Time Warp Discussion - NEMESIS

[USS Mariner]

What was your take on the major problems with NEMESIS, and how would you have changed or done thingd differently?

Just a diving board for ideas, but who knows what'll arise.

EDIT: If you want a good NEM related laugh, go and check out Mike Wong's NEM Review. It's the first Trek related issue he got right on the money. ;D

[Atrahasis]

LOL I love that exchange between Picard and Janeway...

It's true though, why is she an Admiral and he's not?

And the biggest problem with Nemesis was the director, plain and simple. Wasn't he the director of "XMEN" and didn't know didly from squat about Trek? They needed to make the film exciting, but not at the cost of alienating the audience. You have to create repoire with the audience, and the way to do it is show how well you know Trek.

There was also a stupid drive for the entire plot: The best plot between rivals is revenge, but Shinzon's reason was rather lame. Picard had never done anything directly to Shinzon, so killing Picard was more like a passing bonus...Great if it happens, but not that important.

The best part of the film was the first 5 minutes when the Romulan senate got killed. That was gutsy and surprising. But right after they lose that momentum and we switch to a party on the ship? Stupid! Right after that the Enterprise shold have been under attack or in an ion storm or in some kind of trouble.

[CaptainPierce]

Now you've done it--you've given me an excuse to post my review of "Nemesis..."

Well, having just gotten back from the theatre, I honestly don't know what to think yet as far as whether or not it was a good or a bad film.
It started out fine, with some good character moments in and around the wedding. (Not all of them were necessarily good, but I would have to say most of them.) Perhaps the funniest (intentionally, anyway) part of the film was Worf saying "Romulan ale should be illegal," and Geordi pointing out that "It is." (Although, would it have killed them to explain WTF Worf was doing there in the first place?)

The sequence with going down to the planet was where it started to go bad. A hundred years prior to this, Kirk barely knew what a car was ("A Piece of the Action"), much less how to drive one. And now Picard's going four-wheeling. I'm surprised they didn't just paint a "Bigfoot" logo on the side of the freaking Jeep. Not to mention the blatant disregard for typical Federation protocol regarding the Prime Directive and pre-warp civilizations. No "duck blind?" No surgical alteration to resemble the natives? Then again, in a Bizarro Federation where Janeway can get promoted to Admiral after breaking the Prime Directive into pieces so small God Himself couldn't find them with a Galaxy-class sensor array and a Ouija board, maybe Picard just figured "Screw it, I want to make Admiral too someday."

When they went to Romulus, the downhill slide eased a bit. I do think they could have done more with Shinzon's motivation--it wasn't quite as arbitrarily "I'm you so I must be evil" as Harry Knowles over at AICN seemed to think it was, but I thought it maybe could have been a little more developed. Still and all, not a big deal, and I was starting to think this would turn out to be a pretty decent movie after all.

And then, the huge-ass battle sequence began. I lost all sense of time during this, but I could swear that it takes up FULLY HALF of the film's length. The Scimitar (henceforth referred to as "Das Ubership" ) seemed ridiculously under-powered for a ship with 52 disruptor banks and 27 photon tubes. And since when is a ship FIRING WHEN CLOAKED so commonplace as to not even merit a mention?

The Enterprise's shields, of course, were as variable as ever--Das Ubership's first shots took out the warp drive, despite the fact that the shields held for what seemed like hours afterwards. And I loved the way that they would give orders like, "Keep our bow away from them" when Das Ubership was STILL CLOAKED! How do you keep your bow away from a ship you don't know the location of?

Finally, however, it got to the point of sheer, utter, ridiculousness; and I was honored with hearing the single stupidest thing ever said in Star Trek--

"The auto-destruct sequence is offline."

I literally laughed out loud. So that the entire theatre could hear me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the auto-destruct sequence (at least the Really-Big-Bang version of it, which presumably Picard would have been asking for in this situation, to be sure that Das Ubership went up along with them) involve simply shutting down the magnetic containment fields around the anti-matter storage pods and waiting for the inevitable big BOOM to happen? How the hell is it possible that this would not be an option? Hell, every other time they've been in a battle this big, they've had to fight to KEEP a warp-core breach (which is largely the same thing) from happening!

