*** Official "STAR TREK: NEMESIS" Discussion Thread (2 Viewers)

[Bryan_P]

Well, it's not nearly as bad as some people say it is, and it's not as good as we hardcore fans really would like it to be. That said, I really enjoyed it, thought it was much much better than Insurrection (which I liked) and I have to see it again before I can decide whether I like it more than First Contact, which is my all time favorite Trek movie. It's definitely not as good as Khan or the Undiscovered Country, but I think I enjoyed it more, at least last night. Obviously not everyone will like it or should like it, just as with any other movie. I just think people tend to be a little too hard on Trek because (as Matt_P said in his review) we've been spoiled by it for the last 35 years.

 

[Scott Weinberg]

I feel bad for anyone who would allow the opinions of others to stop them from seeing a film they want to see. I could easily flip it the other way and say "Hey guys! Ignore his praise! Don't listen to him!", but that's hardly conducive to quality movie discussion.
You enjoyed the flick? Excellent. You got your money's worth while us detractors did not. There's really no reason for everyone to bicker, and I'm hoping that the offhand dismissals of dissenting opinions could be curtailed sometime soon. Opinions are never wrong - even when you're sure they are.

 

[Bryan_P]

I did not mean to appear rude or presumptuous. I apologize. I was just expressing my disbelief that one could really like Star Trek and think the film was a "disaster." I can see how someone wouldn't like it and that's a fine, respectable opinion to have. Ok. I liked it, you didn't, let's move on.

As far as the "sci-fi film of the year," I was basically thinking of Star Wars, and I'm sticking my opinion that it was better than Episode II. It was also better, IMO, than Solaris and MIB 2. But, if you consider Signs a sci-fi film, that was certainly better, and so was Minority Report. Other than those, I can't think of any more sci-fi films. So I guess that comment could have used a little more clarity...

 

[mike martin]

*spoilers abound so don't read it if you haven’t seen the film yet*

As a reference, I'm a big NG fan and DS9 fan and a generally like the evens of the movies (although the first one was good to)

Well, i thought it was terrible. Pretty much everything that i was hoping it wouldn't be. There was nothing there that i couldn't get from a third rate sci-fi television show. And effects don't count for much anymore. It's getting pretty easy to make space ships flying around look good.

The wedding. It just wasn't funny, which is the main reason for having it. Worf is just drunk. Great. Way to give him something interesting to do or say. Data sings. Not funny. Oh and since when are galaxy-class starships the usual transportation to wedding ceremonies? Was the entire ship invited?

The dune buggy android search groan-a-thon. There is no reason for any of this to happen. Why do data legs give off posatronic radiation? Why is he in parts anyway? Why give the trio SAFTY GLASSES BUT NOT HELMETS? Why is there a damn dune buggy on the enterprise anyway? And the obvious question, when was the prime directive dissolved as a part of federation doctrine?

The whole romulan/remus/clone thing. As an idea, I liked it. At least I was thinking "Well, maybe they will settle down and do something meaningful and interesting now that the insufferable hijinks is over." But in true no guts style they settle for a run of the mill plot line that ends in phasor blasts and punches to the face. There was a chance for this storyline to have something; but it never got off the ground.

The data prototype. All I have to say is that when Dr. Sung designed this thing, why didn't he find a way to KEEP HIS DAMN HEAD STILL? This android doesn't act like a prototype, it acts like a baby with the ability to enunciate. UGH!

The troi mind reading what ever it was thing. Terrible. Just terrible.

The whole final battle thing. A lot of it looked good; but it SHOULD look good. No extra credit for that. And it still wasn't what we all want to see in a trek space battle. I want what they did in first contact CUBED! The actual events that lead to the conclusion generally make no sense except to ensure that picard and data find themselves on the other ship and even then it doesn't make sense. Neither should be there or every able body person on the enterprise should be to ensure the weapon is destroyed. Everything we see during the battle sequences is just standard action movie tripe.

Riker fight with ron perlman. Whatever. Totally irrelevant.

Shinzon dieing. Are you kidding me? Did I see it right? He ran at picard, picard pulls some random metal piping next to him down, and shinzon RUNS INTO IT?!?!? He impales himself? Then he pulse himself farther onto the shaft ala Lurtz in LOTR? Groan fest.

Data dying. Saw it coming a mile away (and no i read no scripts or read any spoilers) and i was completely unengaged. This is coming from someone who loves the character within the seven years of the television show. Data is dead and i don't care. Ultimately, that is the films final insult to us. No attempt is made for that act to have any real weight. It's empty.

In general i was so very disappointed that worf, geordi, crusher and riker were more or less unused. we saw none of their character. A real waste.

