Insurrection vs Nemesis

[mr.peany]

^ Damm you! I forked out enough money for psychiatrist sessions after first seeing it, now you're making me relieve it???!?!?!. It's Christmas dammit!!!

PS. You forgot to mention the Atari style sound effects, which ironically, were a step up for the scene in question.

 

[ancient]

I love Ron Pearlman, but he was wasted as the generic goth monster lacky (TM).

If they'd dropped the Picard-clone nonsense and had Ron play Shinzon the movie would at least gain points for having Ron Pearlman and not a bald emo bitch as the villain.

I like INS somewhat more, it at least has pretty good acting and a fairly original storyline. And I'm not really bothered by the humor either.

 

[GalaxyX]

I seriously don't know which movie to hate more.

Insurrection's biggest mistake, IMHO, was to have the "poor people on the planet" actually be some advanced race that "shunned" their technology in some kind of "holier than thou" smugness.

If I had been Picard, this is how the movie would have played out:

- Data: These people are being yanked from their home planet by the Federation!! I can't let this shit happen!!

- Picard: Data! I have to stop you man, we can't go against the Federation and it's marvellous ideals!!

- Data: Captain, just come down here and talk to these people......

Picard goes down to planet.

Picard: Holy crap!! the main female leader is hot!!! Maybe it is worth defending these people. Hello Anji, my name is Picard, and we're going to protect you from the Federation with our advanced technology!

Anji: What are you talking about? You guys are neanderthals compared to us, but we shunned our technologies (which are better than yours btw) for our peaceful, tranquil way of life here.

Picard: What the hell? screw you then, you guys can defend your own selves if you're so technologically better than us. Bye!!

Enterprise flies off at warp speed, end of story


Anyway, THAT's the part I hated the most about the movie. The boob jokes are lame, but wouldn't kill the movie for me. At least Data didn't die.


Nemesis on the other hand, had a "clone" of Picard that looks nothing like him, and the whole movie time is spent trying to convince us that this guy IS Picard's clone. Sorry, doesn't work.

The whole dune buggy scene was horrible. If they wanted to have a dune buggy they should have rewritten it another way other than this horribly out of character scene (for Picard, AND TNG as a whole).

The nail in the coffin was Data's death. Nothing can forgive Data's death. NOTHING.

 

[Red Ranger]

Frankly, rooting for either of these movies is like trying to decide whether to root for Hitler or Mussolini! They both have plenty of sucky parts, but I'd have to give NEM the edge over INS. Reason? The appearance of the Romulans after being either ignored or just having cameos in so many ST movies. -- RR

 

[GalaxyX]

Well I remember what big deal it was that the "Romulans" were finally going to have a great storyline in Nemesis, and everyone eagerly anticipated it, and finally when we saw it at the theater we got....................space vampires???

Yeah, it's like these guys tied us to a tree with our asses facing out, they pulled down our pants, grabbed a broomstick and broke the end to make sure it was nice and pointy and full of splinters,then stuck a bunch of rusty nails to the side, dipped it in iodine solution, and shoved the sucked right up out ass, scraping the colon and upper intestines as it went up along the top lol.

At least that's what it seems like they were doing.

 

[trekkerguy]

Which one is worse and why?

Neither. None.

 

[mirandafave]

Well I remember what big deal it was that the "Romulans" were finally going to have a great storyline in Nemesis, and everyone eagerly anticipated it, and finally when we saw it at the theater we got....................space vampires???

Yeah I think that really spoiled Nemesis for most people. There was a lot of hype about it being the last journey or certainly the beginning of the last journey for the TNG crew. So that way I can accept Data's death.

But I can't believe they needed to kill off one of the most calculating and cruel enemies in Trek - the Romulans so easily killed off by an unknown faction and species we'd never seen before. So cue from that point on disappointment.

People wanted to and would have been pleased more by having the Romulans as the main protaganists. The story could still have involved a clone and vying factions within the Romulan Empire etc - there was no need for leather fetish skeletors.

First Contact worked because we had an enemy that we knew and loved/feared. The TOS movies fondly remembered tend to be the ones that had familar enemies whether Klingons or Khan. Insurrection had Enterprise defending nobodies being threatened by nobodies. Nemesis had well known enemies wasted and replaced by 'space vampires'.

Maybe they should stick to established enemies! No problem with creating anything new just the movies haven't had much success.

 

[Tyberius]

Nemesis slightly over Insurrection:

Story: NEM
Effects: NEM
Actor Direction: INS
Pacing/Editing: Tie

Insurrection falters mainly in the story line. The effects of the main action have no real bearing to anybody beyond the movie. There may be a court martial or other administrative action, but nobody really cares about the situation. In fact, that is a line of dialogue in the movie that indicates that nobody cares.