Data's death was largely anti-climactic; largely, I suppose, because it was about the worst-kept secret of the film, but also because he had already downloaded his memories into B9. Or B4. Or BS. Or whatever. At least in TWOK, we didn't know what "Remember" meant. The "emergency transport unit" that he saved Picard with was one of the more ridiculous bits of technobabble ever. The thing's smaller than a freaking communicator, for the love of God! Even the transporter enhancement beacons are a hundred times its size! Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, how can you stand six inches from a radation field that could wipe out an entire planet with no ill effects?

The end, again, was a bit anti-climactic. BS exhibiting Data-like behavior was about as obvious as the nose on Spiner's face, and Riker going away just sort of happened. IMO, the movie should have ended with the Enterprise and the Titan going into warp at the same time, but in different directions.

Trust me, Atra, the dude who made "X-Men" would have at least tried to make a good Trek movie. The director's only previous directing credits were "Executive Decision" and "U.S. Marshals;" I think you may be thinking of the the writer, John Logan, whose most famous work prior to this was "Gladiator," although he's now most famously linked to "The Aviator" (and I've seen a review or two of that film that slammed Mr. Logan pretty hard). (Oh my GOD, I've just seen on IMDB that dude wrote the 2002 version of "The Time Machine." If I'd known that going in, I seriously doubt that I would EVER have gone to see Nemesis. Sweet Jesus, did that movie suck...)

As to what I'd have done different... well, tried to make it interesting, for one... Made it actually consistent with at least the preceding 20 years of TNG-era Trek, for another...

[Atrahasis]

There should've been a big-scale battle with the Romulans, for fun's sake! I'm talking about big fleet engagement.

But other than that, the movie lacked "wonder". This is the special quality that the good Trek movies have had....they somehow get you to ponder the big questions of space, time, mind, and soul.

[CaptainPierce]

Good point, Atra. The only thing "Nemesis" made me ponder was, "Jesus, how long is this movie gonna be?"

[Atrahasis]

CaptainPierce said:

Good point, Atra. The only thing "Nemesis" made me ponder was, "Jesus, how long is this movie gonna be?"

LOL All I was doing was counting the new phaser banks on the Enterprise. That truly was the most interesting thing in the movie for me.

[The Half Monte]

Atrahasis said:

LOL All I was doing was counting the new phaser banks on the Enterprise. That truly was the most interesting thing in the movie for me.

So I wasn't the only one paying more attention to the ship than the plot?

Well, there were a few laughs. And overall, I took the movie pretty well. Then again, to quote Kirk, "I'm not a drama critic." Also, I personally think that intellectually picking stories apart, while unavoidable, can get out of hand. For instance, I happen to fancy the Knights of the Old Republic series. If I were to scour this story for questionable aspects, one I think I would invariably arrive at is: “Why did the Council trust Bastila with the tasks of saving the galaxy and handling the former Sith Lord when it’s obvious that her own allegiances are in doubt? Come on, the woman went from a single to a dual-blade lightsaber…according to what I know of Star Wars, that’s pretty indicative of being more susceptible to the allure of the dark side…”

One could walk all over the question, but why? Aside from being an integral part of the story, is it really as much a mind-fuck (pardon me) as one may think it to be?

So, is Nemesis deserving of the same justification?

After a few years to think on it, I have to give a vehement “you wish, Berman.” Especially when the degree of writing incompetence is at the stratospheric level this film demonstrates. Star Trek is already written off by some as being too idealistic. While I disagree, Janeway getting promoted to admiral despite torching the Prime Directive wholesale doesn’t do anything for my stance, does it? Neither does sending the flagship into hostile territory with no attempt back her up should the political unrest get to the point that someone thinks it’s a good idea to steal it, try to destroy it, etc. Sure, there are many cases of a lone ship crossing via foreign space to conduct diplomatic business. But this wasn’t a trip to Qo’noS, people…it was to Romulus, home of some of the most devious, well-documented tricksters in the known galaxy. They’re so deceptive, I wouldn’t put it past them to create a story to lure the Enterprise there so that they could scrap her for all the grief the Picard and company has caused in the past. Yet, her only backup is behind some green cloud that you can't get a clear comm signal through? Gotcha.

Maybe I’m now getting too critical, but movies filled with so many careless mind-fucks (sorry) do that, don’t they?

[CaptainPierce]

The beginnings of some good ideas are visible in Nemesis, but IMO what the script needed was a major rewrite by somebody who'd actually watched Star Trek a couple of times. Logan's claim of being a huge Trekkie is only substantiated by the number of classic Trek moments he shamelessly ripped off... And he'd probably only seen those on the clip DVD that Berman sent him...