STAR TREK: NEMESIS
Jonathan Frakes certainly has his work cut out for him.
Yes, it’s true. Number One is back in the director’s chair again with this, the tenth film in the seemingly endless STAR TREK franchise.
And before you decide whether or not you should read anything I have to say about the latest even-numbered entry in the series, know this: I’m notorious around these parts as the guy who doesn’t like STAR TREK. Not the original series, not the NEXT GENERATION, not DS9, and not VOYAGER. Overall, I think there are bright spots here and there over the course of what I’ve seen, and I don’t "hate" the shows. As far as the film series goes, I still think WRATH OF KHAN is the Gold Standard by which the films should be judged. THE VOYAGE HOME, a fan favorite, bugs me because of how jokey and deeply silly it is. I’d say my second favorite of the films is FIRST CONTACT because, like KHAN, it’s an adventure film first and foremost, and it doesn’t depend on a casual viewer’s total immersion in the arcana of the series in order to be enjoyed.
Having said all of that, I’m encouraged by the direction STAR TREK: NEMESIS seems to be heading. The screenplay by John Logan, from a story by Logan, Rick Berman, and Brent Spiner, is compellingly built, and if this turns out to be the last NEXT GENERATION installment in the series, as has been rumored, it’s a great place to leave these characters. There is a sense of closure for them, even if the film allows for an open ending.
The film opens with a credit sequence that sets up the film’s central mystery. We see molecules being manipulated, genes being spliced. We see a meeting of the Romulan senate, a three year old human boy standing before them, alone and scared. We see the surface of the Reman homeworld, sister planet to Romulus, cloaked entirely in shadow, where the boy is led down into the firey mines after one last look up at the stars overhead. The images are stark and simple, and when they pay off later in the script, I’d even describe them as haunting.
From there, we cut to Earth. Alaska, specifically, where the wedding reception of Will Riker and Deanna Troi is underway. Picard is serving as best man, and delivering the toast, wishing them "full sails and a clear horizon." All the regular characters are in attendance: Beverly Crusher, Geordi La Forge and his girlfriend Dr. Leah Brahms (from the episodes "Galaxy’s Child" and "Booby Trap," as noted in the script), Commander Worf, hungover from the bachelor party the night before. Data performs Irving Berlin’s "Blue Skies" with the band, an obvious toss to Spiner’s abilities as a song-and-dance man. In some ways, this scene is what bugs me about STAR TREK. Everyone makes their big entrance, and it always feels like they’re throwing the fans a bone. It feels to me like when Fonzie would make his entrance in HAPPY DAYS or when Ted Danson would walk on in CHEERS and the audience would applaud. The actors would take their moment, soak it up, and any sense of reality just evaporated. In an adventure movie, I don’t really need five pages where Beverly Crusher asks Worf "Do Klingons swing?" On the other hand, for hardcore fans, I suppose these introductory scenes are like family reunions, and that balance between servicing the casual viewer and the devoted fan is part of what makes certain films in the series work and others fail.
Back on the Reman homeworld, we learn just how much time has passed when we meet Shinzon, the film’s major villain. He and his Viceroy look up at Romulus in the sky above, a glowing point of light, and talk about how their plan is about to come to pass. It’s standard bad guy stuff, and it’s always the least interesting part of any film like this. Logan handles it quickly, though, and with economy, and that’s what makes the script snap.
Back onboard the Enterprise, they’re en route to Betazed for the actual wedding ceremony, which is to be held in the nude, much to Worf’s horror. Picard and Data have one of their patented conversations about a facet of human behavior. It’s fairly comfortable stuff until they pick up an electromagnetic signature in a distant system, an unusual one. Positronic. This seems particularly odd since such a signature could only come from an android like Data, and since there are only supposed to be two androids with such a signature (Data and Lore), it proves impossible for the Enterprise to pass without checking it out.