Nemesis on the other hand has a broader scope. I do not mind that this is a sub-species of the Romulan Empire that is now at the forefront. I like that there is a personal connection between the antagonist and protagonist as well as stakes that go beyond the frame of the film.

Nemesis falters mainly in the direction of the actors. The performances from the main characters were sub par. I have to blame Baird for this. In any issues where you doubt the reasoning or motivation behind a character, it is the director's fault. Especially in this instance, where we have been shown that the actors can deliver much better, Baird simply did not pull the performances out of the actors to let the audience understand the why's behind the story.

Insurrection wasn't really that much better in direction of actors. But, it wasn't that hard of a story to direct. It had pretty simple requirements of the actors and those were handled capably (puerile jokes aside).

 

[Nebusj]

First Contact worked because we had an enemy that we knew and loved/feared.

Well, more, because it made effective use of that enemy, presenting a threat that was at least a bit novel in implementation and making sure that we saw a lot of a beloved character (Picard) reacting with strong, important emotions to that.

The TOS movies fondly remembered tend to be the ones that had familar enemies whether Klingons or Khan.

But the Original Series movies that are most often used as the jokes are also the ones that had Klingons or Khan: they all had them. And the movies where Klingons were the important antagonists were The Search For Spock, The Final Frontier, and The Undiscovered Country; to say they have slightly different reputations is to understate things.

Klingons have only cameo appearances in The Motion Picture, The Wrath Of Khan, and The Voyage Home, and yet two of those are the biggest-grossing Trek movies and the other is arguably the one that Trek in its ways for the 1987-2004 era. Also in two of those the antagonist was not seen before (or again), just strange Rama-like objects with which Our Heroes only dimly interacted.

Maybe they should stick to established enemies! No problem with creating anything new just the movies haven't had much success.

That's a really awful idea. ``Let's stop putting new things in Star Trek! Just shuffle around the cards we already were dealt until we're left trying to make a story out of the Dohlman of Elas interacting with any of the creepy Ministers of Boring Planets that Troi inexplicably falls for.'' The strongest movies, I don't think coincidentally, added imagination-capturing new things that we hadn't seen before, and the movies above all else must add imagination-capturing new things.

That the Sona and the Baku were boring doesn't mean the fault is new stuff; the fault is boring stuff.

 

[mirandafave]

First Contact worked because we had an enemy that we knew and loved/feared.

Well, more, because it made effective use of that enemy, presenting a threat that was at least a bit novel in implementation and making sure that we saw a lot of a beloved character (Picard) reacting with strong, important emotions to that.

Maybe they should stick to established enemies! No problem with creating anything new just the movies haven't had much success.

That's a really awful idea. ``Let's stop putting new things in Star Trek! Just shuffle around the cards we already were dealt until we're left trying to make a story out of the Dohlman of Elas interacting with any of the creepy Ministers of Boring Planets that Troi inexplicably falls for.'' The strongest movies, I don't think coincidentally, added imagination-capturing new things that we hadn't seen before, and the movies above all else must add imagination-capturing new things.

That the Sona and the Baku were boring doesn't mean the fault is new stuff; the fault is boring stuff.

Sorry I wasn't clear - your points are exactly what I was rather lamely trying to get across. First Contact worked because they used an enemy previously established and used them well and the ramifications for characters such as Picard and indeed the whole temporal element to it. Plus despite using an established enemy they did something exciting and well executed with them. And they did indeed do something new by adding the Borg Queen.

Definitely it would be horrible to do nothing new and I'd never advocate it - my point was that so far they've come up with rather lame new enemies. Perhaps using something familiar might help especially if they bring in directors and writers who have no real concept of what trek is. Of course the only problem with that argument is they sort of did that in Nemesis by taking the Romulans and adding the twist of the Remans.

But essentially it does come down to what you said twhatever they do can't be boring [Ba'ku/So'na] or poorly executed [Nemesis]. They just need to think harder and smarter.

 

[Gary7]

I think the key reason why I dislike Nemesis more than Insurrection is because it came afterward. Berman should have learned from Insurrection... instead he did worse. You're supposed to learn from your mistakes and grow, become better for it.

 

[Alrik]

I'll say only this. At least I can watch Insurrection. I can't say the same for Nemesis.

 

[RAMA]

Imsurrection and NEM are light years better than Generations, which was just a mess.

