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Star Trek - Nemesis (Widescreen Edition)

Star Trek - Nemesis (Widescreen Edition)

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Plot Inconsistencies undermine Nemesis
Review: Nemesis is better than its predecessor Insurrection. It also boasts the most extended space battle scene of any of the Star Trek films.

Unfortunately, the plot suffers from serious logic gaps. The Romulan generals grow impatient with Shinzon (Private Twombly in 'Black Hawk Down')for not attacking the Federation immediately. Then, when he is engaged in combat against the Enterprise, two Romulan ships enter the fray to assist Picard. Why would they turn against Shinzon after assisting his rise to power? And would a Romulan commander use a slang term like "We are dead in the water" after her ship is knocked out of commission?

We can understand why Shinzon is mad at the Romulans, but his beef with the Federation is never made clear. Star Trek fans deserved better than this lazily written story. A new creative team is needed to breathe life into this franchise.

Star Trek is supposed to be about exploring new worlds and meeting new life forms.. but the films appear to have strayed away from this concept. If there is going to be another Star Trek film, let's hope the Enterprise returns to its original mission.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Top Notch Production But Not Totally Original
Review: Rick Berman and film crew must be commended for the quality of the Star Trek installments as they are released. I remember reading a quote from Patrick Stewart some years back that echoed the thoughts of the producers of "learning to make (motion pictures) at the time of the release of "Generations" and toward the end of the television series run. If that's the case, there was never much of a learning curve.

From a production standpoint the films of this franchise get better and better. Sets, computer animiatics, acting and all of the above. The chemistry from the Next Generation crew is superb. Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner are excellent as always, their theatre acting experience is a credit to them.

If you expecting the axe to fall on this film, it's not going to. "Nemesis" is a good film, I was entertained and it was well done. The only place where the film perhaps warrants a little critism is the trend of screenplay writing that Science Fiction films tend to rely on. Introductions - indentify the enemy - battle sequence - dramatic explosion with death of main enemy. I expect a little more from this talented bunch of writers and because they have show themselves to be very capable of creating new molds rather than filling old ones. If you will permit me, I'll explain.

This production team has shown to have the story dictate the tempo, whether the effects are spectacular or not. Not to be naive, I realize that since revenues are at stake, the imagery does have to be spectacular to some degree. However, I maintain that writing is what put "The Next Generation" crew in a position to make major films in the first place.

The story angles in their first film "Generations" concerning the search for bliss wasn't a gimmick, but perhaps a desire we all have. The realization that we can never go back made the transition that much more solid. These talented writers worked that angle well for the passing of the big screen torch. The shock and terror of "First Contact" of the screenplay is what made the film memorable which again I attribute to the writers as well as the actors and actresses. It's not just the overall objective mind you, it's the threads of small stories that ultimately make the overall objective enjoyable.

Not to be unfair, "Nemesis" is a great stand alone film, from the standpoint of the series...I feel like it's been done before. There are interesting parallels with "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan". I really thought that the film was moving to an interesting storyline, but the resolution ultimately was painfully predictable which I suppose is ultimately the beef.

Forgive the rant, this is still a good film! Not to be completely negative, I can't say enough about the quality of the DVD effort. Fans will be pleased to know that production goodies are included in this great DVD. I especially like quality of the deleted scenes sections. Overall, I think you will find the quality of the DVD to be excellent. I hope Rick Berman continues with the Star Trek series somehow.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Truly awful
Review: I awaited this film in great anticipation...I shouldn't have bothered. The script is ridiculous and is only surpassed in its mind-numbingness by the plot which plods along from one unexplained and ill thought out set piece to the next.

The film starts promisingly with a wedding scene which still manages to show some of the humour and a dash of sentimentality that are a hallmark of Star Trek films. It's downhill fast from here folks...

We are soon transported to another world where, as luck would have it, Picard and co stumble across the dismembered body of a predecessor to Data. Thereafter follows a completely unnessecary and totally unbelievable car chase / shootout with a group of aliens that looked suspiciously like the 'Sandpeople' from Star Wars. And guess what...they just happen to be driving ATV's aswell! I strongly strongly suspect that someone on the design team for this film has spent a great deal of time playing 'Halo' on the X-Box! If you have played it you will know what I mean.

