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

[JarodRussell]

GalaxyX wrote:

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The entire film felt exactly like a funeral. The cast all seemed tired out, and the story was a real letdown at the end.

The story as is needed to end on a more upbeat note. Even TWOK ended up hopeful and upbeat.

That's what I always thought about the film as well. And it's even intentional. The DVD commentary talks about how Baird wanted Jerry Goldsmith to make the score sad and depressing. The cast was tired, lighting is mostly dark, the story is depressing, Patrick Stewart obviously has a cold in most scenes...

As a result, people walked out of the film feeling (subconsciously) depressed. Most people didn't have a good time watching the film. And I don't think that's the proper way to make the money at the box office.


As a contrast, look at The Undiscovered Country. That's how how make a film about a retiring crew going out with a triumphant bang.


Nemesis would have needed a whole different structure and a different attitude. One major thing would have been, in my opinion, to put the wedding and Riker's promotion to Captain at the end of the film. A final shot of the Enterprise and the Titan leaving orbit in two different directions, with upbeat music. Something like that. Instead, we get a shot of a destroyed Enterprise in a drydock.

[cardinal biggles]

Lance wrote:

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...and indeed, to get back to being on topic, John Logan's actual script is terrific, laced with loads of genuine TNG moments.

No, it's not terrific, it's the usual John Logan mess, full of plot holes papered over with fan service. This time he didn't have a good director like Scorcese or Sam Mendes to pull it together, and it shows.

It certainly isn't his fault that director Stuart Baird completely eviscerated the movie in the editing room, literally ripping the heart out of the film in favor of ridiculous, popcorn-friendly set pieces.

Funny, because if you read the script, all the "ridiculous, popcorn-friendly set pieces" are there, too: the Argo dune buggy chase, Data and Picard stealing the fighter, the space battle, the fight in the crawlspace between Riker and the Reman Viceroy. You think Baird pulled those out of his ass as he was filming? It's all there on paper, and it's only slightly less bad than it turned out.

[sonak]

JarodRussell wrote:

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That's what I always thought about the film as well. And it's even intentional. The DVD commentary talks about how Baird wanted Jerry Goldsmith to make the score sad and depressing. The cast was tired, lighting is mostly dark, the story is depressing, Patrick Stewart obviously has a cold in most scenes...

As a result, people walked out of the film feeling (subconsciously) depressed. Most people didn't have a good time watching the film. And I don't think that's the proper way to make the money at the box office.


As a contrast, look at The Undiscovered Country. That's how how make a film about a retiring crew going out with a triumphant bang.


Nemesis would have needed a whole different structure and a different attitude. One major thing would have been, in my opinion, to put the wedding and Riker's promotion to Captain at the end of the film. A final shot of the Enterprise and the Titan leaving orbit in two different directions, with upbeat music. Something like that. Instead, we get a shot of a destroyed Enterprise in a drydock.

that's a good idea, the switching around the beginning and the end for the crew, that would have ended the movie on a more upbeat note.

[trevanian]

Zeppster wrote:

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Honestly Data's death could have worked if it was done a bit better. The reason Spock's death scene worked so good is because we had a moment just before his death where not only Kirk feels his death but everyone does. It's the quintessential scene in all of Trek history. Instead in Nemesis he basically transports Picard away with no real emotion and no real goodbye. This is a character that they had built for 15 years at the time. And was the most popular and probably well built character of TNG. And his goodbye is just a look.

Again the reason it doesn't work is because they missed something in a draft.

You needed some resonance with what had gone before. In TWOK you have the scene in Spock's quarters setting up their goodbye dialog. Up front you've got Spock 'dying' in the simulator, in mid-film you've got Spock after the sneak attack doing a strange inward look, and together that lets you know when the genesis effect starts and Spock turns at his station, that his time is NOW. Somebody said everything in movies is contrived, but the thing is, this is EFFECTIVELY contrived.

