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There have been countless threads on this, but these are my ideas for making Insurrection a slightly better movie.

-Ditch the Son'a: They didn't work. Period. They could have been any other alien and we wouldn't have cared; besides, I don't think anyone bought into the whole 'Murderous Rage Against Former Loved Ones For Allowing Them To Choose Peaceful Exile'

-Insert Dominion: It would have worked better, I think, if a small flotilla of Dominion warships crewed by renegade Vor(sp?) or even humans took the place of the Son'a, working with the Federation in exchange for supplies of ketracel white. It would make the conflict between Picard and Starfleet into something more than abstract morale bullshit; he's being ordered to help people who he just got done fighting a war with.

-Picard takes a stand: The renegade Dominion baddies do *not* double cross the Federation; they're playing it straight. Picard, however, and his crew, don't agree with the Federation's actions. The Briar Patch fucks with tranmissions- Picard and crew decide to stop the Dominion and Federation effort, banking on the assumption that Starfleet won't be able to come out and reveal the whole plan, and thus will be unable to court-martial Picard. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, you get a *good* premise for a new movie.

-Beef up the Baku: 700 people is too few. Beef up the numbers to a million or so and have a thorough, agricultural society. Early in the movie, the Enterprise encounters a Baku who is dying of non-exposure to those special particles; his death is extreme agony, his entire body mutilated, and Troi feels and relates every last burst of pain. It lends more credence to Picard's decision to fight the Feds and the Dominion.

How to make Insurrection better...?

Burning it springs immediately to mind as an idea.

Making it an all out war to get the Fountain of Youth between the Dominion, the Romulans, and the Federation/Klingons would have been a better idea. Last man standing gets the prise.

Admiral Johnason wrote:

Making it an all out war to get the Fountain of Youth between the Dominion, the Romulans, and the Federation/Klingons would have been a better idea. Last man standing gets the prise.

And what happens to the defenseless Baku, do they become an extinct race beause of this war, now that would make it more dramatic and show what the war had done to a minor race.

Oh yeah, a massive war. Good idea.

*Fed/Kling fleets and Romulan and Dominion fleets assmeble in orbit of Baku*

All: Open fire!!! Destroy their ships!

*blam boom zap kerpow foom splat sploit*

Fed/Klingon: Well done, we won!
Ensign: Wheres the planet?
Fed/Klingon: Oh nuts, it must have been those 500 stray torpedoes........

FaxModem1 wrote:Admiral Johnason wrote:

Making it an all out war to get the Fountain of Youth between the Dominion, the Romulans, and the Federation/Klingons would have been a better idea. Last man standing gets the prise.

And what happens to the defenseless Baku, do they become an extinct race beause of this war, now that would make it more dramatic and show what the war had done to a minor race.

No. In my version, there would be no Baku because the Federation would not have probed them with Vulcans after they found out that the Prime Directive didn't apply.

TurboPhaser wrote: Fed/Klingon: Oh nuts, it must have been those 500 stray torpedoes........

500 stray torpedoes?, as long as someone on the ground is carrying an umbrella they're ok.

Admiral Johnason wrote:No. In my version, there would be no Baku because the Federation would not have probed them with Vulcans after they found out that the Prime Directive didn't apply.

When are you people going to learn that the Prime Directive still applies to societies that are are warp capable. It is only a huge brain bug that the Prime Directive applies to pre-warp civilizations.

Death from the Sea wrote:

Admiral Johnason wrote:No. In my version, there would be no Baku because the Federation would not have probed them with Vulcans after they found out that the Prime Directive didn't apply.

When are you people going to learn that the Prime Directive still applies to societies that are are warp capable. It is only a huge brain bug that the Prime Directive applies to pre-warp civilizations.

Appearently, you didn't hear the Admiral say that the Prime Directive didn't apply to these people. And name one civilization that has warp that was protected by the PD?

The problem with Insurrection was that it tried to bring up moral dilemmas, but they weren't very interesting. Compared with the ST series, which consistently asked what it was to be human, or the SW saga which asks what is good, or a film like Blade Runner, which asks a whole bunch of questions, Insurrection focused on a tired and already done-to-death moral question. And by "focused on," I mean "briefly touched." Picard decided to ignore the chain of command almost immediately.

The opening was flat and kind of boring, but that could have been forgiven if it had developed into an interesting film. It never really did, with far too much influence being centered around the Baku flight, the Sona, and the space-battle, which I would characterize as being uninteresting at best.

Admiral Johnason wrote:Appearently, you didn't hear the Admiral say that the Prime Directive didn't apply to these people.

That was only the Admirals opinion, because Picard was directly opposed to that position.

And name one civilization that has warp that was protected by the PD?

The Klingons in TNG episodes "Redemption I & II" the Federation was prevented from interfering in the Klingon Civil war until the Romulans were proved to be involved.
Just so you know The Prime Directive precludes interference in the normal development of a society. That does not end when a society achieves warp capability. When dealing with primitive cultures, the Prime Directive forbids any mention of life on other worlds and if possible avoiding direct contact with said primitive culture to prevent possible interference/influence.

Patrick Degan wrote:How to make Insurrection better...?

Burning it springs immediately to mind as an idea.

My thoughts exactly.

Gandalf wrote:

TurboPhaser wrote: Fed/Klingon: Oh nuts, it must have been those 500 stray torpedoes........

