20 Things You Never Knew About Star Trek: Insurrection
Smooth as an Android's bottom: behind the scenes on the ninth film to bear the name Star Trek.
Star Trek: First Contact was an undeniable high-point in the franchise, with terrific stakes, wonderful guest stars, and a fantastic performance from star Patrick Stewart. With a sequel guaranteed, how then was Star Trek to follow up the 1996 hit? Inspiration was taken from Star Trek IV: The One With The Whales.
The Voyage Home had adopted a much lighter tone and had cleaned up at the box office. Paramount, hoping to strike gold twice, opted to go the same route with Insurrection. The result was a film with a mixed tone, much lighter than First Contact had been, yet still featuring some body horror in the form of the S'ona.
Financially, it did reasonably well, at least enough to ensure another sequel. However, this time around critical reception was mixed. The story was thin, some of the acting was wooden, and the pacing was slightly off. Franchise heavy hitter Jerry Goldsmith returned to score the movie, with Jonathan Frakes again taking the reign as director. The overall result was a divisive affair - far from the lows of Star Trek V, but gone were the days of the Wrath Of Khan or The Undiscovered Country.
20. Patrick Stewart Didn't Want 'Television' Picard To Return
Patrick Stewart had felt a bit let-down by the direction in which Star Trek: Generations had taken his character. For him, he felt that Picard was far too much like his television-self, rather than a movie role.
When Star Trek: First Contact was released, he felt that the character achieved the movie-start, action-hero status that he wanted. Specifically, the scenes between himself and the Borg Queen in engineering helped to sway him. So, when the script for Insurrection came along, he was able to request additional changes be made so that he wouldn't be going backward.
This included the love story between Picard and Anij, along with the scenes featuring the evacuation of the Ba'ku, the deployment of the Captain's Yacht, and all of the scenes on the Collector with Ru'afo. Michael Piller said that for Picard to truly be the hero, he had to be morally and ethically in the right - even though he was effectively leading a mutiny against both Admiral Dougherty and Starfleet itself.