http://www.stardestroyer.net/Nemesis/Pictorial-1.html

The weird thing is that after Insurrection’s failure, I think the studio made good, reasonable choices: to hire a respected screenwriter who was also a fan, to hire an actual director (maybe not a Spielberg of course, but Baird was a famous editor and solid action director. Paramount wanted to get away from TNG television directors -Carson- or TV actors -Frakes, Burton- and have a maintream professional movie made. But it was just a case of those choices — which seemed good on paper — just did NOT perform. What a horrible script. What bland, uninspired direction.

I do not hold the opinion that popularity = crap. There are many exceptions. But I find that what is VERY popular, or the most popular of a particular series often falls into that category. Yes, that does say something. It says it was aiming for the lowest common denominator. Not to be good.

I know I am in the minority regarding TVH. But it is just so unwatchable. All the characters were simply not themselves. Scotty came across as so incredibly stupid it was embarrassing for the fans and Mr. Doohan. Really, the entire crew came across as being spectacularly stupid people. I own all the movies on DVD EXCEPT TVH. It’s just plain awful. I can understand why it was the most successful. I can understand why a lot of non Trek people liked it. But I just can’t relate to why a trek fan would like it. At all. There is nothing inherently wrong with making the message so obvious. TOS did it with “Let that be Your Last Battlefield”. Part of it is that since the rest of the movie was so pathetically bad, it is easy to rip on the blatant obviousness of the message. I said before that Trek works best when the message or comment is much more subtle.

I have a hard time thinking Nemesis was a “insult”. I have to admit that I was never a huge fan of TNG. I didn’t hate it or anything. I liked it OK. But it paled when compared to TOS. Of the 4 TNG movies, it was the 2nd best. Much closer to FC than it was to the other 2. No one acted out of character. (Unlike the TOS crew in THV) And felt it to be a worth send off. It did lack the emotional punch the death of a character ought to have. Perhaps if it were Troi or Riker who bit it it would have had more emotion. Well, not Troi. Her character was the weakest of all of them. But it would have been solemn as those two were about to enter a new stage of life together. Data was never more than a tool to my eyes. A souped up lap top. Little more. So his “death” meant precious little. Especially since they have made it very clear that there are other machines like him all over the universe.

1.) Shinzon: The idea of a Picard-clone was not bad, but the young Tom Hardy was no match for Patrick Stewart and of course no match for Cpt. Picard. They should have cast Stewart fort Shinzon and gave him a grim, dark make-up, perhaps some black lines under the eylids, running down his face, representing something reptile or predator-like. I think it was a mistake not to make clear, that Shinzon IS the bad guy from the very beginning. The lame effect was, we – the audience – allready knew it, but the movie don’t show his evil side. But Stewart vs. Sterwart could have been very, very cool.

2.) The buggy: That entire idea was ridiculous and was poorly executed. And the only surprising element, the jump in the cargoroom, could – thank’s for bad cutting – allready predicted. BTW: Why should starfleet make use of wheeld verhicle on an alien planet. What will the inhabitants say if they found the roots? Prime Directive anyone? Better they had beamed down, get imprisoned by this aliens, stole one of their buggies and flee to the Argo. Perhaps that would have been a bit more interesting.

3.) B4: I liked the idea of a not-advanced Data. They should have kept the scene in the movie, were B4 studied the spoon, instead of try to eat something. There should have been also a scene that revealed his origins and how he get into romulan hands.

4.) The Remans: It was never clear WHY THE HELL the Remans should want to conquer earth. They are enslaved gun-fodder, shouldn’t they bring their revenge first over Romulus? I wished B&B and Logan had kept the Romulans as the true evil guys, using the enraged Remans for attacking the federation. For serveral reasons: Weaken the federation, conquer some planets required for the Empire and have a reason to stop and terminate the Reman Liberty movement. Berman & Co could have made Nemesis to a real political thriller.

5.) The Titan: I was so eager to see Riker’s new ship, but it was only mentioned. Sad. Now, we never going to see it, not on tv nor on the big screen. BTW: The design from the novels is poor. That tiny ships don’t fit the name,

6.) The battle: Was a rush with some really visible CGi. There were no clever tactics, now hide-and-seek-manouvers. This was no big epic battle. It was far too long with too many fire breaks.

7.) The bottomless shaft: Another complete ridiculous scene and an example how few thinking Baird or the producers invest in the movie. It would be better, the Enterprise get a hit an the Viceroy would have been sucked out in space – or Riker beats him and take him prison, so that he could learn that Shinzon and his gang was used by the romulan extremists.

8.) The mind.raping: I don’t know about that. It never seemed heavy for me and I can’t understand, how an experienced telepath like Troi don’t fight back immediatly. Besides that, this was never necessary to the story. It would have been more interesting, if the Viceroy would have tried to spy the Enterprise out, through Troi’s thoughts and eyes.

9.) The Scimitar: A very ugly starship. Way too complicate to get the superweapon ready. That was idiotic, because in Star Trek no things need to enfold and enfold and enfold to get fire ready. Some minutes they could have cut out.

10.) The romulan Warbird Valdore: Okay, I liked that design, but for story reasons, the Romulans shouldn’t have shown up to assist Picard. Some of the other posters suggests it allready. It should have been Riker and Troi with Titan to come to the rescue. That would have given the writers and producers the opportunity to bring in some new characters, like now in the Post-Nemesis-novels. But somehow, they should have also included the new Warbirds, perhaps in a final meeting. The true bad guys decloaking, threatens the nearly destroyed Enterprise and the heavy damaged Titan with destruction. Picard tells the romulan Commander, that the game is over and the Viceroy call his people aboard the romulan vessels. An uprising ends the romulan plans and the romulan commander have to surrender.

