Why Is Nemesis Unpopular?

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies I-X' started by Mr Light, Jan 3, 2014.

?

Nemesis

  1. Excellent

    3 vote(s)
    1.6%
  2. Good

    31 vote(s)
    16.4%
  3. Average

    49 vote(s)
    25.9%
  4. Bad

    50 vote(s)
    26.5%
  5. Terrible

    56 vote(s)
    29.6%
  1. The Overlord

    The Overlord Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Except Shinzon has no reason to hate the Federation and ever reason to hate the Romulans, the Romulans were the ones who were making his life a living hell, the Federation did not know he existed.

    Having Shinzon's ultimate goal to be the destruction of Romulus would have made sense and would have put the Enterprise in an interesting position, they have fight tooth and nail to save the home world of one their greatest enemies. Instead we got a cliched "We must save Earth" plot line and Shinzon hates Earth and the Federation for no good reason. Heck why would the Remans go along with this plan, instead of taking revenge on their oppressors, they going to destroy some people who never did anything to them? That is a pretty stupid form of revenge, it be like if a man killed another man's family and for revenge that man kills some completely innocent guy for no good reason. That doesn't make sense.

    That's why Shinzon's motives made no sense, he wants revenge against people who didn't even know he existed, rather then the people who actively ruined his life. I would believe Shinzon as a conflicted character, if the conflict was between his hatred of the Romulans and his basic human nature, there is no reasonable conflict, because Shinzon's goals don't make sense. I could buy Shinzon as a conflicted character if his hatred was justified, you say he has legitimate reason to hate the Romulans, even though committing genocide against them would be monstrous. Shinzon has no legitimate reason to hate Earth, so where is the conflict, why does he hate Earth in the first place? There is no believable conflict with Shinzon's half assed motivations.
     
  2. HaventGotALife

    HaventGotALife Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    It's not about revenge. He promised the Romulan Fleet the Federation. This is to solidify his power. He needs Picard to stay alive. That's the plan--capture Picard, survive the surgery. Attack Earth, get the Romulans on his side and bide his time. He only has the Scimitar right now. It may be a "predator" but it's not enough to wage war against an entire Empire. They show in the movie that he hates the Romulans. "You are not a woman, you are a Romulan." This takes more than one step. But he can't stick to the plan because of all these feelings of conflict within himself.
     
  3. Commishsleer

    Commishsleer Commodore Commodore

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    My point is that Shinzon has no charisma, none-at-all, not-a-bit IMO. The way they dressed him, used make on him, the way he spoke, his petty vengeances, his manipulations made just seem creepy IMO.

    I hear that Shinzon is a capable commander but I don't see it. Like I didn't see Nero as a terrific commander just because he had control of a super-ship and a doomsday weapon.

    Khan (both) had more charisma in his little finger than Shinzon showed with his scheming, destruction and even using others to help to mind-rape Troi.
    And Baird and the writers could have just done a few things to make me like Shinzon a bit more. Like having a real reason for attempting to destroy Earth, not dressing like a metrosexual, not raping anyone (especially with help), showing some regret for tough choices.

    Maybe he can be rehabilitated but I don't think he was worth rehabilitating just because he was Picard's clone.

    In the end I wondered why Picard wasted his breath in even talking to Shinzon. I thought he deserved his misery. He had a place with the Remans. He had had his vengeance. He had the power to do and go wherever he wanted.

    Saying all this I don't think Shinzon was significantly worse than the other Star Trek movie villains.
     
  4. Mr Light

    Mr Light Admiral Admiral

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    Hmm, it would make more sense if he was going to destroy Romulus instead of Earth, and then the Enterprise had to save their enemy. That would have been more interesting. Shinzon could have TOLD the Rommies he was going to destroy Earth for them, but then turn around and head for Romulus instead.
     
  5. The Overlord

    The Overlord Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Except that doesn't make any sense:

    1. If he is doing this just impress the Romulan military, why he is trying to kill everyone on Earth? The Romulan military turned against him because he was planning genocide rather then conquest, so his plan to kill everyone on Earth makes no sense.

