"Nemesis" Slammed in AP Review ( minor spoilers)

[Currald]

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...

Okay, I've been called. I haven't seen every episode of any of these series, but I've seen many, and I've seen the episodes frequently touted as the best of each. Voyager's "Year of Hell" was merely competent, and Enterprise failed completely to have a classic episode in the first season. Contrast with TOS, which had SEVERAL classic episodes in the first season, SEVERAL in the second season. I've made it a point not to watch every episode, so I still have something to look forward to in my old age.

My point was pretty much the same as several of the reviewers above, that Trek has consistantly been losing steam. I really gave Enterprise a fair shake. I watched almost every episode in the first season, but NONE of them were that good (okay, the pilot was pretty decent, but hardly a classic).

At least there are still episodes of TOS and TAS that I haven't seen, which makes me luckier than many of you.

[Master of Ossus]

Roger Ebert weighs in here., and he's not impressed.

I'm not too impressed with his article. He is clearly an idiot. Here's some of the things that he says about the movie:

Surely slavery is not an efficient economic system in a world of hyperdrives, but never mind.

First of all, they use warp engines in Star Trek. Obviously he's been panning SW movies for so long all sci-fi movies seem the same to him. Moreover, how can slavery not be an efficient economic system? If anything it is the epitomy of economics. It is morally reprehensible and completely unjustifiable, but that does not make it inefficient. It "merely" makes it wrong.

I've been looking at these stories for half a halftime, and, let's face it, they're out of gas.

You've been watching it for 7.5 minutes?

This far in the future they wouldn't have sparks because they wouldn't have electricity, because in a world where you can beam matter--beam it, mind you--from here to there, power obviously no longer lives in the wall and travels through wires.

Let me get this straight. Ebert believes that in the future there will no longer be a need for wires because energy can be beamed back and forth? What will that energy run on? If its electricity it NEEDS A FUCKING COMPLETE CIRCUIT TO WORK! How can he not understand this? Has Ebert never even bothered to look at an electronic device (like, a camera, or a projector)? On the other hand, it does help to explain his dislike of digital film. He obviously can't understand basic electrical laws, much less digital photography.

That being said, he does bring up some points that I think harm the film. I'm seeing it in a few minutes, and I look forward to determining for myself how it actually is.

[C.S.Strowbridge]

I keep it as a policy to at least take into consideration more than ONE REVIEW, before I judge a movie. If I didn't then I would have never have seen AOTC.

While this is true, Rotten Tomatoes is showing a less than enthusiastic 44% rating. I might see it, when it comes out on DVD. But I don't I'll spend money on it.

[Patrick Degan]

Gotten a bit nitpicky, haven't you? Nobody said that Roger Ebert was SF saavy. He doesn't know the tech or I suspect even cares how the technobabble is supposed to make sense or what it describes. He's working from the perspective of a movie viewer.

Surely slavery is not an efficient economic system in a world of hyperdrives, but never mind.

First of all, they use warp engines in Star Trek. Obviously he's been panning SW movies for so long all sci-fi movies seem the same to him. Moreover, how can slavery not be an efficient economic system? If anything it is the epitomy of economics. It is morally reprehensible and completely unjustifiable, but that does not make it inefficient. It "merely" makes it wrong.

Well, slavery is an inefficent system. It assumes that you have outside markets to sell the product of no-cost labour to, but it retards economic development at home; plus there's the expense in maintaining a prison system and security. However, since the entire premise behind the Trek universe is that everything is either replicated or produced out of automated assembly plants, and you've got phaser drills to mine out materials, robots to perform the actual labour, and transporters to move everything around in, the spectacle of the slave mines doesn't quite fit in even with the Romulans, and is clichéd after all this time. Slave mines were a feature of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon after all, and incompatible with a space civilisation which is supposed to have all these wonderful technological toys.

As for Ebert not knowing the difference between "warp drive" and "hyperdrive" and which SF universe claims either, c'mon, that's picking gnatshit out of pepper. Both are FTL, and most people wouldn't know or care about the difference between either system or probably think it resides in a Black Box. It has nothing to do with the substance of the review.

I've been looking at these stories for half a halftime, and, let's face it, they're out of gas.

You've been watching it for 7.5 minutes?

Oh please —"half a halftime" is a rather obvious misprint, don't you think?

This far in the future they wouldn't have sparks because they wouldn't have electricity, because in a world where you can beam matter--beam it, mind you--from here to there, power obviously no longer lives in the wall and travels through wires.

Let me get this straight. Ebert believes that in the future there will no longer be a need for wires because energy can be beamed back and forth? What will that energy run on? If its electricity it NEEDS A FUCKING COMPLETE CIRCUIT TO WORK! How can he not understand this? Has Ebert never even bothered to look at an electronic device (like, a camera, or a projector)?