SO there it is. My humble opinion. For those of you that enjoyed it, well i'm glad you did. we take these movies too seriously, i know that and i'm glad that some of you came away satisfied. You got your NG fix. But for myself i will have my season set dvd's and try to forget these movies ever happened.

 

[Cage]

Anyone who says they did not like this movie is NOT a real Star Trek fan. This movie was Incredible! Awesome! Fantastic! Other than the Wrath Of Khan, this was the best Trek movie Ive seen. How cou;ld any of you say it was a disappointment? What is the matter with you? I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, gripping my armrests and cheering when the Enterprise rammed the other ship! They show this in the trailers so Im not giving anything away there.The opposing ship was the best looking "space" ship Ive ever see. All I can say is...."WOW". Awesome movie, and I cant wait for the DVD!!!!!!

 

[mike martin]

Well cage, your looking for trouble with your first sentence; but I won't bite. Yeah, this new ship looked very cool (although a lot like something i've seen in Starcraft) and the ship ramming looked cool. BUT, who cares if the story is rediculous? The ship caries no dread with it. It "looks" scary but in fact is not scary. The ramming clearly has no consequences. You were on the edge of your seat? I could have cared less. This movie has none of Khan's heart and soul; but it sure as heck tried to steal from it. It was not successful.

Youwant to know how i could say it was unsuccessful, well read my post above. I spell it all out.

 

[David Ely]

I guess they trimmed out the part where Shinzon morphs into Picard (I saw it in the trailer many times, but not in the film at all ...

Watch the trailer again and you'll see there's no such scene. It's just a transition used in the trailer. Shinzon isn't a shapeshifter :rolleyes

 

[Rob Gardiner]

SPOILERS BELOW

Well I am a true Star Trek fan but I found it to be a near total disappointment. I had a good time at the theater last night due to my affection for the TNG crew but the story was totally unsatisfying. For the record, I did not read the script and I went in optimistically.

One of the things that made Khan such an effective villain is that his motivation was simple and ABSOLUTELY CLEAR as well as believable. In NEMESIS the crew was confused as to his motivation, does he want peace, is he out to destroy the earth, does he want freedom for his people, or does he just want to catch Picard in order to save his own life? Consequently, the audience is unsure what his motivations are. This leads me to believe that the writers were themselves confused.

The Romulans were totally superfluous to the film. Romulans were on the screen for a total of maybe ten minutes. I was expecting some political intrigue in the Romulan Senate. This was glossed over in the first five minutes of the movie. Why were the Remans introduced? Why didn't the writers simply give us a brand new faceless villanous hostile alien species that wants to destroy the Earth?

The plot boiled down to, "will this big bad all-powerful ship blow up the Enterprise and blow up the Earth or will our heroes prevail." Snooze. We know that the crew will win and the manner in which they do so is not at all interesting. Data's death was totally empty to me. After all these years and dozens of viewings, I still get misty eyed at Spock's funeral, the wedding in Data's Day, and the death of Data's offspring. This carried no emotional weight whatsoever. Major fucking plot hole: Why the hell didn't Data give Picard the emergency transport pin BEFORE he beamed over to the Reman ship?????

The ship ramming was gratuitous. It served no purpose other than "eye-candy". Scenes of character development and dialogue are presumable among the 45 minutes that were cut in order to keep this totally unnecessary scene.

Overall this seems like a half-baked effort. Various elements were conceived, poorly developed, and thrown together haphazardly. The female Romulan was potentially an interesting character but was totally under developed. Cliches all over the place -- Shinzon's rapid aging, Troi's violation, ship systems going on- and off-line at convenient moments. The villains suffer the two most cliched deaths ever -- falling down a bottomless pit and impalement. When the Reman Viceroy tumbled down the "jeffries tube" with Riker behind I expected him to say, "what a wonderful smell you've discovered".

I assume that Rick Berman has a wife and kids and they do not deserve to suffer for his floundering efforts to wring the life from this beloved series. Therefore I do not wish for him to be fired. Paramount should do the same to Berman that they did to Roddenberry -- KICK HIS ASS UPSTAIRS. Give him a promotion to Creative Consultant and let him spout out as many "memos" as he likes while the actual production crew does their own thing. Star Trek is desparately in need of new blood. Please.

 

[Romier S]

Oh and since when are galaxy-class starships the usual transportation to wedding ceremonies? Was the entire ship invited?

Galaxy class starships weren't used for transportation at all. Now the Enterprise E being a "Sovereign" class ship..thats a different story

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Yup, it's ONE SHOT that actually made it into the movie, but you can see Wesley and Ashley Judd in the background. Theorectically she's also in Wesley's deleted scenes

 

[Jim Peavy]

This seems like a silly criticism to me. The Captain attempts to self destruct the ship and the computer tells him that the ability is malfunctioning. You could argue that it's contrived (though it didn't come off that way to me), but don't understand how you can claim this is bad storytelling/exposition.