NEMESIS actually has a bit at the beginning that could have anchored Picard/Data's goodbye. All you need to do is have Data echo what Picard said to him early on. Instead of "Data, shut up," you see Picard react to having the transporter thing slapped on him and start to open his mouth and Data says, "Captain, shut up" ... and Picard understands what is happening ... and you don't need anymore than that, but you've put just a moment of reflective poignancy in there to point up what is going down, instead of just pedantically shooting the scene and just expecting the audience to be moved because they're supposed to be moved (to be fair, GEN screws Kirk's demise up too, not so much in setup and payoff, but just plain failure to execute in any way that engages in the slightest.)

[Lance]

There was also a scene at the end of the script where Worf and Geordi are cleaning out Data's quarters, and Geordi discovers that Data didn't have his emotions chip in (the implication apparently being that, in being able to make his self-sacrifice, Data had transcended his core programming). This scene was filmed, but like many of the character building moments it was removed in the final edit.

IMO this is the kind of thing they neeeded to work on to make Data's death feel more significant. This, and remove that final scene where Picard "discovers" that B4 is beginning to recover Data's memories. Draw and line under Data's death (instead of hinting that he isn't dead after all), and it becomes a powerful and defining moment, instead of simply being a "huh, I guess he'll be back in the next movie" one.

[MikeS]

Lance wrote:

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There was also a scene at the end of the script where Worf and Geordi are cleaning out Data's quarters, and Geordi discovers that Data didn't have his emotions chip in (the implication apparently being that, in being able to make his self-sacrifice, Data had transcended his core programming). This scene was filmed, but like many of the character building moments it was removed in the final edit.

I thought his emotion chip had "fused" and could not be removed? (Generations)

[AllStarEntprise]

MikeS wrote:

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I thought his emotion chip had "fused" and could not be removed? (Generations)

See Star Trek INS for a line from Geordi to Picard, that Data didn't take it with him when he went on the recon mission with Star Fleet on the Bak'u. Sometime after FC it must have become removable again.

[GalaxyX]

MikeS wrote:

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I thought his emotion chip had "fused" and could not be removed? (Generations)

I think this was waved away with a throwaway line in FC about him being able to "switch it off". They were about to fight the Borg and Data switches off the chip, and Picard says something like "Data, sometimes I envy you"

[Romulan_spy]

For me, one of the biggest problems with Nemesis is that the movie does not flow right. It does not feel like a coherent story. It feels more like a series of action scenes loosely tied together. You can almost sense in the editing as if the director was going "can we get on with the talky scene because I want to do the next cool action scene now". Case in point, Baird stripped several key character moments from the movie because he claimed it ruined the pace of the movie so that he could get to the action scenes faster.

[Jeyl]

Lance wrote:

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John Logan's actual script is terrific, laced with loads of genuine TNG moments.

Like Picard's artificial heart?

[trevanian]

Jeyl wrote:

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Like Picard's artificial heart?

The script is pure Logan, has just LOADS of artificial heart.

[GalaxyX]

trevanian wrote:

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The script is pure Logan, has just LOADS of artificial heart.

LMAO!!!

[Anji]

Romulan_spy wrote:

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For me, one of the biggest problems with Nemesis is that the movie does not flow right. It does not feel like a coherent story. It feels more like a series of action scenes loosely tied together. You can almost sense in the editing as if the director was going "can we get on with the talky scene because I want to do the next cool action scene now". Case in point, Baird stripped several key character moments from the movie because he claimed it ruined the pace of the movie so that he could get to the action scenes faster.

Completely agree. I'd like to add that it also seemed that the cast was not taking the movie seriously. I mean, I think they knew this was going to be a no-brainer and they were going to get a paycheck no matter what.

[sonak]

Anji wrote:

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Completely agree. I'd like to add that it also seemed that the cast was not taking the movie seriously. I mean, I think they knew this was going to be a no-brainer and they were going to get a paycheck no matter what.

I'm pretty sure they knew they were going to get paychecks for the other three movies, too.

[GalaxyX]

sonak wrote:

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I'm pretty sure they knew they were going to get paychecks for the other three movies, too.

Personally I get the feeling that they hated the script, but were basically forced to do it. Either that or no pay. I don't blame them.