The 14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek: Insurrection

14. Pinot Grigio People

Filmmaking is a game of compromises where writers' ambitions are reliably run over by producers, marketing, budget, and studio bigwigs. The result is often LCD: Lowest Common Denominator. Such was the case of the people at the center of this story. Originally conceived as a race of ageless alien children that you'd root for Picard and company to protect, they ended up “gentle, serene people living a simple life” that Michael Piller worried they’d done a dozen times before.

Worse, when no simple, budget-friendly makeup was devised to make the Ba’ku even slightly alien in appearance, the LCD was to portray them as indistinguishable from humans. And, as per lazy default Hollywood central casting: Caucasians. Piller wrote, “Most of the extras cast were blond and I was afraid they might appear like Wisconsin milk farmers.”

Close. They ended up a bunch of smug technophobes less interesting and alien than tourists in wine country. No wonder landed gentry Picard felt such a connection to them.

Speaking of the Ba'ku...