The 14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek: Insurrection

As noted in the introduction, Insurrection stemmed from a premise that writer Michael Piller described as “Heart of Lightness.” He conceived of a structure informed by “Heart of Darkness” (the ur text of 1979’s Apocalypse Now), but that the trip “up the river” would lead Picard and his crew on a very different kind of adventure.

“Heart of Darkness” is a controversial work for many reasons, but portrays the destructive and dehumanizing impacts of colonization on the colonized and the psychological toll it takes on the colonizers. It’s a powerful concept, and a spotlight shone on the Federation and Starfleet and what it takes to get them to violate their ideals sounds like a great story.

But the idea ran into problems almost immediately. Rick Berman and others balked at the notion that the Federation would permit what Piller suggested. To ensure neither the Federation nor Starfleet was portrayed negatively, the story introduced disposable bad guys and one bad apple admiral. This gradual dilution robbed the story of its entire point.

This was just the beginning, and the decisions made to fix the script's various perceived defects, and to make the stars happy, resulted in a patchwork of mismatched elements that failed to satisfy most audiences.

Insurrection ably illustrates the proverb, "A camel is a horse designed by a committee." Creativity by committee, my friends, is dumb.