I'm re-watching/re-evaluating "Star Trek: Nemesis"

That was indeed stupid like everything else Shinzon did.
Or the stupid mistake to fly through the nebula were they can't contact the fleet, wouldn't it be cool to have an actuel fleet battle for the first time in the Star Trek movies?

 

Yeah, despite my love of the film, this shit is pretty indefensible, alongside the 17 hour wait in orbit and the failure of the enterprise crew to turn the fucking lights up when the remans boarded (this was clearly foreshadowed earlier in the film too) . A lot of people have a problem with him wanting to attack earth too but I think that's perfectly fine.

What, you mean like First Contact?

 

Insurrection is a mixed bag but I enjoyed enough of it (the dogfight scene was the best in years.)

Nemesis... I almost walked out on it but I wanted to keep in tune with audience reaction, of which the only time there was any was when "Kirk" was uttered. Data's "death" only had people complaining it was a direct ripoff from Trek II and III. Ouch.

^^this

Entirely superfluous, not even any chance to get to know the baddies they're dodging and fighting back against. Lacking depth and development, even the deleted scenes with Wesley and Guinan had more of a point to the film...

And the lamest of ripoffs. Then came the shoveled speech from Picard afterward...

Didn't care for the deleted scene with the new chair as well. The humor felt like a retroactive oversight left over from a deleted scene from season one 1987 due to not meeting to Gene's vision of humanity in the 24th century. The few times someone threw in contemporary slang were limited to that first season anyway since the makers that took over knew what wasn't working...

Allegedly there were plans for a 5th movie or spinoff with the Titan (??) but NEM bombed so badly... GEN was rushed despite some promise, FC wore out fast and apart from direction doesn't hold up at all , INS is so hit or miss but almost captures the spirit of TNG, and NEM was everyone phoning it in on a script so bad it makes INS look like a masterpiece by comparison.

 

That was a very short battle.
I would have liked to see a more fleet against fleet battle and longer then in FC

 

I know, I was being facetious to be fair. When I first saw nemesis and the fleet was on the other side of the bassen rift I was like 'great a kick ass fleet battle' I remember feeling disappointed that it didn't materialise, but the space battle that ensued still delivered in spades.

 

Well, perhaps if they weren't catering so much to Stewart and Spiner and didn't waste their budget appeasing them with that stupid dune buggy scene, they would have had more money to make a CGI fleet.

 

My problem with Shinzon is the whole clone of Picard thing.

No, not that it's silly. It's no sillier than Sela the half-Tasha Romulan.

But more that I think it hamstrings the character. In a lot of ways. His motivations are unclear, because they change seemingly from scene to scene. Does he want revenge on the Romulans for creating and then abandoning him? Does he want Picard's blood? Does he want to destroy Earth/The Federation? Does he want to make Picard suffer because he is a window into the life Shinzon could have been but isn't? The answer to all of these is yes. The way it's presented in the movie, though, means all four of them trip each other up. It's very muddled.

To me, a more sensible option would be to have him as a kind of analogy to North Korea. Make Shinzon this new broom who has swept clean the power structure on Romulus in one fell swoop, but leave him as this charming, ambiguous character. Starfleet have no idea what to make of him, or indeed anything about him or how to approach him. Decades of dealing with Old Romulus is in tatters, the things Starfleet knows about how to handle Romulans diplomatically all but useless in the face of the unknown. Do you bravely attempt diplomacy, open talks with him, or do you gear up for war from this unknown and unpredictable new enemy, unable to rely on Romulus doing things the way Romulus has always done things? These dilemmas alone are enough dramatic weight. Adding in that he's Picard-but-for-want-of-a-nail does nothing to enhance any of this, indeed, if anything it only serves to confuse Shinzon's motivations further and leaves him looking like a weak villain.

 

Nemesis wouldve been epic if Sela and Spock were in it, a lot of relevance with the Romulans

 

Except there’s no reason for Spock to be in it, and the only reason why Sela would be in it would be if she replaced Donatra.