 

[Kevin_M_M]

I'll go ahead and say I really, truly liked this film. I'm blown away its being slammed as much as it is. Of course, it isn't perfect and many of the above points hold some validity. And maybe what helped me is I went in to this movie aware of the poor buzz and there was nowhere to go but up but come on! Worst since ST V or Insurrection? Ouch.

The crowd I saw this movie with cheered and laughed. It was exciting, it was fun, I got to briefly visit with old friends. It was exactly what I was hoping for.

One of the things that bothers me the most is people complaining about the lack of use of Worf, Geordi and Crusher and to some extent Riker. I love these characters too but this is a movie, not a season of 20 something episodes where time is give to focus on all 7. Does anyone remember much focus on Scotty, Chekov, Uhura or Sulu in the original 6 flicks? The scope of a movie will never be able to fully accommodate 7 distinct characters. Someone has to take the back seat and why shouldn't the captain be the focus? Or the beloved alien character? Aren't Picard and Data being used the same way Kirk and Spock were?

I will admit my main disappointment was the Data ending. It just seemed sort of cursory, like the writers were like "Gee, if we're truly gonna copy Khan, someone has to die saving the ship. How about Data? Sure, as long as we leave a way for him to return."


But this was definitely an even numbered Star Trek movie for me. The tradition is safe. Do I blame the writers for emulating Khan to energize the picture? No. No one is denying Khan is the best Trek movie, why not try to capture some of what Khan had? And it did. I walked out energized and excited and hoping the flick would do well enough for this to not be the last time I ever get to see these characters on the big screen.

 

[Mark Kalzer]

It's constantly being said that if you dislike this film, you're NOT a true Star Trek fan...on the contrary. For me, it is precisely because I am a hardcore Star Trek Next Generation fan that I am so dissapointed in this film. The big problem I see here, is that we have a screenwriter who's a Star Trek fan, but a director who, well, isn't. It came out in a making of promo on SPACE, where the cast members were talking about instances where they told the director (I don't remember his name off hand, Stuart Baird?!) "This is how we did it on the show", to which the director proclaimed, "We're not on the show. We're doing it my way." The sad truth is that how the director envisioned this Star Trek movie, is not how Star Trek really is. I can see this in the following points...

- Character development. Say what you will, I love these characters, and I want to see what has happened to them during these past 17 years. Unfortunantly I feel so much out of the loop now. That wedding was in retrospect quite pointless. I enjoyed seeing Guinan, but the Riker-Troi relation ship had absolutoly no insight. It's literally as if a novel only said "Troi and Riker got married" and then went on with with the story. I'd like to at least have a hint of why they got married. Why, after 17 years of just serving together happily they decided to get married? When did Riker propose? What was the mood like? What are their dreams for the future? (Other than changing starships...)

There was so much more I know that was cut from that scene which could've been so great to see. Unfortunantly, the director seemed to be obsessed with meeting his running time of...not even two hours. (C'mon, don't be afraid. Ever notice Lord of the Rings?) The Wesley scene, a Worf scene that's been hinted about, and I heard from a friend that supposedly, Geordi gets close to Dr. Leah Brahms from the TV show. We didn't see or hear any of that. In this film Geordi does nothing more than...petty engineering business. It the very same thing Denise Crosby complained about before leaving the show in the first season. (I kinda got a hint he wouldn't do much when Levar Burton came to Toronto to direct an entire movie while Nemisis was supposedly still in production.) Just that one scene with Brahms could've meant so much to us. Worf too, how he was treated just angers me. We don't even know why he was there. Wasn't he a Klingon ambassador or something at the end of DS9? It's seems quite literally that the only reason he was there was because...it's a movie. WHY WAS HE THERE? Also, what was his position on the Enterprise? Was he security chief? Was he just helping? Isn't there someone else who became security chief after he left for DS9? (Come to think of it, who WAS the security chief during First Contact and Insurrection? Worf can't just walk in and take over, can he?) Dr. Crusher I can not figure out how she fit into thw film, if she's even important to the producers anymore. Heck, I know there's a main story to get to, but it's not even two hours long people. I'd like it if the director cared about what happens with these people's lives, because I sure do. We haven't seen a new installment in their lives for four years.

