Nemesis

[lurok]

Agree with a lot of good comments here, esp. from GalaxyX. Just wanted to add a few observations:

Baird was an editor originally, and like a lot of editors-turned-director (Robert Wise, for example) knows how to pace a film. Made a couple of decent popcorn actions films (Executive Decision, US Marshalls) and has apparently 'rescued' quite a few others in editing room (Demolition Man I think was one). Nem was one of better action late-Trek films for me. Think Frakes is better at character, but INS felt like a TV ep blown up to big screen.

Villain - the genius of TWOK is that without even knowing Space Seed, within that brief set-up on Ceti Alpha you get: Kirk abandoned me here, left us to die without caring and is responsible for wife's death. Plus - and this is real filmmaking skill, which you can appreciate on big screen 70mm viewing - Khan's books include Moby Dick and several others with revenge/power theme. All this in a tidy script101 capsule lets you know this is Khan v Kirk and no more really needs be said. As others have said so eloquently, NEM just goes on and on and never handles its Shinzon theme as succinctly or eloquently.

Battles - think NEM rift battle seq pretty good and probably best in late trek. But again, the genius of TWOK was to play it out as a naval battle. The music, suspense and stately majesty of ships just makes it superior to the more frenetic cgi versions.

Death - admit not a TNG fan so Data's death didn't move me. But if I was a non-trek fan just watching this as an action movie, I might still think: ok, so the robot-guy dies at end. But he's a robot so who cares? And anyway, isn't he still kind of alive in that dumb robot that looks like him? Talk about a get-out clause. Whereas in TWOK, the cool guy with the ears, the captain's best friend, sacrifices himself to save the ship. He really is dead. No contest. I imagine that when people first walked out of TWOK they probably thought: wow, Spock's dead but hey, he went out a hero. And even if there's not another film, you're going to be left with a bitter-sweet but ultimately uplifting feeling about friendship, sacrifice and good coming from evil.

 

[heavylids]

4. Parts of this flick are almost parody of sci-fi adventure: the opening ooh-look-at-them-develop opening credits followed by barbaric tam-tam laden, barbarism music; the ultra-crunchy spikey bad guy ship. Maybe they should use those again if they ever make a Star Trek movie again, say in 2009. Oh wait . . .

I do think Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek 2009 have a lot more in common than most people want to admit.

It's occurred to me too -- Star Trek '09 is actually a lot like Nemesis done right. Except it's an origin story rather than a finale. Well, they're quite similar anyway.

I agree. My big complaint about XI is Nero. And Shinzon was just as bad if not worse.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I've always blamed Baird and John Logan. To a lessor degree Spiner and Stewart. The script was indeed just plain awful. I've always wondered how someone who claimed and was lauded as being a big Trek fan as John Logan was at the time could manage to come up with such a piece of crap script.

Nick Meyer watched all 79 episodes of the original series and turned in a script that resulted in what most fans would describe as being the best Trek film ever made. Logan claimed to be a fan and watched all the TNG episodes and films and yet turned in a piece of crap. It didn't help that Baird didn't know the characters properly enough to direct them correctly. The actors can only do so much themselves and they did so in the film I believe. I also believe as I said to a lesser degree that Brent Spiner's NEED/DEMAND to kill off Data hurt the plot. Whatever story they came up with was always going to include this plot point. I think they could have come up with something better than a WTOK rip off.

 

[ColeMercury]

Thing is, I can't hate Logan or Baird. I thought Logan's screenplays for The Aviator and Sweeney Todd were brilliant, and I even liked The Time Machine (maybe I'd have hated it if I'd read the book before watching the movie, I dunno, but the fact they're so different doesn't bother me). And Baird edited Superman and Casino Royale. I can blame them for the crappy film they wrote and directed, but I can't hate them.

It's the same with Rick Berman & Brannon Braga -- Berman wrote the episode "Brothers", and Braga wrote a bunch of absolutely brilliant TNG episodes as well as the short-lived TV series Threshold. And also Akiva Goldsman -- I hate his two Batman movies, but I think his writing is absolutely brilliant on Fringe.

 

[beamMe]

...(again, it's not Hardy's acting that sucked, it was the script).

This!
So This!
Shinzon may have been a poor character, but I loved every second of Hardy playing him.

 

[Amaris]

Agreed. Watching Hardy in other films, I saw how good of an actor he really is, and so I try to go into NEM with that in mind.

 

[JRS]

As I'm fond of saying, "just because it's different doesn't mean it's good". That guy Baird had no business directing a Star Trek movie.