11.) The Romulan Senat: That was a poor scene. How many Senators the RSE have? 20? In the Roman Senat there were at least several hundert and so I would have expected from the Romulans as well. It would have also been interesing, if some Senator have survived and been later imprisoned when they found out the true plans of the military extremists.

12.) Cutted scenes: Some of the cutted scenes are pretty good and should have been left in the movie for example: The drinking scene between Data and Picard and some other character scenes as well.

Conclusion: Nemesis had great, very great potential, but however, it don’t become a great movie. I remember the very emty and unsatisfied feeling it left in me on the premiere-night. Sad, the time of TNG and and the ongoing continuity is over now – I don’t hope forever.

The criticisms people typically have of it I can understand, but I also think are taken to an unwarranted level.

People dislike some of the cheesy humor, but I think that the much of the best of Trek has always had a degree of humor to it, often times of the cheesy sort. Certainly TOS was full of it, the more successful films were not devoid of it.. heck even the darkest and most serious DS9 episodes had a moment of comic relief here or there. The point is that I can understand the disapproval of things like the dune buggy, but I think often times those criticisms are directed towards the very idea of any such humor at all, at which time a given criticism is, in my opinion, invalid. In other words, if someone says “well, you know I didn’t think joke X fit at that point in the film,” or, “They made too much of that joke,” or something like that, that’s fine, but when I hear things like “X was bad because it was a joke,” well that’s just silly.

I also think that the criticism that is often heard that the film didn’t deal enough with the characters or wasn’t a good send-off or that sort of thing is *vastly* flawed. The film was very largely about the characters. It dealt primarily with the lives, purposes, and most importantly the *humanity* of data and Picard. Picard’s interactions with Shinzon and the question of their different developments and destinies was one side of the coin, while the humanity of Data was the other side. Data was finally able to become human in Nemesis, in two important ways. First, and most obviously, he died. His death was very quick and without any great pageantry (as for instance accompanied Spock’s in TWOK), and this is exactly the point. Data died what was, while certainly very meaningful in his sacrifice for the crew, otherwise a somewhat “normal” death – the sort of death any human being could die. That poetic irony seems to be lost on many.

Secondly, B-4 also contributes to Data’s humanity NOT because he left his “katra” behind in a rehashing of Spock’s death, as one poster suggested, but because in B-4 he left behind someone to carry on his legacy, someone to carry on his being, after his death. When a man dies, he leaves behind his children to serve as a memory of him, so to speak – I’m trying to paraphrase something said (I believe) to Data in “The Offspirng” here… or it may have been Picard in Generations, or both. The point is that one of the themes about humanity throughout Star Trek has been that part of being human is that when you die, you leave something – usually some*one* – behind to carry on your life, and your legacy. Throughout Nemesis, Data essentially fathered B-4. He taught him many things, corrected his bad behaviors, punished him. He did what he did with Lal. When Spock left his katra with McCoy, there was no other creature to carry on his legacy, just another man driven crazy. When Data died in Nemesis, that scene at the end with Picard and B-4 pointed out that Data *had* left behind an entirely other life form to live as he had taught him and carry on his life (Data’s) through his (B-4’s).

Now did the film deal a great deal with the destinies and humanity of the other characters? No, not really. But did Undiscovered Country? No, it didn’t. It really dealt with Kirk and Spock, and each of their legacies, their own personal relationship, and their own inner triumphs and tragedies. It didn’t even really deal with McCoy in such a way. Despite this, Undiscovered Country is regarded as a tremendous film, and one which gave a wonderful send-off. The reality is that TOS was really ultimately about Spock and Kirk, with a little McCoy, and TNG was really primarily about Picard and Data, with some greater degrees of focus on the other characters due to it’s long run. In any finale, you’re going to focus on a few of the characters, rather than all of them. That’s just the nature of things. For example, if you tried to send of Uhura with a grand goodbye, it would really seem to be that you’d downplayed the importance of Kirk and Spock… you just can’t do it for everybody without making the important characters seem neglected. The same goes for TNG.

This has been far longer than intended, so I’ll stop here!

I think that the story was just all wrong. Clones had (and have) been done to death thanks to Mr Lucas. As stated above by so many, if this was the final voyage of the TNG crew it should have focused more on the TNG crew. The whole B4 thing was wrong. I remember thinking “Data has ANOTHER brother….?” and why were his parts strewn around this particular planet. As for the Dune Buggy scene, I can appreciate it for what it is. I remember in pre release interviews Patrick Stewart talked lovingly of that particular plot point and about what a great time he had filming it. Data’s death had absolutely no emotional impact for me. I had already figured out that they were copying TWOK and that Data’s ‘katra’ had already been downloaded into B4. Yawn.

I place more responsibility on this film on the Executive Producer who shall not be named that OK’d the story.

Oh I agree, popularity alone does not equal a good story. However, it isn’t popular merely among fans or among the public – it’s both. I truly believe that says something. You can’t completely discount a film’s popularity, otherwise every successful movie = rubbish. Maybe you hold that opinion, but I don’t think it’s a very reasonable one.

I firmly believe you will find yourself in the minority when it comes to TVH vs Nemesis. And of course, that doesn’t make you wrong. Though I’ll admit, I can’t relate to your position, at all. TVH was an absolutely lovely movie, and I can’t think of a single moment where anyone is acting out of character. Sure, the film’s message was loud and clear – but what’s wrong with that? Trek has always addressed social issues through its stories. That’s one of the reasons it’s considered classic.

Nemesis, on the other hand, was an insult to everything TNG was ever about. Every character is wasted, and everyone literally is out of character. I *loved* TNG, and I was absolutely appalled at the treatment they received on the big screen. They deserved so much more.