Whether Ebert is as ignorant of basic electrical wiring as you make him out to be (and sadly quite a lot of people are that ignorant), the point is that the "exploding console" spectacle is becoming a very shopworn cliché, along with the spontaneously spewing fire extinguishers which are never aimed at where the fires actually are but just fill the bridge with smoke, and the ship shaking as if it's in an 8.5 earthquake during battle. More than one person has commented about how the engineers in the Star Trek future seem to have forgotten about a little something called the circuit breaker. In the whole of TOS, there were only three incidents of consoles shorting out —not even suffering a full explosion but just simple circuitry overload and fire which is quickly contained. Surely you admit that exploding consoles are simply ridiculous from any standpoint.

Let's say Roger Ebert is completely ignorant of how electricity works on any technical level. In the real world, he's never seen a control console or any electrical appliance explode because of an overload. Nobody ever has. He knows it's bullshit even if he doesn't know exactly why it's bullshit.

On the other hand, it does help to explain his dislike of digital film. He obviously can't understand basic electrical laws, much less digital photography.

Hasty Generalisation fallacy. The people who don't like digital film/photography feel so because it doesn't have the "look" of standard film media. The technology has improved considerably in just the four years since I shopped for my last camera, but I can tell you that most professionals will still prefer standard film over digital, because the technology has yet to improve to the point where you can get the same depth-of-field quality. It's definitely improving, but the technology is far from perfected.

Overall, I think you were a little hard on the man.

[Darth Wong]

I'm not too impressed with his article. He is clearly an idiot.

Oh, Ebert is clearly no sci-fi fan. But he liked previous Star Trek movies when the drama worked, and his bad review simply means that he didn't feel any drama. Mind you, I'm not inclined to have very high expectations of this movie because that's also PRECISELY how I felt after Insurrection.

[Master of Ossus]

Gotten a bit nitpicky, haven't you? Nobody said that Roger Ebert was SF saavy. He doesn't know the tech or I suspect even cares how the technobabble is supposed to make sense or what it describes. He's working from the perspective of a movie viewer.

Surely slavery is not an efficient economic system in a world of hyperdrives, but never mind.

First of all, they use warp engines in Star Trek. Obviously he's been panning SW movies for so long all sci-fi movies seem the same to him. Moreover, how can slavery not be an efficient economic system? If anything it is the epitomy of economics. It is morally reprehensible and completely unjustifiable, but that does not make it inefficient. It "merely" makes it wrong.

Well, slavery is an inefficent system. It assumes that you have outside markets to sell the product of no-cost labour to, but it retards economic development at home; plus there's the expense in maintaining a prison system and security. However, since the entire premise behind the Trek universe is that everything is either replicated or produced out of automated assembly plants, and you've got phaser drills to mine out materials, robots to perform the actual labour, and transporters to move everything around in, the spectacle of the slave mines doesn't quite fit in even with the Romulans, and is clichéd after all this time. Slave mines were a feature of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon after all, and incompatible with a space civilisation which is supposed to have all these wonderful technological toys.

Wait, what? Slavery only retards economic development if it is done the way that Americans used it. In many other places, the use of slaves created massive economic benefits for the home front. Slavery may be overused (because it is so easy to make it incredibly evil), but in this particular instance the slaves played little or no role in the actual plot.

As for Ebert not knowing the difference between "warp drive" and "hyperdrive" and which SF universe claims either, c'mon, that's picking gnatshit out of pepper. Both are FTL, and most people wouldn't know or care about the difference between either system or probably think it resides in a Black Box. It has nothing to do with the substance of the review.

His job is to examine the movie and determine what is going on in that movie. Moreover, this does affect the substance of the review as it explains how after all 7.5 minutes of ST Ebert has seen, he still clearly does not understand this.

I've been looking at these stories for half a halftime, and, let's face it, they're out of gas.

You've been watching it for 7.5 minutes?

Oh please —"half a halftime" is a rather obvious misprint, don't you think?

Which is why he should have caught this before it went into his final review. If he truly did not have time to catch this, his editor should have caught it for him.

This far in the future they wouldn't have sparks because they wouldn't have electricity, because in a world where you can beam matter--beam it, mind you--from here to there, power obviously no longer lives in the wall and travels through wires.

Let me get this straight. Ebert believes that in the future there will no longer be a need for wires because energy can be beamed back and forth? What will that energy run on? If its electricity it NEEDS A FUCKING COMPLETE CIRCUIT TO WORK! How can he not understand this? Has Ebert never even bothered to look at an electronic device (like, a camera, or a projector)?

