. It's twenty twenty six, and number one, we're still talking about Star Trek number two. There are still properties, we have Starfleet Academy. We have this podcast. People still this podcast with Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner.

People still are. Talking about start this podcast here. And this podcast too. In fact, it's. Very popular as it very popular, this show.

I just want to say, I just want to say thanks to everybody, because this Star trekvest is like really really popular on that as far as download to go. So we're thrilled and we're happy to be talking about it. But my point is, it's not as if this is a dying property that they should be pinching pennies trying to eke out the last dime from the franchise. This is a franchise that has the ability to has legs and it can reinvent itself and it's not tied to anyone specific era or eras. I just don't understand why you want to invest the money and the time and the care to make it a good product so they can continue to live into the next century.

And the thing is the whole Fountain of Youth aspect of it. That's where Michael Pillar ended up landing on and the reason and he says, we're all sort of youth obsessed, right, And that just makes me think about not only this series, but any sort of science fiction or speculative fiction that was going on. A lot of times, what happens is people end up falling into science fiction writing and then they end up doing a script where they're like, let me look around the world and comment on what's going on, and they're always doing it. From Los Angeles, it's true. So yeah, in I was in Los Angeles at this time, but yes, it was very youth obsessed and very gotta look younger, gotta feel younger, gotta be younger.

But I don't know that the rest of the fucking world was like that, And I don't necessarily think what's going on in the twenty fourth century has to reflect that at all. Ultimately, there's nothing to be gained from these people on this planet, like they offer nothing. It's not like they're suddenly wise, or they've figured out the secrets of teleportation or like interdimensional travel, or they somehow can connect with elder gods or something anything other than I can slow down a hummingbird and I can really watch it. It's wingslap. I can do that with a camera.

It's all very meditative and hippie dippy, the way that the bak who have chosen to live. In fact, what we learn we glossed over this. What we've learned is that in fact, spoiler, we're alerted if it's not already, the Bakhu and the Sona are actually the same race of people. But hundreds of years before who were who became the Sona? They were exiled from society and they had to leave and do their own thing.

And so do you even see there's one the second in command from F. Murray Abraham. His mother is actually among the Bakhu and they have a reunion in them, and he's the one who he is persuaded to help Picard because of that fact. Okay, I like that. I like that, In fact, I like that whole aspect that the Sona were these same people, and that these were their contemporaries.

So that guy going amongst his people and none of them recognize him, but he recognizes everyone like that should have been. He should have been with the Enterprise crew from the beginning. Is some emissary or there were so many ways. There's so much interesting stuff going on here potentially, but they just chose to do the stupidest prisoner of Zenda. Fucking didn't I read somewhere that they didn't Patrick Stewart want Brian Blessed to play Admiral Doherty.

Oh my god, why didn't that happen? Zerbi was originally supposed to play Raltha the F. Murray Abraham part. Okay, So if that had happened and we had Brian Blessed as Admiral Dougherty. Oh my god, can you imagine the confrontation scene between fucking Picard and Dougherty?

The how many would it take? A thousand? A million? Million? Yeah, any we know just because we love Brian Blessed.

Anything is improved and enriched by Brian Blessed's presence. But no, it's just a quick story about Brian Blessed. HP and I were in high school together, and we were in the drama club together, and our instructor was a Zavarian brother by the name of Brother Ron, and he frequently went to England and saw Shakespeare in plays and stuff, and would bring home playbills and posters and stuff. And he had a poster that we were unfolding and it was Brian Blessed in some production of Shakespeare. And we were both like, ooh, Brian Blessed, and he went, oh, who's that, Oh Brian Blessed.

Oh yeah, he's a loud guy. So now every time of the year, So now every time I think of Brian Blessed, I think he's a loud guy. Love you, Brother Ron, good times. So I don't know where we go from here. It was unsatisfying.

It could have. Like you said, it could have probably made a really good two part episode of Next Generation. But that's not why I go and spend ten bucks to go to go to the movies. I want epic scale. I want naval battles.

