We’re experiencing a perfect moment in time this week as we slow down to enjoy the third TNG film: “Star Trek: Insurrection”!
Sasha Wood of Casually Comics returns to the show this week to discuss Michael Piller’s uneven but endearing contribution to the TNG film series. The Enterprise discovers a remote planet of enlightened but defenseless race who is being victimized by the cruel Son’a. When the Federation forbids Picard to interfere, the captain and his crew will have to weigh their responsibility to Starfleet against the Ba’ku’s right to exist!
The benevolence of the Federation and Starfleet are taken for granted in Star Trek storytelling, but it would be naïve to deny the parallels between Starfleet’s mission of discovery and the adventurous (and often predatory) explorers of Earth’s past. Coming on the heels of the action-packed “First Contact”, “Insurrection” was an attempt to refocus the TNG film series on the complicated themes that made its television counterpart so engrossing, and even though it wasn’t an unqualified success, the film continues Trek’s tradition of holding a mirror up to human (and alien) nature. On this episode, we talk about the evolution of the character of the Federation, what we expect from Trek and Trek films, finding the right allusion, maintaining perspective in space, struggling to escape the “Roddenberry box”, and the lengths that the powerful will go to to retain power.
We also discuss Trek “humor”, the pre-warp vest/shirt combo, Rogaine and story ideas, “Heart of Lightness”, Movie Picard, cutting the kiss, making your own bread, kids watching kids, sci-fi Angie, apt song usage, “Activate Logitechnology”, drug-dealing gun-running alien friends, “Dougherty out.”, the sexiest Star Trek movie(?), and a Brazil’s worth of face-stretching!
Put that beard back on!
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Shippers Guide to the Galaxy
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