Posted:
18:30:43 on October 09
By: Anonymous Coward
Dept: People
Issue 54 of the british Dreamwatch magazine featured an exclusive interview with Jonathan Frakes, in which the actor/director discussed 'Star Trek Insurrection' and talked about some of the movie's cuts and re-shots. Here are some excerpts.
About Insurrection's original ending :
"They need a big action sequence at the end of film - there was not one in the original script. To the studio's credit, they realised that to satisfy our core audience, we needed the Enterprise to come and save the day. And to that end, Rick Berman and Michael Piller were able to sit down and have three stories now intercut instead of one story. It was a credit to everyone involved that this was done in three weeks, and the visual effects guys had to add 23 new opticals"
"Originally, we had Patrick [Stewart] and Murray [Abraham] in the scaffolding, Murray was ejected out into the metaphasic rings, and he morphed down from Ru'afo to Murray's regular appearance down to a teenager that we hired who looked like a young Murray. Now, at the studio suggestion, the Enterprise cuts in to save the day, the collector explodes with the villain on it [photo below], so the villain gets his commepauce."
About the cut of the kissing scenes between Picard and Aniij :
"It was in my cut, as were some of the other scenes. This was the first time that I've been victim to what happens after you turn your movie in to the studio. There were two kisses cut, one of which I agree with. The first one [see photo below] was early, when Aniij blows the flower, but I thought the kiss at the end makes perfect sense. Berman wanted both kisses left in, but to Sherry Lansing it was a pace issue."
About the earthbound action sequences :
"Technically, it was tough to be on top of this mountain [filming scenes where the Baku refugees are under attack by the So'na. A fight scene between Data and the So'na was also cut from the film] The shots weren't that demanding, but everything else around was."
Thanks to Planet Riker for the images.
