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I finally watched Nemesis...

Okay, everyone, I finally sat down and watched Star Trek: Nemesis this evening. I hadn't wanted to watch because I didn't want to have to take sides. But tonight, I chose to watch it and watch the nuTrek with a clear conscience.

My verdict is this... It was a decent movie with some flaws in it. I think the B4 plot could've been better if they had to have it, but it wasn't horrid. I came close to crying when Data sacrificed himself, partly because I loved the character. I didn't mind the clone plot so much, but I also thought that it could've been better executed. This movie wasn't bad, but it could've been so much more. Even so...

I liked it.


Wait a sec, you watched Star Trek 09 for the first time too?
That's right, RAMA. Last summer, I just couldn't see it in the theaters. But I saw that and Nemesis in the same weekend. It was great!
 
Okay, everyone, I finally sat down and watched Star Trek: Nemesis this evening.

Okay, now go watch Red Letter Media's review.

You will be SHOCKED to see some of the "side by side" comparisons with TWOK.

They REALLY did shamelessly rip it off. I cannot watch it now.
 
Nemesis might not be the worst Trek movie but it sure isn't the best one. My favorite (worst) line is when Picard is wanting to take the new Argo shuttle himself down to an unknown planet that can't be adequately scanned in the face of an incoming ion storm. To Riker: "There's no foreseeable danger." WHAT? THE F___! It's not really danger if it's foreseeable.
I was fortunate to see Nemesis the night before opening (theatre manager) right after we completed building our display for the movie. We converted our entrance hall to look like the damaged Enterprise corridor that Data jumps out of. We had just spent two weeks of extra time on it and then watched the movie. Everyone came out going "Uh... WTF?"

My condolences on the loss of your time.


At least I got paid to watch Nemesis. We got more positive feedback on our display than we did on the actual movie. The customers thought that Paramount had provided the display to us.
 
Star Trek (2009) was much better than Star Trek: Nemesis. By a mile.
 
Okay, everyone, I finally sat down and watched Star Trek: Nemesis this evening.

Okay, now go watch Red Letter Media's review.

You will be SHOCKED to see some of the "side by side" comparisons with TWOK.

They REALLY did shamelessly rip it off. I cannot watch it now.

They also shamelessly ripped off Austin Powers. ;) There's some youtube video around that compares the two (could even be by RLM, I don't know).
 
All I can say positive about Nemesis is that the final space battle between the ships looked cool. It was very visually appealing to me.


The dune buggy scene, imo, is one of the worst scenes ever done in star trek.
 
All I can say positive about Nemesis is that the final space battle between the ships looked cool. It was very visually appealing to me.


The dune buggy scene, imo, is one of the worst scenes ever done in star trek.

Agreed... on both counts. That dune buggy chase was just... silly. The battles were epic.

For me Nemesis is about average on the Trek movie scale. The battles were nicely done and I found the story to be mostly interesting. My biggest issue with the movie was the fact that it was devoid of the heart and soul I had come to love from the TNG cast. The "family" elements were just not there and the characters merely used as props or filler for the subplots. I walked away from the theater feeling emotionally empty rather than happy that I had spent time with old friends. Actually I went in missing those friends and came out missing them even more.

But the one thing that really killed things for me was the fact that Geordi did not get to say goodbye to his best friend. That character moment that the audience desperately needed to grieve for Data was never given to us. Instead we are treated to this hollow toast from Picard that just didn't cut it. It was so... impersonal. A brief moment with Geordi in Data's quarters, maybe him looking around at Data's things, then collasping into a chair and Spot jumping into Geordi's lap for a nuzzle, would have broken down the barriers and made the last scene with Picard and B-4 more powerful. Data sacrificed himself for his ship and his friends, the most human thing he has ever done, but the film never allows us to process that into something emotionally compelling.


As a whole, I thought the movie needed a better director and one last script polish to iron out the kinks. If they had been able to get people who could have found a balance between the action and the emotion I think the movie could have rocked. But we were treated to a mediocre mess devoid of any emotion instead. :( (I also think Stewart should have played BOTH Picard and Shinzon. Now that would have sold the story, flaws and all.)
 
All I can say positive about Nemesis is that the final space battle between the ships looked cool. It was very visually appealing to me.


The dune buggy scene, imo, is one of the worst scenes ever done in star trek.


That scene would have been better if they played some "Road Warrior - Thunderdome" music.
 
Nemesis had a lot of flaws, but overall I found it to be enjoyable in a general "spend a couple of hours with the TNG crew one last time" kinda way.

The movie got a very bad rap online, I believe, because its script was widely available for download more than a year before the movie opened. Critics had a lot of time to tear it apart, which they did (I believe AICN and/or Dark Horizons had script reviews that completely blasted it), and created a lot of negative buzz. In addition, IIRC it was made during the first or second season of Enterprise, at the height of the "Berman/Braga raped my childhood" hysteria among (many) Trek diehards so a lot of people were just waiting to tear into it regardless of its quality.

Don't get me wrong, much of the online criticism prior to the movie's release was justified, but nonetheless had many fans primed to hate the movie long before they saw it.