    2. Why does Shinzon care about impressing the Romulans, he is dying, so he will not be around to consolidate his power and he seemed to be making a suicide attack on the Enterprise at the end of the movie, considering if he killed Picard, he would end up dead too. He has no reason to care what the Romulans think. Plus Shinzon had several chances to capture Picard and do the procedure, but he squandered all of them. He made the Enterprise wait for 17 hours for no good reason, when he captures Picard he takes forever to get the procedure ready, preferring to just sit around and later Shinzon is firing at the Bridge of the Enterprise, where Picard is, despite the fact he needs Picard to do the procedure. For someone's who's life can measured in days, he sure likes to take his time when comes to capturing Picard and doing the procedure that will save his life.

    3. Shinzon doesn't need to run the whole Empire to kill Romulus, he has a ship with a perfect cloak and a doomsday weapon, he can just say he is going to conquer Earth, fly out in that direction for a bit, engage the cloak, double back and use the radiation to kill everyone on Romulus.

    Having Shinzon attack Earth makes no sense and makes him a character that is inconsistently written, not conflicted. Having Shinzon attack Romulus and the Enterprise fight to save it, would have been so much better. Even the debates between Picard and Shinzon would have carried more weight, because it would be Picard debating with Shinzon about human nature, while Shinzon justifies himself with his need for vengeance against those who wronged him, something Picard gave into only two movies ago. Instead these debates fall flat, because its Picard trying to appeal to Shinzon's human nature and Shinzon rejecting that, so he can be a cliched evil villain who does evil things for no good reason.

    Make Shinzon sympathetic or make him pure evil, but don't try to play him as sympathetic in one scene and then completely evil in the next one.
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2014
  6. Tulin

    Tulin Vice Admiral Admiral

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    This.

    While I'd add - fucker Brent Spiner made sure they had a retarded back up in model in place, just in case he did an "I Am Not Data - Wait a minute, I can't do anything else and want back on this money train so I can pay for my retirement! Yes, I AM B4 or B9 or whatever the fuck they called that shitty thing" which COMPLETELY nullified any sense of loss when Data "died" because you KNEW that if there were another film, they'd just download his android katra back into his head or somesuch bullshit.



    Or, to the OP - Just go and watch the RLM review and see for yourself why this film sucked big fat hairy smelly donkey nuts!!!
     
  7. Tulin

    Tulin Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, but to know THAT, you'd have to have watched ENT!


    *shudders*
     
  8. Mr Light

    Mr Light Admiral Admiral

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    there were Remans in ENT?! I don't remember that at all! I'm actually just now re-watching it for the first time since it aired... I'm on Season 3...
     
  9. Smellmet

    Smellmet Commodore Commodore

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    Whilst I agree that Shinzon's character could have been written better, the way I see it, he wants to attack Earth because they are The Romulan's biggest enemies so by eradicating them the balance of power in the quadrant swings in his favor with him as ruler of the Romulan empire, with regards to him taking revenge against the people that gave him his shitty life, he is seen in the move to order the extermination of anyone not loyal to him, but generally I guess he figures these guys with their fleets of warbirds are more valuable to him alive and taking orders from him rather than turned to stone with his fancy green radiation.

    Where it falls down for me is his complete incompetence in capturing and keeping hold of Picard and his endless delays when the guy only has hours to live.

    I do however agree with an earlier poster that having the Enterprise trying to stop him attacking Romulus would have been a more interesting Trek moral dilemma type story
     
  10. Brutal Strudel

    Brutal Strudel Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    If we had seen more of that plan--destroy Earth, come back to Romulus as a Romulan hero, use that good will not to destroy Romulus but to enlsave it, as he and Remus (why am I thinking of Brer' Rabbit right now?) had been enslaved, that might have worked. Bur the movie needed to be clearer on that--if Logan even thought that far ahead.
     
  11. Smellmet

    Smellmet Commodore Commodore

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    Maybe but this is not enough to spoil my enjoyment of it, the end battle is absolutely awesome and one of my favorite bits in all of Trek
     
  12. Maxillius

    Maxillius Commander Red Shirt

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    Indeed. The public and crew below Commander thinks the Enterprise has 24 decks. The bottom 5 decks are for top-secret Section 31/Timelord stuff.
     
