NEMESIS STILL LOOKS GOOD!

[sonak]

inspired by this thread I watched Nemesis for the first time in nearly a decade yesterday. whilst I still don't think it's a great film I have to admit that it's no where near as bad as I remember

I've seen the movie a total of 3 times.

Once at the theater, where I walked out groaning in disappointment.

Second time I caught it on TV, and I don't think I finished watching it.

3rd time was because I wanted to review it here.

I didn't find it as grating the 3rd time until about the time of Data's "heroics", which is where the movie fell apart for me again.

that's pretty late in the movie for it to "fall apart" for you.

 

[GalaxyX]

inspired by this thread I watched Nemesis for the first time in nearly a decade yesterday. whilst I still don't think it's a great film I have to admit that it's no where near as bad as I remember

I've seen the movie a total of 3 times.

Once at the theater, where I walked out groaning in disappointment.

Second time I caught it on TV, and I don't think I finished watching it.

3rd time was because I wanted to review it here.

I didn't find it as grating the 3rd time until about the time of Data's "heroics", which is where the movie fell apart for me again.

that's pretty late in the movie for it to "fall apart" for you.

That was the 3rd time I watched it, trying to soak it in with an open mind. Most of it works if you ignore the lame wedding scene, dune buggy scene, and rape scene.

But at the "heroic Data dies" scene I just couldn't muster any openmindedness toward the film anymore. I was done with it.

My main point is that I don't believe that ANY of the TNG movies were better than Nemesis, all of them were too low budget, low scope extended TV episodes, but they finally got found out with Nemesis and the game was up.

I blame Paramount for being a bunch of cheap motherfuckers. They thought the nerd crowd would be enough to make a profit on and didn't have to invest much in it.

 

[Smellmet]

They gambled and lost, pure and simple

 

[mendelin]

My main point is that I don't believe that ANY of the TNG movies were better than Nemesis, all of them were too low budget, low scope extended TV episodes, but they finally got found out with Nemesis and the game was up.

Totally agree.
I still can't understand why cheap and naive TOS-movies (II - VI) were much better than TNG-movies.

Perhaps, it's a matter of good screenwriters and screenplays. Basicly, the idea of "Generations" was good, but it was very bad implemented. I mean the initial idea of two crews in the battle. But this idea degenerated into "two captains against one villain" and the death of one captain as "something special".
Yes, TOS-movies weren't perfect, but they were not so cynical.

I just found an interview with Brent Spiner.

A lot of people have asked about [Star Trek: Nemesis] and "why did you kill Data?" We knew that it was going to be our last film, and we thought it might be a good idea to end it on a big emotional moment and it seemed to complete Data’s arc from the beginning. What you don’t know is that when the curtains closed in the theater and you left, the Enterprise blew up and everyone else was killed [laughs].

So, yes, very rude and very cynical. Moreover, it's unprofessional to use the death as the last chance to get an emotional response from your audience.

 

[Hober Mallow]

So, yes, very rude and very cynical. Moreover, it's unprofessional to use the death as the last chance to get an emotional response from your audience.

Didn't even work for me. I had absolutely no emotional response to Data's death.

The argument that model shots are better doesn't hold water IMO - are you saying the effects in TWOK are better because they use models?

We weren't talking about which shots were better, we were talking about which ones looked like video games. "Video gamey" says to me "obviously computer generated." No, the TWOK's model FX don't look like they came out of a video game.

 

[beamMe]

So, yes, very rude and very cynical. Moreover, it's unprofessional to use the death as the last chance to get an emotional response from your audience.

Didn't even work for me. I had absolutely no emotional response to Data's death.

His death really had no meaning. The whole B4-thing ruined that story element.

 

[JarodRussell]

Moreover, it's unprofessional to use the death as the last chance to get an emotional response from your audience.

Haha, seriously? Unprofessional?

 

[RAMA]

I dont have anything new to say really..I just reread some of this thread after my last post. Everyone has their personal opinion that's fine, can't fight it, but I dont think it's arguable that NEM was a bigger $80 million movie than any other previous Trek movie aside from TMP. I also have disproved the notion that no one liked the movie, citing the cinemascore, the decent imdb rating, and especially the then record sales on video. LOTS of people liked it.

RAMA

 

[Hober Mallow]

I dont have anything new to say really..I just reread some of this thread after my last post. Everyone has their personal opinion that's fine, can't fight it, but I dont think it's arguable that NEM was a bigger $80 million movie than any other previous Trek movie aside from TMP. I also have disproved the notion that no one liked the movie, citing the cinemascore, the decent imdb rating, and especially the then record sales on video. LOTS of people liked it.

RAMA

Well, video sales aren't really an indication of what fans liked. Trek fans are funny in that they'll bitch about something but still feel obligated to watch it four hundred times.

 

[RAMA]

I dont have anything new to say really..I just reread some of this thread after my last post. Everyone has their personal opinion that's fine, can't fight it, but I dont think it's arguable that NEM was a bigger $80 million movie than any other previous Trek movie aside from TMP. I also have disproved the notion that no one liked the movie, citing the cinemascore, the decent imdb rating, and especially the then record sales on video. LOTS of people liked it.