Picard, Data, and Worf take a shuttle to the surface, mainly so Picard can get a chance to drive a giant 24th Century military jeep. There are a number of moments in this film in which Picard seems to be taking joy in life’s simple things, like a man realizing he’s near the end of something, and it’s this characterization more than any other that makes the script work, I think. Patrick Stewart has always been, hands down, my favorite performer in any of the STAR TREK material I’ve seen, and he deserves this sort of role.
Instead of solving the mystery of the positronic signals, they find another mystery, even more confounding. The signals are coming from a perfect replica of Data that has been disassembled and scattered across the desert floor. As they pick the pieces up, they are attacked by a group of alien nomads, and a major action set piece unfolds. There’s a lot of comedy mixed in with the action, and it’ll be interesting to see if Frakes can blend the two with the deft touch required.
It’s especially tricky because it leads right into the real kick-off of the plot involving Shinzon. He and his Reman soldiers break in on the Romulan Senate and announce their plans to engage the Federation in a full-blown military campaign to take back the Neutral Zone. One of the reasons it seems like a perfect fit having John Logan write this script is because he brings the same energy to this material that he did to the political maneuverings in GLADIATOR.
The two seemingly unrelated storylines start to come together quickly as Shinzon manipulates the situation from Romulus and Data attempts to unravel the mystery behind his new "brother," B-9 (or Benign, as he’s called). Data’s disappointed because Benign seems to be no smarter than a child. There’s an odd relationship that plays out between these two beings that seem identical on the surface but are nothing alike inside. For Data, this is the defining moment in his quest to define his identity.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that it’s the Enterprise that gets pressed into service when the Federation learns of the situation on Romulus. It’s certainly no coincidence. As soon as the Enterprise is in orbit above Romulus, it is engaged by Shinzon’s Romulan Warbird, the Scimitar, a ship that is at least twice the size of the Enterprise, armed with weaponry that the Federation is totally unaware of. Upon their first meeting, Deanna senses a deep rage from Shinzon that seems to be entirely focused on Picard. Scared for a reason he can’t define, Picard ends up talking to none other than Captain Janeway in a cameo role (she’s got two big scenes).
It’s page 52 when the film’s biggest bombshell is dropped, a plot twist that had Robogeek gasping in annoyance when I told it to him last week. I won’t give it away here, but I will remind you that Paramount has already confirmed that the film has something to do with cloning. The nature of Shinzon and his "brother" mirrors the storyline between Data and his, and it pays off in a number of unexpected ways. In both cases, one of the pair has a weakness that makes him somehow "lesser" than his twin, and in both cases, hard choices have to be made about what looking into this mirror image says about one’s self. Both of these twins were created for possibly dangerous purposes, and both are eventually brought to understand something about their better natures.
The rest of the film is a balls-out action film, unrelenting in pace, and should please audiences immensely as long as Paramount doesn’t pull their standard low-ball horseshit on the FX budget. Spring for ILM. You won’t have many more chances to please the fans, and if this delivers, you’ll be pleasing a much larger audience than normal. This could well turn into the largest crossover hit for STAR TREK since WRATH OF KHAN. There’s a definite echo in the ending of this film as one of the major players sacrifices him or herself in a very moving way, and the results of that play out over the last ten pages with real honesty. As long as they don’t undermine the move a la SEARCH FOR SPOCK, it should stand as one of the emotional high points for all involved.
If all sequels were approached with the sense of invention that these two seem to have been, then perhaps "sequel" wouldn’t be such a dirty word. Let’s just hope that the journey from script to screen for these projects is a successful one, and that they prove to be the enormous entertainments they look like at this stage.
I’m really, really bummed. Frak this film. Abrams knew what he was doing, and now the most important thing on this planet—the revival of Star Trek—has been forever ruined by life-changing alterations. Forget the crisis in Darfur, this is the real tragedy happening right now. 
I mean, a Camaro? A Camaro?!?!? I urge each and every one of you to get flipping furious over this. You’re not fans if you don’t.
