STAR TREK - INSURRECTION (SPECIAL COLLECTOR'S EDITION)

Star Trek - Insurrection (Special Collector's Edition)

Starring: Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Stewart
Director: Jonathan Frakes
Encoding: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
Format: Color, Widescreen, Dolby
Number of discs: 2
 

Movie:
Disc:
 

Star Trek - Insurrection is a rather bland entry in the big screen Star Trek franchise featuring the so-called ?next generation? crew of Picard, Data and so forth.

It isn't as bad as Star Trek V - The Final Frontier, but then again, what is?) Star Trek Insurrection is just bland and easily forgettable.

A brief plot synopsis is in order since you've probably forgotten about this particular installment: Data (Brent Spiner, all wrinkly by now even though the android he plays isn't supposed to age) runs amok on an idyllic planet that is being studied by the Federation. Data it seems has uncovered a plot by upper echelon star fleet types and an alien race to remove the planet in question's 300 or so inhabitants. It would seem that the planet's rings are a veritable fountain of youth, actually reversing the ageing process, bestowing perpetual good health in the process and allowing its inhabitants to live for centuries. (It also seems to turn its inhabitants into smug "we have the technology, but we don't want to use it" neo-Luddites, but let's not get into that here.)

Soon Picard and his crew arrive to investigate and find themselves in direct conflict with the local bigwig in charge. Some fun is had as the now-ageing Enterprise crew grows younger on the planet: Worf gets a zit and the women crew marvel at how their boobs have firmed (ahem).

Anyway, better Next Generation episodes made the small screen and not even the presence of F. Murray Abraham (Salieri in Amadeus) as the chief villain manages to uplift the material from its small screen roots. This is stuff that belongs on the small screen.

THE DISC: Realizing that what trekkies want is more geeky stuff on extra discs, Paramount is re-releasing all the big screen Star Trek movies on so-called Special Collectors editions (just how special does one get?) even though they had all been released on no-frills discs a few years back.

Packaged in an outsize plastic DVD cover, Star Trek - Insurrection has the feature film on one disc (with a ?text commentary? filled with the sort of trivia that makes true Trek fans salivate profusely) and a second disc filled to the brim with all kinds of making of featurettes as well as the usual deleted scenes and trailers. To be honest I found some of the featurettes (like the one on the Star Trek women, yummy!) on this disc to be of more interest than the feature film itself!

WORTH IT? This is a case of an average movie being given above average treatment.

RECOMMENDATION: Trek completists would want to purchase this disc, but casual fans can easily skip it.