Review for Star Trek: Insurrection

Introduction

They release the Star Trek movies on VHS, I shell out. They release them on DVD, I shell out. They release them on Blu-ray, I shell out. They give them 4k re-masters, I shell out.

“The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!”

Yeah, I’m not going to get the 4k re-master of Star Trek: Nemesis. I had no choice when it came to the Blu-ray 10 movie box-set, but there’s no way that I’ll voluntarily buy that film as a standalone. So Star Trek Insurrection is my last 4k re-mastered Blu-ray Star Trek movie review, my tenth, given that I bought The Motion Picture twice when the Director’s Cut got a release too. Will I ever buy them on UHD, you are asking? Okay, so it’s more of a dotted line...


The crew of the Enterprise E are in the middle of diplomatic negotiations when they receive a disturbing communication from the Briar Patch region. Commander Data is on a special assignment with a joint Starfleet and Son’a mission to observe the primitive Ba’ku planet when he appears to malfunction. When the officer in charge, Admiral Dougherty requests Data’s schematics, Picard and the crew of the Enterprise abandon their mission and set course for the Briar Patch to investigate and if possible, rescue Data. But upon reaching the Ba’ku world they find a deeper conspiracy. The planet’s unique position in the Briar Patch subjects it to a form of rejuvenating radiation. The Ba’ku are to all intents and purposes, immortal. Admiral Dougherty and the Son’a, commanded by Ru’afo are willing to go to any lengths to obtain this fountain of youth for themselves, including displacing the innocent Ba’ku. Picard and his crew are faced with disobeying Starfleet orders and going up against Dougherty and Ru’afo in an attempt to safeguard the Ba’ku.

The Disc

There is a technical as well as a critical reason not to double-dip on Nemesis. When it came to the original box-set release, the transfer quality improved with each successive film, with a big leap from the original series movies to the Next Gen when it came to excessive DNR. By the time it came to Nemesis, the transfer was nigh on faithful to the cinematic experience. Getting the newest transfer will only really marginally benefit from the 4k re-master, with no significant issues with the original transfer to correct. That’s also pretty much where we are with Star Trek Insurrection, with the previous Blu-ray pretty good, and this one a small improvement when it comes to clarity, grain, and detail levels.


Insurrection gets a 2.39:1 widescreen 1080p transfer on this disc, with Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Surround English, and DD 5.1 Surround French, German, Japanese, Spanish, and English Audio Descriptive, with subtitles in these languages and Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish. As mentioned, the visual transfer is impeccable, offering a cinematic experience, and the audio matches up to that, immersive and effective, making the most of the action and Jerry Goldsmith’s iconic music, while keeping the dialogue clear throughout.

Extras

You get one disc in a BD Amaray style case wrapped in an o-card slipcover, and the disc boots to a static menu. Once again, this release uses the original promotional artwork for its sleeve if you want to distinguish it from the first Blu-ray release.

The following extras are carried over from the previous Blu-ray...


Audio commentary with Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis
Library Computer pop-up trivia track
7 Featurettes in Production (119:25)
7 Featurettes in The Star Trek Universe (73:41)
3 Featurettes in Creating the Illusion (18:57)
7 Deleted Scenes plus producer intro (12:56)
Advertising contains two trailers, an original promo and an ad for a Las Vegas Star Trek ride

New to this Blu-ray is the DVD Text Commentary from Mike & Denise Okuda. Also, in Archives you’ll find Storyboards, A Photo Gallery, and three more featurettes, Worf and Troi, Tom Morello, and Marina and Craft Services.

Conclusion

The last time I watched Insurrection, ironically for that original Blu-ray review, it must have got me on a bad day, or in the middle of a Star Trek binge where the franchise was all starting to blur together, as back then I saw Insurrection as utterly average. I don’t even have the excuse of a quantum leap forward in the quality of the transfer, as this 4k restoration is a reasonable improvement over the first disc at best. But this time I really enjoyed watching Star Trek Insurrection. For its sins, it is a fairly typical TNG story, with the Prime Directive at stake, a primitive species about to fall victim to alien exploitation, and with Picard and the Enterprise all that stands in the way. The difference being that the alien exploitation comes in part from the vaunted Federation, and not everything is as it appears with the primitive culture. The thing about Insurrection is that it really is a Next Generation television episode transferred to the big screen, and generic one at that.


The original series and Next Generation movies were polar opposites in one way. The original series was always about the trio, Spock, Bones and Kirk, and the movies slowly began to take on more of an ensemble feel. The Next Generation TV show very much was an ensemble cast, but the spin-off movies felt like the Data and Picard franchise. Having said all of that, Star Trek Insurrection is the Star Trek V of the Next Generation movies. This is where the cast have the most fun on screen, the film with the lighter touch, played more for comedy (which in some ways diminishes the gravity of the main storyline), and when it comes to the Enterprise crew, this film is where they most feel like the television show. The difference is that Insurrection played it safe with its story, where Final Frontier’s reach exceeded its grasp by a long way.


For what we have in Insurrection is another lunatic with a doomsday weapon, a firmly established movie trope now, as each successive Star Trek movie continues to try, and fail to surpass The Wrath of Khan. Ru’afo and his space umbrella of doom was the first naked attempt to recapture the Khan magic, and despite it failing, Star Trek movies have been trying again and again ever since. The name may promise much, but the stakes are comparatively small, and Admiral Dougherty’s collusion with the facelift people and Picard’s refusal to obey Dougherty’s orders, all seem pretty small potatoes when it comes to insurrections. Star Trek and the Space Amish looks like it was a lot of fun to make for the actors, and there are moments in the film that can still delight.


This time, if you want to see the most drastic upgrade in transfer quality over the previous Blu-ray, it might be better just to go straight for the UHD release. This Blu-ray offers a few more featurettes, and a couple more channels of audio, but we’re not talking the revelations that the original series movie upgrades were. It’s still an entertaining enough movie though, and if Blu-ray is your format of choice and you’re buying Insurrection for the first time, this is the one to get.