Nemesis Flop Made Tom Hardy Alcoholic Crack Addict

[Kegg]

I think one could make a case for Ru'afo or Sybok as well.

Of course one can. Sybok was the best Star Trek feature film antagonist there ever was, as well as the second-best acted.

I'm sure you recognize that's a minority view, though?

Point is, Sybok got more screen time than Nero and arguably a more credible motivation. I mean they're both crazy, but Nero's logic for his targets is motivated by his crazy overriding any sense of logic because he's got to be the bad guy for the movie - Sybok's craziness at least has an internal consistency.

Hm. Actually, that's also more than Shinzon gets, as his 'let's attack the Federation, hyuh!' is in some senses more contrived than Nero's animosity towards Vulcan. Even in spite of his bulkier screentime. Yet I disgress...

 

[Brutal Strudel]

I agree with one thing: Sybok was extremely well-acted.

 

[SRFX]

Sybok is one of the few reasons I find Star Trek V watchable.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

I had my novel picked up by a literary agent who promised me the moon. A year later, it still sits in the slush pile, after receiving a dozen very nicely worded rejections.

I totally understand Hardy's pain.

Was the agent a lady who had vacated L.A. for Colorado? just wondering, sounds like what happened with a spec script of mine a long while back. That agent managed to burn some bridges I already had up by re-sending the script to places that had already read it, which is one thing you don't ever do. That took me from Silver Pictures VP saying, 'keep us in mind for future writing' to 'we're closed to this kind of submission' in the span of 2 months.

Blew my mind that I got better results -- nice turndowns and a couple of pitch meetings -- on specs with releases attached than I ever did with any agent submitting stuff.

I doubt it--she only handles books. I have nothing but fondness but for her, really: she truly believed in my book and is cute as a button to boot. She was just being unrealistic. But I'm a depressive, and science is finding more and more that depressives tend be depressive because we see life (and ourselves) rather more clearly than those who possess a sunny demeanor.

I haven't totally lost hope--Dune, The Forever War, SF is littered with with books that editors were too obtuse to pounce on until they'd received double digit rejections. Still, I'm not sanguine, nor am I Frank Herbert or Joe Haldeman--those guys are gods.

Point is, if I were prone to chemical addiction (which I'm not--I'm addicted to food and sex and that's pretty much it; I've more-than-experimented with many potentially habit forming drugs* and drink regularly but have never developed a dependency), I could easily see this experience pushing me to the bottle, needle, pipe, what-have-you. As it is--coupled with my dislike of my day job--it has pretty much tabled any chance of me losing weight or staying out of the fleshpots of Southern New Jersey. There are only so many battles a man can fight at one time.

*Weed, percocet, adderall, cocaine, psylocybin, ecstasy, LSD, among others--I don't indulge much anymore but I had my youth and I regret none of it.

 

[Maurice]

...and science is finding more and more that depressives tend be depressive because we see life (and ourselves) rather more clearly than those who possess a sunny demeanor.

Which makes everyone else sound like Polyannas. My experience is that the depressives I've known don't see anything more clearly than others around them, they just tend to focus on the negatives and don't give the positives as much weight. I know that's not scientific, but it's what I've seen from my life experience.

 

[BillJ]

It's petty and in very poor taste to use this man's tragedy as nothing more than fodder for more juvenile Nemesis-bashing.

I thiink it's in poor taste for him to blame his addictions on Star Trek: Nemesis. He read the script and accepted the part. Fans knew months in advance that it was going to be a turkey. How did Hardy not know?

 

[Therin of Andor]

I thiink it's in poor taste for him to blame his addictions on Star Trek: Nemesis. He read the script and accepted the part. Fans knew months in advance that it was going to be a turkey. How did Hardy not know?

It's not a bad movie, just not a very good Star Trek movie. It has some great ideas and excellent SPFX - and I don't think anyone expected it to be beaten at the US box office on its opening weekend by J-Lo in "Maid in Manhattan". Most assumed it would at least do as well as "Insurrection" or ST V.

 

[BillJ]

I thiink it's in poor taste for him to blame his addictions on Star Trek: Nemesis. He read the script and accepted the part. Fans knew months in advance that it was going to be a turkey. How did Hardy not know?

It's not a bad movie, just not a very good Star Trek movie. It has some great ideas and excellent SPFX - and I don't think anyone expected it to be beaten at the US box office on its opening weekend by J-Lo in "Maid in Manhattan". Most assumed it would at least do as well as "Insurrection" or ST V.

For me... it's simply a bad movie. I'd rather watch The Dukes of Hazzard again than sit through Nemesis. It's a textbook example of what happens when the inmates (Stewart and Spiner) are running the asylum.

Having two sets of twins was ill-conceived, as was the dune buggy and the hideous wedding scenes. Then add in the uber-fanwank Scimitar, actors who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else and you have a box-office disaster.

This film put the final nail in TNG's coffin.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Having two sets of twins was ill-conceived, as was the dune buggy and the hideous wedding scenes. Then add in the uber-fanwank Scimitar, actors who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else and you have a box-office disaster.

This film put the final nail in TNG's coffin.

None of which would be obvious to a non-Trek-fan actor who had an opportunity to work opposite Patrick Stewart in a successful film franchise based on a success TV series.

 

[BillJ]

Having two sets of twins was ill-conceived, as was the dune buggy and the hideous wedding scenes. Then add in the uber-fanwank Scimitar, actors who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else and you have a box-office disaster.

