Axiom’s Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

(Continuing our Summer of Star Trek series)

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars (Give Your Rating)

After the great success of Star Trek: First Contact, producer Rick Berman and Paramount decided that, with the writing team of Moore and Braga busy with other projects, long-time TNG writer/producer Michael Piller would be the idea man for the next motion picture in the Trek franchise. Piller had previously turned down the opportunity to work on ST: Generations, and admitted to thinking First Contact was a little darker than he liked his Trek. He thought that Gene Roddenberry’s vision for Trek was to make people feel good about the future, that there was hope for us as a species in the future, and that the previous film had embraced a more nihilistic vision that may have been more in tune with Americans’ taste in sf of late but didn’t fit The Great Bird’s template for the series. Piller favored a “search for the Fountain of Youth” storyline, while Berman’s idea was to remake Joseph Conrad’s classic story “Heart of Darkness” (which was the basis for Coppola’s great film Apocalypse Now), kind of a TOS “The Omega Glory” meets TNG’s “The Wounded”. And there were, of course, problems with the script. In the first draft, Picard was to hunt down an old classmate who was gunning for Romulans while the crew of the Enterprise grew younger and younger due to the effects of the space they had to travel through, in the next version the ship was tracking down a rogue Data, with Picard eventually having to “kill” the android, only to find a way to reactivate him later in the film.

But Patrick Stewart objected. Sort of. I’ve always read that he objected, but from what he himself said that he told Berman and Piller I’ve never really been able to see much conflict with what they had down. According to Stewart, he said he thought the captain should be in the middle of the action, that the crew should have some fun in a lighter film than the last, and that Picard should have a romantic relationship. Two of those three things were already on tap in the scripts proposed. Piller then came up with Picard and crew having to rebel against a faction of Starfleet officers working with an alien race to steal the homeworld of a race of “children”. But it was decided that Picard’s motivations for going against orders in this script were rather flimsy (I guess it is ridiculous to think that a Starship Captain would oppose a shadow cadre of Starfleet personnel just because they were going to not only violate the Prime Directive but also steal a planet from a bunch of children; what was Piller thinking?) so the Baku, the “children”, were changed to adults and Picard was shown to be romantically involved with one of them.

The story: A peaceful scene on an idyllic alien world is suddenly shattered by phaser fire. This attack is shown to be the work of Data, who then turns the phaser on the cloaked Federation outpost filled with anthropologists and exobiologists sent to study the Ba’ku, the alien race of this world. Admiral Dougherty then calls the Enterprise and asks for Data’s schematics and any other info Picard can give him but tells Picard that a visit from the Enterprise is unwarranted. So… well you know Picard has to go there. As the Enterprise passes through the “Briar Patch” several effects are noticed through the crew—Geordi’s ocular implants begin to bother him, Riker and Troi’s earlier feelings for each other begin to resurface, Worf experiences acne. Data is captured and found to have been attacked by a race called the Son’a, whom the Federation has allied with even though they make Ketracel White, the drug the Founders use to keep the Jem’Hadar in line, and the Federation is currently embroiled in the Dominion War. Picard is also informed by the leader of the Ba’ku, Anij, that they knew something was wrong with Data’s positronic brain but weren’t sure how to fix it, which tells our heroes that this race is advanced but has turned their back willfully on technology. They also find that a cloaked Federation ship is hidden on the surface for the purpose of surreptitiously sneaking the Ba’ku off their homeworld. Turns out that due to metaphasic radiation ringing the planet it is a veritable fountain of youth and some in the Federation have decided that the way of life for the 600 people living there is expendable in order to reap the benefits of this fountain. Picard and crew refuse to allow this transparent violation of the Prime Directive, and that’s before the Big Reveal later on.

Two things about this film. First, it is my favorite of the TNG-centric motion pictures despite the fact that it is, after all, little more than a two-part episode of the series. I thought the same thing about Generations. I think it has to do with the look of the films more than their content. Both Generations and Insurrection just look like episodes, with the CGI and the quality of the picture itself they just appear to be episodes of the tv show. With Generations that was kind of annoying (although not even in my Top Five of problems with that film), with this one it just didn’t bother me. I guess I’m just more interested in the story and how the characters interact with each other than how cool the sfx looks, especially when it comes to Trek.

The other thing I can say is how frightening it is to read some of the comments people make about this film. I am frequently aghast at the callous disregard some people have for the rights of others, and those same people’s willingness to violate any rules or laws if they can justify it as being for what they perceive as the “greater good”. I’ve read in places where people have actually suggested that Dougherty should have just exterminated the Ba’ku when Picard wrecked his plan to take them away without their knowledge, or at least beam them to a ship and lock them away in the brig. I can say I didn’t really get why Federation medical personnel couldn’t just experiment with metaphasic radiation on their own with the Ba’ku still living on the planet (I know Dougherty explained it but I just can’t believe the Feddies couldn’t synthesize it), but that doesn’t mean it’s all right just to destroy a people’s way of life and steal their property. And that’s even without my mentioning that we really don’t know if they can replicate the radiation’s effects. I mean, how long do you think they’ve studied the “Earth” they found in the TOS ep “Miri” or the “Earth” they found in the TOS ep “The Omega Glory” without finding a way to make those longevity systems work anywhere else? (I know what McCoy said in TOS but surely medical science has advanced in the 80-odd years since, not to mention the fact that he was speaking after a mere few hours of research.)

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