Finally watched Nemesis (spoilers)

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-06-02 12:51am

A full review will be a little while in coming. I'm quite busy with work obligations. For now, I will just make a few points:

There are many entertaining scenes in the film. However, the entertainment value of the entire movie is somewhat diminished by the fact that the ENTIRE PLOT DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE! I lost count of the number of times I felt like shouting at the screen: "but why don't you ... why didn't you ... didn't you think of .... are you so fucking stupid that you don't want to try ... don't you remember what you did on the TV show ..." etc.
Shinzon's motivations and behaviour are also confusingly opaque. It starts well enough; he and his Reman "brothers" were horribly treated by their Romulan overlords, and have been for centuries. They were apparently turned loose and given the freedom to construct and command warships during the Dominion War because they were desperate for ships and crews, and the Romulan Senate arrogantly assumed they would be able to put the genie back in the bottle once released (like many white slave-owners in real-life, they may have suffered from the asinine belief that slaves are actually happy being slaves). They assumed wrong, and the Remans had apparently made friends in the Romulan military, as well as secret military bases and construction facilities with which to carry out their coup d'etat. Fair enough, there's potential here.

But then it goes horribly, tragically sour; why would he have any interest in Picard apart from his genetic material, which was crucial for his survival due to his cloning degeneration? Why not grab him at the first opportunity when he beamed down into his lair, and then destroy his ship? If he longs for the touch of a human woman, why does he plan to exterminate all of them? If he is so full of anger over his horrible childhood, why isn't it directed at the people who did it to him?

Wouldn't it have made more sense for him to kidnap Picard with the intent of draining his genetic material for his own survival and then reveal (in the cliched but always entertaining supervillain "bwahahahahaha" speech to his captive, who is about to die anyway) that he has tricked his Romulan conspirators and plans to exterminate the entire population of Romulus instead of Earth, to take revenge for centuries of abuse? The key difference would be that the Enterprise is fighting to save Romulus from a vengeful madman because that's what their Federation principles tell them to do even if they're enemies, Picard is trying to talk Shinzon into turning back from a path of vengeance, Riker is trying to make the Romulans see that their new ally is a genocidal maniac, and ... the movie would make much more sense.
No words can describe my disgust at the entire hideous, lurching, godawful, mishapen, idiotic, putrid, foul-smelling, rancid pile of monkey shit that was the B-4 subplot. A good editor would have sat down the writer, had a long talk with him, and simply removed that whole goddamned unsalvageably awful subplot from the movie. With a couple of scene re-shoots, a lot of film on the cutting-room floor, and some very minor rewriting, it could have been discarded for the worthless tripe that it was. It is the entire reason that this film has been derided as a TWOK rip-off; one simply cannot view the end of the movie and not think of Spock's katra.

Technical revelations can wait; those are my initial reactions from a pure story and entertainment perspective.

Post by **RogueIce** » 2003-06-02 01:20am

Darth Wong wrote:
There are many entertaining scenes in the film. However, the entertainment value of the entire movie is somewhat diminished by the fact that the ENTIRE PLOT DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE! I lost count of the number of times I felt like shouting at the screen: "but why don't you ... why didn't you ... didn't you think of .... are you so fucking stupid that you don't want to try ... don't you remember what you did on the TV show ..." etc.

Just sheer curiosity, but would that be tolerable to you in a movie that you don't expect one of anyway? Like Steven Segall (sp because I'm too tired to care) for instance?

Macross · Post by **Macross** » 2003-06-02 02:19am

I cant believe you didnt mention the pointless dune buggy chase? Or will that be in the full review?

CorSec · Post by **CorSec** » 2003-06-02 03:11am

DW, that's about what I thought of the movie. Many parts of it just didn't make sense. I'm sure Shinzon talked about why Earth needed exterminating somewhere in his many diatribes - but I either missed it or it made so little sense (even compared to the rest of the menu) that I blocked it out.

The only really good sequence was the multi-ship fire fight. It surely wasn't near good enough to salvage this ... [airquote]movie[/airquote].

Macross wrote:I cant believe you didnt mention the pointless dune buggy chase? Or will that be in the full review?