The villian pops up out of nowhere and somehow manages to overthrow the Romulan government with the help of a few skeletal creatures with a deep aversion to sunlight (handy on the battlefield huh!). No attempt is really made to explain this properly apart from the fact that he spent years in slavery in a Romulan mine and now hates everyone. Oh, guess what, said villian also happens to be a clone of Picard who, wait for it, needs Picard's blood to survive. This whole episode is eventually explained away with a liberal dash of Star Trek uber-mumbo-jumbo, but by this time you don't even bother trying to decipher it as you have resigned yourself to the fact that you are watching an absolute turkey of a film that is an absolute disgrace to the memory of Gene Rodenberry.

Last and least we are treated, YET AGAIN, to the Enterprise crashing into something....snore. And I nearly forgot, after Data has sacrificed himself, we learn that all of his memories have been placed into his prototype 'brother' who is now crew on the Enterprise. Wow...I wonder what's going to happen there?! A cunning plot twist.

To sum up:- This is a lazy film, with a juvenile script and story that leaves you not giving a toss whether they ever bother to make another Star Trek film. It's more like "The A-Team" in space. The team on the next film, assuming they can find backers for a new one after this pile of tosh, should take a good hard look at 'Khan' and 'The Undiscovered Country' - easily the best films of the franchise. HUGELY dissappointing!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I'm still gettin chills!
Review: I saw Nemesis in the theatre and purchased the dvd upon its first day of release. From then probably have viewed it another 8 or so times. So why the chills? The final 30 or so minutes of this movie is worth everything. The special effects and battle sequences are the best I have ever seen in anything trek to date - period! In the theatre I found myself gripping my seat and unmoving for this period. Even if the rest of the movie was horrible, it would still be worth it just to see the ship-to-ship fights. As for the rest of the movie, it is far from ugly, as many viewers and especially critics have said. I don't understand it. Maybe if you are not a Trek fanatic then it isn't entirely appealing, but for any Trek appreciator, I strongly believe Nemesis will be nothing less of a thrill ride. The story revolves heavily around Picard and his younger clone, "Shinzon" There are some that knock this because the movie revolves around these characters so much, well, that's why they called it "Nemesis", it was suposed to. Yes, Shinzon is scary. At first I almost laughed in the theatre when his image was revealed, looking almost like Dr. Evil from Austin Powers. Throughout the movie, in each scene, Shinzon becomes more angry, aggressive, and more "evil and gruesome-looking" (there's a part of the story that deals with why). Then there's Shinzon's viceroy, played by Ron Pearlman who did such a fine job that he could play the role of the evil-villan in several of the scenes. The dark and resonant voice of the character just sets a very creepy effect that is really cool. Back to the Picard vs. Shinzon deal; upon first watching I thought it was a bit of nonsense connected to a complete madman. Well, in a sense Shinzon becomes a madman later in the film when his plans fall apart. And there is more to this conflict than meets the eye. Picard is faced with what he would be like if he had lived Shinzon's life. He tries to resist the emotional attacks from Shinzon on the subject, but you can tell that Picard is really affected at times with the matter in a very deep, person way (naturally). It makes for a pretty interesting story. Some of the scenes are hard to follow but that is due to the extreme editing for the final cut. The deleted scenes included on the dvd "extras" allow for some things to make more sense.
The dvd itself is terrific. The digital video and audio effects are excellent and even better than in the theatre (with a good home theatre system of course). With the exceptions of the special editions dvds of Treks' 1 - 4, Nemesis has more extras than any other Trek dvd.
The big problem about Nemesis for everyone is that it is a copy of The Wrath of Khan. It very much is similar in almost every way. But the good news is that if you loved ST2, than Nemesis will not disapoint. Think of it as a new and refreshing sequal to the best Trek movie ever.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Nemesis?...What Nemesis?
Review: Oh boy, what a fuzz about this movie.

What was it? Number Ten? OK, so what? The Enterprise is going down and this time for good. Not like in The Search of Spock or Generations though. I am afraid the producers miscalculated big time.

First of all, I want to say that I am absolutely not against newcomers in the movie business. Actually it was time to have some pop up, but like this?

