NEMESIS vs TREK V

[Shazam!]

To this day I don't understand the hatred for Insurrection. I mean it's not Oscar gold or anything, but its better than these two piles.. and IMO better than TMP or GEN.

It's just so boring. I don't hate it, but they could've upped the stakes a little.

LOL I just read the plt on Wiki:

Lt. Cmdr. Data goes berserk while observing the peaceful Ba'ku people on their homeworld

Lt. Cmdr. Data goes berserk = great movie.
Lt. Cmdr. Data goes berserk while observing the peaceful Ba'ku people on their homeworld = snoozefest.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Yeah, the plot of Insurrection definitely is slow. But I think that was, in some respects, intentional. One of the main themes of the film was "slowing time down" so that you can observe and reflect and experience a single moment in time. And I thought Insurrection was deliberately trying to do that as part of its story.

Of course, if that is the case, one has wonder whether or not that is a good direction to go in for a feature film -- particularly as a follow-up to the relatively quick-paced First Contact. Still, I think in terms of overall story and movie-making craft, Insurrection is better than both TFF and INS.

 

[Destructor]

All the defences for TFF seem to be of the 'so bad it's good' variety, wheras Nemesis was just not bad enough to be good again. Even on this scale, TFF was still worse.

 

[RobertScorpio]

All the defences for TFF seem to be of the 'so bad it's good' variety, wheras Nemesis was just not bad enough to be good again. Even on this scale, TFF was still worse.

I dont buy it. V is the better movie simply because the acting, yes the acting, is better. The problem, for both it would seem, are the plots. The FX, IMO, are a tie..which brings us to the acting. And here, yes here, is where V wins. V has the better performances IMO...

V wins..hands down.

Rob

 

[JohanKoch]

All the defences for TFF seem to be of the 'so bad it's good' variety, wheras Nemesis was just not bad enough to be good again. Even on this scale, TFF was still worse.

I guess it all depends on what you want to watch: a fiasco (TFF) or a snoozefest (Nemesis). A hard choice, that's for sure...

 

[teacherkarl]

This debate is akin to holding a turd in each each hand and trying to figure out which one stinks more. Doesn't matter, you still have turds in your hands.

If a gun was put to my head and I had to choose, well, first I'd question the radical left turn my life must have taken to get to that point, but ultimately I'd choose NEM, if for no other reason than the space battle near the end.

Gotta go wash my hands...

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

Star Trek V was far worse, Nemesis had better acting, better effects, better directing, better plot, was actually more mature. Shatner had no experience directing films in V and it showed. Star Trek V should have been given to Nimoy again, or Meyer, or anybody with some real experience making movies.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Star Trek V was far worse, Nemesis had better acting, better effects, better directing, better plot, was actually more mature. Shatner had no experience directing films in V and it showed. Star Trek V should have been given to Nimoy again, or Meyer, or anybody with some real experience making movies.

Nemesis had better acting? ummm..it put everyone to sleep when I saw it. Shatner out directed Baird by a MILE. The acting V had some really good moments, where as Nemesis was just one long bore. The FX, as bad as they in V, were actually better than the Hanna/Barbara CGI in nemesis. SYBOK, even as flawed as he was, was a far more compelling character than Shinzon...The plot of Nemesis was more mature? You can say that with a straight face with that awful 'dummy' Data and the idiotic 4x4 scene?

Ummm..no. V is the better movie..

Rob

 

[GHS]

It seems that you selected Nemisis as the movie for comparison because you figured that was your best bet at making the case that Star Trek V is not the worst Star Trek movie ever. I don't see any other reason that the two are equivalent. Star Trek V is directed by one of the stars, had a larger budget than the previous outing, and was following the franchise's most popular film. Nemisis was directed by a total outsider, and had a smaller budget than (and was released long after) Insurrection. So the only reason to grab Nemisis for a comparison is if you're really defensive about how the world views TFF.

I totally agree that Shinzon is unconvincing as a younger mirror to Picard, and that the scenes with just Shinzon and Picard are very dull. I also thinking the final scene with B4 ruined any dramatic momentum they had developed with Data's death. Also, I think that the TNG cast was looking pretty old. With the obvious age difference between Stewart and most of his crew, Riker and Troi's aging comes across much less forgivable than in the case of the TOS crew. Also, everyone pretty much agrees that Stuart Baird was not the answer as the director to save the series.