 

Doesn't Spock live on Romulus?

 

I have a hard time believing Sela would ever want peace with the Federation or want to ally with Picard. That's not her character. She's hated Humans since she was a small child. That wouldn't change later in life if it forged her so early on. They had to have a new character like Donatra in order to make the story of the Romulans and the Federation coming closer together work.

Since Vulcan didn't factor into Nemesis, and neither did reunification, I don't think Leonard Nimoy would've agreed to be in Nemesis. There would've been nothing for Spock to add beyond a cameo. In Into Darkness at least, Spock Prime was able to tell the Enterprise crew what they were up against when facing Khan. So that served a purpose. In Nemesis it would've been, "Spock here. Live long and prosper."

 

Nemesis has enough plot holes to drive a truck through and has started the regrettable trend of the"bad man with a big gun" plot point that all three JJ films have taken on. Shinzon's desire to destroy Earth makes no sense...wanting to destroy Vulcan would have made more sense.

But I still find Nemesis to be fun.

 

I rarely re-watch Nemesis. I think the last time was a few years ago. I just don't find it enjoyable.

Kor

 

I enjoy this summary more
https://redlettermedia.com/mr-plinketts-star-trek-nemesis-review/

It really is all about death

 

I’m not sure why Shinzon needed to ‘destroy’ anything. The only people he truly hated were the Romulans (whose planet he now controls) and Picard (whose blood he needed to survive.) The Romulans he allied with only wanted to invade Earth, not destroy it, but it’s not like he really even needed to do what they wanted once he was in control, because, well, he hates Romulans. Plus, he could have just given Donatra, Suran and the rest a fleet of ships of their own and told them to go invade Earth themselves if he really cared that much about it. And as for Picard, it was ambiguous about the blood. Does he just need to drain it all out of Picard’s body once, or does he need regular transfusions? If it’s the latter, then killing Picard kills himself.

 

Fair enough. But wanting to destroy Vulcans because of their connection to the Romulans would have at least made some sense rather than his "Let's destroy Earth!" agenda. I can definitely see him wanting to become a conqueror once he took command of the Empire and dealt with the Romualns.

Nero wanting to destroy the Vulcans made no sense in the Star Trek movie although Countdown did a great job of explaining why he wanted to do that.

 

He only wanted to destroy Earth because he finally capitulated to the Romulan renegades who wanted to invade the Federation. Perhaps there might also have been a desire to destroy the planet Picard came from, but that really didn’t seem to be his motivation.

Nero blamed Spock for his failure to save Romulus, so he destroyed the Kelvin timeline Vulcan out of spiteful revenge. No, it doesn’t make much sense, but then again Nero was nuts.

As for Shinzon, if he wasn’t just a dumbass kid with a stupid plan, here’s what he should have done.

1. Declare himself the new Romulan praetor (which he did.)

2. Immediately contact the Federation and specifically ask for Picard to come to Romulus ASAP and explain what’s going on.

3. Give B4 to Picard as an act of good faith.

4. Petition the Remans to become Federation members (or at least set them free and give them Romulan citizenship.)

5. Have Federation scientists and doctors figure out a way to save his life without resorting to kidnapping and killing Picard.

6. Find himself a girlfriend.

Of course, none of that would have made a compelling movie, but at least it makes sense.

 

I've only seen it three times. The first time was in '02, then I bought the Blu-Ray a few years ago, and then this most recent time, because of Star Trek: Picard.

Because of the long gaps, each time I see it something else pops out to me. Cutting out so many character scenes and this being the last we'd see of the 24th Century until now really made me not interested in watching it more often. I normally stick with the TOS Movies and FC.

 

Nero could have just saved Romulus himself. He was sent back into the past

 

He didn't know what year it was. Also, as @Dukhat mentions, Nero had a psychotic break. Demanding him to be rational is not reasonable.

Back on topic, I liked Nemesis in the theaters warts and all. But, despite it diminishing over time, the little Scorpion fighter sequence is still one of my favorites.