Nevertheless, this movie's failure (it being his real big first thing) contributed to his addiction and made it worse, so much so that he considers Nemesis to be an Old Shame and won't even talk about it.
Four years after "Insurrection" and all they could think of was an evil twin story. And the b-story? Okay... um... Data gets a twin, too. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Nemesis plain sucked. Addicts are really good at conjuring up excuses for their addictions while not holding themselves accountable. That is all.
To be entirely fair, if I had anything to do with Star Trek: Nemesis I'd probably feel pretty ashamed about it too.
Juvenile and selfish? You've got a directer who cannot pronounce his actors' names right and a producer who thinks that this family friendly franchise can actually benefit from having a three way mind rape of one of it's female characters. A three way rape scene... in a Star Trek movie...
I don't see how rape is worse than murder? Why shouldn't fictional characters be put to the test by their fictional enemies? And definitions of family-friendly may vary. Star Trek always had spikes of extreme violence and gore here and there. My problem with the rape scene was that it was utterly pointless to the story, and the execution was extremely cringe-worthy.
It felt to me that the whole point of the rape scene was the "Chekov's Gun" set-up for that oh-so-kewel scene where Troi holds Worf's hand and guides the phaser-mouse thingy to shoot at Shinzon. Meh!
Which is somehow more outrageous than a two-way rape scene which we've seen in Star Trek episodes? Namely "Violations".
No one is saying that one was okay, either. And the problem with rape in Trek isn't that it has been there at all - Trek has tackled some mature and uncomfortable themes before, and some of those have been when it has been at its BEST. The problem is the ham-fisted way rape, specifically, has been dealt with - like the scenes and their aftermath were written by a 12 year old boy with only the most rudimentary understanding of how SEX works, much less rape. And then the episodic nature of the series means that we are almost guaranteed to never see any of the long-term effects on those involved, because next episode the reset button is hit and everything is hunky-dory until that episode's conflict begins.
I don't get the big outcry about the mind-rape scene in NEM. TUC had a scene where Valeris was violated mentally and THAT was by a main character.
Why is Nemesis unpopular? In my opinion, it's because - all things considered - it's distinctly mediocre and pedestrian. It has good bits (Data's sacrifice and Geordi's poignant reaction, the car chase, the... other stuff, probably) but these are balanced out by some obvious mistakes (the B-4 cop-out subplot, the predictable and overlong wrecking of the Enterprise, the lack of resemblance between Picard and his clone, etc). There were probably three other movies out that month that were equally good without being remarkable. I've never been in less doubt about marking a movie than about marking Nemesis. It's right in the middle.
Bad editing - A lot of good character moments were left on the cutting room floor, while the movie focused way too much on action, leaving little of what made TNG good. Dune buggy scene - stupid. TNG Picard >>>> Action Movie Picard. Rick Berman Everyone outside of Picard and Data had almost nothing to do, AGAIN. Uninterested director - Stuart Baird just did it for the paycheck, and it shows. There's random ignorance throughout, such as changing Worf's voice to make him "more alien." Nick Meyer didn't care much about Trek, but he cared about telling a good story. Cheap - Remember the awesome Stellar Cartography set in Generations? Well, now it's just a screen on a wall in Nemesis. Ignorant of canon - They find another Soong-type android and don't even mention Lore's name or ask if it's Lore? Uh huh. Oh, and Wesley is apparently in Starfleet again. Retread story - Bad guy wants revenge, has a weapon that will kill millions, blah blah blah. Though to be honest, I'm not much of a fan of any of the TNG movies. Even First Contact.
I'm going to tell you what I usually tell people who bring this topic up: I'm really glad that you liked the movie and got something out of it. However, I and the majority of people on this board will agree that it's a poor film that makes very little sense once you really analyze it. Most of the issues have been covered by other posters, so I won't repeat them. But I will say this: The dune buggy scene was at the request of Patrick Stewart, who apparently likes racing cars. The thing is, the character of Jean-Luc Picard had no interest whatsoever in fast cars. He was a genteel space explorer, not Mario Andretti. So Patrick Stewart is actually playing Patrick Stewart in that scene, not Jean-Luc Picard. This is what happens when the film's actors have creative control over the film.
Same here. The TOS films and the Abrams films have more rewatch value for me. I think part of why the TNG films never really worked that well was because they weren't really necessary. TNG wasn't cut down after only three seasons, it ran for seven, and didn't end abruptly, but rather amid enormous fanfare in an acclaimed two-hour finale that wraps up the show and its themes. Its movies didn't come after a decade of fans wandering in the wilderness, but rather six months later, sandwiched between the third season premiere of DS9 and the series premiere of Voyager. In retrospect, there's a certain sense of contractural obligation in the TNG films that isn't there in either the TOS or Abrams films: they're not doing this because they have an awesome story they want to tell, but instead because the suits at the front office expect them to.
interesting points. TNG films definitely had a extended tv episode feel to them esp GEN as everyone looked exactly the same as season 7 and it was on all the TNG tv sets/same uniforms etc. Basically TNG The Movie. INS felt like a rather dull two parter from season 6. FC &NEM had the most movie feel, and FC was riding the alien invasion wave of 96. However TOS movies all looked/felt like big movies even the lower budget ones. Part of that was due to the big time gap, how everything and everyone looked different
Generations looked exactly the same as season 7? Dude, you're losing credibility with statements like that.
Yeah, one thing Generations just can't be accused of is simply lighting and shooting those sets the way they were on TV. They did a lot of things to make them look different, in some cases dramatically so.
But the uniforms were essentially the same and all had been seen on TV. The bridge set was updated to a degree but still very recognizable even with the different lighting. The ships were all ships we had already been exposed too. Same computer interfaces as well. The general look was very worn by the time Star Trek: Generations hit the screen. But having the movie premiere a scant six-months after the series finale left them little time to reinvent the look of TNG. Then again, the new sets and ships created for Star Trek: First Contact were fairly ugly, so maybe time wasn't the issue?