Why is Nemesis hated so much?

[Captaindemotion]

Jeyl wrote:

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The only reason he was taking home the biggest paycheck was that he was now a bankable actor thanks to the Xmen movies. Everyone thought that Patrick Stewart alone would be enough to rake in the money needed to make Star Trek Nemesis a success.

The TNG movies always focussed on Picard and Data, since 1994's Generations. This continued even more so in 1996's First Contact and 1999's Insurrection.

Presumably this had nothing to do with the release of X-Men in 2000, unless the producers of the Star Trek movies could anticipate the fairly modest financial success of the first X-Men movie. The X-Men series only became big hits with the release of X2 (2003), which came, guess what, over 6 months after the release of Nemesis (2002).

[AllStarEntprise]

Honestly I believe that Nemesis is still ripped by fans because of it's box office gross. Had Nemesis doubled or tripled it's budget, fans would be kinder to it. Money can salvation the reputation of a poorly received film.

Take the Transformers movies for example. Nearly everyone rips Michael Bay for his directing and handling of the franchise but each film has succeeded at making $700+ millions. Despite them being poorly written and critics and fans ripping the films no one hates them. If any of them bombed everyone would be on the f*ck Michael Bay bandwagon.

Don't get me wrong, Nemesis has problems. Most have to do with the behind the scenes crew. Berman admitting that Baird was hired to direct and action movie, and Baird ignorantly disregarding all previous TNG material on some crazed idea that it would hurt his idea of what the film should've be. Sacrificed alot of plot and character moments for our crew. Berman gets an equal amount of blame for being the Star Trek Torchbearer/Overlord and not making sure the great things about TNG remained apart of the film. Allegedly he knew NEM was to be the last film but rather than make sure TNG had a definite ending we get the same stupid ambiguous ending he gave Voyager.

I like NEM. In my opinion it's second to First Contact in the TNG Era. Generations i dislike because Moore, Braga, and Berman screwed the pooch with the story and immature handling of that film. INS was garbage they shat out just for the sake of making a movie. DS9 and VOY were doing way more entertaining things during their runs at the same time. Since they were Berman's brain children, I surmise he was more focused on their success than on the success of the TNG films.

With competition in the summer from Spider-Man, Star Wars Ep II, and the overwhelming success from the LOTR and Harry Potter films, combined with the general's public's misconception that Star Trek is "lame". One shouldn't be surprised the film did poorly. $67 million shows that mainly the fan base showed up to watch NEM. The general public chose to spend their money on the mega blockbusters of LOTR and Harry Potter.

[Captaindemotion]

^While NEM is not a good movie, whoever from the marketing or promoting department decided that it could hold its own alongside those box-office juggernauts is certainly at significant blame for it flopping.

[Mr Pointy Ears]

I think it has some good things and some bad stuff in it.

[Romulus Prime]

AllStarEntprise wrote:

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Honestly I believe that Nemesis is still ripped by fans because of it's box office gross. Had Nemesis doubled or tripled it's budget, fans would be kinder to it. Money can salvation the reputation of a poorly received film.

I could care less how much money it could have made. The standing script makes the Romulans look like idiots, then shoves them aside in favor of Kid Picard and some oogly-boogly Nosferatus who've NEVER been shown or even hinted at previously. And then there's the story...

Nemesis just has so many glaring flaws and cheap "rips" from other Trek incarnations which no amount of positive marketing can overcome. It's a sub-par movie, and the fans who are still down on it feel this way because they recognize it for what it's worth.

[King Daniel]

Romulus Prime wrote:

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The standing script makes the Romulans look like idiots, then shoves them aside in favor of Kid Picard and some oogly-boogly Nosferatus who've NEVER been shown or even hinted at previously.

The name "Romulan Empire" alone suggests subject races. It's only been due to a lack of budget that very few have ever seen seen (The Dominion had several, the Cardassians once had the Bajorans and presumably have more, the Klingons have been said to have several and we saw a couple in Enterprise)

FWIW, the Remans were briefly seen in Enterprise's fourth season.

[Romulus Prime]

KingDaniel wrote:

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The name "Romulan Empire" alone suggests subject races.

Non-sequitor. I'm not excluding that concept, which is fine. The concept implemented in the actual movie is BEYOND ridiculous. Romulans (in general) don't trust anyone and expect betrayal, thus the idea of them arming a slave race makes them come off as completely stupid, never mind keeping alive evidence (a human clone) of a plot to infiltrate and replace Starfleet personnel.

The writers then take this insanity a step further and demonstrate that not only would the (knowingly) distrusting Romulans arm a slave race, but allow them LEAD their Empire via a NON-Romulan/human CLONE + allow them to park their uber-deadly-species-killing ship in orbit of the homeworld.


What.

The.

Fuck.


