"Nemesis" Slammed in AP Review ( minor spoilers)

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-12 09:40pm

Seven-minute time to power-up the Romulan main weapon. Yes, that's right: SEVEN MINUTES TIME OVER TARGET.

That's a long time just to power up a glorified microwave oven.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2002-12-12 09:45pm

Darth Wong wrote:Seven-minute time to power-up the Romulan main weapon. Yes, that's right: SEVEN MINUTES TIME OVER TARGET.

That's a long time just to power up a glorified microwave oven.

Seven minutes to firing...

COMMENCE

Six fifty five...

PRIMARY

Six fifty...

IGNITION

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2002-12-12 09:46pm

Darth Wong wrote:Seven-minute time to power-up the Romulan main weapon. Yes, that's right: SEVEN MINUTES TIME OVER TARGET.

That's a long time just to power up a glorified microwave oven.

Does that include the time it takes to get the marshmellow's from the storage locker?

Really though, is that going to be one of those plot devices that it take 7 minutes to charge the main gun and durring the charging, the power drain will effect shields, propulsion, ect.....??????.......?????

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-12 09:49pm

Knife wrote:Really though, is that going to be one of those plot devices that it take 7 minutes to charge the main gun and durring the charging, the power drain will effect shields, propulsion, ect.....??????.......?????

It will be just long enough for Data to explain the technobabble deus ex machina they plan to use

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2002-12-12 09:54pm

Is it 7 minutes real-time AND movie time, or 7 minutes 'movie time' and 15 minutes 'real time'?

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2002-12-12 09:54pm

Darth Wong wrote:Seven-minute time to power-up the Romulan main weapon. Yes, that's right: SEVEN MINUTES TIME OVER TARGET.

That's a long time just to power up a glorified microwave oven.

The seven minutes is really to charge up the Bad Artificial Drama Device. Or as I call it, BADD.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-12-12 11:44pm

The review was not particularly impressive, but it brings up some concerning points about the movie. I disagree with the reviewer on several points, but I agree with his general assessment of the film, from what I have seen and read, thusfar.

Lord_Xerxes · Post by **Lord_Xerxes** » 2002-12-13 02:29am

I found an even funnier review here

Even Kate Mulgrew, from the Voyager series, makes a cameo as a Starfleet Admiral.

There is no god. You can't have god and this. They're mutually exclusive.

Speaking of the trailers, the promised death of one character does occur, but everyone knows you can never really kill a Star Trek character. This one is particularly open-ended, and should they decide to make another movie (though it's long been rumored this is the last), I have no doubt he'll be back to dutifully collect his paycheck.

It's probably Data. And they'll probably repair him.

Why have the Star Trek movies become such junk? For starters, with 10 movies and 500 or so TV episodes in various Trek series, it's safe to say all the good ideas are long since tapped out. Just watch the cast and tell me they don't look bored to tears. One of the reasons I still enjoy the Star Wars movies (even though they're admittedly weaker these days) is that they've been exploring its mythology and fleshing it out. Star Trek has long since exhausted that and is just taking its crew on a series of adventures, each more absurd than the last.

Hahhaha! Star Wars gets the plug, and even this critic says its better!

Those absurdities take place not just within Nemesis's dumb plot but with the endless contrivances required to keep it going. When Picard beams aboard the enemy ship, the transporters promptly break, ensuring no one can follow him. For the ship to deploy its super-weapon, it takes seven minutes… just enough time to -- well, you get the picture.

OMG! Seven minutes!
And the transporters breaking! So fucking good!

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2002-12-13 03:33am

Darth Wong wrote:Seven-minute time to power-up the Romulan main weapon. Yes, that's right: SEVEN MINUTES TIME OVER TARGET.

That's a long time just to power up a glorified microwave oven.

So...let's see. In Star Wars it's "Commence primary ignition": techs release the safeties, open the power conduits, energy pulses down the conduits, six beams meet at a common point, releasing a large compound beam which slices across several million kilometres of space within ten seconds, blasting a planet apart in a tenth of a second.