Whether Ebert is as ignorant of basic electrical wiring as you make him out to be (and sadly quite a lot of people are that ignorant), the point is that the "exploding console" spectacle is becoming a very shopworn cliché, along with the spontaneously spewing fire extinguishers which are never aimed at where the fires actually are but just fill the bridge with smoke, and the ship shaking as if it's in an 8.5 earthquake during battle. More than one person has commented about how the engineers in the Star Trek future seem to have forgotten about a little something called the circuit breaker. In the whole of TOS, there were only three incidents of consoles shorting out —not even suffering a full explosion but just simple circuitry overload and fire which is quickly contained. Surely you admit that exploding consoles are simply ridiculous from any standpoint.

Yes, but that does not justify incompetence of this magnitude. Anyone with any level of electrical knowledge should know that a complete circuit is needed. Moreover, anyone who has changed a lightbulb, or plugged in an electrical appliance, should understand the basic concept of a circuit.

Let's say Roger Ebert is completely ignorant of how electricity works on any technical level. In the real world, he's never seen a control console or any electrical appliance explode because of an overload. Nobody ever has. He knows it's bullshit even if he doesn't know exactly why it's bullshit.

So why did he spend an entire paragraph of his review discussing his incorrect reasoning on why it was bullshit? If he had no idea what was going on, he should not have wasted print space on such a minor and trivial point.

On the other hand, it does help to explain his dislike of digital film. He obviously can't understand basic electrical laws, much less digital photography.

Hasty Generalisation fallacy. The people who don't like digital film/photography feel so because it doesn't have the "look" of standard film media. The technology has improved considerably in just the four years since I shopped for my last camera, but I can tell you that most professionals will still prefer standard film over digital, because the technology has yet to improve to the point where you can get the same depth-of-field quality. It's definitely improving, but the technology is far from perfected.

Not true. Every single camera that we use is digital, in our offices. Moreover, my uncle is a professional photographer who exclusively uses digital film (he, incidentally, works for National Geographic, but was not forced to make the change to digital film). If you can't tell, in National Geographic, that the quality of photographs in one article are not as crisp or well done as the photographs in another, and that the poor-quality shots are consistently digital whereas the higher-quality ones tend to be analogue, you will have a case. As it is, part of his job now is training the older photographers how to use digital cameras, and every single one of them has agreed that digital film actually has better quality more consistently than the traditional cameras they had been using (these are people who invested between $5,000 and $25,000 in their cameras, plus the rest of their equipment).

Overall, I think you were a little hard on the man.

Maybe I was, but I would never have allowed one of my reporters to publish this editorial.

[Uraniun235]

Kirk's most fearsome adversaries — played by Ricardo Montalban (news) in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" and Christopher Plummer (news) in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" — were able to outstrip his masculine bravado

Plummer was not Kirk's enemy.

As every Trekker knows, Federation starships lack the firepower of Romulan or Klingon war birds, so a captain must use his wits if he's drawn into battle with one of them. This installment, though, values brawn over brains, with the measured Picard eventually borrowing a tactic from a monster truck rally.

Pfft, the E-D outmatched everything except the Romulan Warbird.

Besides, when you've got nothing else... eh. Though it ticked me off that Picard didn't just say "Geordi, kill the antimatter containment fields".

[Patrick Degan]

Well, slavery is an inefficent system. It assumes that you have outside markets to sell the product of no-cost labour to, but it retards economic development at home; plus there's the expense in maintaining a prison system and security. However, since the entire premise behind the Trek universe is that everything is either replicated or produced out of automated assembly plants, and you've got phaser drills to mine out materials, robots to perform the actual labour, and transporters to move everything around in, the spectacle of the slave mines doesn't quite fit in even with the Romulans, and is clichéd after all this time. Slave mines were a feature of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon after all, and incompatible with a space civilisation which is supposed to have all these wonderful technological toys.

Wait, what? Slavery only retards economic development if it is done the way that Americans used it. In many other places, the use of slaves created massive economic benefits for the home front.

In a word, bullshit. Slaves can't buy anything. They don't amass personal wealth which can be recirculated into the general economy. The use of slaves actually retards the development of automated production becaues it destroys any incentive to switch over to machines, and the wealth which is supposedly amassed from no-cost labour is never enough to finance such a switchover, and is counterbalanced by the costs of security and imprisonment. By any standpoint, it is a hideously inefficent system.

Slavery may be overused (because it is so easy to make it incredibly evil), but in this particular instance the slaves played little or no role in the actual plot.

Then this constitutes yet another reason why the movie's plot was weak. It establishes that EvilClone Skippy's bitterness was the result of his being sent to the slave mines by the Romulans, but there seems little actual reason to have included the Romulans in the plot at all for all the screen time they actually get. The sole reason for the slavery backstory was to prevent Skippy from being just a simple black-hat villain like Snidley Whiplash, but the actual supports for that particular plot point just tend to hang in midair.

