Problems with Nemesis

[Good Will Riker]

OphaClyde said:
I was also put off by the cheapness of the production. Remember George Lucas was in the middle of making his Star Wars FX orgy. Trek's producers decide to give us a sci-fi movie using cheap looking sets lit with NEON that harkened back to late-80's TELEVISION. It was as if they hadn't picked their heads up to see that the industry, and sci-fi in particular, had evolved from the early days of TNG, but still expected fans to drop $8.00 to see their movie despite it being cheap and an admitted rehash.

Just compare Star Trek: Insurrection with that of The Matrix that came out only 4 months later. Leaps and bounds superior in everyway from the script, characterizations, and the special-effects. The Matrix took Star Trek's themes to a whole new level, and it wasn't even Star Trek, while Insurrection regressed 11 years and absolutely broke no new ground.

Star Trek: Nemesis, on the otherhand, was the studio's answer to dumb, empty, overblown popcorn flicks like Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, when the filmgoing public didn't even want that in the first place as Hollywood was shamelessly shoving that down our collective throats.

 

[Opus]

Good Will Riker said:

Just compare Star Trek: Insurrection with that of The Matrix that came out only 4 months later. Leaps and bounds superior in everyway from the script, characterizations, and the special-effects. The Matrix took Star Trek's themes to a whole new level, and it wasn't even Star Trek, while Insurrection regressed 11 years and absolutely broke no new ground.

Consider 'Insurrection' to what was on TV's Trek at the time. DS9 was doing "Favor the Bold'/'Sacrifice of Angels'. Voyager had just premiered 'Scorpion, pt 2'. We were getting better stories and SFX on TV for free than they were making for the big screen and expecting fans to cough up $8.00! NEM was more of the same a few years later.

I know I was frustrated that they couldn't seem to give us anything special in the TNG movies, including and especially NEM. I love TNG and felt they squandered its potential when they moved it to the big screen.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

They could've made the stories a bit more interesting when it came to INS and NEM.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Did you finally ever see Nemesis?

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I take the Fifth..?

 

[ancient]

I can summerize NEMESIS:

Young moron Picard clone SHINZON + Remans take over the Romulan empire. Shinzon hates Romulans. He wants to drink Picard's blood, and the Remans are basically Vampires.

He decides to blow up Earth, the Romulans try to stop him, Picard stabs him with a very weak wall support and everything explodes.

The End.

Also, Data died. Maybe. Whatever.

 

[Broccoli]

blockaderunner said:

Nebusj said:
Picard's Supercar adventure in Eegah's territory

Disembodied voice: "Watch out for snakes,".

All Picard needed was some surf music and an idiot with a guitar and he'd be set.

 

[DsZ]

I'm really late to the party, but I'll throw in my two cents anyway.

David cgc said:

ancient said:
Wow, someone is in smartass mode today I see. We've seen forcefields used to restrict the movements of armed intruders many times.

We've also seen them not used (or circumvented). Off-hand, there's Deadlock, The Way Of The Warrior, First Contact (the movie), Basics, and The Neutral Zone, notable for allowing just anyone to waltz onto the bridge during a red alert.

Although I sorta agree about the possibilites that the force fields can be circumvented, Id like to point out that First Contact doesn't really count since just because the Borg can't be stopped by force fields, doesn't mean the Remans can't.
Also, in The Way of the Warrior I don't really see where they could have used force fields, except for that one scene with Garak and Dukat in the hallway.
I don't really remember The Neutral Zone, so I won't comment on it and as for Deadlock and Basics well... it is Voyager we're talking about.
My point being, and ancient's too as far as I can tell, is that it's okay to not use the force fields (from a dramatic point of view) but it really stands out as stupid if you use them in the same episode/movie at some point.

Timo said:
Oh, no disagreement about that. It's just that, once things get to the part where the Viceroy roams the E-E, they briefly start making sense, sort of.

Which in itself makes sense, sort of. The henchman is much better off and acts more logically when rid of his idiotic commander.

You know, I sort of agree with you... sort of.

ancient said:
I can summerize NEMESIS:

Young moron Picard clone SHINZON + Remans take over the Romulan empire. Shinzon hates Romulans. He wants to drink Picard's blood, and the Remans are basically Vampires.

He decides to blow up Earth, the Romulans try to stop him, Picard stabs him with a very weak wall support and everything explodes.

The End.

Also, Data died. Maybe. Whatever.

That's awesome. They should put that on the back of the next DVD release. :thumbsup:

 

[General_Phoenix]

The Motion Picture is one I could easily never see again. I've watched it all the way through maybe..once. I don't know if I can subject myself to that kind of torture ever again. I can watch any of the other Star Trek movies fine up until the Next Generation ones, Generations, First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis I don't have the desire to see ever again. I'll watch Generations for the gorgeous shots of the Enterprise-B, then it's movie over.

 

[Tino]

The movie doesn't work for me either.

The writing is poor,
the pacing is very slow,
the humor is just forced,
the villian is uninspired ...

I would've cut out the entire B4-plot and tried
to make the movie shorter - thus making the pace
much quicker.

Can't someone make a cut of it? *lol*

 

[payndz201]

Broccoli said:

blockaderunner said:

Nebusj said:
Picard's Supercar adventure in Eegah's territory

Disembodied voice: "Watch out for snakes,".

All Picard needed was some surf music and an idiot with a guitar and he'd be set.

I wonder if Picard put water in his dune buggy's tyres?

 

[Peach Wookiee]

^LOL!