In Nemesis it's "Commence primary ignition": techs release the safeties, open the power conduits... the microwave dish starts warming up... EvilClone Skippy gives his head another shave... Reman bridge crew smoke 'em if they've got 'em... dish warms up a little more... EvilClone Skippy pops his Romulan tea in his personal microwave... Reman bridge crew start flipping channels to see if anything's good on cable... dish warms up a little more... Skippy pops down to the head for a few minutes... Reman guards start chatting about the new TX 428... dish warms up just a little more... Skippy returns from the toilet... dish warms up just a bit more... Skippy captures Picard, gives him the standard "before I kill you, Mr. Bond, I'm going to tell you my master plan in excruciating detail so that you can escape, wreck my life's work, and kill me horribly" speech... dish warms up a little more... Reman first officer checks his stock portfolio, notices that shares in FedTech are suddenly nosediving on the Exchange, which wipes out his 401(K) and pisses him off... dish warms up some more... Data and Geordi on the Enterprise start exchanging technobabble which causes several crewmen to start spontaneously bleeding out of their ears... dish warms up a little bit more... Data and B4 have a conversation about emotion, which causes the audience to start spontaneously bleeding from their ears... dish warms up a little bit more... Picard escapes due to extreme incompetence of the Reman guards... dish warms up a little bit more... time begins... to... slow... down... mea...sur...ably... for... the....... audience.... dish warms up a little bit more... Skippy taps into Earth's DishOne cablenet to cackle evilly that they have only another five minutes to live before his Killer Microwave kicks in and fries their planet... dish warms up a little bit more... Picard, now in full Bruce Willis mode, parades through corridors of Reman deathship in his T-shirt, disruptor rifle in hand, shooting anything that moves... dish warms up a little bit more... Data and Geordi bring Riker their technobabble solution to the deadly superweapon which is four minutes away from firing.... dish warms up a little bit more... Blix the Reman leaves his post to go down to his quarters because he's worried about his ant farm, hopes nobody will miss him... dish warms up some more, actually starts glowing a little bit... Q falls asleep... audience is prevented from falling asleep due to movie's volume increasing in decibel-level every fifteen seconds... dish glows a bit more... Blix is upset because he's discovered his ants have all escaped... essentially another three minutes of this drivel before Picard breaks into Skippy's control centre, wrecks his life's work, and kills him horribly. One of the TNG crew is lost, sort of. Everybody else reunites. Picard gives pompous speech on human nature, observing how important it is to savour each moment because it will never come again blah blah blahblahblah... Riker and Deanna go off to their new ship. An android sings. Credits roll. Audience leaves, muttering "I spent $7 on this crap" to themselves.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2002-12-13 04:35am

http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=14035

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-12-13 04:51am

So is it time for us to take over the entire franchise in order to save it from Paramount & the Killer B's?

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2002-12-13 04:56am

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/380/380136p1.html

Probably the best review I've read thus far. I can't help but think this is how I will feel when I walk out of the theater tomorrow.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-12-13 05:53am

Ok, I was fairly certain that I was going to spend my money next week on Hobbits rather then this drek, and nothing seems likely to change my mind.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2002-12-13 06:43am

According to Rotten Tomatoes, the reviews have been split down the middle with 17 reviews giving it the thumbs up and 16 reviews biting their thumb at it.

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2002-12-13 07:08am

Why am I getting the impression that I'll want to go back in time and get a refund on my ticket?

Oberleutnant · Post by **Oberleutnant** » 2002-12-13 09:13am

Patrick Degan wrote:I have to wonder about the writing of this movie. After all, John Logan wrote a fairly decent version of The Time Machine, he wrote a rather good script for Gladiator.

Two other script writers had already worked with Gladiator before Logan came aboard and made his own final revisions...

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-13 09:38am

Roger Ebert weighs in here., and he's not impressed. He starts with:

Roger Ebert wrote:I'm sitting there during "Star Trek: Nemesis," the 10th "Star Trek" movie, and I'm smiling like a good sport and trying to get with the dialogue about the isotronic Ruritronic signature from planet Kolarus III, or whatever the hell they were saying, maybe it was "positronic," and gradually it occurs to me that "Star Trek" is over for me. I've been looking at these stories for half a halftime, and, let's face it, they're out of gas.