I remember seeing it opening night by myself (my wife, who usually is a good sport about indulging my geekness) took a pass because she thought the trailer looked "ridiculous." I was in a nearly-empty theater with maybe 10 other people, all of whom, like me, looked somewhat embarrased to be there. When it ended, there was dead silence and we all slunk out, kinda hoping no one would see what theater we came from.

The contrast a few years later, when I saw Star Trek '09, was astonishing. I saw that film in a packed house, the audience laughed at the jokes and cheered along with Kirk, Spock & the rest during their adventure, and applauded when the movie was over. It reminded me very much of the audience reaction when I saw Wrath of Khan in the theater way back in the early '80s when I was about 12.

Both flawed movies, but audiences loved one and hated the other.
 
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I liked NEM better after I watched it again on DVD. At the theater it just looked and felt tired.

Even though I don't hate the film, I think don't it was good either. There was so much potential, so many things that could've been done for the final film, that it is a shame that Nemesis turned out be such a letdown. I think cutting back on the character moments hurt the film a great deal. As Astro Smurf suggested, Geordi should have played a bigger role in grieving for Data. It should have been him speaking about Data instead of Riker. Perhaps I am imagining that Troi and Geordi shared a moment at the destruction of the Scimitar. I didn't catch it at first in the theater and I was pissed that Geordi didn't get to grieve, but I thought there was at least an expression, something subtle between Geordi and Troi that I can at least live with, when I watched the DVD.
 
By the way... how come in allllll the time since it's been released, no one's made fun of Revenge of the Sith? There were times I was torn between tears and chuckles because of the way they hopelessly abused what was a rather sound plot with recycles like "NOOOOOOOO" and "My hand just got cut off, because Jedi are trained to cut hands off instead of heads!", in addition to just plain terrible acting. Yes, I'm looking at you, Hayden Christensen.

I believe that this is the snark you're looking for... ;)
 
the greatest flaw of Nemesis is its pacing - it doesn't engage the viewer emotionally.

Agreed. I often wonder how Jonathan Frakes would have approached it all if he'd been director. He definitely would have drawn out the essential emotions from the scripted scenes. For example, I recall enjoying Picard being slightly drunk at the wedding - the iconic drunken father of the bride trying to do his big speech, speaking of the couple so fondly - but most critics miss all the subtext and think it's just Patrick Stewart "phoning in" his last Picard performance with some "bad acting".

I was very disappointed to see the deleted scene in the bonus features from early in the film where Data and Picard toast with wine. Although the scene was way too long, some of the foreshadowing in the dialogue was essential for the death of Data later on. Data was my favourite ST character. I sobbed losing Spock, Jadzia and Sisko - but felt very little losing Data. For that I can only blame Stuart Baird. I do think John Logan's script meant well, but it just didn't translate under the director the film ended up with.
 
I remember seeing it opening night by myself (my wife, who usually is a good sport about indulging my geekness) took a pass because she thought the trailer looked "ridiculous." I was in a nearly-empty theater with maybe 10 other people, all of whom, like me, looked somewhat embarrased to be there. When it ended, there was dead silence and we all slunk out, kinda hoping no one would see what theater we came from.

Very similar experience! I saw it with a friend from work in an outer-suburban megaplex, our cinema almost empty on opening night. (Despite this, the film was the #1 film in Australia that weekend, opening about a week after the US premiere debacle; we didn't have it up against "Maid in Manhattan").

In comparison, although I missed the huge TMP premiere, I attended packed-house previews and gala premieres for all the other ST movies. There was always applause at the end, although it was more hysterical laughter throughout and after ST V, because it was as bad as we'd feared.

"Insurrection" was strangely low key, but Sydney fandom had just undergone a political coup in ST fandom and the core fans had dissipated. It was no surprise that reactions to "Nemesis" would be even lower. Sad, though, because both films were interesting re cinematography, etc.
 
It is definitely not one of the best ST movies, nor is it one of my favorites- mostly because of continuity issues and because, after watching the DVD, they cut out some good stuff that probably would've made it better (i.e. "Picard's new First Officer" ;-))- however, it's not entirely unwatchable, particularly the final battle between the Enterprise and the Schimitar (Troi's "driving"). Data's sacrifice was gut-wrenching but well-done. I would've liked to have seen more of a "memorial" for him than we got, as well as some more closure with some of the characters migrating off the Enterprise but, criticisms aside, it is hardly the monstrosity that some people make it out to be.
The best thing that I can say about the film, unlike some of the other Star Trek:TNG episodes/movies is that THINGS OF CONSEQUENCE ACTUALLY HAPPEN to our beloved characters, which is nice to see after years of things constantly keeping things "status quo".
 
I never cared for any of the TNG films. The actors and the characters were used badly in badly written scripts.

Nemesis was garbage. Bad, bad, bad film. That really hit home to me.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Nemesis/Pictorial-1.html

Here is one take of Nemesis which really hit home everything I disliked or found ridiculous and stupid about this film.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7a8_1262780719
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b0d_1262781035
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8b9_1262781211
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=84b_1262782464

http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?p=4212597#post4212597
Review of the other TNG films. (Hilarious)
 
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