I think that's covered by the following:

DW wrote:No words can describe my disgust at the entire hideous, lurching, godawful, mishapen, idiotic, putrid, foul-smelling, rancid pile of monkey shit that was the B-4 subplot. A good editor would have sat down the writer, had a long talk with him, and simply removed that whole goddamned unsalvageably awful subplot from the movie. With a couple of scene re-shoots, a lot of film on the cutting-room floor, and some very minor rewriting, it could have been discarded for the worthless tripe that it was. It is the entire reason that this film has been derided as a TWOK rip-off; one simply cannot view the end of the movie and not think of Spock's katra.

Macross · Post by **Macross** » 2003-06-02 03:54am

CorSec wrote:
Macross wrote:I cant believe you didnt mention the pointless dune buggy chase? Or will that be in the full review?
I think that's covered by the following:

DW wrote:No words can describe my disgust at the entire hideous, lurching, godawful, mishapen, idiotic, putrid, foul-smelling, rancid pile of monkey shit that was the B-4 subplot. A good editor would have sat down the writer, had a long talk with him, and simply removed that whole goddamned unsalvageably awful subplot from the movie. With a couple of scene re-shoots, a lot of film on the cutting-room floor, and some very minor rewriting, it could have been discarded for the worthless tripe that it was. It is the entire reason that this film has been derided as a TWOK rip-off; one simply cannot view the end of the movie and not think of Spock's katra.

True, it was part of the B-4 sub-plot, but I think it deserves extra mention as being completely pointless and gratuitous in an already pointless sub-plot.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-06-02 04:00am

Macross wrote:I cant believe you didnt mention the pointless dune buggy chase? Or will that be in the full review?

That might fall under technical aspects.

CorSec · Post by **CorSec** » 2003-06-02 07:25am

I can't recall. Why couldn't they simply beam the body parts out of there? Radiomagnetic interferance dispersing the trace scan buffer for the pre-transport targetting algorhythm?

TurboPhaser · Post by **TurboPhaser** » 2003-06-02 11:47am

There are many entertaining scenes in the film. However, the entertainment value of the entire movie is somewhat diminished by the fact that the ENTIRE PLOT DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE! I lost count of the number of times I felt like shouting at the screen: "but why don't you ... why didn't you ... didn't you think of .... are you so fucking stupid that you don't want to try ... don't you remember what you did on the TV show ..." etc.

No offense, but if thats all you think of while watching the movie, I'm not surprised you didnt enjoy it.

Tribun · Post by **Tribun** » 2003-06-02 11:53am

No offense, but if thats all you think of while watching the movie, I'm not surprised you didnt enjoy it.

Smart words....

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-06-02 12:27pm

TurboPhaser wrote:
There are many entertaining scenes in the film. However, the entertainment value of the entire movie is somewhat diminished by the fact that the ENTIRE PLOT DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE! I lost count of the number of times I felt like shouting at the screen: "but why don't you ... why didn't you ... didn't you think of .... are you so fucking stupid that you don't want to try ... don't you remember what you did on the TV show ..." etc.
No offense, but if thats all you think of while watching the movie, I'm not surprised you didnt enjoy it.

It would be easier not to think of such things if the plot and main villain's motivations weren't so incredibly stupid.

TurboPhaser · Post by **TurboPhaser** » 2003-06-02 12:41pm

Indeed.

The only real massive plot hole I found was that Shinzon expected no resistance to his banged up ship while he cruised over to Earth. I doubt his cloak woulda worked with the front of his ship wrecked, and he seemed to think Starfleet would do nothing for the entire 7 minutes it took for his weapon to charge.

Ensign: Sir, a large ship has entered orbit and is charging a terrible radiation weapon that will kill everything on this planet and render it uninhabitable for 900 centuries.

Admiral: Can't you see I'm having lunch!?

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2003-06-02 12:57pm

Darth Wong wrote:
TurboPhaser wrote:
There are many entertaining scenes in the film. However, the entertainment value of the entire movie is somewhat diminished by the fact that the ENTIRE PLOT DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE! I lost count of the number of times I felt like shouting at the screen: "but why don't you ... why didn't you ... didn't you think of .... are you so fucking stupid that you don't want to try ... don't you remember what you did on the TV show ..." etc.
No offense, but if thats all you think of while watching the movie, I'm not surprised you didnt enjoy it.
It would be easier not to think of such things if the plot and main villain's motivations weren't so incredibly stupid.