And his finale:

Roger Ebert wrote:I think it is time for "Star Trek" to make a mighty leap forward another 1,000 years into the future, to a time when starships do not look like rides in a 1970s amusement arcade, when aliens do not look like humans with funny foreheads, and when wonder, astonishment and literacy are permitted back into the series. Star Trek was kind of terrific once, but now it is a copy of a copy of a copy.

I'm not seeing a lot of love out there for this movie. Even when critics panned "Insurrection", they weren't as nasty as they are this time around. Insurrection was merely a bad movie, but this one has caused people to question en masse whether Star Trek has a future.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2002-12-13 10:34am

beyond hope wrote:Why am I getting the impression that I'll want to go back in time and get a refund on my ticket?

You purchased your ticket ahead of time?

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2002-12-13 11:00am

Darth Wong wrote:
I'm not seeing a lot of love out there for this movie. Even when critics panned "Insurrection", they weren't as nasty as they are this time around. Insurrection was merely a bad movie, but this one has caused people to question en masse whether Star Trek has a future.

I don't think it does - not much of one anyway, at least not if it keeps deteriorating the way its been going (is Star Trek the only franchise actually to have a half life?). Whatever creativity and originality it once had are long since spent. That wretched travesty of a series they've got going now, which they claimed would take the show in a bold new direction, is just recycling old plots and pissing all over the series' continuity. Paramount's been keeping the franchise alive because it's been a money maker, but now they've got it on life support, and it's way past time to pull the plug?

You know, I remember back in 1987, when the premeire of TNG had been announced, a lot of the old cast members spoke out to say that this wasn't really Star Trek. TNG gradually won people over, but now I'm wondering f the original cast's initial reaction wasn't right on the money after all. Most of what's wrong with Trek today had its birth in TNG (including the hiring of Berman and Braga). The more I see of Trek these days the more I wish they'd just ended it with TOS and its movies. Star Trek long ago ignored the wisest advice in showbusiness: always leave them wanting more. Now we're overdosing on Trek, and it's tarnished the series. It would have been better if it went out in its prime so we could remember it with fondness instead of lingering so long and so painfully that we'll remember it as just a shell of its former self.

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-13 11:12am

Perinquus wrote:
I don't think it does - not much of one anyway, at least not if it keeps deteriorating the way its been going (is Star Trek the only franchise actually to have a half life?). Whatever creativity and originality it once had are long since spent. That wretched travesty of a series they've got going now, which they claimed would take the show in a bold new direction, is just recycling old plots and pissing all over the series' continuity. Paramount's been keeping the franchise alive because it's been a money maker, but now they've got it on life support, and it's way past time to pull the plug?

You know, I remember back in 1987, when the premeire of TNG had been announced, a lot of the old cast members spoke out to say that this wasn't really Star Trek. TNG gradually won people over, but now I'm wondering f the original cast's initial reaction wasn't right on the money after all. Most of what's wrong with Trek today had its birth in TNG (including the hiring of Berman and Braga). The more I see of Trek these days the more I wish they'd just ended it with TOS and its movies. Star Trek long ago ignored the wisest advice in showbusiness: always leave them wanting more. Now we're overdosing on Trek, and it's tarnished the series. It would have been better if it went out in its prime so we could remember it with fondness instead of lingering so long and so painfully that we'll remember it as just a shell of its former self.

Interesting- who decides what is Star Trek? IMO, The Next Generation has a claim to being Star Trek in a small way- but fuck what happened to the creative talent that wrote TOS? GR's 'definitive vision' of Trek is .... ugh.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2002-12-13 12:27pm

Vympel wrote:
Perinquus wrote: Interesting- who decides what is Star Trek? IMO, The Next Generation has a claim to being Star Trek in a small way- but fuck what happened to the creative talent that wrote TOS? GR's 'definitive vision' of Trek is .... ugh.