I agree with you.
I still find it odd that the last TNG movie was directed by a guy who didint know Star Trek at all..and all honestly did not propably care much about it at all I think Jonathan Frakes should have directed again. He did very good job with First Contact and Insurrection.

I think editing is also to blame. If you look at the deleted scenes, you will notice that most of the deleted stuff is quite good:

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT8sAVsRgCs

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmRnu0FTUNs

They should have kept the chateau Picard scene, the one where Troi and Picard talk on the corridor and the scene where Geordi and Worf visit Datas quarters after he has died(these scenes would have added the film much needed TNG feel and emotinal impact to the movie)
I also like the scene where Riker, Troi and Word discuss the honeymoon
There was also some nice Crusher stuff that could have been lef there.
The alternate ending(minus seatbelts) would have been also good.
They really sucked out the energy and emotion from the characters..and also the TNG feel from the movie, mostly anyway..

 

[ShatnersToupee]

Nemesis is proof of why you don't let a Star Trek fan write a Star Trek movie. Most fans love TWOK. So it's no surprise that Logan essentially gave us his version of TWOK instead of coming up with someone original. And like the worst examples of fanfic, he gave us "wouldn't it be cool" moments. For example, wouldn't it be cool if the bridge got hit and crewmembers were blown out into space? Wouldn't it be cool if the Enterprise rammed the villain's ship? Wouldn't it be cool if Data jumped from one ship to another? Wouldn't it be cool to have a dune buggy scene where it even flies into a shuttle? The script for Nemesis just reeks of fanboy.

 

[DarKush]

^
This is an oft-stated gripe about 'fans ruining this or that', but it could also be said that maybe a fan would know the characters better, the stories better, could provide those little character moments that other fans were looking forward to and that could add some emotional resonance to the film (s).

Maybe its just an issue of Logan being the wrong writer for Nemesis? At the time who would've guessed that, not me because I loved Gladiator. Or more than likely Baird being the wrong director, than it being an issue of fans being unable to write Trek films or other things they like. Granted, TWOK is a favorite among many and so its not necessarily a bad thing to want to emulate that. Also, Logan's wasn't the only movie that did so. After Khan, most of the films tried to have a charismatic, brilliant villain to match wits with the hero (Kruge, Sybok, Chang, Soran, Borg Queen, Ru'afo, Shinzon, and even Nero).

I didn't care for Nemesis, though it got better with repeated viewing. I think the absence of character moments hurt the film, the insertion of Worf without explanation, B-4, Shinzon's plan made little sense to me, but the focus on the Romulans was a good move (I wish they had actually focused on them), the cinematography, production values, and action for the most part were decent to good.

 

[DarKush]

I never really thought about it until you said it but it is amazing how similar the two movies are right down to the villians both being Romulan (or a Romulan made clone), bald, and they both had the Preator's staff. The only good thing Trek09 had going for it were no clones unless you take into account Prime old Spock and Alternate universe young Spock.

As I said in another post it should have been Lore instead of B4 and maybe Sela instead of Shinzon. Sela would have more reason to attack Earth since she is half human and thinks of her human mother as weak. As for Trek09 the alternate universe angle kind of removes any sense of danger since whatever they do like destroying Vulcan doesn't mean anything since the prime universe is still out there.

I guess there are more similarities to NEM and ST than I realized too. However, I think Nero's motivation is a little clearer than Shinzon's. If Shinzon had turned that weapon on Romulus that would've made more sense to me.

I do agree that it should've been Sela as the main villain. It would've given Nemesis more of a full circle feel, to bring Denise Crosby back, plus with all the other cameos (wish Diana Muldaur had been included too during the wedding ceremony). Sela had more of personal animus against the TNG crew that was long established, plus an established hatred of humanity. In fact, I could see her being a threat to both the Feds and the Klingons stemming from her role in the Klingon-Civil war and in later episodes. If they didn't want to go with Crosby as the main adversary I wish they had at least included her in a cameo or supporting role. But in any event the main villain should've been a Romulan. If they had to do the android subplot, it should've been Lore.

 

[sonak]

Nero's motivations are CLEARER than Shinzon's?

I think Nero has by far the worst motivations of any villain in the film series.


He wants revenge on the guy who was the main person who was specifically trying to selflessly help the Romulans, but was just a little late in doing so?


what was the idea? He can't have revenge on a natural phenomenon so he just picked a random person to have his revenge on?

