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#208 - Star Trek: Nemesis
Stuart Baird, 2002
The TNG crew are sent to discuss a peace agreement with the new leader of the Romulans only to learn that the new leader is actually a clone of Picard.
It's kind of sad how the Star Trek films featuring the TNG were, for the most part, really disappointing. First Contact made out alright by managing to come up with a genuinely tense plot involving the Borg, though it did so by emphasising action at the expense of its time-travel sub-plot. Otherwise, there was the haphazard fan-pleasing of Generations, the fairly trite attempt to create a big-budget version of a TV episode that was Insurrection, and then...this. While it was intended to be a big-screen send-off for the TNG cast in the same way that The Undiscovered Country was supposed to send off the TOS cast, it ultimately means that this time around the crew go out not with a bang but with a whimper. Of course, this was my assessment after my first viewing at the tail end of 2012 - seeing as it was on TV recently, I decided to re-watch it and see if it might be any better a second time around.
Unfortunately, it's not. Nemesis makes the unfortunate mistake of trying to provide a TNG counterpart to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan by trying to set up an antagonist who wishes to get vengeance on the captain of the Enterprise. The antagonist in this case is Shinzon (Tom Hardy), who suffers from the fact that his character could have been interesting as an evil counterpart to Picard (Patrick Stewart) but the film in general seems a bit muddled as to what to do with these two. There is a bit of a nature-versus-nurture debate as Picard is made to question whether or not he could have ended up being as villainous given the same circumstances, though it does feel like a retread of similar themes from First Contact. Aside from that, there's a sub-plot that involves Data (Brent Spiner) encountering a prototype android that resembles himself, though that plot only serves to set up some weak comedy built off the new android's cluelessness about social cues (as if we hadn't already seen seven seasons of that already) and it only just manages to pay off in the film's final scenes (to debatable effect, mind you). Otherwise, the rest of the cast kind of gets shunted off to the side into their usual roles. Troi has a couple of scenes involving telepathy, Worf is grumpy and serious, etc. For a film that's supposed to be intended as a final adventure for this cast of characters, it's disappointing how little it uses the bulk of its ensemble.
As far as being a compelling film on the merits of its story or action - again, it is not. The film does take its time approaching anything resembling excitement, and when it does the effects work generally isn't strong enough to keep it up. Space battles just kind of happen, as do the fight scenes. It builds towards an emotional climax that I'm not convinced the film earns. It being a Star Trek film, I don't truly hate Nemesis, but it's definitely one of the weakest films in the franchise, if not the weakest. Oh, well.
Stuart Baird, 2002
The TNG crew are sent to discuss a peace agreement with the new leader of the Romulans only to learn that the new leader is actually a clone of Picard.
It's kind of sad how the Star Trek films featuring the TNG were, for the most part, really disappointing. First Contact made out alright by managing to come up with a genuinely tense plot involving the Borg, though it did so by emphasising action at the expense of its time-travel sub-plot. Otherwise, there was the haphazard fan-pleasing of Generations, the fairly trite attempt to create a big-budget version of a TV episode that was Insurrection, and then...this. While it was intended to be a big-screen send-off for the TNG cast in the same way that The Undiscovered Country was supposed to send off the TOS cast, it ultimately means that this time around the crew go out not with a bang but with a whimper. Of course, this was my assessment after my first viewing at the tail end of 2012 - seeing as it was on TV recently, I decided to re-watch it and see if it might be any better a second time around.
Unfortunately, it's not. Nemesis makes the unfortunate mistake of trying to provide a TNG counterpart to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan by trying to set up an antagonist who wishes to get vengeance on the captain of the Enterprise. The antagonist in this case is Shinzon (Tom Hardy), who suffers from the fact that his character could have been interesting as an evil counterpart to Picard (Patrick Stewart) but the film in general seems a bit muddled as to what to do with these two. There is a bit of a nature-versus-nurture debate as Picard is made to question whether or not he could have ended up being as villainous given the same circumstances, though it does feel like a retread of similar themes from First Contact. Aside from that, there's a sub-plot that involves Data (Brent Spiner) encountering a prototype android that resembles himself, though that plot only serves to set up some weak comedy built off the new android's cluelessness about social cues (as if we hadn't already seen seven seasons of that already) and it only just manages to pay off in the film's final scenes (to debatable effect, mind you). Otherwise, the rest of the cast kind of gets shunted off to the side into their usual roles. Troi has a couple of scenes involving telepathy, Worf is grumpy and serious, etc. For a film that's supposed to be intended as a final adventure for this cast of characters, it's disappointing how little it uses the bulk of its ensemble.
As far as being a compelling film on the merits of its story or action - again, it is not. The film does take its time approaching anything resembling excitement, and when it does the effects work generally isn't strong enough to keep it up. Space battles just kind of happen, as do the fight scenes. It builds towards an emotional climax that I'm not convinced the film earns. It being a Star Trek film, I don't truly hate Nemesis, but it's definitely one of the weakest films in the franchise, if not the weakest. Oh, well.