What happened was, TOS had actual science fiction writers writing its best episodes; Harlan Ellison Theodore Sturgeon, (sp?) etc. When you get guys like B&B in there, with no real talent in the genre, you get TNG, DS9, VGR, Enterprise....

trek should have gone with the original idea post-ST:TMP: a few TV movies every few years, instead of full-blown movies. Out of ALL the Trek movies that have been produced, only Wrath of Khan is worthyu of being on the movie screen. One of the chief reasons being that Harve Bennet was brought aboard to take care of the whole production as it would have been a TV movie. As it turned out, WOK was crisp, well paced, and exciting.

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2002-12-13 12:38pm

Lord Poe wrote: What happened was, TOS had actual science fiction writers writing its best episodes; Harlan Ellison Theodore Sturgeon, (sp?) etc. When you get guys like B&B in there, with no real talent in the genre, you get TNG, DS9, VGR, Enterprise....

Oh I agree. In fact I said pretty much exactly this in a recent thread.

Lord Poe wrote: trek should have gone with the original idea post-ST:TMP: a few TV movies every few years, instead of full-blown movies. Out of ALL the Trek movies that have been produced, only Wrath of Khan is worthyu of being on the movie screen. One of the chief reasons being that Harve Bennet was brought aboard to take care of the whole production as it would have been a TV movie. As it turned out, WOK was crisp, well paced, and exciting.

Actually, I don't mind ST:TMP, even though it is slow and plodding. And for the life of me I can't say why. And ST:6 is good, don't overlook that one. The mere fact of their being TV movies wouldn't necessarily make them better. All they needed for that was good scripts and good directors, and TV movies are no more likely to have those than feature films.

Currald · Post by **Currald** » 2002-12-13 01:18pm

It’s a competent piece of product repositioning...

WTF?

It's not a film, it's a "product."

I was in favor of the whole Enterprise thing if it meant that there would be at least ONE good episode. How many good eps in TOS have? A dozen? Two dozen? How many did TNG have? Maybe half that? I haven't seen much DS9, but I've heard its good. Voyager? Zero. Enterprise? Zero. I'm not bothering with Trek until there is new leadership working on it. Until then, I'll track down obscure trek-tech books from the late seventies and early eighties to tide me over.

My guess is that TMP the director's edition was the even numbered Trek, and Nemesis is really number 11. TMP:DE was great.

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2002-12-13 02:02pm

Patrick Degan wrote:"This movie SO wants to be TWOK but isn't" as somebody said. I'm certain that this was the objective but it was doomed from the outset. We have neither the emotional investment or history embodied in Picard's EvilClone™ Skippy that we had with KHAAANNN! Without those elements, you really cannot access the personal dimension to this conflict that the viewer could grasp readily with TWOK. Berman Braga might try to float the lame argument that there were viewers who went to TWOK the first time who never saw TOS, but they would have been in the minority, a very tiny minority of the audience which did turn out. TWOK traded on the Trek legacy quite consciously, and the media push for that movie definitely highlighted the links between that movie and the plot to "Space Seed".

TWOK was the first Star Trek I ever saw and I still got it. It was a great film whether you'd seen TOS or not. I was six years old or so and it completely sucked me in, I didn't budge from in front of the TV till it was done and considering the attention span of a kid that age that's a pretty good achievement.

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2002-12-13 02:47pm

Currald wrote: I was in favor of the whole Enterprise thing if it meant that there would be at least ONE good episode. How many good eps in TOS have? A dozen? Two dozen? How many did TNG have? Maybe half that? I haven't seen much DS9, but I've heard its good. Voyager? Zero. Enterprise? Zero. I'm not bothering with Trek until there is new leadership working on it. Until then, I'll track down obscure trek-tech books from the late seventies and early eighties to tide me over.

Pretty exacting figures. Did you actually watch these series, like Voyager? I think I've watched all of them, and most were crap, but there were a few good ones, with a number of others having good moments.

Personally, if I felt that even 90% of TOS was crap, then I wouldn't be bothering with Trek at all...