- Star Trek meets James Bond. Remember those days of Star Trek when the first instinct in every conflict WASN'T to fight and kill? Please don't have me believe it was purely due to budget issues. Picard's gone from diplomatic talker to gun-toting action hero. The off-road vehicle with what seemed like a gatling gun was just too much for me...and they even resorted to that James Bond cliche of tons of machine guns shooting at our heros...and our heros doing the brilliant act of running to avoid being hit by EVERY BULLET. That's gotten old in James Bond...and now it's hit our intellectually minded STAR TREK?! I really don't think anything in this story was resolved with anything other than violence, and that's just plain sad. Even First Contact had Data outwitting the Borg Queen when he realized he could lie. Every Romulan encounter in TNG had some degree of a mental game, of deceit or manipulation...it's all been replaced in this film with special effects. Just sad.

- The B-4 plot. It was an aspect of the film I actually liked...except it was underdeveloped. So basically Shinzon plants B-4 on that planet knowing Enterprise would come by...(Does anyone even know WHY Picard and co. were attacked there? Who were those guys? *sigh* More violence for the sake of violence.) And then they HOPE the Enterprise is sent to deal with Shinzon? I'm a little lost at how they could predict that the Enterprise would be sent. (In the Star Trek films, they tend to always send the Enterprise, only because it's the Enterprise.) The real interesting thread came at the end, where I realized we're following the course of Spock, with Data's "katra" being planted in B4. However, that aspect seems so dumbed down because of some strange need to keep the film short.

Basically, I just expect more from Star Trek. I expect a more compelling science fiction concept, and more focus on the human condition. Yes, they reached for that in Nemesis, but it seemed misdirected by a director who wanted something a little more mainstream. Something different from what the script wanted. And also, here's just a little pet-peeve of mine...

- The Enterprise E. I talked this over with my friends after the film...and really, what is so special about the Enterprise E? The Enterprise D could seperate. It had children on it. It was a bright, big, and colourful vessel with an entire community on board. The Enterprise E is smaller, more cramped, and more military like. I really wished they did not "kill off" the Enterprise D in Generations. It was cool seeing it at first, but really, I just have a closer bond with the Enterprise D then I do with this one. (I cried when the model of it was broken in First Contact. THAT was a great scene, and a great movie.) This one has nothing over that grand vessel. More detailed perhaps, but no. The Enterprise D always had the aura of happiness. Enterprise E is almost depressing.

 

[Manuel]

I just came back from the movie. I myself have been a fan of TNG and DSP (although I did not care for Lost in Space: Voyager even though I did watch it till the end). I really wanted to like this movie. I had high hopes for it. I am really dissapointed. I have not read all the previous comments posted already so I'm sorry for repeating anything. What dissapointed me:

1.The story was not that good. Data dieing was easy to see coming. The ending could have been way better.

2.Someone could have at least said "Hey Data, don't you have another brother...?"

3.I was hoping that Spock might have been seen for the last time since he is undercover. (Is this not the last movie for this crew?)

I did not read anything on the movie so that I could go in without prejudice. I really wanted to like this movie but right now I would rank it towards the bottom of the pile in the order of preference.

Oh well.

 

[DavidAC]

Use whats in your head and put a spoiler tag on that major spoiler you just gave out.

 

[Tino]

David
Spoiler tags are NOT required in a discussion thread.
However, In a review thread they are.
I personally would have liked Data's death to have been a more powerful scene. As it is it's fine, but could, and should, have been much better.
I'll be seeing it again soon.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I felt kind of ripped off at the end not seeing Riker's new ship. Always a pretty cool part of ALL the shows when we got to see other starfleet starships

Wurd on the street is that we'll see it soon enough......

 

[Michael Boyd]

I felt kind of ripped off at the end not seeing Riker's new ship. Always a pretty cool part of ALL the shows when we got to see other starfleet starships.

 

[mike martin]

Mark...

I gotta say that you put across my feelings in a much more articulate way than i did. Especially concerning the lack of charactor development (or simply lack of charactor completely) of some of our beloved B charactors. We were not looking for the story to revolve around them; we just wanted to be thrown a bone that hadn't already been chewed on. What sets Next Generation apart from the other series (IMHO) is the focus on charactor over plot. Entire episodes were devoted to charactor development and plot put in as B story. Now geordi is simply pushing buttons, Crusher is doing NOTHING, and Worf is a caricature. Very well put.

Romier...

AS for the new enterprise being a sovereign class ship; you cought me there but my point is still valid. Is a sovereign-class ship a new model or simply a different model?

 

[Jack Briggs]

I'm still dumbfounded to learn that if I do not like this movie then I am not a "true" Star Trek fan. Quite frankly, hardly any of the theatrical features are as satisfying as an episode of either TOS, TNG, or DS9.

Such posts are not to be encouraged (nor responded to), said this Trek watcher who has been tuned in since September, 1966.