I don't know why we talk about this a lot. I don't know why for a show and a property that is set primarily on a starship, why we don't get more of these naval battles, these broadsides and things like that. They're so great for an action sequence. Now, Star Trek fans might lump us into the starship porn portion of them for saying that, but I agree with you. When it comes to the cinema, it's time for big, big And you know what I said it before, I'll say it again.

My favorite character consistently in every fucking series is the USS Enterprise. I'm there for the Enterprise in all of its iterations, all of its weirdo new components. And have you seen that fucking super duper Future one. I posted a picture of it. It's fucking amazing.

Like all of this, you could fit every version, every letter of you could fit them all in the fucking the dish anyway. So Yeah, why aren't we seeing a fucking look. We get a bit of that Brier Patch thing, but it just feels like a watered down version of the mutarh and Embula because at least those ships wanted to fucking kill each other, and they really meant it. Here, it's just like the Enterprise has to run away so they can send a message. I get that they wanted to take a step back and they didn't want something as intense as first contact, but you don't need to fucking slow it down to a crawl in order to not have it be fucking zombiefie crew members.

Like there's a huge there's a huge span in between there to like slot in and excite us a little bit during this may a British tar is a fucking soaring soul? Are you kidding? By the way, initially was supposed to be them reciting Shakespeare, which would have been worse. I was what I was gonna say. You led up to where I was going to get to, which is I was going to ask you, father l One, who your favorite next generation character is.

The USS Enterprise? E put the ship aside. If you have to take an actual actor, not the actor. But the character they play actor or character character they play on next Gen next Gen, and I am watching it again now, so I'm trying to see my allegiances shift a lot. It's never going to be Is it going to be Troy?

No? Okay, it isn't never going to be Troy. I like Troy a lot more. I now appreciate Troy. I hated Troy when I was first watching the series, and I did not unders stand a counselor position on the ship.

It just seemed shoehorned, and then they seem to forget about what she was even there for. But anyway, favorite though, do you know who it is now? Now? Honestly, Riker? It is Riker.

It's on Ker, Captain William t Riker. Yeah, it's I would say I would be swayed just because of my experience watching Picard season three, but I would say, just snap judgment, it would be Data. I always loved Data. There's something compelling about him. He was superhuman, which always made him interesting to me.

I never bought into the oh, we just want to be human stuff. I put that stuff aside. But my point that I'm leading up to is this love Data, but they by this point they've lost the thread in how to really use data. At this point, Data is in full on Pinocchio mode, and he's also in comic relief mode. There's really nothing interesting or heroic about Data he's putting, aside him going berserk and ruining this covert observation he is.

He goes nuts, he steals a shuttle, and he starts firing on the ship. And as you said, how Picard wrangles him with wharf is that he starts singing Gilbert and Sullivan with And it's just it hurts me to say it, but it's just so unnecessary, and I feel like it's such a misuse of the character and the actor. I think Brent Spiner has hell a lot more to give an offer than singing opera or show tunes and being like the buddy to a little boy, a little baku boy who is afraid of him at first, but now he's he's just a he's a nice guy. I don't know, there's so much he's used so well in First Contact for someone who's basically you said it at the time, is basically strapped to a board for three quarters of the movie.

But he's still interesting. The dialogue that he has with the board Queen, his attempt to escape, and the bit with the skin that they're grafting on him. That's all really good. None of that is in evidence here. He's just there for basically conic relief.

Brent Spiner requested that they kill Data in this movie just because he was aging out of them, and initially he was to have been destroyed by Picard in this opening sequence, so that was the only way to stop him, and then they would rebuild him by the end and whatever because it's Star Trek and they got to continue forever. I think it would have been fascinating and up to the stakes in this movie a whole lot had Admiral Daugherty in the Sona fucking destroyed Data and then Picard comes trying to figure out what happened. That could have been something and then if you want to bring him back, Law is still out there. In fact, that was going to be that was a potential plot for this movie. Was just going to be like Wrath of Khan, except it was Laura showing up to get revenge on his brother via the enterprise.