 

[AlphaMan]

Nemesis is not as bad as people would like to think, but if Trek was going to remain a viable franchise, it was going to have to do a lot better.

I think that Rick Berman's approach to the Trek movies was all wrong. He was trying to draw general audiences to see it believeing that the old Trekkers/Trekkies would support it no matter what. I think that if he had made an effort to please the core audience, embraced the mythos he helped to create, the good word of mouth would have helped Nemesis. Over the years, Berman helped create an entire mythos that we all appreciated at one time or another. The reason it didn't age well is due to his inability to take chances with it and have his characters grow.

Data for one. His character died pretty much the way he began in TNG Ep 1. What ever happened to the emotion chip or the borg Queen grafting flesh to him? For Spiner to have aged so much and portraying Data as a naive noob for 15 years made the character look like an embecile.

Absolutely no growth for Picard, Crusher, LaForge and in the middle of Nemesis, they try to grow Riker and Troi and I welcomed that. Worf took 10 steps backwards after his stint on DS9.

I've said it before... I believe the movie would have been better if it were about the Cardassians in post dominion War reconstruction instead of The Romulans. I think that if Shinzon were Gul Madred instead of some cockamamie Picard clone it would have been better recieved. You do not need to know much of the back story... Just that the Carddies got thier asses kicked but Picard got his ass kicked by Madred in the past and BAM... genral audences know all they need to know about the dynamic.

 

[ancient]

A lot of Nemesis suffers from lazy set up. Or plot points that they quickly run through but which make no sense if you give them any thought. For example:

Shinzon's background makes no sense. Shinzon says himself that the Romulans abandoned him to the mines of Moria, whoops I mean 'Remus'. And that he 'didn't see the stars again for ten years'. Ok, so he spent 10 years digging dirt.

However, Riker, or Data, or whoever, says that He was one of the most bada$$ uber-kickass Romulan fleet commanders during the Dominion War, and lead 12 major engagements, all a success!!

The problems with this: (as if I need to point them out)

-The romulans gave a human slave boy command of a Romulan fleet. Do these kinds of opportunities come along often for slaves? Did Uncle Tom get to be fleet captain of the U.S. Navy?

-How the hell do you even qualify?

-Seeing that Shinzon has a life expectancy of 18, is this chronically ill, driven insane slave, that we spent ten years whipping, and has nothing left to loose guy a good choice for fleet commander? Or anything? Sure. Let's give him the coolest uber-dreadnought ship in our fleet. This will turn out well....

 

[Holytomato]

The Titan novels are better than Nemesis. EEK!

 

[starburst]

The problem with Shinzon isnt his lack of hair as a young Picard, that was obviously done to make them look more alike and could be explained as a problem caused by his genetics falling apart (although it would have been better to start him with hair and him loose it)

The issue I had was that you saw a picture of Picard at the academy with NO HAIR, where as in previous episodes you saw him with hair (both as a young man and when he lost the Stargazer)

 

[Timo]

The romulans gave a human slave boy command of a Romulan fleet. Do these kinds of opportunities come along often for slaves? Did Uncle Tom get to be fleet captain of the U.S. Navy?

Where was it ever stated that Shinzon had any experience with starships?

He was the commander of Reman troops. But Reman troops were apparently just infantry, shipped to battlefields in vessels crewed by loyal Romulans. I very much doubt that Shinzon knew port from starboard, let alone that any of his so-called crew did.

Spartacus wasn't a naval captain, either... But when fortune hands you a ship, you don't turn it into lemonade. You utilize it for what it's built for, such as destroying your enemies.

The issue I had was that you saw a picture of Picard at the academy with NO HAIR, where as in previous episodes you saw him with hair (both as a young man and when he lost the Stargazer)

Interestingly enough, the "Academy" Picard has a shaved head without any hair at the sides, while the TNG-era Picard has a bald head with wisps at the temples. It could simply be that Picard used to shave while at the Academy.

The worse problem with that picture IMHO is that the person there (who doesn't look the slightest bit like Picard, but looks a lot like Shinzon, for obvious reasons) is not in a cadet uniform at all. He's wearing an enlisted crewman's jumpsuit...

Oh, well. My bet is that Picard isn't watching a picture of his younger self. He's watching a picture of a former friend or lover who used to look so uncannily like Shinzon that Picard just had to dig out that photograph!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Csalem]

Although annoying the bald Picard at the Academy can be explained away as Timo says. Maybe he knew he was going to go bald and decided to pre-empt it and then changed his mind. What I found more annoying is the implication that Beverly knew Picard at the Academy when there is about twenty years between them.

 

[InklingStar]

Picard shaved at the Academy - that one is easy. He was an athlete, and Admiral Hanson mentions him running a marathon. Athletes often shave their heads.

The Crusher issue is harder, considering I don't think she was born when Picard was in the Academy.

I watched Nemesis once, just to say I did. It makes me sad that this is the last of TNG. I'm rewatching the series in order, and marveling at how good it is. Nemesis was sloppily thrown together by people who knew nothing about what made the show great.

 

[cardinal biggles]

InklingStar said:
Picard shaved at the Academy - that one is easy. He was an athlete, and Admiral Hanson mentions him running a marathon. Athletes often shave their heads.

Oh, come on. I know it's a big game to try and provide a "Trek-world" explanation for everything, but what's wrong wtih admitting that somebody -- Baird? Logan? The makeup artists? -- fucked up because they thought the audience would be so retarded that they couldn't make the connection between some young guy in an old-timey Starfleet uniform and Picard reflecting on his Academy days?