Absolutely. NEM was stuffed with so many needless elements and alleged "homage" to previous TOS films that it choked on itself before it even had a chance. At least that ramming scene looked cool, right? There's a reason to incessantly rewatch the movie in glorious 318,000x216,000 resolution when 69k comes out... well, it's closer to 68.688,000,000k and 68k simply sounds too nerdy given the modern day informal vernacular attributed to technology "tech", unprofessional rewrite of computer error messages (whoever "we" are in those wretched error messages, it's a machine and not a sentient being, but let's round it up for a cheap laugh anyway. even cheaper as today's color rendering technology yields far more colors than what the human eye will ever be able to perceive, it becomes ridiculous after a certain point as well...)
The Remans were simply not necessary - but might be worthy in a TV show where there's more time to set up more focused depth as well as expanding lore more effectively. Especially as they had already watered down the Klingons and Borg and Romulans hadn't been developed in any direction. The Romulans alone would have sufficed. Could the Remans have been written in a way that would have people regardless of fan status caring? Dunno. Did the story care? Didn't seem to...
...Very true, there was no care nor concern for the Reman plight, which was all hollow in part due to the poor script. Stick figures helped to set up a hollow scene. A hollow scene made somehow even more hollow by using one rather implausible scenario after another, involving Shinzon's big magical ship. Even more implausible given it's a penal planet to begin with, "asininely ludicrous" doesn't begin to explain the crassness of the "plot". The plot setup was so contrived I almost walked out of the theater over the sheer lameness of its setup. Had I done so, when Riker screams "Kirk Epsilon" I would have missed out on the sole and only time the theater audience made any collective sound, that of thunderous applause as opposed to individual whimpering yawns from a bored audience, and I went early enough as 75% of the theater was filled instead of the hand-count of people you might find three weeks later. Far worse: By 2002, long after TNG became its own self, what the heck is TNG doing leaning on TOS yet again? Even DSC's season 1 premier wasn't as bad, and that's saying something as it had more potential-- but before I digress.
The movie does send the Romulans into the direction of lasting peace... which also felt contrived. TNG never quite made a decision, as Picard once lamented on. And TNG did largely use the Romulans well enough...
Ron Perlman was wasted in the role of Viceroy... and may have been wasted in order to get through that second rate script. The one that gives Troi shiny new powers, apocryphal to her personality based on then-decades' worth of introduction, setup, and execution. She could never send thoughts and said so. So let's have fun with headcanon fanon and say she can transmit thoughts if she's on growth hormone intended for rats but she swallowed one by accident and found she can do everything except fling webs from her wrists like how Spiderman can. Forgetting that in the 24th century they have AI doing all that work, even though real rats have far more variables in real life than a simulation ever could, there's always something that can affect the results in x number of cases...) But if she stated she can't (and she had in the TV show) then there'd better be a good explanation as to her finding out she has more. Even "betazoid puberty" might work, but this is above and beyond - the plot had zero explanation for this except the audience is supposed to clap like trained seals expecting a treat after performing. Due, once again, to hollow script taking the universally easy route while forgetting nuanced characterization and the issues therein.
Shinzon also wanting to attack Earth was facetious.
But this is the same film that shows young Sheldon Picard with a bald head, which contradicts shown canon at least twice. Not even a remotely plausible explanation of "Well, he had cancer because of the fake heart so we irradiated him and for now he's got no hair." Good grief.
Not to mention YADA. Yet Another Dataesque prototype Android. Which is already lame given how many TNG had, but this time it's even more insulting to the audience that rivals the camp quality of Lost in Space's naming of its android: The latest droid is called B-4, and we're annoyed. (Sorry, couldn't resist taking the best bit out of "The Outrageous Okona" and using it to better use, as if that takes much.) But YADA, YADA, YADA, the plot holes with his emitting sensor readings and everything else and never mind the rest of the movie, which would be easier to swallow it all if it didn't feel so hollow and phony in its proceedings... ugh.
And they watched Star Trek II to copy plot points almost identically as a template, they didn't bother watching "Encounter at Farpoint" or other key TNG episodes featuring other Soong androids or anything else??
Man, that collision scene was really well done. Release a special edition cut of the flick with just that scene, on 4k blu-ray, uncompressed, and the 2 minutes might just fit on one dual-layer disc. I'd buy that, it's a lot easier than to FF through the actual movie to get to just that one scene.
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But there's scope there for... an intriguing political thriller with popcorn action movie bits, or a popcorn action movie that asks questions about political power struggles and the rise and fall of empires. Either would be preferable to Picard's shitty clone and all that nonsense.