So have him show up and be the big old villain for part three instead of what we're going to get to. When I was a kid, I like Data very much the first couple of seasons, and then Dwarf was my favorite, and then all along it's been Picard and now just watching Riker, just watching how impish Riker is, and it doesn't feel like it doesn't feel annoying or forced at all, just watching his reactions to everybody and the looks he gives people. This guy's a true rake. Too often, it's too often shows try and make like a rogue character and it feels like it feels forced. Not everyone is gonna be Harrison Ford is Han Solo.

That's such a lightning and a bottle kind of a thing. But I think fucking Jonathan Frakes comes close to what an actual rogue would be, particularly in the Star Trek universe. And I've done such a deep dive. I've watched so many interviews with him, and he does presentations where he interviews Patrick Stewart and all the other cast members, and it's clear that they all have a lot of affection for each other. But when I see him interacting with the other cast members at conventions and things interviews, that's kind of Jonathan Freakes.

He's the guy who comes in and lets the air out of Michael Dorn's tires when he's telling a story, or he has a funny little insult to Patrick Stewart and they all that's I think that's how you're characterizing him. I think there's an element of that in the actor himself. I feel like if you were to talk to him, he's impish and always has a smile on his face, and always has a funny story to tell, and always is willing to He's not going to let you get away with anything, basically if you try to get too full of yourself. I think that's what a brilliant characterization and what a great match of an actor to a role. Who would have thought that, when we're watching Encounter at farpoint that he would be our favorite.

I thought he'd looked like Pozzi. I was worried, but. You always to call him that in high school. I did, seriously. But what a credit to Jonathan Frakes.

I can't say enough good things about it. The guy put in the work, did the effort to become a director, and that's his bread and butter. Now you can't fault him for that. What a great story. Yeah, I would say it's disservice to record that he isn't featured more in these films, But the fact is Frakes is directing them, so you can forgive that.

Just on a logistical level, you don't want to be in two places at once more than you absolutely have to. But at the same time, any criticism in any of the Next Generation movies that I could potentially have as far as not be people not being utilized or characters not paying off or something, are completely obliterated. Now that I watched Percard season threes and we're gonna have a whole full episode about that coming up. But they fucking did it right, man, and they everything is paid off. I'm good with Next Generation forever.

I think it's fully complete. If they want to continue going to that, well, good go ahead. But the fact is I'm totally satisfied as a Star Trek fan. Yeah, it's not often that a property like Next Generation gets the opportunity to have a real true farewell and do it right and we're putting the cart before the horse, But by god, they did that with Picard's season three. Oh my god, it's amazing.

But here's something I want to say, yeah, and this goes for Star Trek, things, goes for everything, because initially the idea was, let's make a Star Trek Heart of Darkness. Right, lots of films will say that we're going to do this and it's going to be Heart of Darkness, that Heart of Darkness. You're all making Apocalypse now, stop lying. None of you have read that book. Yeah, that book is never about like a warfare situation and like a starfleet like moral dilemma.

It's just a guy going up river to find a guy who went crazy, and they want to know why there's nothing existential in any of anyone else's stuff. They're all just want to make their own version of Apocalypse now. And I commend them for that because that's a great movie. And I would, by the way, I would love to see a Star Trek Apocalypse now. Are you kidding me?

Wow? I can't even imagine what that would look like. Hey, you know that you guys are rebooting Paramount. If anyone's fucking listening, I know you're coming up with a whole new way to do it. That's a pretty good idea.

That's a way to start a series. Have it be fucking Kerk. If fucking Shatner's still alive, have him be Kurtz. Kirk Kurtz. It's not that far off.

It's very close. It's a clone of him or something you. Could be just you have Sam Whitwer whoever you know, to do a CG thing where they just deep fake him as Kirk and you're off to the races. You could have Kirk. Who wait, no, who from all of the properties since Next Generation could they have as a Kertz like character?