RAMA

Well, video sales aren't really an indication of what fans liked. Trek fans are funny in that they'll bitch about something but still feel obligated to watch it four hundred times.

On the contrary, unlike movie grosses or ticket sales, a video disc/tape sale is a single purchase, and usually a good indicator of how popular a particular movie is because it means people want to rewatch it. NEM sold in the low millions.

 

[mendelin]

Moreover, it's unprofessional to use the death as the last chance to get an emotional response from your audience.

Haha, seriously? Unprofessional?

The keywords there were "last chance".
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against killing main characters, if it is really necessary for plot development.
For example, Spock's death in ST II was really meaningfull for entire story. The message of the movie was "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one". Spock's self-sacrifice was the main supporting point of this idea.

As for Generations and Nemesis, I read some interviews with Rick Berman. He said, that in Generations they decided "it would be cool to kill Kirk". They decide to use death only to be cool. That's unprofessional, IMO.

So, here is a quote:

"...One of us just kinda threw out, 'What if we kill Kirk?' And we all kinda looked at each other and said, 'Wow. That would be amazing.' ...From that point on, Kirk's death became part of the fabric of our story, and as a big surprise to us all, there was never a moment where it really came into question."

So, may be I get it wrong, but they came to this idea without any plot context.

 

[BillJ]

On the contrary, unlike movie grosses or ticket sales, a video disc/tape sale is a single purchase, and usually a good indicator of how popular a particular movie is because it means people want to rewatch it. NEM sold in the low millions.

There are tons of people out there who buy discs just for the sake of buying discs. I've got about five-hundred total and haven't watched half of them. They collect dust.

 

[RAMA]

On the contrary, unlike movie grosses or ticket sales, a video disc/tape sale is a single purchase, and usually a good indicator of how popular a particular movie is because it means people want to rewatch it. NEM sold in the low millions.

There are tons of people out there who buy discs just for the sake of buying discs. I've got about five-hundred total and haven't watched half of them. They collect dust.

Ive never heard of such a person, and I doubt 3 million of them bought NEM discs.

 

[BillJ]

On the contrary, unlike movie grosses or ticket sales, a video disc/tape sale is a single purchase, and usually a good indicator of how popular a particular movie is because it means people want to rewatch it. NEM sold in the low millions.

There are tons of people out there who buy discs just for the sake of buying discs. I've got about five-hundred total and haven't watched half of them. They collect dust.

Ive never heard of such a person, and I doubt 3 million of them bought NEM discs.

I used to work with a guy who had 4,000 DVD's (I shit you not), he said he was buying them to watch when he retired. He was in his early-50's. If he kept up the pace he'd be in the neighborhood of 6-7,000 now.

I don't think its a very good film and I have three copies of it. The original DVD, the special edition DVD and the Blu-ray.

Trek fans seem to be more willing to buy things that are "Star Trek" whether they like them or not.

 

[Hober Mallow]

In the "Why is Nemesis Unpopular?' thread, 54 people voted "Nemesis" a "terrible" film. I'm willing to bet every single one of them (other than myself) owns the film on DVD and/or bluray.

 

[SeerSGB]

Nemesis is the only Trek film that I ever waited to go into the $5 bin before buying.

 

[Flake]

IMHO of the TNG movies Nemesis looks the worst and has the lowest production values especially when pitted against other movies of its era which were loaded with CGI and cost 2-3x more (the tentpoles and franchises had begun) whereas the older TNG movies were equal to other movies of the same time in terms of production values and visual effects because CGI had not taken off at that point.

CGI made the new tentpoles cost a fortune and that was not possible for prime Trek, it was much too expensive to do.

On top of that they had to pay Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner a large amount of money from a small budget and then there is the problem of the movie sucking and a dire script ! No director could have saved that script.

 

[JarodRussell]

CGI made the new tentpoles cost a fortune and that was not possible for prime Trek, it was much too expensive to do.

That statement is certainly false. In a film production, you do whatever is cheaper and safer. There is a mix of CGI and model work, for example the ship crash is done using physical models and CGI enhancements, because it was easier and cheaper to do that complex crash with models. But everything else was cheaper and easier to do with CG models. Especially when you look at the complex lighting and wild maneuvers during the space battles, stuff that would be very hard to do (a.k.a. very expensive) on a motion control rig with 10 ft long models.

 

[Hober Mallow]

...the older TNG movies were equal to other movies of the same time in terms of production values and visual effects because CGI had not taken off at that point.

I don't think this is true at all. The Trek films have always been cost conscious, except maybe TMP. FX have always felt more limited, action set-pieces less ambitious than other Hollywood action films of the time. The scope and sheer number of FX in Star Wars in the 70s was far beyond any of the Trek films of the 80s. With the exception of TMP (and Abrams' Trek) the Trek films have always felt pretty "second-tier," like it never got over its low-budget TV roots.

No director could have saved that script.

Totally agree.

 

[JarodRussell]

With the exception of TMP (and Abrams' Trek) the Trek films have always felt pretty "second-tier," like it never got over its low-budget TV roots.

Abramstrek still does. Compared to the Star Wars prequels, the superhero movies, Avatar, Lord of the Rings, etc... those films are extremely small scale and low budget.

The same difference between First Contact and... Independence Day, for example.