Agreed, as I think I tried to elude to in my 'Nemesis' thread. The movie had the ability to be a very good and telling tale. Yet, the producers, either tried too hard or not hard enough. There is too much shit in the movie from the whole Shizon angle (why was this character even in the film) to the desert planet and dune buggie angle (again, why was it in the film?). The mini-data subplot could have been handled with a little more dignity. I am not sure if the creators meant for the dumb dumb data subplot for hummor, but it wasn't and sucked really bad.

On the whole, I have to say....

[sidekick mode]Holly rusted plot, Batman.[/sidekick mode]

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2003-06-02 03:09pm

The movie was very predictable in one way. We all knew Shinzon would fail, and that alone made the movie boring in a way. Earth has been threatened to be destroyed so many times throughout Trek history in all the movies and series, it aint worth watching those kind of episodes any more.

Ted C · Post by **Ted C** » 2003-06-02 05:08pm

You know, I find it vaguely depressing that Mike Wong can come up with a better story for Star Trek: Nemesis in a five-minute rant than Paramount's writing staff could come up with in months of pre-production. The state of the franchise is sad beyond belief.

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2003-06-02 05:30pm

Ted C wrote:You know, I find it vaguely depressing that Mike Wong can come up with a better story for Star Trek: Nemesis in a five-minute rant than Paramount's writing staff could come up with in months of pre-production. The state of the franchise is sad beyond belief.

Which proves they need to replace the people in charge, fire the current writers, put new people in charge.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-06-02 05:39pm

Nemesis could have been so much better if Sela had been used... So many different story angles... And even better use of the Romulans could still have had better DS9 mentions with clear stuff about the Dominion.

Ted C · Post by **Ted C** » 2003-06-02 05:54pm

In case anyone cares, I have now decided that Nemesis isn't even worth renting for the debate value.

Somebody let me know if anything good ever comes out for Trek again.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2003-06-02 07:46pm

Ted C wrote:In case anyone cares, I have now decided that Nemesis isn't even worth renting for the debate value.

Somebody let me know if anything good ever comes out for Trek again.

Oh come on, join the fun! We've got a whole new season of Enterprise to get our hopes up and get disapointed.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-06-02 07:52pm

Ted C wrote:In case anyone cares, I have now decided that Nemesis isn't even worth renting for the debate value.

Somebody let me know if anything good ever comes out for Trek again.

Agreed. Nemesis isn't worth renting, its worth BUYING.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-06-02 08:08pm

I almost think so. It was vastly better than the odd-numbered TNG films, at least.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2003-06-02 08:20pm

That's like saying being shot is better than drowning. Either way your still dead.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-06-02 08:36pm

Nemesis would have been greatly improved, I think, if Starfleet had FAILED and Earth did get destroyed. Now there's a set-up for Star Trek 11.

Rhadamanthus · Post by **Rhadamanthus** » 2003-06-02 08:47pm

The only thing I disagree with is Shinzons wanting to know Picard. He does have some part of Picard in him, and he has grown up with no other humans around, so it makes sense that he would want to know Picard in particular.

As for the rest of it I agree. Especially considering that prior to the Dominion war the Remans main job was probably building weapons and mining dilithium for use against the Federation. Attacking Earth in addition to making no sense on its own, also means the Remans are doing exactly what their Romulan master wanted all along.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2003-06-02 09:10pm

That's about what I thought of the movie, too. I just hated their plot devices to make sure that something else needed to happen (the way they disarmed Picard just prior to his climactic knife-fight with Shinzon was particularly glaring, but the transporter acting up only AFTER Picard beamed over, so no one else could help him or beam him back, etc. etc. etc.). They were so tired and cliched.

The fact that I wasn't as impressed with the space combat sequence as many other people were only added to my dislike of the film as a whole.

I really do like DW's idea of the E-E fighting to save Romulus, because it really would have made more sense, and it would have been a better movie. Had they removed B4 and added some quieter scenes to slow the film down and to take more time with it, I think it would have been a much better movie.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-06-02 09:11pm

Still, 'Shinzon'? What the hell were they thinking?

'Shinzon'?

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Finally watched Nemesis (spoilers)

Finally watched Nemesis (spoilers)

Re: Finally watched Nemesis (spoilers)