 

[Tomalak]

Wouldn't it be cool to have a dune buggy scene where it even flies into a shuttle?

Didn't they have to put that scene in to get Stewart to do the film?

 

[BillJ]

Nero's motivations are CLEARER than Shinzon's?

I think Nero has by far the worst motivations of any villain in the film series.


He wants revenge on the guy who was the main person who was specifically trying to selflessly help the Romulans, but was just a little late in doing so?


what was the idea? He can't have revenge on a natural phenomenon so he just picked a random person to have his revenge on?

I think his motivation works alot better if they had included a line about the Vulcan's being resistant to helping Romulus that is in Star Trek: Countdown.

 

[BlobVanDam]

Nero's motivations are CLEARER than Shinzon's?

I think Nero has by far the worst motivations of any villain in the film series.


He wants revenge on the guy who was the main person who was specifically trying to selflessly help the Romulans, but was just a little late in doing so?


what was the idea? He can't have revenge on a natural phenomenon so he just picked a random person to have his revenge on?

This was one of my gripes with the film. His motivation was just as poor as Shinzon's, if not much worse. I don't think it was as intergral a part of the story as Shinzon's motivations though, so I don't feel it detracted from the movie as much.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

At least Nero had one motivation, and that was to screw over the Federation. Shinzon had a different motivation every five seconds.

It's like he was suffering from multiple personality disorder.

 

[BlobVanDam]

At least Nero had one motivation, and that was to screw over the Federation. Shinzon had a different motivation every five seconds.

It's like he was suffering from multiple personality disorder.

That's not really a motivation. That's a goal. What is his reason for screwing over the Federation? One Vulcan failed to save his planet in time. How did that lead to wanting to take down the Federation? (Legit question, as it made no sense at the time, and I haven't watched it since it came out).

 

[Tomalak]

At least Nero had one motivation, and that was to screw over the Federation. Shinzon had a different motivation every five seconds.

It's like he was suffering from multiple personality disorder.

That's not really a motivation. That's a goal. What is his reason for screwing over the Federation? One Vulcan failed to save his planet in time. How did that lead to wanting to take down the Federation? (Legit question, as it made no sense at the time, and I haven't watched it since it came out).

Spock destroyed his world, so he wanted to destroy Spock's. Vulcan and Earth obviously.

 

[JarodRussell]

At least Nero had one motivation, and that was to screw over the Federation. Shinzon had a different motivation every five seconds.

It's like he was suffering from multiple personality disorder.

That's not really a motivation. That's a goal. What is his reason for screwing over the Federation? One Vulcan failed to save his planet in time. How did that lead to wanting to take down the Federation? (Legit question, as it made no sense at the time, and I haven't watched it since it came out).

Spock destroyed his world, so he wanted to destroy Spock's. Vulcan and Earth obviously.

Only that Spock didn't destroy his world.


It's like when a Japanese miner now declares war on the United States because they couldn't prevent the earthquake, or the radioactive fallout.

 

[sonak]

At least Nero had one motivation, and that was to screw over the Federation. Shinzon had a different motivation every five seconds.

It's like he was suffering from multiple personality disorder.

That's not really a motivation. That's a goal. What is his reason for screwing over the Federation? One Vulcan failed to save his planet in time. How did that lead to wanting to take down the Federation? (Legit question, as it made no sense at the time, and I haven't watched it since it came out).

Spock destroyed his world, so he wanted to destroy Spock's. Vulcan and Earth obviously.

Er, that's not accurate at all, but it does go to show how folks will defend the ridiculous motivations of Nero, because they like Star Trek XI, and harp on Shinzon's because they hate Nemesis.


I liked Star Trek XI too, but really, Nero's motivations were just indefensibly stupid.



If there are non-canon sources that help this, that's fine, but it's not in the movie, so it doesn't make the writers look better.

 

[BlobVanDam]

At least Nero had one motivation, and that was to screw over the Federation. Shinzon had a different motivation every five seconds.

It's like he was suffering from multiple personality disorder.

That's not really a motivation. That's a goal. What is his reason for screwing over the Federation? One Vulcan failed to save his planet in time. How did that lead to wanting to take down the Federation? (Legit question, as it made no sense at the time, and I haven't watched it since it came out).

Spock destroyed his world, so he wanted to destroy Spock's. Vulcan and Earth obviously.

But Spock didn't destroy Romulus. Romulus was being destroyed regardless of Spock's intervention. Spock merely failed to save the planet, but nobody on Romulus managed to save the planet either. It was a flimsy motivation at best.