Anyone else love Nemesis?

[Praetor]

It had the Romulans in it, but they where badly used in a second rate WoK copycat. So I didn't love Nemesis, not in the slightest.

Should have been a DS9 movie.

My feelings as well. Too much effort was meant to shoehorn it into an action movie, while also trying to emulate TWoK's success. The cast and premise were the only selling points for me, and both were underused.

That said, most of it is very nice to look at.

 

[trekkerguy]

I can’t believe the bad reputation Star Trek Nemesis has. I get the film was a financial disaster, but why all the critical abuse?

I honestly thought it was brilliant, and one of the best Trek films.

I admit some of the dialogue was really cheesy, that Riker’s too old for the action-man thing, and that Picard asking Troi to ‘put up’ with the mind rapes was deeply stupid, but then when people are dressed in silly costumes and flying though space, cheesiness and silliness is pretty much assured.

The story itself – the whole nature vs. nurture thing, was really well done, as was the epic space battle at the end (although Picard really should have evacuated the front half of the ship first! Poor Guinan!)

Does anyone else like the film?

Anybody?

C’mon!

(If not: You’re all wrong!)

It is the best of the Trek films so far. It had a great story of Humanity
another brilliant performance by Patrick Stewart along with Ron Perlman.
Along with awesome action, space battles and a much bigger scale of a
story than any of the other Trek films aside from The Undiscovered Country.
And I actually liked the darker tone of the film.

Nemesis and The Motion Picture are my two favorite Treks until I see XI.

 

[RoJoHen]

NEM is the only Trek movie I can't watch without getting angry and annoyed. It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen, Trek or no.

 

[Praetor]

Ron Perlman does not a good film make.

 

[Kryton]

He was extremely good in "The Name of the Rose".

But he's not an automatic "WIN", you're right.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Then again, Ron Perlman actually had something to do in The Name of the Rose besides stand in the corner under his day-glo Nosferatu makeup and glower.

 

[Kryton]

That was a damn fine movie...especially if you'd read the trainwreck of a book (or polemic if you prefer) that inspired it. ("The Name of the Rose", that is...I'd never say such a thing about "NEM".)

 

[cardinal biggles]

Reading TNOTR is on my to-do list somewhere (along with around 500 other books I own ); I've heard that you need a machete to get through Umberto Eco's prose, though.

I love the movie, though. Great performances from Connery, Abraham, Perlman, and a who's who of great European character actors. Oh, and then there's that scene...

 

[Kryton]

Eco is a VERY challenging read...and not always rewarding, based on my limited experience of his work.

Yes, THAT scene...but it led to such a horrendous finale. And you left out Slater, who, IMO, gave perhaps his greatest performance (I know...sucks to peak with your debut, but he still has time).

 

[squeeks]

i just watched nemesis again, first time since seeing it in the theater, and i must say, i really liked it

 

[Kirk1980]

I respect people's opinions but...

F it, this is truly IDIC time!

 

[Cyke101]

I hate this movie and I find parts of it to be very irredeemable. But all my rants have been outlined in other threads anyway, so meh.

However, I would like to say that I'm a bit disappointed that it took four movies for the writers to finally portray Riker as a swashbuckling center of action. For seven years, he was the go-to guy in TNG when it came to leadership in person-to-person battle, and there were many a times when he and Worf would chew gum and kick ass (incidentally, they would always run out of chewing gum). He was, after all, modelled after Kirk. But we saw so little of that in the previous three movies, most disappointingly in First Contact with all the Borg Vs. Starfleet personnel battles (yes, I realize he's the director, and that Stewart asked to switch roles with Frakes), so I'm happy to see him lead a battle and take out Shinzon's Number 1 in hand to hand (and gravity) combat. Even more apropos since the guy did mindrape Troi.

Frankly, considering their track records in both fields, I'd leave space battles to Picard and personnel missions to Riker, just like in TNG. Picard seems to do better than Riker in ship engagements, while Riker's pretty handy with a phaser and martial arts.

 

[Kirk1980]

Wow....Cyke...that is completely something I had missed!

And I dig it.

All hail the three minutes where this film DOESN'T SUCK MONKEY BALLS!

And seriously, Riker was supposed to lead the shipboard battles and Stewart talked Frakes out of it?

Damn.

Riker's easily my favorite TNG character.

 

[Trek Survivor]

I wasn't a big fan of Data's story. To this day, I don't understand why Data was forced to have a B or C plot in each TNG film.

Because Brent Spiner had it written into his contract that he would have a B-plot in every movie. Just as Patrick Stewart made all sorts of contractual hoo-hah to ensure Picard did exactly what he wanted as well.

Berman, Stuart Baird, and many others get lots of criticisms over the direction the movie series took, but Stewart and Spiner - rarely. Yet their getting too big for boots, IMO, did contribute toward the lesser impact of the TNG movies.

They're probably regretting it now though!!

 

[Praetor]

Wow....Cyke...that is completely something I had missed!

