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Smooth as an Android's bottom: behind the scenes on the ninth film to bear the name Star Trek.
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00:00Every once in a while a film comes along that is both amazing, wonderful and slightly forgettable
00:05and sometimes that happens several times in the same franchise. We have some of the earlier Kirk
00:11films and then we have Star Trek Insurrection. For all of the effort that went into this movie
00:15a lot of love did go in, so did a hell of a lot of rewrites. We had the very
00:20first fully CGI version
00:22of the Enterprise E, some of which looks lovely. Emphasis on some. We also had some wonderful
00:29Sona ships that were lost to time until recently. Thank you very much, Eagle Moss. And we have
00:34an entire version of a script that was started by Michael Piller and then completely lost,
00:41chopped up and changed along the way. Thank you, Patrick Stewart. There's also, and I am not going
00:46to lie about this, scenes that feature Armand Jimmerman in full makeup as Quark in a swimsuit.
00:52And people say Insurrection isn't interesting. It may be the extra long TV episode that got turned
00:57into a film, but I will defend Star Trek Insurrection to the ground. With that in mind,
01:03I am Sean Ferrick for Trek Culture, and here are 20 things you didn't know about Star Trek
01:08Insurrection, Part 1. Number 20. Patrick Stewart didn't want television
01:14Picard to return. Patrick Stewart had felt a bit let down by the direction in which Star
01:18Trek Generations had taken his character. For him, he felt that Picard was far too much like
01:22his television self rather than a movie role. When Star Trek First Contact was released,
01:26he felt that the character achieved that movie star action hero status that he so wanted.
01:31Specifically, the scenes between himself and the Borg Queen and engineering helped to sway him.
01:35So, when the script for Insurrection came along, he was able to request additional changes be made
01:39so he wouldn't be going backward. This included the love story between Picard and Enige, along with the
01:43scenes featuring the evacuation of the Baku, the deployment of the captain's yacht, and all of the
01:47scenes on The Collector with Ruwafo. Michael Piller said that for Picard to truly be the hero,
01:52he had to be morally and ethically in the right, even though he was effectively leading a mutiny
01:56against both Admiral Dougherty and Starfleet itself.
01:59Number 19. The Kiss Got Cut
02:01One thing that is noticeably missing from the release of Star Trek Insurrection is an on-screen
02:06kiss between Captain Picard and Enige. The two characters have clearly been set up as a romantic
02:10couple with this status earned as they attempt to save the Baku together, along with their eventual
02:15capture by the Sona. According to Patrick Stewart, a kiss was indeed filmed for the climax of the film.
02:20This would have been a more direct payoff than what the audience received, which was effectively a
02:24tease for a sequel that never materialised. Picard tells Enige that he has accrued almost a year of
02:28shore leave, which he intends to take with her. The Kiss, according to Stewart, was cut by the studio
02:33for a reason he was not made aware of.
02:36Number 18. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here
02:40Anthony Zurb plays Admiral Matthew Dougherty in the film, though he was actually considered originally
02:44for the role of Arda Rwafo. Though he auditioned well, the role was given to F. Mary Abraham.
02:48As part of his audition, Zurb used his own unique style of acting to secure the part,
02:52including going completely off script. Rather than recite the lines as provided,
02:55he instead performed a chunk of Dante's Inferno. Only after he had completed these passages did
03:00he then switch back to the script as it was. This would prove to be a slightly apt decision,
03:04as Admiral Dougherty himself makes many bargains with the devil during his time in the film.
03:08Though it is all done for altruistic reasons, the Sona alliance is one that is clearly about as
03:12secure as an alliance with the Borg. Number 17. Sorry, kill you next time.
03:17Renspeiner was thoroughly done with the character of Data by the time Star Trek Insurrection rolled
03:21around. He had initially even been reluctant to appear in Star Trek Generations, though
03:25negotiations did go his way. He preferred the script for Star Trek First Contact, as it allowed
03:29him a large range to act alongside Alice Krieg's Queen. By Insurrection, he was beginning to have
03:34concerns that aging out, feeling that it was beginning to stretch plausibility for him to play
03:38the ageless android. A couple of factors went into his agreeing to appear. First, he credited his
03:43then-girlfriend, who persuaded him that being the only holdout from the main cast would be a decision
03:47he would go on to regret. The second reason was the handsome salary he received. Thirdly, he wrote a
03:51note to Rick Berman asking for Data to be killed in the movie. That way, he reckoned, no one would
03:56have
03:56to go through this process again for future film. However, when he received the script from Berman,
04:01it came with the note, sorry, kill you next time, and Data survived the events of the Briar Patch.
04:05Number 16. Can I interest you in a timeshare? There was a scripted scene involving Armin
04:10Jimmerman in the script for Star Trek Insurrection, which may have reached the filming stage,
04:14as evidenced by the on-set photo of Quark in a bathing suit. However, the scene has failed
04:18to see the light of day. The script featured an exchange between Quark, Worf, and Captain Picard.
04:23The Ferengi barman was to have approached them with the idea of building timeshares all along the
04:27lakefront, while two Dabo girls were perched on each arm. Picard bluntly states that there will be
04:31absolutely zero chance of that happening, ordering Worf to beam him to the Enterprise.
