Can you believe it's been a decade since Nemesis? A few of us decided to put on the rose coloured glasses and look for all the good bits of NEM. Here's what we came up with... The theme music. The mirrored lettering. The new insights into Romulan and Reman culture. Tom Hardy and Patrick Stewart's acting. The Enterprise Transporter effect. Hmm...that's about it. Your highlights??
I haven't seen the movie in 7-8 years. I'm currently working through the second season of Star Trek with my girlfriend. I figure we'll move onto Star Trek: The Next Generation next, after which we'll watch the features. It'll be the first time I've seen the ninth and tenth films in quite a while. (I know it won't turn her off to the series, because I already let her sample a few of the best episodes of DS9, which she wants to immediately watch, but I'm making her watch it in order, pedant that I am).
I like the wedding scene, the crew's first encounter with Shinzon in that room is pretty cool, the battle scenes are decent, the "Scimitar" is very cool looking
Lots of cool stuff really: improved CGI FX, larger scale story, New ships and Romulan/Reman ones at that, better production design than previous STNG movies(as well as the TOS ones), Seeing Romulus in all its glory, better starship battle scene by far than any ST movie other than STII up till that time.. RAMA
Deanna and Will's wedding. The set for the Romulan senate. Brent Spiner's acting when Data deactivates B4. Tom Hardy's performance as Shinzon. End space battle between the Enterprise, Scimitar and Romulan Warbirds. Picard and Beverly's "Remember him." scene which has her sitting on his desk. Picard and Riker's farewell to each other. Data's funeral.
The only highlight for me was the credits and a hallelujah that the assault on all things Star Trek was suppose to be about was over.
Everything that wasn't a part of the mindlessly inane main "plot" was really good. Visually it was fantastic, the score was wonderful, and there were some great character interactions and a good sense in general that the crew was close. The design of the Valdore is another thing that I personally love. It's just such a tragedy that all these wonderful elements go so horribly to waste. If only the Romulan movie had actually been about Romulans.
After 15 years I liked that they finally used the Romulans on the big screen, though I wish they had stuck with them as the main bad guys. Overall, a good ST action movie. Not the best, but OK.
One thing really stands out to me: there is a deleted scene (just absolutely stunning that it got cut) where Data and Picard have a short conversation about life, death, and time. It's beautiful and thoughtful and would certainly have not been out of place in any of the best TNG episodes. It ends when they clink their glasses together, toasting 'new worlds'. I recently watched all of TNG, all seven seasons plus four films, with my partner, and watching it with her let me see it with fresh eyes- I revised my opinions on a lot of episodes that I didn't appreciate as a younger man, and got excited all over again about a lot of other ones. Naturally, we watched Nemesis last and naturally it was a disappointment. But after we watched it we played the deleted scenes, and that was the last scene we watched: as the glasses clinked together I got very emotional, because the scene was really the end of our journey with those characters, and it couldn't have been more perfect for it. If Nemesis did nothing else right, that scene will always be important to me. Link on youtube here: http://youtu.be/07tMhF2QGyk
That is a great scene, probably one of the best, if it was included. I can see why they cut it, it would have slowed the pacing in the begining of the film down (not that its a bad thing) . Still, if they did include it, it would have made Data's death at the end much more connected and touching.