is soren the best trek movie villain?

[Brutal Strudel]

The fact that Khan and Kirk don't meet in person is what ELEVATES ST II. The movie is about more than two old men (or women) fighting on scaffolding, a device used in every TNG movie. I will not even dignify the idea of Nemesis having the 'best villian' far from it.

I would say Khan and the Whale Probe win, trek fans love Khan, the casual fan knows him (KHHHHHAAAAAANNNNNNN!), and they also loved and remember 'The One With The Whales'. Those clearly caught the zeitgeist and win in my book.

I don't think your argument for the what probe works because I don't think the non-fans who saw the movie even registered the thing--most of the movie (and all of the "funny" stuff) take place in 1986 with the probe nothing more than a vague threat. People didn't like Trek IV becasue it had a good villain (full disclosure: I despise TVH) but because it was a light and breezy romp.

You're right about Trek II, though--far better w/o a contrived face-to-face.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^Yeah, the fact that they didn't even realize that there was no face-to-face until after the fact doesn't mean that it was a missed opportunity...it means that they took the story where it wanted to go, and didn't shoehorn in an unnecessary element because it would have fit some expected formula. All of the other personal villains need face time with our heroes because they're all new to their respective movies...in TWOK, the villain already has a history with Kirk, and it's enough to know that even without having seen the TV episode.

I love TVH, but the whale probe is more of a plot device than a character. As far as enormous inorganic beings go, it has nothing on V'ger or the Doomsday Machine.

 

[22 Stars]

Thanks Brutal, I know what you mean about IV, I didn't mean to elevate the whale probe to that status, more so the fact that there was no bad guy in IV, like you said just a light and breezy romp, with an amusing problem for our beloved characters to solve.

 

[DarthPipes]

The subject of duality between Picard and Shinzon is an intriguing one (Picard says that if he had lived Shinzon's life he would have grown up the same way) and it helps that unlike Kirk and Khan, they have several face-to-face meetings in the movie. But I think Shinzon is hurt by the erracticness of his actions in Star Trek Nemesis. He's so obsessed with destroying Earth...why? Oh, that's right. He's a "conquer." I think it would have made more sense for him to destroy Vulcan, where the population is related to the Romulans, the people who brutalized him and oppressed the Remans for years. That would have been more intriguing. Not to mention that despite what it has to say about duality, Nemesis ultimately comes down to the cliched "bad man with a big gun" storyline.

Definitely Khan as the best villain, thanks to Montelbaun's performance and the history with Kirk. Though why they never meet face-to-face in the movie, I'll never understand.

I liked Soren and McDowell's performance. He's not a traditional villain, as he's not looking for power, money, or revenge. But he is an incredibly selfish man and you can definitely argue it's over-the-top nature. Kruge was a mustache twirler but I liked the character anyway.

 

[Phantassm]

I don't find sympathy for a guy willing to destroy an entire solar system even if it was to get back to his family.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

Picard with or without Kirk should have confronted Soran in the Nexus. Not only would it have given the audience a chance see what the non-obsessed Soran was like and what he lost but they logically should have taken a shot at convincing him not to go through with his plans. Their presence wrecking his Nexus fantasy would have made for a killer sequence, but a different and more expensive movie.

 

[msbae]

Best to worst Trek Villains

Khan
Chang (I accidently wrote "Change" before proof reading... )
Kruge
"God" (I'll let Sybok off the hook this time)
Borg Queen (hate the concept, but Krige is strangely appealling)
Soren
Adhar Ru'afo (both F. Murray Abraham and McDowell were cliched villains actors by the time of their Trek appearances, and that makes them stand out less, I think.)
Shinzon
V'ger
Whale Turd Log Probe

So, Soren is in the middle.

^^^This works for me... up to a point.

I don't feel comfortable saying anything about F. Murray Abraham's career being limited to bad guy roles. The only works of his I have seen were Insurrection and Scarface, both of which I liked very much.

Malcolm McDowell, well, he plays a great sociopathic villain. However, this guy did kill my childhood hero, Captain Kirk. So, I probably hate Soran more than most of the other bad guys. Lousy bastard...

 

[msbae]

Picard with or without Kirk should have confronted Soran in the Nexus. Not only would it have given the audience a chance see what the non-obsessed Soran was like and what he lost but they logically should have taken a shot at convincing him not to go through with his plans. Their presence wrecking his Nexus fantasy would have made for a killer sequence, but a different and more expensive movie.

...and probably a much better movie too. They really should have thrown us a bone considering how they killed Kirk, severely damaged Enterprise-B and destroyed Enterprise-D in the same film. I can't watch Generations anymore. That film just feels like too much of a kick in my balls.

 

[Nedersong]

So that director was actually an alien posing as human involved in the temproal cold war and was an enemy of the whales?

 

[cardinal biggles]

I don't feel comfortable saying anything about F. Murray Abraham's career being limited to bad guy roles. The only works of his I have seen were Insurrection and Scarface, both of which I liked very much.

You should definitely see him in Amadeus, for which Abraham won the Best Actor Oscar. Yeah, Salieri is the villain of the piece, but it's an incredibly layered, passionate performance. Another good performance of his is as Bernardo Gui in The Name of the Rose. That one's certainly more of the mustache-twirling variety, but it's an enjoyably over-the-top performance.

It's true, though, that F. Murray Abraham kind of has been relegated to playing the heavy. Even when he's playing a normal guy, he ends up being the heavy, like his role as the professor in Finding Forrester. He's not being malicious, he just thinks the kid plagiarized a paper.