RAMA

 

[EnsignRicky]

They were both pretty bad, but Nemesis wins hands down. Whereas Insurrection was put together like a below average television episode hardly worthy of theatrical release, Nemesis was just a piss poor effort on every level. The cast and crew had grown so comfortable in their jobs that they thought they could slap one of these puppies together in their sleep. Well now we know the ugly truth.

 

[seigezunt]

Nemesis was bad, but INS was just plain booooooring.

 

[Alrik]

They were both pretty bad, but Nemesis wins hands down. Whereas Insurrection was put together like a below average television episode hardly worthy of theatrical release, Nemesis was just a piss poor effort on every level. The cast and crew had grown so comfortable in their jobs that they thought they could slap one of these puppies together in their sleep. Well now we know the ugly truth.

I beg to differ with that last part. According to many, the off performance of the cast lays soley in the lap of the director that knew nothing about Trek and TNG in prarticular. He had his own idea of how each character should act, even though much was contrary to everything that had come before it. That in itself is one of the main reasons I can't watch this trainwreck anymore.

 

[spaceballone]

I actually liked Insurrection. It is more like an episode but I dug it. The humor didn't bother me at all and while I think they could have done much better with that same basic story. In the end I can still sit down and enjoy Insurrection.

Nemesis does have some good moments but overall I have trouble sitting through it.

 

[GalaxyX]

Insurrection would have been a better watch if the Ba'ku were worthy of assistance.

 

[ClayHefner]

Hmm what was cool about INS?
- i liked the Son'a although the guy who killed Mozart carried them (like Combs barely carries the ENT Andorians). The others were just extras.
. The revelation about their origin was a cool twist in my opinion Also, that their ships were rather strong, but part of their power was from playing dirty, which was their undoing ultimately.
And the story worked, it made sense.And the ending wasn't that bad either. I didn't mind the less action-oriented approach at all.

It's the details which killed the movie. It was like every scene that didn't have Ruafo in it was brutally killed by a strange sense of humor and the stupid desire to give everyone their little scenes. This worked in FC but you can't make it work in every movie (and they should have learned from GEN, where Deanna crashed the D)
The actual "insurrection" part is where they should have known this would be bad, would not work. And that Anij wasn't interesting and hot enough.


what was cool about NEM?
- the ships. I kinda like them.

 

[Claudia]

I actually liked INS quite much. I didn't mind the slower pacing at all, and definitely could have done without the action sequence of Picard and Ruafo - especially the bit where the ENT doesn't beam Ruafo on board as well...

What takes some getting used to is the sort of humour that's used in INS - it's not TNG-humour, it's rather a weak copy of TOS like slapstick. And since the characters on a whole were a lot more serious in TNG than in TOS, that just doesn't work. And well, the whole plotthread with Data and the boy... I could have done without that and instead with even more of the main plot - even more Picard/Anij.

I definitely didn't see the twist with the Son'as' origin coming when I first watched INS, which of course puts an even further spin on the whole Prime Directive issue that's been so emphasized in the beginning of the movie.

On to NEM... I think it's actually quite a good movie in itself - but definitely not a good ST-movie. It really reminds me a bit of TWOK, in that again the captain has to face his nemesis and his best friend in the crew has to sacrifice himself, we even have the deus ex machina solution of getting Data back with B4 (Data after all transfered all his files into B4, sort of his katra...). And therein lies the whole problem. This is just not a new plot. What's annoying is is the fact that NEM *could have been* a really good movie. I thought the idea with Picard's clone had some merit - and I always wondered if there's any twin planet to Romulus called Remus. But the execution is hugely lacking. It all starts out as a coup d'etat on Romulus, but that's about it with the political side of this movie. I'd have loved to see more. It's after all one thing to start a revolt - but to actually be installed as the new praetor as a human, supported largely by Remans (the laborforce of the Romulans), that needs a bit more explanation than one senator and a few military commanders following Shinzon.

I think instead of focusing on reenacting TWOK and turning every plotthread personal, NEM should have concentrated on TUC - a political thriller, perhaps including the story between Shinzon and Picard, but definitely not turning Shinzon into some sort of powerobsessed man, but rather make him really ressemble Picard, cool, collected, passionate about the ideals he holds dear. I actually never got the grief Picard was showing in NEM - granted Shinzon was made up of his DNA, but he still was his own person, a person that Picard just has known for a few days and that he certainly isn't responsible for (especially not for the atrocious upbringing). Perhaps it would be different if Picard actually had a twin and someone had abducted him during their childhood - now finding him like this might cause such a severe reaction in Picard, but the way it was shown here just seemed wrong and wholly out of character.

Well, to me the 2 worst TNG movies are NEM and GEN (never really connected with that movie and definitely wasn't keen on any kind of crossover from the TOS...)