  13. Smellmet

    Smellmet Commodore Commodore

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    Not going to argue with that - it's a major 'Final Frontier' style boob in the film and arguably the movie's weakest scene - could have been cut easily with no loss, it wasn't even exciting to watch, Riker just seems to roll around with him like the middle aged tubby fucker he was
     
  14. Dukhat

    Dukhat Admiral Admiral

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    But it's not, really. Shinzon doesn't actually need the Romulans. All he ever needed from them was for Tal'aura to kill the Senate using his mini-thalaron doohickey. Why he was continuing to allow the Romulans to keep bugging him about attacking the Federation after that was a complete mystery. He could have just put them all to death. You can even tell that it's not something he even really cares about, until the point where he realizes it's too late to steal Picard's blood (because he's been a dumbass about that all this time). Then all of a sudden he gives in to the Romulans' pressure? Why the hell would he even care at this point? He's gonna die!

    Yes, they were there. Unfortunately, just like everything in ENT, it was retroactive (i.e. even though ENT takes place 200 years before Nemesis, IRL the movie was filmed before the ENT episode they were featured in). So not only did they look exactly the same as they do in the 24th century, they're even wearing the same silly leather/rubber outfits that Tim Burton might have designed for his old Batman movies. Luckily they don't actually do anything in ENT.
     
  15. Smellmet

    Smellmet Commodore Commodore

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    But why attack them when they are following your orders and have a fleet of warbirds at their disposal? OK he may have possession of the weapon, but even if he got the chance to use it, it's the Romulan Star Empire we're talking about here, I'm sure they have more than enough warbirds to deal with the Scimitar.

    Attacking the Romulans main enemy makes perfect sense to me, then he can rule the quadrant, Vader-style...
     
  16. AgentCoop

    AgentCoop Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    But isn't Shinzon in a better position with a weaker Romulan Empire? Wouldn't he be better off saying "Put me in charge and THEN I'll take out Earth and cripple the Federation"? It seems like, by going after Earth first, he's cashing in his big bargaining chip before he gets anything in return.
     
  17. Smellmet

    Smellmet Commodore Commodore

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    But during the movie, they are on his side - why would he turn on them at that point? All that would happen would be a civil war that he wouldn't necessarily win, after all he does only have 1 ship - the Scimitar
     
  18. The Overlord

    The Overlord Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    But why does he want he want to run the Romulan Empire at all, if he hates all of them? It would be like a Jewish guy who wants to run Nazi Germany. That's the problem with this motive, the movie sets up Shinzon to hate the Romulans and somehow he wants to further their objectives instead. The movie sets up Shinzon's motive to be revenge rather then mere power lust, so it makes Shinzon's reason for attacking Earth even more unbelievable.

    This motive would have worked better if Shinzon was a simply a powerful and ambitious Romulan commander, a patriot who is Picard's counter part in the Romulan fleet, who has reason to further the Romulan Empire's goals and would have more a concrete reason to hate the Federation, that is how you make an villain with good motives, make the motives make sense.

    This would be like if in Wrath of Khan, after setting up that Khan hates Kirk, blames Kirk for his exile and the death of his wife, Khan instead decides to invade the Klingon Empire, just for kicks. It wouldn't make sense.
     
  19. Robert Maxwell

    Robert Maxwell memelord Premium Member

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    The fact that people have to perform so many backflips and logical contortions to make sense of Shinzon's motivations should be a clear indicator that he's a muddled, inconsistently-written villain. A good villain has clear motives. He can be an ambiguous character, but his actual motives--the specific threat he poses to the hero(es) of the story--need to be clearly defined, or you have failed in the purpose of creating a villain.
     
  20. HaventGotALife

    HaventGotALife Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I will say that I am starting to agree with you. Some of the points brought up in this thread are relevant and something I did not see. It hasn't changed my opinion of the movie; it's still the second best TNG film (and about 500 of the 650 movies I remember watching in my life), but his motives are not as clear as I thought. There's not a logical, clear-cut motive and why he shifts from one moment to the next, is just bad writing. I still think he's interesting, but he fails to make the logic test.

    I think the interplay with Picard and Shinzon is interesting and there is an old-fashioned TNG message attached to the movie. The crew works and an ensemble for the first time in the movie franchise (TNG). I am about to read a book called "Nature via Nurture" and one of my first thoughts when I picked it up was about this movie. I still don't understand why we focus on the flaws in this movie and Insurrection, and not on the other two films. I think because it was a commercial bomb, we have a tendency to find it an easy target.