But why would the Tal Shiar give their proudest achievement to a lowly Reman, in power or not?
Plot holes.
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But why would the Tal Shiar give their proudest achievement to a lowly Reman, in power or not?
They've made worse decisions with less justification like.
Isn't he a former TS project anyway? Maybe he still has some connections? Could be one of his former handlers sees it as a way to restore himself to glory so once Shinzon takes charge this guy helps him out?
Isn't he a former TS project anyway? Maybe he still has some connections? Could be one of his former handlers sees it as a way to restore himself to glory so once Shinzon takes charge this guy helps him out?
That seems a bit far-fetched.
THAT'S far-fetched? You realize you're watching Star Trek, right? That doesn't even begin to rate as far-fetched.
He was a slave in a mine, practically from the moment he was born. How was he able to establish connections with high-ranking Tal Shiar operatives, let alone maintain them?
How was he able to convince high ranking members of the Romulan military to elevate a human clone slave raised by the Reman underclass to lead the empire in a coup?
Not really answered in the movie, but I wonder if Reman telepathy was involved.
It's pretty clear that the Romulan military and the Romulan government are blood enemies (goes with being Vulcanoids, I guess). Using Romulan military might against the Romulan government seems a given, then - but doing it by proxy sits better with the majority or empowered minority that needs to be convinced to support the winner. So staging a Reman revolt and secretly giving the designated Spartacus some decisive weaponry seems plausible.
But Shinzon is a lying scumbag. Just about the only thing likely to be true in the tirade he gives to Picard is that the Scimitar was built in a secret base. I mean, what sort of Romulans would build ships in public bases? And of course building is for slaves.
This is hardly a plot hole, and not even much of a plot oddity. The gaping hole in the plot as given is the motivation of the main villain. We're given none, and while we're free to think up one or several, it's not the sort of gap-filling the audience is normally tasked with in a story - it is the story. Not only do we fail to learn what makes the villain tick, we also fail to see the villain tick. Instead, he just postpones! Gimme the twists and turns of ST6:TUC any day instead.
Timo Saloniemi
But Shinzon is a lying scumbag. Just about the only thing likely to be true in the tirade he gives to Picard is that the Scimitar was built in a secret base. I mean, what sort of Romulans would build ships in public bases? And of course building is for slaves.
This is hardly a plot hole, and not even much of a plot oddity. The gaping hole in the plot as given is the motivation of the main villain. We're given none, and while we're free to think up one or several, it's not the sort of gap-filling the audience is normally tasked with in a story - it is the story. Not only do we fail to learn what makes the villain tick, we also fail to see the villain tick. Instead, he just postpones! Gimme the twists and turns of ST6:TUC any day instead.
Timo Saloniemi
Maybe he had a gift like the Mule in Asimov's Foundations...However, that was never said so it's completely open to speculation.
Yeah, the Romulan military's part of the coup makes the most sense. The rest is Shinzon weirdness best left aside because he is a straight inconsistent weirdo.
It was a rhetorical question. You asked how a Reman slave would have been able to establish connections with high ranking Tal'Shiar operatives, when the movie already demonstrated that he was able to do so with high-ranking members of the Romulan military. So the hows or whys are incidental. Within the framework of the film, Shinzon clearly does have the ability to make contact with high-ranking members of Romulan society, and therefore the other poster's suggestion wasn't "far-fetched" within the context of the film.
He even contacted the Praetor of the Romulan Senate in the beginning, but they rejected his offer.
He obviously impressed some people and made some connections due to his military exploits during the Dominion War.
He was a highly decorated (or at least renowned) leader and warrior in the war. That is going to turn some heads.
Also my suggestion was that it was the former handler i.e. the originator of the Piclone plan who may have thought that whatever dishonour they suffered when the plan was ditched could be regained by helping put him back in the driving seat
Since Shinzon does essentially nothing in the movie on his own account save for trying to attack Earth, it is easy to believe in the idea that others are telling him what to do basically 99% of the time. The plan to suck Picard's blood seems to move along only because the Viceroy insists. The plan to oust the Romulan government may well have been dictated on Shinzon by his Romulan "allies", since he himself is never shown displaying any sort of interest, either in the ousting or in the use of the power vacuum afterwards. A clueless and easily led patsy then nicely and almost consistently characterizes Shinzon till the final part of the movie.
