Star Trek - Nemesis (Widescreen Edition)
by Stuart Baird
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Actor: Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Patrick StewartDirector: Stuart Baird
Brand: Generic
Writer: Brent Spiner
Producer: Gene Roddenberry
Writer: Gene Roddenberry
Producer: Marty Hornstein
Producer: Peter Lauritson
Writer: John Logan
Writer: Rick Berman
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 116 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-05-20
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Paramount
DVD Reviews of Star Trek - Nemesis (Widescreen Edition)
DVD Review: Star Trek at its worst
Summary: 2 Stars
The tenth in the Star Trek movie series, Nemesis promises to be the last - I can only hope. Ever since Star Trek Generations, the first featuring The Next Generation (TNG) crew the series has gone from disappointing to bad to horrible. Generations was an awkward attempt to bridge The Original Series (TOS) crew with TNG. Its closing scene features the death of legendary Captain Kirk - a scene so bad it had to be refilmed after test audience practically rioted after witnessing the original version. The final cut was hardly better. First Contact followed and was a poor rehash of many already worn out themes from TNG such as the Borg and scarecrow boy Data's unending search for humanity. The inexplicable Insurrection was so bad my mind blocked out all knowledge that I had ever witnessed it like a traumatic childhood experience. Only intensive refreshing with Dave the movie guru was able to reawaken these troubling memories. Finally, Nemesis (aka The Final Insult) closes the Start Trek movie saga with a whimper of unoriginality.
Your humble reviewer is an old school trekkie who loves both TOS and TNG so there is no series bias here. I thought the TNG TV series was excellent, and remain extremely disappointed that the TNG movies are unable to even rival the quality of the old 60 minute TV shows. The TNG movie series attempted to win both the discriminating existing trekkie audience and still appeal to the general movie going public as well. Obviously, it has failed to appeal to any mass audience and has only further alienated existing trekkies. Nemesis scored a lousy 43% on the Tomatometer and has failed to take in any serious money at the box office.
The plot seems promising: a Picard clone created by the Romulans with the intention of replacing the real Picard rebels against his Romulan captors to lead the Reman slave race in a bid for control of the quadrant. The clone has built a super space ship with a super radiation weapon of some kind so powerful it could wipe out an entire planet with one shot - sound familiar yet? The Real Picard is drawn in and proceeds to confront his "nemesis".
The film opens with a ridiculously contrived action sequence in which Picard, Data and Worf fly a shuttle craft down to a strange planet and proceed to drive a dune buggy like vehicle around searching for what turn out to be chunks of a Data prototype. The party is ambushed by some Mad Max looking raiders toting archaic machine guns. First of all, you never take a shuttle craft when you could easily beam down to the surface. Second, there is no way the party could be ambushed by such primitive creatures, the Enterprise thoroughly scanned the area and would have surely warned the captain of such impending trouble. Heck, even their handheld tricorders should have picked them up! It's all really a setup for The Big Stunt where the dune buggy is driven off a cliff into the bay of the remote controlled shuttle craft as the party escapes the bad guys. The reason for the dune buggy is explained away as "captain's prerogative" and it is implied that Picard was just out for a little fun. This is completely out of the established Picard character. It's also completely unlikely that there would by many such thrill seekers left in Starfleet as they all have access to the way cool holodeck where any such fun can be had any time someone gets that daredevil itch. I never thought I would be accusing Star Trek of manufacturing such low brow action but there it is. Apply preceding criticism to almost all remaining scenes.
The film meanders on with many similar gratuitous action sequences. Phaser rifle shootouts in the halls of the ship. Unending volleys of phaser and torpedo fire between ships.
The crux of the story is this: the clone Shinzon is madly driven by vengeance and is determined to destroy the earth with his radiation weapon thingy. Yet the film never establishes his alleged hatred of mankind or any motive whatsoever that he might have against earth. If anything, he should be out to get the Romulans, who left him for dead in the Reman dilithium mines. Instead he is driven to help the very people who brought him true suffering.