The Man simply cannot act. He mumbles his words. People told me how scary Shinzon was. Scary? He was mad, crazy, paranoiac, but scary? C'mon, give me a break here.
Dracula was scary, and I don't mean Gary Oldman. I mean Christopher Lee. When he appeared on top of a staircase, in his long draped cape, in half-shadow, without even uttering a word, you knew he meant trouble. But Shinzon, with his boyish "puppy" face?
I found Ron Perlman far more threatening than him.
The story too, is a disgrace. More a work out of a Star Trek computer game, than the excellent and more humane plots of the original series or even of The Next Generation series.

Here too, as in my previous review of "Die Another Day" I saw no imagination, no relation to the characters. They are all puppets set up in a game, rather than living and breathing human beings.

You cannot sense the concerns, the true frailty and the pain of the various characters. This was still all there in Generations, First Contact and even in the less fortunate Insurrection. But here?

Even the more than human android Data (Brent Spiner), whose struggle to be more like his companions, seems vanished, just to reappear briefly towards the end of the picture as a last minute afterthought.

What to say about Data's "brother"? Well, Lore he is not and it is a wonder that Data ever became Data at all, viewed what a moron this new "brother" is. Besides, it makes no sense. In all the previous episodes and movies we were constantly told that Data had only one brother.
Watch out! Not anymore, now we have another one. A stupid one.
And all this for what, a sequel?

If the sequel is as bad as this one, I will have seen the last of Star Trek in my life and I will stick to what I own, rather than venture out there, "where no sane mind has ever gone before".

No, Nemesis, is a bitter disappointment. The special effects are OK, but they are not everything. The music is so-so.

The directing though, lacks knowledge of the true spirit that made the "Big Bird" create the series in the first place.
We don't need "intellectualoids" to direct a science fiction - adventure movie. What we need is people who know the series back and forth as the back of their hands and not a Kubrick-like visionary (I doubt that Kubrick even remotely, wanted to direct a Star Trek movie).
Where is Leonard Nimoy? He is a director as well. Where is Nicholas Meyer? Those guys knew what they were doing... Even Winrich Kolbe, who directed many TV episodes across the Star Trek spectrum, should have had a chance.

But no. Mr. "allmighty" Berman had to decide otherwise. I wonder if he really knows what Star Trek is all about, besides its money value.
Perhaps, Mr. Berman should rather go back to its roots, instead of playing on new territories in which he truly has absolutely no competence about.

No Mr. Berman. This is not Star Trek. I don't know what it should represent, but besides recognizing a Sci-Fi flick, I don't see the spirit of Gene Roddenberry in this one.
And then they said "Star Trek V - The Final Frontier" was bad.
Well, let me tell you, give me Star Trek V anytime, rather than this weak attempt at inner-psychology.

One more thing. At Star Trek XI, bring back some good old villains, rather than your new, dull ones. Anything, Cardassians, Klingons, The Dominion, even the good old Borg.
Or why not, a touch of Q gone bad. Or a mixture of them all, but spare us weak imitations, like Kazons (besides, who would really be afraid of villains in curlers?).

Last but not least, hire someone who can write an interesting mystery story and had some true, old-fashioned creativeness and imagination.

To the actors, my suggestion would be not to listen to the directors so much, but rather let your feelings go wild.

To you all, my word of warning, buy it if you are an absolute Star Trek fan and want this one to complete your collection. To everyone else I'd suggest a better use of your time.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Better then I expected
Review: When Star Trek Nemesis came out, I read some very luck warm reviews on it and I figured they were probably wrong; but then as the weeks passed, I noticed Nemesis did not do, all that well, at the Box office; So I began to wonder if the critics were right. I figured I would just get the DVD when It came out, I am not much for going to theaters anyway. Usually I get the star trek movies on the day of release, but this time due to the two reasons I mentioned above, I delayed getting this one until just recently. And my initial thought was right, the critics were wrong. I was very pleasantly surprised at how good Nemesis is. I love the whole Picard "Romulan as the human weapon" Clone thing; and I liked the Death and rebirth of the beloved Data thing as well. The Clone of Picard reminded me somewhat of Luke Skywalker, finding out, Vader was His father, but it is still fresh in its own way. The death of Data, to save His crew and the enterprise, was both sad and yet comforting, knowing that his memories were transferred to B4. Very cool stuff. If your a trek fan you will love this movie.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Awful. Simply Awful!
Review: Worst Trek film ever. I loved the Star Trek movies and series, well except DS9, but we won't discuss that here. This film was the worst.