And I dig it.

All hail the three minutes where this film DOESN'T SUCK MONKEY BALLS!

And seriously, Riker was supposed to lead the shipboard battles and Stewart talked Frakes out of it?

Damn.

Riker's easily my favorite TNG character.

Originally in 'First Contact' Riker was going to be the one on the ship fighting the Borg while Picard was only the planet helping Cochrane. In that particular instance, it was probably a good idea to switch due to Picard's personal vendetta with the Borg.

In 'Insurrection' however it probably would have made more sense for Picard, one of the Federation's leading diplomats, to be the one to fight his way through the Son'a ships and take the Enterprise to go talk to the Federation Council, while Riker leads the ground evacuation effort and maybe end up facing down Ru'afo together? Of course that movie is by itself entirely another hodgepodge of dramatic failures.

But, contracts... what can ya do?

 

[Kirk1980]

Wow....Cyke...that is completely something I had missed!

And I dig it.

All hail the three minutes where this film DOESN'T SUCK MONKEY BALLS!

And seriously, Riker was supposed to lead the shipboard battles and Stewart talked Frakes out of it?

Damn.

Riker's easily my favorite TNG character.

Originally in 'First Contact' Riker was going to be the one on the ship fighting the Borg while Picard was only the planet helping Cochrane. In that particular instance, it was probably a good idea to switch due to Picard's personal vendetta with the Borg.

In 'Insurrection' however it probably would have made more sense for Picard, one of the Federation's leading diplomats, to be the one to fight his way through the Son'a ships and take the Enterprise to go talk to the Federation Council, while Riker leads the ground evacuation effort and maybe end up facing down Ru'afo together? Of course that movie is by itself entirely another hodgepodge of dramatic failures.

But, contracts... what can ya do?

Indeed....

However, also thinking dramatically, it could have worked with Picard down there, too. Making SURE the Borg don't screw up anything with HISTORY. As it's been shown Picard is a major history geek, I'm sure the idea of protecing Cochrane and the Phoenix would have appealed.

And if he must REALLY fight the Borg...just bring some down to Earth, too.

I know, I'm pushing

 

[CoveTom]

^ It's because for some reason Patrick Stewart has openly said that the way the character of Picard was portrayed for seven television seasons had to be put aside for the films to be successful. He feels that having Picard be the thoughtful diplomat who stays on the ship while Riker is the action guy who always gets into the thick of things is a bad approach.

Now, in First Contact, it ended up working. The conflict was actually ON the ship, so was perfectly logical that Riker would end up with the away team on the planet while Picard got stuck in the middle of things on the ship. Also, because of Picard's very personal history with the Borg, and the emotional scars that left, we can justify him acting out of character in regards to them.

But by the time of Insurrection and Nemesis, "action hero Picard" was getting old. That's not who Picard was. Sure, we saw in the series that he could kick ass when the situation demanded it, but he detested having to make that choice. And they totally broke with what his character was when they got to the post-Generations films.

It's interesting. Shatner and Nimoy had about as much control over their characters in the TOS films as Stewart and Spiner did in the TNG films -- perhaps even moreso since Shatner and Nimoy both wrote and directed films in the series. Yet both of them seemed to understand what made their characters work and what the fans loved about them. They didn't try to change their characters. They worked within what their characters were. But Stewart and Spiner were willing to throw all that out the window. And it shows.

 

[Kirk1980]

Yet what's really weird is if you heard interviews with Stewart lately (my, this has gotten offtopic) he seems to have really become a champion of everything I enjoyed in Trek (and no, I don't have links to interviews, sorry).

It's strange that he could completely get the show but not understand his character anymore.

As for Spiner? I don't know if he's just kidding around in interviews but man, does he come off as a smarmy git. Please prove me wrong as I enjoyed Data very much and would hate to think he had to act THAT much!

 

[Praetor]

Yeah, Spiner's behavior, particularly in regard to Data and 'Nemesis' really turned me off to the character to some degree. Stewart, not as much.

 

[Cyke101]

^ It's because for some reason Patrick Stewart has openly said that the way the character of Picard was portrayed for seven television seasons had to be put aside for the films to be successful. He feels that having Picard be the thoughtful diplomat who stays on the ship while Riker is the action guy who always gets into the thick of things is a bad approach.

Now, in First Contact, it ended up working. The conflict was actually ON the ship, so was perfectly logical that Riker would end up with the away team on the planet while Picard got stuck in the middle of things on the ship. Also, because of Picard's very personal history with the Borg, and the emotional scars that left, we can justify him acting out of character in regards to them.

Yeah, to add onto CoveTom and Praetor's posts, I think that First Contact wasn't originally going to be such an action oriented movie, thanks to the focus being Picard down on the planet (the cultured man using his knowledge and guidance to help history, after all). But since the movie would be a Picard story AND that Stewart won the argument of putting Picard on the ship, the action was thrust to the forefront.