I have just watched a video made by E C Henry (creator of the Star Trek fan film ‘Pacific 201’) which has given me a whole new appreciation for Nero, who I now think might actually be the best Star Trek villain of all time! As it turns out there's more to Nero than you think! vs.
While I think this guy makes a strong argument I'd point out that he makes it better than the movie does. I really do think they were going for all or most of that in the movie but it wasn't made clear enough that most people would get it on the first watch. Besides there's more to being a good villain than just illustrating what a hero could become. Nero is still bland enough that even though he has potential he wouldn't make it into my list of great Star Trek villains.
Yes, a common problem with a lot of modern sci-fi’s, especially JJ films, is that they have lots of great themes and characters with real depth to them, but then they get overshadowed by all the pew, pew, pew! Furthermore the whole nature vs. nurture theme was already explored in Star Trek Nemesis between Picard and Shinzon. I never really thought before about how Star Trek Nemesis and Star Trek 2009 are very similar in this respect. They both have villains whose whole sole purpose is to illustrate what the hero could become.
I think ST 2009 did it far better than Nemesis did. I think it comes down to the fact that I felt more sympathy for Nero, felt far more of the tragic nature of his story than I got from Shinzon. As much as the dark mirror is talked up in NEM, I never felt like Shinzon was what Picard could become.
Hmmm... It's still my musing that Nero might well see a return, in Trek 4... because Red Matter! And the recent announcement Chris Hemsworth will be reprising his role as George Kirk lends credence to this crazy notion (IMO). Okay - let slip the dogs of war! [saddestmoon raises shields]
I dunno, that video starts out by talking about how Nero seems like a typical revenge villain...and then goes on for several minutes about things that don't change that stance. Just because Spock and Nero show examples of how a different reaction to loss leads to different consequences (duh) doesn't mean Nero isn't still a typical revenge villain. Nature vs nurture, serenity vs rage...all good topics for discussion. Nero is still the same character you thought he was the first time you watched the film. ...Not that there's anything wrong with that. Revenge Villains are awesome when done right.
All that stood out about Nero to me was that he's very angry. Bana didn't bring any kind of nuance to him.
I guess that depends. I felt like he was more nuanced, and played Nero as a haunted man who had a psychotic break.
Thing aspect of Nero that I liked was that he wasn't this smirking, mustache-twirling cliche the whole time. My favorite part has to be when the Enterprise comes upon the Narada and what's left of the fleet, and Nero pops up on screen with this nonchalant, "Hello Christopher, I'm Nero." with all the menace of an IT guy from Dell about to help you with your technical difficulties, but also with an aire of confidence. He didn't need to be all Snidly Whiplash about it because he knew he had the upper hand.
The video's title is such clickbait. Because Nero may or may not have some resemblance to Spock, he must be the BEST villain in the franchise, even BETTER or more nuanced than great villains like Khan and Chang! I feel like he was just there to give the Enterprise crew a problem to solve in the background while the story continued focusing on Kirk's rise to the captain's chair and getting the original crew back together.
I never found either of these characters nuanced. They are both memorable to me because they are larger-than-life.
I think Bana did, but the biggest failing to his character is in the editing room. Indeed, and for an origin story about a large ensemble, it's better to have a straightforward adversary. However, I don't think Nero's problem was that he was straightforward or simplistic, I think they just made him look like a complete idiot via the editing of the late 1st early 2nd act when he's just out of the movie and then magically back in.
I like Bana, but Nero, as presented in the film, is pretty 2 dimensional. The thing is, the Trek movies prior to FC were never about the villian. TMP the "villian" was a giant space probe come to meet and join with its creater. Which it does, in an ultimately peaceful and mutually agreed upon way. The "danger" is incidental, like a force of nature, not directed. TWOK is the most villian driven TOS film, but the villian and the hero never even meet face to face - it's more about the themes of ageing, loss, revenge.... TSF has Kruge, but the Enterprise crew doesn't even meet him until an hour into the movie and he's easily dispatched by Kirk with a boot in the face. He's not the driving force behind the movie, he is the B plot. TVH has a probe looking for whales, not trying to destroy Earth. It's at the very start of the movie and the very end. It finds whales, it leaves. Like TMP it isn't a villian, but another "force of nature" . TFF has Sybok as a villian in the beginning but even Kirk, who is not under his spell, sides with him in the end and they adventure together looking for God. And then fight a growly bearded special effect for ten minutes. TUC has the conspiracy, a Co - ordinated group of extremist political opponents of which Chang is the face to Kirk and Co, but he's not really key until the final fight. The rest of the movie is political manuvering and a jail break, of which we hardly see Chang in. The movies about the end of Spaces cold war, not fighting a bad guy. GEN has Malcolm McDowell, and he is the driving force, but really he's just an excuse to get Kirk and Picard to team up. It's not until FC with the Borg Queen that defeating the villian is the entire point of the movie. Something that repeats in all the movies following.
Part of that comes down to the edit, and the Rure Penthe plot being completely excised, aside from Uhura's picking up the distress signal. Unfortunately, that did a lot to inform us of what Nero was up to, and his willingness to wait. I'm probably one of the few that reads in a lot more to Nero's character than most. To me, he had a psychotic break with reality watching his entire world, including his wife, destroyed after being promised help. Given reactions to contemporary disasters by victims this isn't unreasonable. Secondly, I take the Rure Penthe scenes as part of the his backstory. Nero spent the time in the prison trying to calculate where they were, and where Spock might be. Finally, Nero is refreshing, as some one pointed out, in that he isn't a mustache twirling bad guy. He is a very simple man, by his own definition, who feels a duty to protect Romulus from the Federation. Is it rationale? No. His exchange with Pike on the Narada illustrates that point. But, is it his motivation? Yes.
I think most people took him that way. And in the final cut, surely he spent the time out of prison trying to calculate where they were, and where Spock might be.
I only had a vague clue as to what Nero was about or what his grudge was whilst watching the film. He was certainly struggling for space with the bunch of other things that was going on. I only got an idea of the character when I looked him up on wiki when I got home. I could excavate what nuance there was to Nero or surmise his motivations from reading the plot online but frankly if these things don't project themselves to me on-screen the film, from my perspective, has misfired..