Having said all that, Nemisis is light years ahead of TFF in quality. Even though Baird loved changing camera shots every other second, there's an uninterrupted shot that lasts more than a minute near the end, as Riker says goodbye to Picard. I don't think that's the best scene in Nemisis, but I do think that one shot outshines any of the directing and acting in TFF. I agree that the scene of McCoy anguishing over his Dad's death was very good, but even there you're forced to swallow the concept that Sybok - without any explanation - is able to make McCoy vividly relive the scene again, this time with Sybok in it.

I don't know of any special effects shots in Nemisis that were noticable embarassments, and of course the only decent FX shots in TFF were shots they swiped from Star Trek III and Star Trek IV.

I think TFF is not only the worst entry in the Star Trek film series, but to find a fifth entry of any film franchise that was that bad, I think you have to go back to the Ma and Pa Kettle series.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

but even there you're forced to swallow the concept that Sybok - without any explanation - is able to make McCoy vividly relive the scene again, this time with Sybok in it.

Of course you have to swallow a whole lot to accept (or at least sit through) either Nemesis or TFF. But, for my part, the whole concept of Shinzon as a clone of Picard is so preposterously implausible that I can't think of it with a straight face. Ditto for Shinzon turning his hatred toward ... Earth, and not the Romulan Star Empire for putting him in such a state (and, no, the vaporization scene isn't enough).

Both concepts -- that of the "faith healer / brainwasher" and that of the "clones gone wild" -- are difficult to swallow. But considering Nemesis wanted to be taken a whole lot more seriously than TFF wanted to be, I see more fault with its silly, nonsensical premise.

 

[GHS]

I guess my point was that in TFF's shining moment, you still have to make a great effort to suspend disbelief, while in what is just one of the better moments of Nemisis (Riker/Picard saying farewell) you don't.

Everybody seems to agree that Stewart's amount of influence on the scripts is to blame for an implausible plot in Nemisis. But if you agree an overdemanding star is the problem, then doesn't stand to reason that the project where the overdemanding star that got to write and direct is going to be a lot worse?

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Even in a comparison with which "overdemanding star" was worse, I'd still take the end result of the film as the bottom line. For all I know, Shatner may take himself more seriously than Stewart (I really have no clue in that regard). But TFF, as a film, doesn't take itself anywhere near as seriously as Nemesis. It's the fact that Nemesis wants, desperately, to be a really serious film, and yet employs a preposterous premise (and plot devices and characters, etc.), that leads me to conclude that its mistakes are the more egregious.

At the end of the day, they're both bad films but, at least in my mind, that's how I distinguish between the two -- and I am, by far, more of a TNG fan than a TOS fan.

 

[GHS]

But the lighter tone in TFF was a demand from the studio to make it emulate the humor in STIV, and that's one of the reasons Star Trek V failed so totally. They had a plot that was in no way a comedy, but they kept trying to yok it up at all the wrong times. What's more the quality of the humor lacking, to put it mildly. If Shatner had been free to go with the tone he wanted, the end result would still be bad, but not an embarrassment.

Nemisis still has some humor in it, and although those scenes don't qualify as the height of wit, they are at least servicable. Compare the opening wedding scenes in Nemisis to the camping trip in Star Trek V, for example. Which are better?

 

[Greylock Crescent]

As far as studio input is concerned, again what I look at to distinguish between the two films is the final product, not in the behind-the-scenes machinations. It's not irrelevant to discuss what Shatner would have done with a completely free rein, but that's not how I look at the matter. Basically, if I were forced to watch one of the two films, which would it be?

I fully agree that the humor in TFF was almost always forced and usually fell flat on its face (or its back after face-planting against a bulkhead). But I appreciate the fact that the film definitely wanted to be funny (even if it came across as silly), while also including a more serious subtext. A hammy line like, "What does God want with a Starship" was there to break the tension and keep things from becoming overburdened by the forced drama.

Nemesis, on the other hand, was so overwrought and self-important that even if it has better effects, better production values and a cast I enjoy more, I just couldn't sit through it again. Not that I'd choose to sit through TFF again, mind you. But if I had to choose, I'd take the cheeseball humor of TFF over the pretentiousness of Nemesis.

Besides, to me, Data's Wedding Singer impression is about on par with "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."

 

[Lightinspire]

I liked Nemesis instead of V but if V was made exactly according to how Shatner wrote it then it would have been better than Nemesis.

 

[Chrisisall]

After reading ALL of this, I have to say the both films are supremely messed up- just light & dark equivalents of each other.
I'd pick Nemesis during a high fever, I'd pick TFF if I was downing a quick twelve-pack, and I guess that means, on some strange level, that I like TFF better, but not by much, LOL.