There is also an underlying theme regarding Shinzon's status as a clone. There is an old scientific debate regarding the formation of a human personality and behavior patterns as being determined predominantly by genetics, or by environment. Shinzon believes he is a mirror image of Picard, being a clone and all, and that he is doing exactly what his environment dictates. He tells Picard that he would have done the same thing had Picard been in Shinzon's place. Aside from being massively irrelevant to the story presented (it would seem the only purpose for this fact is to give the movie a cool name) it ends up being very unrealistic in practice. Picard's character has been well established over the 7 year TNG series - and one thing is certain - he is a reasonable and rational man to the last, and would have chosen a very different course of action given Shinzon's environment.
There are more plot mistakes and glaring inconsistencies with the existing Star Trek universe that it's almost as if the film was intended to stand alone, separate from history. Taking such a stance would not improve my rating much.
The effects in Nemesis are acceptable. However they fail to inspire the awe and wonder of earlier, better films like the original Motion Picture, or Wrath of Khan in particular. The original model work was much better - the current Enterprise has gotten cluttered and lacks the simple elegance of the originals.
Nemesis lacks any sense of originality and rips off many better films in its muddled execution. In particular many have made reference to Wrath of Khan which Nemesis badly imitates in many respects, the vengeance motivated plot, the naval style duel between the two ships, and the tragic death of a key character who sacrifices himself for the ship. Needless to say, it is a poor imitation of a truly excellent film. As stated before, the vengeance motivation is very badly formed, there is no connection between Shinzon and Picard or the rest of humanity. Unlike the original battles in Wrath of Khan, the fight scenes in Nemesis are thoughtless, no brainers consisting of point blank shots volleyed back and forth. There is no tension or suspense created in these scenes. And finally, it was sad to see Spock die, and the audience truly rejoiced at his rebirth. The death of data was lame at best, I for one am glad to see him finally go, and I won't be rooting for a comeback which was also tacked on as a possibility.
It's sad that Roddenberry's creation has been so badly distorted. TNG was a cerebral series that focused on internal human conflict and the very nature of existence. The movies fail because they reject this premise in favor of tacky space opera style shootouts and cheesy formula plots. I don't know if there is any plan to turn Voyager or the newest series into movies, it could hardly get any worse though.
Description of Star Trek - Nemesis (Widescreen Edition)
A generation's finaljourney beginsProductInformationIn Star Trek - Nemesis you'll set a course for a galaxy ofunparalleled action and adventure as Captain Jean-Luc Picard (PatrickStewart) and his Starship crew battle a chilling new adversary - thatjust happens to hold a shocking link to Picard. In the wakeof a joyful wedding between Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Troi (MarinaSirtis) Picard receives another reason to celebrate: the Romulans wantpeaces and the captain will be the Federation's emissary. Butas the Enterprise heads toward the Romulan Empire a brilliant villainawaits - harboring a diabolical plan of destruction and an unimaginablesecret that will give Picard his most fearsome challenge.Product Features Commentary by Director Stuart Baird New Frontiers: Stuart Baird on Directing "Nemesis" A Bold Vision of the Final Frontier A Star Trek Family's Final Journey Red Alert! Shooting the Action of "Nemesis" Deleted Scenes Photo GallerySpecifications Stars: Patrick StewartJonathan Frakes Brent Spiner Format: Color DVDWidescreen NTSC Languages: English French Subtitles: English Rating: PG-13 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 110 minutes Directed By: Stuart BairdThe sacrifice of a beloved character is just one of many highlights in Nemesis, the 10th feature in the lucrative Star Trek franchise. Enigmatically billed as the beginning of "A Generation's Final Journey," this richly plotted Next Generation adventure maintains the "even number rule" regarding Trek's feature quality, and it's one of the best in the series. It hits its brisk stride when Picard (Patrick Stewart) and his Enterprise-E crew encounter Shinzon (Tom Hardy), a younger clone of Picard, rejected by the Romulans as the human weapon of an abandoned conspiracy. Raised on the nocturnal Romulan sister planet Remus, Shinzon now plots revenge against Romulus and Earth but needs Picard's blood to carry out his scheme. A wedding, a childlike "duplicate" Data named B-4 (Brent Spiner), spectacular space battles, and uncommon acts of valor make this a tautly-paced action thriller, poised to pass the franchise (but not quite yet) to a new generation of Starfleet personnel. Die-hard Trekkers will not be disappointed. --Jeff Shannon
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