This film put the final nail in TNG's coffin.

None of which would be obvious to a non-Trek-fan actor who had an opportunity to work opposite Patrick Stewart in a successful film franchise based on a success TV series.

But he had to have some idea of what the film was going to be about... even if he didn't have the full script.

 

[Therin of Andor]

But he had to have some idea of what the film was going to be about... even if he didn't have the full script.

As I said, he thought it sounded like a great film. I believe his many interviews at the time indicated this. There was nothing to indicate that this film would perform any different to other ST movies, and while you may think the script is irreparably flawed, many others do not. The duality between his and Stewart's characters, the elaborate pre-production designs, etc... The same film under Jonathon Frakes' directorship may have been quite different in tone, with different scenes dropped in/out.

It's a judgment call. He and his agent could have turned down the role, the film may have rated its pants off and Hardy still would have been depressed enough to seek out a mind-altering experience.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Sybok is one of the few reasons I find Star Trek V watchable.

Sybok could have probably helped him.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

...and science is finding more and more that depressives tend be depressive because we see life (and ourselves) rather more clearly than those who possess a sunny demeanor.

Which makes everyone else sound like Polyannas. My experience is that the depressives I've known don't see anything more clearly than others around them, they just tend to focus on the negatives and don't give the positives as much weight. I know that's not scientific, but it's what I've seen from my life experience.

Perhaps--I do know that, unless I'm sunk deep in the plak tow of despair, people find me personable and fun, so I'm perhaps not the textbook case.

 

[Bones2]

Sybok is one of the few reasons I find Star Trek V watchable.

Sybok could have probably helped him.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I don't think anyone expected it to be beaten at the US box office on its opening weekend by J-Lo in "Maid in Manhattan". Most assumed it would at least do as well as "Insurrection" or ST V.

I really think that, had Nemesis released in February 2003, that it would have grossed maybe 20 to 25 million more. Paramount released the film at a really bad time; there were too many AAA films -- The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Die Another Day -- in the Christmas release window.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

...and science is finding more and more that depressives tend be depressive because we see life (and ourselves) rather more clearly than those who possess a sunny demeanor.

Which makes everyone else sound like Polyannas. My experience is that the depressives I've known don't see anything more clearly than others around them, they just tend to focus on the negatives and don't give the positives as much weight. I know that's not scientific, but it's what I've seen from my life experience.

Perhaps--I do know that, unless I'm sunk deep in the plak tow of despair, people find me personable and fun, so I'm perhaps not the textbook case.

Are you overly hard on yourself? I find that's usually the case for me. I have a tendency to focus more on my mistakes and failures than on my successes. As if somewhere deep back into my childhood of yesteryear, there was a moment when I failed. And even though the moment is long forgotten, it continues to define how I view my life, like a lens slightly out of focus. But like you, most people find me fun, personable, and a great hoot.

Michael Chabon's essay "The Loser's Club" in his new book Manhood for Amateurs speaks to this:

In spite of my mother may have offered, that was the moment when I begun to think of myself as a failure. It's a habit I've never lost. Anyone who has received a bad review knows how it outlasts, but decades, the memory of a favorable word.

Similarly, this is what may have happened with Tom Hardy. Well as it is implied by the article.

 

[Peter the Younger]

It's a shame that Hardy would take the failure so personally (assuming the article is to be taken at face value), but if he had a tendency toward depression, it's not surprising.

I hope he continues his recovery and continues to do good work.

 

[Myasishchev]

I think one could make a case for Ru'afo or Sybok as well.

Of course one can. Sybok was the best Star Trek feature film antagonist there ever was, as well as the second-best acted.

I'm sure you recognize that's a minority view, though?

I will never recognize it!

Point is, Sybok got more screen time than Nero and arguably a more credible motivation. I mean they're both crazy, but Nero's logic for his targets is motivated by his crazy overriding any sense of logic because he's got to be the bad guy for the movie - Sybok's craziness at least has an internal consistency.

I dunno. Sybok wasn't really crazy, just misguided. Indeed, he was correct in many things--he apparently really could help people with their pain (albeit by ethically suspect means), his plan worked and they did send a starship (two actually) to Nimbus III, the Great Barrier really could be crossed, there really was a planet beyond it, and there really was a being of great power and intelligence upon it.

Now, he was wrong about it being God, but it was an honest mistake.

I think he's the only antagonist other than (perhaps strangely) V'Ger whose motivations and actions could not only be empathized with but actually defended. Soran and Khan were completely understandable, but indefensible. Nero was neither, but sympathetic. As for the rest... well the less said the better. Whale probe gets a free pass a mcguffin.

 

[Plecostomus]

Whale Probe is offended by your remarks.

 

[Bones2]

I think he's the only antagonist other than (perhaps strangely) V'Ger whose motivations and actions could not only be empathized with but actually defended. Soran and Khan were completely understandable, but indefensible. Nero was neither, but sympathetic. As for the rest... well the less said the better. Whale probe gets a free pass a mcguffin.

I've always thought Sybok made a lot of sense, but he really wasn't a villain. He believed in what he was doing, and it wasn't his intention to harm anyone. Indeed, near the end, he says "what have you done to my friends?", which are certainly not the words of a villain.

I think Ruafo scores fairly highly in terms of understandability. And he was in the right. I think he's probably the best thing about Insurrection. I like the whole So'na facelifting stuff as well.