3. Data As Flotation Device - Star Trek: Insurrection
Paramount PicturesSuch a shame that this list is only twenty entries long, as Insurrection could easily provide half of it. The entire Picard-Anij romance requires heavy medication to sit through - though, if the producers had cast Sally Field as Anij as they originally wanted to, that medication would likely have been Boniva. We could've gone our whole lives without the wisdom of the Ba'ku child and his advice to Data to "Play every day." And did we really need to see Riker and Troi in a bathtub and razors (not for the reasons you might want, unfortunately)? Worf with pimples? Is there
anything watchable in this movie? Once again, it's the Data-related stuff that most makes fans want to hurl their remotes at the TV, and in the case of Data announcing after Picard and Anij fall into the lake that he can be used as a flotation device, it has the double whammy of also being a continuity gaffe. In the Next Gen episode "Descent Part II," Geordi and Data share a heartwarming moment while Data
destroys Geordi's brain (trust us, it's a long story). They recall the time that Data sank to the bottom of a lake and had to walk to the shore on the bottom because he was too heavy to float. Naturally, the producers of
Insurrection had forgotten this plot point by the time they came to this movie and had to shoehorn in one more stupid joke. Of course, most of us will try to explain this away - was he retrofitted at some point? And for god's sake, why? - but eventually even we will see that that way lies madness and social rejection. Naturally, all this takes far too long to explain to anyone unfamiliar with the series, so if you decide to show this to a non-fan, try to hide your cringing when you get to this scene, as the resulting explanatory conversation will be a study in diminishing returns. That, and your friend just might leave.