500 stray torpedoes?, as long as someone on the ground is carrying an umbrella they're ok.

Yes, a 400,000 TeraJoule umbrella perehaps? Must my jokes be analyzed with such scrutiny?.

HemlockGrey wrote:-Insert Dominion: It would have worked better, I think, if a small flotilla of Dominion warships crewed by renegade Vor(sp?) or even humans took the place of the Son'a, working with the Federation in exchange for supplies of ketracel white. It would make the conflict between Picard and Starfleet into something more than abstract morale bullshit; he's being ordered to help people who he just got done fighting a war with.

Er, I thought Insurrection was placed just before the end of the Dominion War... what with Picard's (? maybe someone else's) line about how the Federation "needed all the help it could get" against the Dominion (hence the diplomatic function at the beginning of the movie)

-Picard takes a stand: The renegade Dominion baddies do *not* double cross the Federation; they're playing it straight. Picard, however, and his crew, don't agree with the Federation's actions. The Briar Patch fucks with tranmissions- Picard and crew decide to stop the Dominion and Federation effort, banking on the assumption that Starfleet won't be able to come out and reveal the whole plan, and thus will be unable to court-martial Picard. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, you get a *good* premise for a new movie.

The Dominion would never have gone along with the feel-good "holodeck" solution the Federation concocted, they simply would have taken what they wanted. Different villain is needed no matter what alternative "plan to remove the Baku" you make up, because the Dominion simply won't care about them.

Insurrection is a badly premised movie to begin with. The Briar Patch is a godawful shitpile of an excuse to rip off TWOK's Mutara Nebula, only worse. (seriously, that whole "not fitted for it" piece of crap was so ridiculous... WTF happened to the nav deflectors?) The collector device is flawed in that the Enterprise could have simply lobbed a few torpedoes at it to destroy it. (or *gasp* maybe send the captain's yacht in on a collision course... those collector foils look pretty damn weak) The battle is a classic B&B technobabble borefest, which really makes you wonder how someone could be so bad as to fuck up at plagiarizing other material. The underlying tone leaves a bad taste in my mouth (Wong put it best with the "small town folksy" stuff) and allowing the Sona to bring heavy capital ships into Federation space without so much as a token Starfleet escort, let alone the idiocy of having the Sona call in reinforcements when technically it's Federation territory... this is WORSENED by the weakened state of Starfleet and Federation defenses due to the Dominion War, and allowing a powerful (two Sona battleships seem to give a Soveriegn a hard time, and considering most starships in Starfleet are considerably weaker...) and potentially hostile force (given that they produce Ketracel White) into Federation territory is strategically absurd.

Frankly, B&B would have done much better to consider a different movie altogether... one more epic in scope and more competently assembled. Bringing back Nick Meyer to do another Star Trek, even given his generally slower pace in space, would be a godsend; especially given that Paramount seems incapable of producing a quality combat scene in Star Trek to save their life (franchise).

Saving Insurrection is impossible without completely rewriting it from the ground up, because the whole movie is based on a moronic premise (the fountain of youth, the Ba'ku, the vengeful So'na who've been away for centuries and built starships but couldn't simply sit in orbit and soak up the fancy radiation or establish another colony somewhere on the planet's surface).

In short, Patrick Degan's suggestion of simply burning it down is the best one.

Patrick Degan wrote:How to make Insurrection better...?

Burning it springs immediately to mind as an idea.

Don't forget burying the ash. I'm not real big on retaining even the name.

Sea Skimmer wrote:

Patrick Degan wrote:How to make Insurrection better...?

Burning it springs immediately to mind as an idea.

Don't forget burying the ash. I'm not real big on retaining even the name.

I say puting the ashes in acid and irradiating whatever is left is better.

Can we bury it in soft peat and make it into Vogon firelighters? Please?

Making Insurrection better? Change it to Starcrossed.

Really come on now, this movie had some good potential(much like Nemesis did) but it was just poorly done(also much like Nemesis).

Picard and Co. should have been disobeying orders from more than just the one Admiral. They should have had some of the Federation Council or event the Federation President in on the deal making them all crooked. I would have done away with the Baku exiled the Sona bit. Maybe if it had to kept in the I would have reversed it so that the Sona exiled the Baku for (insert your reason). Possibly the old peaceful regime being overthrown by the newer less peaceful and one. The Baku are exiled to the briar patch and left to die, but they don't, and they embrace their lives without technology and reap the anti-aging benefits of the planets rings. So the Sona are pissed because the Baku got a better life than the Sona etc... etc... the Sona come to the Feddies and find crooked Admirals and politicians and team up and then how ever you want the Ent-E and crew to become involved Picard and Co. rebell against the present crooked politicans and admirals and try to stop them. you could even include a part at the end where Picard and Co. have to prove to Starfleet of the crookedness and so they are off to trial at Starfleet HQ(similar to ST:IV). Picard and Co. could fail to prove the crookedness or the crookedness is bigger than we thought(like includes the President) and Picard and Co. steal the Ent-E(again similar to ST:III I know) and they stop the badguys somehow. This is just off of the top of my head, but if I really thought it out more I could make it a little more fluid and such. I realize I have done what B&B seem to thrive off of doing and that is recycling plot points but hey you come up with a better version without doing it.

Make it better? Well, don't stop the Son'a!!!!