When he runs away on his weird errand of destroying Earth, against the explicit desires of his "allies", is where the patsy vs. puppeteers setup falters. How come there was no failsafe to the Scimitar? No agent aboard the ship to backstab Shinzon when needed? No remote way of blowing up the ship or releasing the thalaron inward or triggering an explosive at the base of Shinzon's neck? Or a comment to the effect that Shinzon had cleverly taken care of such things.
Perhaps the failsafe was Shinzon's limited lifespan? And perhaps Viceroy was the designated backstabber after all, cleverly delaying Shinzon's attempts at getting the blood while pretending to hasten them.
I guess the weirdest part of Shinzon's inaction was the seventeen-hour wait after Picard first arrived. I mean, seventeen hours? Making Picard seethe could be achieved with a delay of two hours. Counting on Picard sitting on his hands for seventeen would mean Shinzon never saw an episode of TNG: the heroes could have conducted three regular adventures in that time and established themselves as rulers of Romulus if need be. It really smacks of the writer typing in "Shinzon makes the heroes wait for <insert number> hours", and the proofreader inserting a totally random number.
Timo Saloniemi
When he runs away on his weird errand of destroying Earth, against the explicit desires of his "allies", is where the patsy vs. puppeteers setup falters. How come there was no failsafe to the Scimitar? No agent aboard the ship to backstab Shinzon when needed? No remote way of blowing up the ship or releasing the thalaron inward or triggering an explosive at the base of Shinzon's neck? Or a comment to the effect that Shinzon had cleverly taken care of such things.
Perhaps the failsafe was Shinzon's limited lifespan? And perhaps Viceroy was the designated backstabber after all, cleverly delaying Shinzon's attempts at getting the blood while pretending to hasten them.
I guess the weirdest part of Shinzon's inaction was the seventeen-hour wait after Picard first arrived. I mean, seventeen hours? Making Picard seethe could be achieved with a delay of two hours. Counting on Picard sitting on his hands for seventeen would mean Shinzon never saw an episode of TNG: the heroes could have conducted three regular adventures in that time and established themselves as rulers of Romulus if need be. It really smacks of the writer typing in "Shinzon makes the heroes wait for <insert number> hours", and the proofreader inserting a totally random number.
Timo Saloniemi
Maybe he needed some sleep? Coups are exhausting.
The whole of Star Trek: Generations
Explain.
Not really a plot hole as such but the speed Picard goes back to being captain after his years spent in another life in inner light, surely it would take months or years to be in a place he could resume duties, if at all.
"Generations" is chock full of plot holes and other gaffes. My favorite involves Guinan summing it up as saying "You can't get into the Nexus It's impossible." A few seconds later, "But if you do you won't want to leave." Several scenes later when Picard proves to Guinan she's wrong and now he's stuck in there fancying a married life with kids and big gaudy Holiday trees that won't be seen again until a big gaudy episode of VOY, he actually asks her if he can leave it (read: Of his own accord and not being ripped away from it like what she told him how she was taken from it at the start of all this.)
Never mind that Picard, 97-dimensional chess player extraordinaire, could leap out of the nexus and prevent the whole movie from happening or even half or more of TNG's adventures. Nope, just goes back 5 minutes - maybe he was covertly giggling over the daft circumstances that led to the ship being destroyed... indeed, here's a film cel from the original take on the crash scene - they redid it because audiences hated it too:
No, they really didn't film then discard that... bit of a shame...
Doesn't stop me from having a soft spot for many scenes as I saw it thrice in the theater, but there's no mistaking the movie's still a big mess that's more confused than me on date night.
Never mind that Picard, 97-dimensional chess player extraordinaire, could leap out of the nexus and prevent the whole movie from happening or even half or more of TNG's adventures. Nope, just goes back 5 minutes - maybe he was covertly giggling over the daft circumstances that led to the ship being destroyed... indeed, here's a film cel from the original take on the crash scene - they redid it because audiences hated it too:
No, they really didn't film then discard that... bit of a shame...
Doesn't stop me from having a soft spot for many scenes as I saw it thrice in the theater, but there's no mistaking the movie's still a big mess that's more confused than me on date night.
Yanno we fans aren't supposed to notice....
At least the current show runners of Trek are (as far as they know) not like the ones of the Charmed Reboot, who outright said that people shouldn't pay attention to continuity.
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