I don't think it would have made a difference to me even had Stewart played Shinzon. Four years between Trek films and all they could come up with was an evil twin plot. But that wasn't enough. They had to come up with a Data b-story in which Data gets... a twin! Real imaginative, guys. The movie was dead before Baird even touched it. He just shut the coffin lid and delivered a eulogy.
Actually re-watched this recently, and it was just as bad as I had remembered. Everyone in the cast just seems a bit "off." There isn't a performance in the movie that isn't stilted, which is odd, because usually the interplay between the cast was one of the best things about otherwise lackluster Next Gen episodes (or movies). I just get the strong sense that nobody making the movie wanted to be there. The story and script aren't very good, but I think Baird's direction was the final nail in the coffin. If Frakes had directed instead, I think the movie would be widely remembered as a mediocre one instead of an outright failure. (High praise, I know!).
Nemesis had some good parts but they are overshadowed by its mistakes. TNG was an ensemble show and there were only a few minutes of the entire film where that ensemble feeling was there. They changed Michael Dorn's voice, which made him sound waaaaaay wrong. As a life long Worf fan, the director massively blew that. The Troi/Shinzon rape scene was not necessary, Shinzon's interactions with Troi just were awful. The deleted scene, ironically was the best of that. I actually liked the Dunebuggy scene, I just would have preferred if it had taken place against proper adversaries. I think that it's very possible that if Patrick Stewart had been Shinzon too, it would have been a great thing for the movie. Data had to die in something massive, otherwise given how many times he had been repaired throughout the series, it just wouldn't work. I rather wish it had been something that challenged him. Flying across space to get to the Scimitar was cool but I don't think it really was difficult for him. I also didn't like the idea of him dying with a phaser in his hand. Data was such a calm and non-violent character, I think it would've been better and much more interesting if he threw himself into the Thaleron and it blew him up, taking the Scimitar with him. Something that Into Darkness got right was showing the ship ready to go again after being repaired. We should have seen Riker take the Captain's chair on the Titan, we should have seen Picard and his new crew set forth into space again. Instead, they gave us the (hint, hint) that Worf is now the First Officer, and after the toast scene, we never saw Troi, Geordi, Worf or Crusher again. There's a lot of unforgivable fails in this movie, but that's a big one. The final sign off for those characters on screen should NOT have been in a scene like that.
Agreed. And as said, certain deleted scenes do show more of that ensemble. It was there in the script, but was systematically hacked out of the final cut by Director Baird. Again I agree. And again, the original final scene fits this better, with the Enterprise's new first officer coming in and Picard setting a course "Where No One Has Gone Before". The movie then ends with a pull back from the bridge, and the Enterprise setting sail into the sunset. So much better than the depressing ending the actual movie's got.
I quite like "Nemesis". It has its flaws, but so do all the Trek films. I didn't mind the dune buggy scene - it was a fun scene that some fans get way too uppity about. Some of the deleted scenes also add a lot to the movie. Having said all that, the bits I wasn't too keen on: * The need for B4... well, there wasn't really a need. * The wedding scene. Glad it was there, but the TNG crew are at their most cringe-worthy.
I always thought they came off as "old" (best term I could come up with). If the cast had shown more life, I think the film itself would be better remembered. Warts and all.
I don't know if "old" is the best term (although the cast certainly feels old when it comes to the film's action scenes), but I think you're right about the cast not showing a lot of life in the movie. The wedding scene, for example, doesn't play at all because of this.
You're right. It was lethargic I wanted to use and for some reason just couldn't pluck it out of my brain when I posted earlier.
I have a certain amount of pride. So if my name is in the credits and I'm cashing a paycheck, yeah I'd put forward my best effort.
Same here. Regardless of whether or not I'm a fan, if I'm getting paid, and paid well, to make this movie, it's going to have my best effort put into it.
Nemesis annoyed the heck out of me. 1. Disrespect to the fans - why did no one question if B4 was Lore? 2. The Remans - what! 3. The buggy - why? 4. Riker boots Ron Perlman down a bottomless pit - on a starship! 5. Tone - it's wrong. There’s not an original idea in this wretched film, in Star Trek VI, there was a ship that could ‘fire whilst cloaked’. Janeway rammed her ship into another one in Voyager, Data had a ‘brother’ in Datalore. Now I use the Star Wars prequels as barometers of film badness. This turgid, inspid mess of a film is almost as bad as The Phantom Menace – but not quite. Full review here: http://ryesofthegeek.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/star-trek-nemesis-film-review/
The great sin of NEM is that there was so much at stake and the Federation-Romulan storyline held so much potential. TNG had essentially been building up to a Rommie film since Season 1. The Rommies were the main power/political opposition in the broader TNG saga. It was a chance for TNG to go out with a bang. The roots of the NEM fiasco actually went back to the end of First Contact. After that film's success, TPTB should have sat down and mapped out a multi-film direction to wrap up TNG on the big screen in a big way. Instead, we got the unmemorable INS and then tried to squeeze in a bunch of nonsense that made NEM such a incoherent and distasteful mess.
I really blame the director. It is obvious from his editing decisions and his comments that he did not understand or even care to understand what Star Trek is. He makes comments like "I cut the Data/Picard wine scene because it was too slow and I wanted to get to the dune buggy scene quicker". He did not understand the significance of that wonderful scene, he thought it was just a slow talking scene that was preventing the movie from getting to the "important" action scene. He approached the movie like it was just your average action flick and he wanted to pack in as many "cool" action sequences as possible.
I do, however, agree with those who say they'd love to see a re-edited version of NEM with the deleted scenes incorporated into the final film. They were the best and most vital parts of the movie that actually added to the story itself and TNG's story more broadly. Bad, bad....from the script to the director's chair to the editing room.
I do feel the deleted scenes would make the film much improved. It's surprising regarding these editing decisions, as Stuart Baird is a very competent editor. As Director, he had say over what was and wasn't cut, so why the bad edits?
Because mind rape contributes so much more to the plot than minor things like characterization. People might not have realized Shinzon's the bad guy or something.
This one often gets mentioned, but to be fair there was a namedrop of Lore in the script -- but it was in one of the scenes director Stuart Baird cut from the final movie. This. Baird didn't have a clue. Contrary to certain opinions, the script does actually pull pretty close to television TNG in tone, with the exception of the dune buggy scene which was pretty much a vanity clause inserted only to please Patrick Stewart (an avid off-road enthusiast in real life). But there were a LOT of..... questionable editing choices made by the director. Baird himself even said outright recently that he hated being a part of a movie with such a rich vein of pre-history, where the characters had already been so well established before he came along. It's clear he didn't have the first idea about the appeal of TNG, and that he evidently did as much as he could to tear the heart out of that script. That and he's bloody creepy. I watched the special features and commentary of Nemesis not so long ago, and the delight with which the director repeatedly talks about the mind-rape scenes is..... disturbing, to say the least.
If it were me tasked with rewriting the film I would have no problem with keeping the Remans in the film; but in my version they would be Romulans that live and work (some originally by choice of ancestors and others forced) on Remus. They would be a subclass of 'undesirables', still used as canon fodder by the Romulan Empire during the Dominion war but they would be Romulan. This could then have been used to explain why Nero and his mining crew looked so different, they were from Remus in a unified Romulus after the end of NEM. At least in this film they didnt sit round and tried to fire back at their unseen enemy