04:35Quark sulkily then says that the Nagus will be in touch. While the scene is a fun tie-in to
04:40the
04:40then ongoing Deep Space Nine, it was deemed superfluous by the producers, as Worf himself
04:44was already a crossover with the series. Despite Quark's best efforts, the timeshares were cut from
04:49the film entirely. Number 15. Michael Piller was stuck in development hell before Rick Berman called him.
04:55Michael Piller had joined the Star Trek franchise as The Next Generation had gone into its third season,
04:59though when the time came for a script for Star Trek Generations, he turned it down. He recommended
05:03Brannan Braga and Ronald D. Moore to write that film instead. He had stepped back from Star Trek
05:07a bit by then, having been deeply involved in DS9 and Voyager as well. In the years between Generations
05:13and Insurrection, he had written several projects that he thought were quite strong, though there was
05:17one glaring issue with them. None of them had actually been produced. It was what the industry
05:21referred to as development hell, or in other terms, everyone really liked the pieces, but not quite
05:25enough to greenlight them. Rick Berman then called Piller, asking him if he would be interested in
05:29penning the script for the ninth Star Trek film. Piller accepted, and two years of a laborious
05:33process began. Number 14. Berman wanted an old David O. Selznick film to be the inspiration.
05:38During the brainstorming phase of writing the script, Rick Berman was intrigued with having
05:42the story resemble The Prisoner of Zenda. The original novel had been released in 1894 by Anthony
05:47Hope, with the Ronald Coleman and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. starring 1937 adaptation being a prime inspiration.
05:53In the story, a man discovers that there was another person out there who was almost identical to him,
05:57though he is soon to be the leader of another state. Sound familiar?
06:00Star Trek Insurrection veered away from this storyline, though elements of it would resurface
06:04in Star Trek Nemesis. While Shinzon is clearly not a heroic character by any means, he is still
06:09a clone of the lead protagonist, and he is recently the head of the Romulan state. That's about the
06:13extent of the similarities between the Coleman film and the final Next Generation movie, but the inspiration
06:18can clearly be seen for Stuart Baird's offering to the franchise here.
06:2213. Despite Spiner's reluctance, there could have been two androids in the film.
06:27Michael Piller toyed with the idea of bringing Lore back to the franchise. He had last been
06:31seen in Descent Part II, where he was shot by Data. Though disassembled, death was never truly
06:36certain for Data's brother, so a return could easily have been achieved. Piller took inspiration
06:40from Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan for this idea. Lore would have returned hell-bent on seeking
06:44revenge against both Data and the crew of the Enterprise E. While the exact reasons that this didn't progress into
06:50a
06:50story are a little vague, Spiner's reluctance to return to even the role of Data may have played
06:55a part. In a similar move to Berman's idea of having two Picards, too soon-type androids would
06:59appear in the following film. B4 is said to be a prototype android far less sophisticated than Data,
07:04and certainly less advanced than Lore himself. While fans were disappointed that the evil twin
07:09didn't return, at least Spiner got to pull Double Duty one more time.
07:1312. Roddenberry's Box
07:16When writing about the process by which Michael Piller was assigned the film, the writer spoke of the
07:20problem of Roddenberry's Box, as he called it. This was the set of rules that each and every
07:24writer on Star Trek had to fight with when they came on board. Piller himself got first experience
07:29of this with the Bonding. Back in TNG's third season, Ronald D. Moore submitted The Bonding,
07:33an episode dealing with grief. Roddenberry flatly rejected it, as humans didn't grieve in his 24th
07:39century. Piller wrote that while many writers could and did balk at these kind of restrictions,
07:44he simply took it as a challenge and reworked the script. If there is one consistent complaint about
07:47Insurrection, it's that it feels like an extra long episode of Star Trek. In a way,
07:52this is completely accurate. Piller wrote the film with Roddenberry's Box in mind,
07:56allowing the process to speed through the editors without the slog of trying to find
07:59new writers to take on the challenge.
08:0211. Ira Stephen Bear and the Paper Tigers
08:05When Piller completed his third version of the script, he showed it to Ira Stephen Bear,
08:09who was the showrunner and executive producer on Star Trek Deep Space Nine. He handed the script
08:13straight back to Piller, calling the sonar a good idea, though describing them as paper tigers. A
08:18paper tiger is something that seems intimidating, frightening, or even powerful, but is in fact
08:22far from it. The first version of the sonar effectively fell apart on the most casual of
08:27glances, leading them in desperate need of a rapid rewrite. Piller took the script back and
08:32began to work on it. The romantic subplot was added, though what was also added was the Collector,
08:36the massive ship that comes to harvest the energy of the rings upon which Picard and Ruofo have their
08:41final fight in the film. Though that final scene would undergo several treatments, and even feature
08:45in an unaired ending, it was entirely missing from all early drafts of the script, which would have
08:49led to a rather interesting plot hole when it came time to collect that radiation. And that's
08:53everything for this first part of our list. Please make sure that you check back for the second part,
08:57which will be coming soon. Remember, you can catch us over on Twitter at TrekCulture. You can catch
09:01myself at Sean Ferrick on Twitter as well. Whatever you do until I'm talking to you again,
09:04you look after yourself, you look after your friends and family, and in today's world,
09:08just do me and everyone else a favour, you stay safe, you live long and prosper, and thank you very
09:12much.
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