Why Is Nemesis Unpopular?

[The Overlord]

He is an entirely two dimensional villain. Khan was awesome due to his history with Kirk, his plain motivations and his ego. Shinzon is just a cardboard cut-out. He seems to not really have any singular motivation.

I think he has a motivation, but it's nothing stated in the movie or as easy to access as Khan. The genius of Khan is while he has very clear-cut motives, he fits into the motif of the movie. Genesis, as well as Khan, are creations of our genius that out-paced our morality. Khan works on many levels, is my point.

Shinzon's motivation is to find fulfillment; his place in the universe. He is a very confused, young man. He doesn't know if he wants to destroy Earth, or if he wants to learn more about being human from Picard. Where is his place in the world?


"The Remans have given me a future, but you can tell me about my past. Were we Picards always warriors?"
"I like to think of myself as an explorer."
"Were we always explorers?"

He builds a connection with Picard, here. He sees himself in Picard, and vice versa. This allows him to consider life in peace, being human.

"Do not forget our mission, Shinzon. We must act--now!"
"We will return to the Scimitar. I was merely curious about him."

Reality comes back to him. He feels trapped by his mission, his Viceroy, or pseudo father, beckoning him to return to his warrior ways.

His relationship with Picard leads to this exchange:

"It's about destiny, Picard! It's about a Reman outcast--"
"You're not Reman!"
"And I'm not quite Human! So what am I?!?"

Why would he explain himself otherwise, to his enemy?

Picard recognizes that he can have an effect on the man Shinzon becomes! He realizes that he is looking for fulfillment. And, therefore, Picard says this:

"Oh, yes. I know you. There was a time you looked to the stars and dreamed of what was out there."
"Childish dreams, Captain. Lost in the dilithium mines of Remus! I am what you see, now."

Shinzon is trying to convince himself as much as he's telling Picard. It makes little sense for him to continue talking to him, to let this questioning and lecture go on. But he does it, because he is conflicted.

"I see more than that. I see what you could be. The man who is Jean-Luc Picard and Shinzon of Remus could never exterminate the population of an entire planet. He's better than that."

Conflicted, he says it with more authority now. He knows Picard is right; he's getting to him. But he has to stay with his Reman brothers.

"I can't fight what I am!"
"Yes, you can!"

And here is where he makes his choice. This is where the movie turns and Picard loses all hope that he can win this one over.

"I will always and forever be Shinzon of REMUS! And my voice shall echo throughout time long after yours has faded to a dim memory!!"

When he says "Kill everything on that ship," he is recognizing, just as Khan did, that he is defeated. Picard will never surrender. His boarding party didn't bring him Picard. And Picard is bound and determined to stop him. He must stop the Enterprise to continue on his mission, whether he survives to rule the Romulan Empire or not.

I think it's very clear to anyone who's asked that question of him or her self: What am I? Where do I belong? Where will I find fulfillment? What are these urges within me?

He's not as committed as Khan, for sure. He's a young and troubled man. He doesn't feel at home with Remans or with Humans. That's a terrible place to be. He has gotten what he wants--freedom. Now, what does he do with it? All that talent for warfare and the ability to move an audience of Remans to revolt and he cannot deal with his personal demons.

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.

 

[HaventGotALife]

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.

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.

 

[Commishsleer]

He's not as committed as Khan, for sure. He's a young and troubled man. He doesn't feel at home with Remans or with Humans. That's a terrible place to be. He has gotten what he wants--freedom. Now, what does he do with it? All that talent for warfare and the ability to move an audience of Remans to revolt and he cannot deal with his personal demons.

You know I want to feel it but I just don't.
I just can't force myself to care about Shinzon. I'm trying to pinpoint it. He just doesn't have the charisma or something. I also didn't even get how he rose to power, how he managed to get followers and why that hot Romulan woman even fancied him a bit.

To me he comes off like one of the many criminals in jail today in the US from a bad background. He likes to think he's a freedom fighter for the Remans but all he wants to do with that power in mind-rape innocent Troi and assert his power by destroying an innocent planet.
You know for all their flaws Nero, Khan, Rufao, the Borg queen believed in their causes. Shinzon has all the morality and strength of Lore. It would have been an easy tweak for the writers to make me have a bit of empathy for Shinzon but all they wanted to do was make Picard look good IMO.

To be fair, the original nitpick was that he didn't have a "clear motivation." I wasn't trying to get you to like him. I figured using the word "conflicted" would make that clear, apparently.

He hasn't been around anyone to guide him. He is like a criminal in prison, but not a hardened criminal. He is a man of circumstance, a patsy, a man looking for brotherhood in joining a gang. Given positive influences and supports to help guide him, he could be rehabilitated. He doesn't totally believe in what he is doing. He is not raging, he is angry. He is not sure what he should do as a leader. He is manipulated; easily swayed.

He has talent--he is a charismatic leader, he is a strong man to dream of a better day in the middle of all of that, and he is a capable commander in battle. He has done what no one else could: free the Remans. As Stuart Baird said: "He's more successful than Picard." He is. But it's not enough to give him a place in the universe, a home.

This proves, in this movie, that not only do circumstances (people in your life, life experiences, how soon you deal with trauma) make the man or woman (interacts with genes, personality, etc.), but that no matter what a person has in terms of power, affluence, wealth, charisma, if you are never given peace of mind, you will be miserable.

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.

 

[Mr Light]

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.

 

[The Overlord]

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.

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.

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.

 

[Tulin]

a bald cybergoth version of Hayden Christensen.

YES! This was the worst part about Shinzon!

The movie had so many things wrong with it. It regurgitated a lot of the same worn out TNG tropes, like the not funny at all "comedic moments", and the cringe inducing conversations like "Romulan Ale should be illegal" "It IS illegal!". Yuck! All to try to milk comedy out of mocking the characters.

Also it promises us Romulans, and instead we get these vampire creatures right out of an Ed Wood movie.

Also it has a dune buggy scene that has absolutely nothing to do with the movie, and is there simply so Patrick Stewart can go dune bugging. What an asshole, ruins a movie just so he can show his geriatric ass driving a dune buggy on screen.

Then the whole movie is dark (literally and figuratively). I wanted to scream "Damn it! turn on the goddamn lights!". The whole movie was depressing, particularly watching all the characters looks so worn out, tired and looking like they could give 2 fucks.

Then they kill off Data. You do not. kill. Data. You just don't do it!

So yeah, the movie goes from bad to worse, and leaves you feeling like you got sucker punched right in the gut, and while you're wheezing for air on the floor, it kicks you 3 times in the balls and your teeth.

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!!!

 

[Tulin]

^The Remans did briefly appear in Enterprise's fourth season, and that was 200 years before Nemesis

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


*shudders*

 

[Mr Light]

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...

 

[Smellmet]

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

 

[Brutal Strudel]

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.

 

[Smellmet]

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

 

[Maxillius]

Riker had to go alone because the secret of the bottomless pit on the lowest deck of the ship is highly classified....

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.

 

[Smellmet]

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

 

[Dukhat]

It's not about revenge. He promised the Romulan Fleet the Federation. This is to solidify his power.

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!

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...

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.

 

[Smellmet]

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...

 

[AgentCoop]

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.

 

[Smellmet]

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

 

[The Overlord]

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

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.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

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.

 

[HaventGotALife]

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.

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.