The story made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Why is a human clone in charge of the Romulan Empire? That is never fully explained, or not believably. Why does the villain not take what he needs from Picard early in the film? He has ample opportunity. What does the villain hate Picard and the Federation so much? Again, not nearly adequately explained.

The special effects were acceptable. Not great, but acceptable. But without an adequate story line, the movie just degenerates into action movie with no plot.

If you want to see a better Star Trek Movie, get one of the previous ones, any one of them is better than this piece of garbage.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Like "First Contact" consistentsy suffers!
Review: As a fan of "Star Trek", I was glad to see this one work, After the last outing, the horrible "Insurection" I had little faith in this one, but that faith has been somewhat restored, like "First Contact" this one is loaded with action set pieces that fans have come to expect & like "First Contact" it has succeeded where "Insurection" miserably failed!!!, but there are some inconsistent details, the series that ran from 1987 to 1994 were great, the last & final episode "All good things" was a great way to end the series & pick up with "Generations" the first feature film, which was also good, the last episode had Picard jumping from past, present, & future, in the future scenes, appearnaces had not changed much, costumes & ship designs were more advanced but had the same color elements to them, with "First Contact" & "Nemesis" ship & costume designs are somewhat different, In "Nemesis" the Enterprise E is sent to Romulas where Picard & the crew discover a sinister plot by a villian that is an evil clone of Picard's younger self, who has a starship more superior than any ship in Starfleet, it seems he needs Picard's blood to live & tries to sway Picard to his side, in an effort to rule the Romulan Empire & seize control of Earth, when Picard refuses to help him, a battle ensues, a battle very similar to "Wrath of Kahn" where the two try to out manuever one another with many action set pieces, Data's death/sacrifice scene is emotional at best & well done for the most part, but this is where consistency gets lost, it totally contradicts the last episode of the series where Data is still around in Picard's future, not unless it was a perception of the future to Picard, fans can only have their view on this detail, one neat element is Riker & Troi finally marrying after ignoring each other's feeling through out the series, you always knew it would happen & now it does & Riker finally taking his own command, finally!!, somthing that he was always reluctant to do in the series, "Nemesis" does grow its characters very well, but Rick Berman like most producers fails in the consistentsy department, this is why George Lucas sought control over his "Star Wars" frnachise, because of people like Berman, & their failure to keep consistent with past events, but that should not stop one's enjoyment of "Nemesis" or "First Contact" for that matter once you get past those issues!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Ignore the Critics
Review: For physical reasons I was unable to see this movie at the theater. However, the long wait for the video was well worth it. Paramount went out and hired one of the best action directors in the person of Stephen Baird. The escape scenes involving Picard and other crew members are scintillating and inventive. The final encounter between the Enterprise and the Scimitar is even more thrilling than the crashlanding of the Enterprise-D in GENERATIONS.

Also brought in for this movie was the gifted screenwriter John Logan. Through the dialogue between Picard and Shinzon he ratchets up the tension as the story progresses. This effectively sets the stage for the action sequences that Baird has skillfully devised. Logan fit in perfectly with Star Trek's philosophy that the characters should be the driving force in the movie and not just pawns in the hands of the director.

Many critics complained that the film was difficult to follow because of sloppy editing. For what it's worth, I watched this movie with a friend and we never spoke until it ended. We were so riveted by NEMESIS that we allowed nothing to distract us. If there was an edting problem, I would think that my mind would have wondered at various points of the movie. That never happened! Recent movies like BLACKHAWK DOWN and LORD OF THE RINGS were so dominated by action and gruesome images that they grew tiresome.

When I realized that NEMESIS was going to be a disappointment at the Box Office, I initially felt sorry for the hundreds of people at Paramount who created this marvelous adventure. However, I changed my feelings and want to salute everyone involved for giving us an excellent film to mark the end of the Star Trek movies (maybe!).

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A good movie that could have been great
Review: I almost feel bad about giving this 3 stars.
The action, FX, villian and so forth were great.
The story itself was first rate until the end which I thought
was a complete copy of Wraith of Khan.(i.e. the mind meld in Khan/Data download to B4 in this one) Most people I've discussed this with didn't even notice but, being a long time fan I thought it was a let down. If Data was going to make the ultimate
sacrifice, at least make it original.


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