Let's not even delve into the aspect of the Tal Shiar being up the kazoo of any potential slave leader of any slave race under Romulan control to monitor and ensure that they never had a chance to do what happened in this horrendous movie.

FWIW, the Remans were briefly seen in Enterprise's fourth season.

I'm well aware of this subtle retcon featured in the overall sup-par series which was Enterprise. It's worth about as much as the movie it "borrowed" them from.

Romulans never needed anyone to fight for them before. They were essentially "dark" Vulcans who hunted you in the endless night. That was part of what made them formidable and mysterious - something that went completely over Logan's head when he ignored the real potential of Romulans as a character race, in favor of featuring the new and scurry Nosferatu Remens and a human clone in Nemesis as the primary adversaries.

[King Daniel]

The Romulans alowed Sela, whose mother was a human Starfleet officer, to rise to a high rank in their military. They're not as anti-alien as you think.

Shinzon and his Reman group also had the support of the Romulan military, who wanted the current leaders gone in order to make war with the Federation - a war that needed the Remans (who were retconned into the Dominion war as foot soldiers) to succeed.

[BillJ]

KingDaniel wrote:

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Shinzon and his Reman group also had the support of the Romulan military, who wanted the current leaders gone in order to make war with the Federation - a war that needed the Remans (who were retconned into the Dominion war as foot soldiers) to succeed.

That and the Romulans never faced a war before where the potential of them being overwhelmed by manpower existed.

[Romulus Prime]

KingDaniel wrote:

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The Romulans alowed Sela, whose mother was a human Starfleet officer, to rise to a high rank in their military. They're not as anti-alien as you think.

Yes, in general, they are. They have always been portrayed as at least semi-xenophobic, and certainly prejudicial towards non-Romulans. Furthermore, there's a big difference between a slave race that looks nothing like your species, and a half-breed who's not only much more visually similar in appearance to your own kind, but who's Romulan father has military clout. Moreover, Sela's character is quite clear about which half she's most loyal to and identifies with - the Romulan half.

This is not the case with the Remans, and Shinzon is 100% about them, NOT Romulans or their concept of the Empire.

Shinzon and his Reman group also had the support of the Romulan military, who wanted the current leaders gone in order to make war with the Federation - a war that needed the Remans (who were retconned into the Dominion war as foot soldiers) to succeed.

Which made ZERO sense. Nevermind that the Reman concept was never needed before, but it's quite clear from past shows/depictions that Romulans don't negotiate from positions of weakness, which by making slaves and a clone the head of state, relegates them to subordinates, i.e. it puts them (Romulans) in a position of weakness by allowing slaves to have control of highly destructive technology as well as the government and military.

In other words, the Romulans in Star Trek Nemesis are idiots who behave like atypical Romulans. Maybe they were from that mirror universe of one of the novels that claimed they were suicidal in that reality? That's the only explanation that makes sense given their previous MO, and lack of oogly-boogly slaves-turned soldiers.

[webb3201]

Just saw the movie on TV last week and it was the climactic battle scene. The Enterprise is trying to rendezvous with a Federation fleet, but are intercepted by Shinzon in the "Mutara Nebula" analog, supposedly fairly close to to the location of the Fed fleet....who is aware of the situation. So the Enterprise is obviously late to the meeting, and the Federation does not bother to send any ships to investigate or find the Enterprise.

[DWF]

webb3201 wrote:

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Just saw the movie on TV last week and it was the climactic battle scene. The Enterprise is trying to rendezvous with a Federation fleet, but are intercepted by Shinzon in the "Mutara Nebula" analog, supposedly fairly close to to the location of the Fed fleet....who is aware of the situation. So the Enterprise is obviously late to the meeting, and the Federation does not bother to send any ships to investigate or find the Enterprise.

I doubt if they had crossed to the Federation side of the neutral zone so the weren't going to break the treaty first.

[teacake]

KingDaniel wrote:

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FWIW, the Remans were briefly seen in Enterprise's fourth season.

I forgot about that.. I remember it made me feel a little warmer towards NEM. A very nice continuity touch.

[King Daniel]

Romulus Prime wrote:

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but it's quite clear from past shows/depictions that Romulans don't negotiate from positions of weakness, which by making slaves and a clone the head of state, relegates them to subordinates, i.e. it puts them (Romulans) in a position of weakness by allowing slaves to have control of highly destructive technology as well as the government and military.

I see a Romulan Empire that's never been happy with it's goverment. From the Romulan Commander's anti-Praetor comments in "Balance of Terror" to the defection in "The Defector" to Spock's underground movement in "Reunification"

In times of widespread dissatisfaction, radical change (or the promise of) is often positively recieved by the general population. That's what I saw in Nemesis.

[Romulus Prime]

^ Glad you enjoyed it then.