As for Ebert not knowing the difference between "warp drive" and "hyperdrive" and which SF universe claims either, c'mon, that's picking gnatshit out of pepper. Both are FTL, and most people wouldn't know or care about the difference between either system or probably think it resides in a Black Box. It has nothing to do with the substance of the review.

His job is to examine the movie and determine what is going on in that movie. Moreover, this does affect the substance of the review as it explains how after all 7.5 minutes of ST Ebert has seen, he still clearly does not understand this.

Are you still on about that stupid misprint? He has very clearly seen much more than "7.5 minutes" and your continual insistance to the contrary must speak more to your prejudice against the man than any concern for fact.

Oh please —"half a halftime" is a rather obvious misprint, don't you think?

Which is why he should have caught this before it went into his final review. If he truly did not have time to catch this, his editor should have caught it for him.

Now you're being deliberately obtuse. Misprints actually do happen. They do slip past the editors on occasion. You really are trying to make something out of a non-issue.

Whether Ebert is as ignorant of basic electrical wiring as you make him out to be (and sadly quite a lot of people are that ignorant), the point is that the "exploding console" spectacle is becoming a very shopworn cliché, along with the spontaneously spewing fire extinguishers which are never aimed at where the fires actually are but just fill the bridge with smoke, and the ship shaking as if it's in an 8.5 earthquake during battle. More than one person has commented about how the engineers in the Star Trek future seem to have forgotten about a little something called the circuit breaker. In the whole of TOS, there were only three incidents of consoles shorting out —not even suffering a full explosion but just simple circuitry overload and fire which is quickly contained. Surely you admit that exploding consoles are simply ridiculous from any standpoint.

Yes, but that does not justify incompetence of this magnitude. Anyone with any level of electrical knowledge should know that a complete circuit is needed. Moreover, anyone who has changed a lightbulb, or plugged in an electrical appliance, should understand the basic concept of a circuit.

Does it ever occur to you that a lot of people really do not understand the basic concept of a circuit? Again, you pick gnatshit out of pepper. His overall point is that the "exploding console syndrome" is a ridiculous, overblown cliche. What about this is escaping your comprehension?

Let's say Roger Ebert is completely ignorant of how electricity works on any technical level. In the real world, he's never seen a control console or any electrical appliance explode because of an overload. Nobody ever has. He knows it's bullshit even if he doesn't know exactly why it's bullshit.

So why did he spend an entire paragraph of his review discussing his incorrect reasoning on why it was bullshit? If he had no idea what was going on, he should not have wasted print space on such a minor and trivial point.

How many times does this have to be said to you: the main point is that he finds the "exploding console syndrome" ridiculous. It is. Sure, he was spinning his own idea of why it was ridiculous in the context of Treknology, and let's face it: with as much idiotic technobabble spew as they put out in the series, they might one day have the writers coming up with something exactly as idiotic as "they beam the power all over the ship". TNG/DS9/V'ger writers have certainly come up with even goofier technobabble than Ebert's off-the-top-of-his-head speculation.

The people who don't like digital film/photography feel so because it doesn't have the "look" of standard film media. The technology has improved considerably in just the four years since I shopped for my last camera, but I can tell you that most professionals will still prefer standard film over digital, because the technology has yet to improve to the point where you can get the same depth-of-field quality. It's definitely improving, but the technology is far from perfected.

Not true. Every single camera that we use is digital, in our offices. Moreover, my uncle is a professional photographer who exclusively uses digital film (he, incidentally, works for National Geographic, but was not forced to make the change to digital film). If you can't tell, in National Geographic, that the quality of photographs in one article are not as crisp or well done as the photographs in another, and that the poor-quality shots are consistently digital whereas the higher-quality ones tend to be analogue, you will have a case. As it is, part of his job now is training the older photographers how to use digital cameras, and every single one of them has agreed that digital film actually has better quality more consistently than the traditional cameras they had been using (these are people who invested between $5,000 and $25,000 in their cameras, plus the rest of their equipment).

I've got news for you —I can certainly tell the difference between traditional film media and digital. The problem is not sharpness of the images as much as a certain loss of that depth-of-focus "feel". It is subjective, but there are still plenty of professionals who will not touch digital. Digital's main advantages are that you can deliver the images directly to any desktop editing platform, you never have to worry about the "film stock" going bad on you, and you never have to fool with any of the intermediary developing stages. I know I certainly like the idea of not fooling with chemicals and I've shot 35mm and other format film stock for ten years.

In any case, his opposition to digital filmmaking was something you cited wholly out of context with the overall attack you were launching against Ebert.

Overall, I think you were a little hard on the man.

Maybe I was, but I would never have allowed one of my reporters to publish this editorial.

And your Managing Editor would have overridden you and run the piece. Editorials and film reviews are matters of opinion, not news, and that's what those writers are being paid for. They are not intended to be accurate accounting of fact as information; they are a point of view.