Now That John Logan Has Proven Himself, What Went Wrong With Nemesis?

[JarodRussell]

USS KG5 wrote:

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Didn't Stuart Baird also edit Skyfall? He must be good for something

Nemesis isn't that bad, it just isn't all THAT good either. It is a couple of re-writes away from being a great trek movie, it just was made before they did the re-writes.

Stuart is one of the best film editors out there. But he can't direct.

[cardinal biggles]

^The man has an awesome resume as an editor, including a long-running relationship with Richard Donner (editing The Omen, Superman, the first two Lethal Weapons, and Maverick), not to mention The Who's Tommy, Gorillas in the Mist, and the recent Bond films Casino Royale* and Skyfall. Some people transition over from the editing booth and become good or even great directors (Robert Wise, David Lean, John Sturges to name a few). Baird won't be one of them.


*Baird's work on Casino Royale also coincides with him becoming director Martin Campbell's go-to editor on recent projects also including The Legend of Zorro and Green Lantern. Not that either film was particularly great, but the editing wasn't what was wrong with them.

[Phily B]

I just saw the screen test for Tom Hardy and it's much much better than the actual film.

I really think it was the directors fault, he had no clue about Star Trek or anything.

[Jeyl]

JarodRussell wrote:

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Stuart is one of the best film editors out there.

On the other hand, he is less acclaimed in his own profession having never won an award. And I don't normally like editors who work more for the studios than for the film makers. He has been billed as a film 'doctor' who edits movies outside of the director's intent and can't even pronounce his actors' names properly. The only real positive thing that Stuart Baird has done that distinguishes himself from everyone else is killing Steven Seagal in Executive Decision.

[BillJ]

Jeyl wrote:

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The only real positive thing that Stuart Baird has done that distinguishes himself from everyone else is killing Steven Seagal in Executive Decision.

In my book, that's more than enough.

[DalekJim]

Nemesis isn't as bad as fans say but it's still very bad. It's main goal seemed to be to remake Wrath of Khan with the atmosphere of First Contact but all the set-pieces were so mediocre and misjudged.

For what it's worth I think that any Trek film regardless of quality would have done poorly with that level of marketing.

[JarodRussell]

If there's one conspiracy theory I believe in, it's that Paramount did everything to make sure Nemesis was a flop. They imposed Baird on the film because of one of those editing deals Jeyl already mentioned (Berman had no say there at all, he says), they cut back the budget (DVD commentary talks about how they had to make the engineering set smaller to cut budget and stuff like that), the promotion was horrible (either DVD commentary or random interview with Berman goes into details about this as well), and the cast sometimes talks about how they were already trashing the sets during filming because they knew they would never ever make a sequel to this film.

[Jeyl]

JarodRussell wrote:

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If there's one conspiracy theory I believe in, it's that Paramount did everything to make sure Nemesis was a flop.

You're forgetting the biggest piece of evidence to your claim Jarod. They pitted this film a whole week away from The Two Towers.

[Utopianvista]

For all the flaws of Nemesis it still ended up being a superior movie to the Abrams trash of fail.

The biggest problem with Nemesis was the story was just not there. It wasn't a good story and, as a result, the movie wasn't very interesting. The forced cameo of Janeway didn't help things either. Drop the Remans, drop the clone issue, drop b4 and just start from scratch. TUC was a nice send off for the Kirk crew. This was just a slap in the face to TNG. Using the Romulans was a good choice but they didn't even end up being that big of a deal. It was quite frustrating.

Everything about Nemesis was frustrating.

[BillJ]

Utopianvista wrote:

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For all the flaws of Nemesis it still ended up being a superior movie to the Abrams trash of fail.

What does one have to do with another? This wasn't a comparative thread.

[anh165]

Utopianvista wrote:

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For all the flaws of Nemesis it still ended up being a superior movie to the Abrams trash of fail.

Ok, we established you prefer safe, episodic 90's blandness over the fresh modern take on Star Trek.

[Zeppster]

Drop the Remans, drop the clone issue, drop b4 and just start from scratch. TUC was a nice send off for the Kirk crew. This was just a slap in the face to TNG. Using the Romulans was a good choice but they didn't even end up being that big of a deal. It was quite frustrating.

Actually they didn't go far enough with these if they really wanted to make this a good film. When Shinzon first showed up and when they first started introducing him as a villain they made it really seem like he was a younger Picard and that he was more interesting. But soon after he just turned into a stock villain that is out for revenge against anyone for no real reason. I could actually understand his hatred for Romulans growing up that way. But his motives overall are poor and he just isn't that good a character. The Remans didn't matter at all to me. They just looked weird. B4 concept I didn't hate that much, but it was poorly thought out like the rest of the film was. The script needed a few more drafts and to be ironed out. Seemed like this movie never really got finished in the writing process before it was filmed.

[Jeyl]

anh165 wrote:

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Ok, we established you prefer safe, episodic 90's blandness over the fresh modern take on Star Trek.

Yeah. They're making Earth have a much bigger role in the story which is totally what makes Star Trek it's own unique thing.

[Will Riker]

There were too many homages and inside jokes for anyone other hardcore ST fans to understand. Same thing happened with Insurrection. There were a lot of inconsistencies also that were hard to come to grips with.

I don't understand how or why the Romulans would allow Shinzon to build a ship faaaar larger and more powerful than anything they had in their fleet. They apparently hated the Remans and used them as cannon fodder yet they allow one to rise in the military and have his own ship? I guess he could have been building it in secret, but I feel like someone would notice thousands of torpedoes and other ship building resources to be taken and a massive ship being built somewhere. It didn't add up. Maybe he built it after he took over, but I got the impression he didn't have that much time? I don't know, it's all a little inconsistent.

I think the story is there. Picard battling a younger, angrier version of himself had the makings of a very powerful movie. Especially when you have two A-list actors in Patrick Stewart and Tom Hardy. And I think the B4 aspect also really could have worked, Data struggling with having a brother that he could possibly have a real connection with could also have been powerful. And the final scene with B4, that could have been so emotional, but it wasn't. The people who made it didn't know or care enough to really make it strong and emotional.

[CorporalClegg]

Will Riker wrote:

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I think the story is there. Picard battling a younger, angrier version of himself had the makings of a very powerful movie.

Perhaps. But it's one of those things that has to be executed flawlessly to not come across as silly and trite.

Especially when you have two A-list actors in Patrick Stewart and Tom Hardy.

Err, Stewart has never been an A-list actor, and Hardy was a nobody at the time.

And I think the B4 aspect also really could have worked, Data struggling with having a brother that he could possibly have a real connection with could also have been powerful. And the final scene with B4, that could have been so emotional, but it wasn't. The people who made it didn't know or care enough to really make it strong and emotional.

I disagree. Your scenario only works if Lore is somehow involved to provide counterpoint: as in, he struggles with this brother because the last one turned out so bad. Also, if the Data/B4 dyad was intended to work as a thematic parallel to Picard/Shinzon, it still would have worked better as Lore.

Really there's no reason plot-specific for them to NOT have used Lore. I mean, if the Rommies had the foresight to clone Picard when he was still relatively insignificant, surely they could have smuggled Lore's parts out of Daystrom. In fact, I have no doubt the only reason B4 was created in the first place is to give Data his own "Remember..."

EDIT: You know, I got the TNG Blu-ray set for Christmas. Maybe I'll start with NEM. To be fair, I've only seen it three times, all in 2002. Perhaps I'll even put up a review tonight or tomorrow.