“Star Trek: Insurrection” was the third movie that featured the characters from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” The movie followed the crew of the Enterprise-E as they uncovered a secret plot to take over the planet Ba’Ku. The planet was surrounded by metaphasic rings that gave it incredible restorative properties. The rings essentially made Ba’Ku a fountain of youth.
A species called the Son’a teamed up with a rogue faction of the Federation to take over the planet and harness its restorative powers. The crew of the Enterprise-E joined with the native Ba’Ku to stop the alliance and protect the planet.
At the end of the movie, the leader of the Son’a, Ahdar Ru’afo, died aboard his ship, which Captain Jean-Luc Picard set to self-destruct. However, that wasn’t Ru’afo’s original fate. In an earlier cut of the movie, he met his end in a very different way.
Ru’afo’s Ironic Death
Peter Lauritson, one of the movie’s producers, detailed the original ending in a behind-the-scenes interview shortly after the movie was released. In the film’s first cut, Ru’afo’s final moments were an ironic commentary on his quest for perpetual youth.
Instead of going down with the ship, Ru’afo found a way to launch himself directly into Ba’Ku’s metaphasic rings. As he entered the metaphasic energy, Ru’afo began to rapidly age backwards. He morphed from an old man to a middle-aged man to a young man to a teenager before the camera cut away from the scene. Lauritson said that the implication was that Ru’afo would de-age until he literally didn’t exist anymore. The very power that Ru’afo had hoped to harness to become immortal erased his existence.
Lauritson revealed that the entire scene, which was very complicated to film, was shot for the movie’s first cut. When the studio saw the original ending, they decided that it wasn’t as dramatic as they wanted it to be. So, even though the cast and crew had already filmed the elaborate de-aging scene, it was cut and replaced with Ru’afo’s death scene.
The video of Lauritson’s interview, which can be watched above, included shots from the original ending so fans can see what was supposed to happen.
A More Diplomatic Ending
In his book about the making of “Insurrection,” writer Michael Piller revealed that he wanted the movie’s resolution to be much different than it turned out. “Fade In: From Idea to Final Draft – The Writing of Star Trek: Insurrection” included early drafts of Piller’s pitches, storyboards, and scripts for “Insurrection.” One of the earliest versions of the story ended with a diplomatic solution rather than an action-packed battle.
Piller proposed that once Picard discovered that the Son’a were actually the same species as the Ba’Ku, he convinced the exiled Son’a to negotiate with their Ba’Ku ancestors. He and the crew of the Enterprise-E organized a peace conference and mediated the discussions.
A heartfelt conversation between Picard and the Ba’Ku leaders convinced them that they could forgive the Son’a for their past transgressions and let them return home. He also convinced the Son’a to cease their quest for revenge. The peace agreement allowed the Son’a to return home without conflict and heal from the disease that was killing them.
Of course, the producers and the studio weren’t interested in such a peaceful ending. They wanted the movie to end with “a bang,” in other words, an action-packed battle scene. So, the ending was altered to the de-aging scene that was filmed for the original cut. When that still wasn’t up to action movie par, the destruction of Ru’afo and his ship was added.
Both the de-aging ending and the peace talk endings were arguably more in the spirit of “The Next Generation.” However, what works for television endings doesn’t always work for movie endings. The dramatic death scene was probably the best choice for a Trek blockbuster, even if it wasn’t very “Star Trek” in spirit.
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