And you could pick anybody? Oh, Barkley get out of here with parfun he can't get rid of his obsession with a holiday takes over. Yeah, well, yeah, that's where he would be in during this adventure because he would not be commanding an army somewhere on some planet. Yeah. Who would you have?

There's no one I can think of from Next Generation because they're just they're true of heart. What happened to Chakote? Because I bet he would do it. It would be cool. And look, they I don't know what the plans are after card season three.

Maybe they have a whole new ship. Seven of nine is there? Who knows what might happen? That is true? Oh yeah, we'll get there.

We shouldn't talk about it here because my feelings were strong about the end of that series. Man. Oh yeah, anyway, I guess we're gonna wrap it up here because the funny thing here is HP. I remembered really hating this and then I watched it, and then I was like, wait, this isn't so bad. What was I thinking of?

And I think that reaction was because it isn't that bad overall as far as a good two parter of Next Generation. In that regard, this is really good as far as how you follow up first contact, go fuck yourself, everybody. I'm sorry, but this was a major misstep. This put the This not only put the brakes on the series, but I think it actually affected the box office of the next one, killing the entire franchise. This is what kills the Next Generation's cinematic efforts henceforth.

The fact that they got Nemesis was a miracle, but there was no regaining the public's trust. I don't think. Yeah, I agree, I agree, this was there was no going back after this, and it is Actually you're right, it is pretty amazing that they got the next one made, given that this was such a lackluster effort. Say what you want about Final Frontier. I was never bored.

I was sometimes laughing at how ridiculous everything was, but I was never like looking at my watch. This just it's we cannot overstate what a letdown after First Contact because First Contact pretty much all of the cast members got something to do, whereas in this one, what did Doctor Crusher even get to do in this movie except hustle refugees through a mountain? What did Jordie really get to do besides talk about what a beautiful thing a sunset is with his own eyes, which is a great scene for LaVar Burton, but he doesn't really get a chance to do anything interesting. Even Riker really doesn't have a lot to do. He's such a shame.

No man. He got Troy, yeah, and it's. Yeah, Look they got to have share a bubble bath together, but you can't craft a movie around that. I think if I were Jonathan Frikes, I would probably insist on all future roles being crafted around me having bubble baths with hot women. Could be I don't know, but it's just that's really That's the takeaway from all of this is that they did everything right in First contact and they did very little right a lot wrong in Insurrection.

Yeah. On the next episode of Star trek Fest, we're actually finishing up Next Generations Run with a movie about the Romulan fucking Senate and a civil war on Romulus and there's a card clone going on. Oh my god, that sounds amazing. Written by John Logan, Academy Award winning John Logan. It can't fail HP.

Until then, where can people find you if they're looking for you? All right? I co host the net Mister Walters Taxi podcast alongside Father Alone here. I also host the Noise Junkies music pod podcast, and I have a band camp site hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. And as for me, you are listening to Star trek Fest and listen, you're listening to Midnight Viewing.

My show's on twice a week. It's on Mondays. That's the Fest or the anthology series. So either HP and I are talking about a series of things, or Mike White from the Projection Booth and I are talking about a horror anthology television series. Right now, we're doing Hammerhouse of Horrors.

We are almost done and it is hands down the fucking best anthology horror series I've ever seen is it is not failed. I have not seen a bad episode. We are eight episodes into a thirteen episode run. Even if the rest all fall down, it's still the best series just by sheer percentage. And yeah, and we've already got our next series picked out, So tune in Mondays and Fridays.

You're gonna find us there if you want to for if you want to support us financially, go to patreon dot com slash Father Malone. You're gonna get everything much much earlier then you're gonna get it in the regular feed. And now we've done exclusive shows, including for you Star Trek fans. In fact, once we finish recording here, we're recording our first Star Trek Fest away mission where we were going to take a look at some of the peripheral Star Trek and not so peripheral and some really tangentially related to Star Trek. Anyway, hit us up at Patreon until next time, everybody, I don't care if it's Star Trek Fest, try to enjoy the daylight