Star Trek: Nemesis
Directed by Stuart Baird
Written by John Logan, Rick Berman and Brent Spiner
Watching Star Trek: Nemesis last night, I couldn't help but feel that the writers were influenced by the events of 11 September, 2001. There are Spoilers ahead from here on out.
The two most striking moments were Picard's decision to slam his ship into the enemy head on, and even more suggestive of that horrific day, the crew of the Enterprise staring at the pulverized dust that had been the enemy ship, knowing that among the particles was all that remained of one of their most beloved colleagues. It was impossible for me not to remember what it was like watching the debris fall from the World Trade Center on live television, knowing that it wasn't just bits of ash and paper and plastic falling to the ground from 110 stories in the air.
I'm not suggesting that the echoes of September 11th I found in the movie were deliberate. Maybe they weren't even subconscious -- maybe I'm just nuts. But it sure looked to me like the events of the past 15 months had made an impact on this story as it was being crafted. Oh, and then there's the anthrax attacks -- not that they were linked to September 11th (or that we'll ever likely know where they came from) -- but the attack on the Romulan Senate that leads off the film unquestionably was influenced by that little bit of terrorism.
Nemesis doesn't look like any other Star Trek film. To a large degree it's more in-your-face, which is a relief after the mannered, distant Insurrection, which for my money is the worst of all the Trek movies. Unfortunately, Nemesis has its share of problems.
The worst, which I realized throughout the film and had verified for me by an e-mail from former Galaxy staffer Dan Coyle, is the unfortunate resemblance the villain Shinzon bears to Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers films. It's just undeniable, and it's not only in the physical resemblance ("Hey, let's give him a high collar!"), but in the overblown villany, too.
There are also a lot of moments that are just silly for one reason or another. The dune buggy scene is silly because, well, Picard just looks foolish driving a dune buggy. The B-4 stuff is silly because, hey, There's a duplicate of Data! Wow, that's never happened before! Let's download everything Data knows into him, because he must be benign!
In fact, in the early draft of the script that I have, B-4's name was B-9. I did have the thought that the whole B-4 storyline wouldn't have seemed so stupid and insulting if they had actually just acknowledged Lore, Data's evil twin that vexed the crew throughout the TV series. But then I guess they thought we'd be distracted from the Brilliant Statement About Symmetry at the heart of the script, which clearly shows zzz zzz.
Apparently we were supposed to be stunned by the resemblance between Picard and Shinzon when Shinzon made his dramatic "Turn up the lights!" statement. My wife didn't get that at all, and was shocked when the DNA tests proved he was a clone of Picard. I knew it ahead of time because I'd cheated and read the script, but again, Shinzon looked more like Dr. Evil than Captain Picard. For all the emphasis on symmetry and identity, Shinzon never once convinces us he could have been Jean-Luc Picard if only he'd been raised in France instead of on Remus.
Admiral Janeway's cameo would have been funnier if it had been played by Michael York as Admiral Exposition.
"I feel nothing," Data says, a reminder that we're supposed to forget he had that emotion chip permanently installed a few movies back. Then, of course, his lip is practically quivering at the heart-rending "Goodbye" he delivers before the big bang. Ice-cold robot or emotional android, Berman, which is it?
The Deanna Violation subplot -- hey, we've been here before, too. What's that you say? Homage? To a lousy episode? Uh-huh.
For all that was wrong with the movie, it still exceeded my expectations. I truly loathed Insurrection, and the more personal story presented here won me over far more than that previous outing. Visually, Nemesis has some nice moments, most notably the ramming of the Reman vessel by Enterprise. The explosive decompression ripping people out of the Bridge and to their deaths in space was shocking and effective as well. And it only took 36 years of Star Trek to get around to showing it!
Patrick Stewart is terrific, of course, but the stupidity and redundancy of most of what Brent Spiner had to do renders his performance mostly moot. And as much as I cringe when any Star Trek actor breaks out into song, Worf's agonized "Irving Berlin" remark was the funniest line in the film. It's a shame that Worf, Geordi and Crusher are given so little to do, but this is fairly standard for Trek films. Hell, even Riker and Deanna's story really is just filler in comparison to the screen time Stewart and Spiner get on screen.
There's a lot wrong with Star Trek these days, to be certain. Roger Ebert actually points that out quite eloquently in his Nemesis review. I'm a little more forgiving than he is of the movie's flaws, though -- I was sucked right in by all those shields failing and bodies flying across the bridge. I do agree with Ebert that the ramming scene would have been better served by a massive boarding party from Enterprise seizing Shinzon's ship, but by then the budget was probably down to about 75 cents.
As someone who had read a version of the script many months ago and had decided this movie was going to be pretty terrible, Patrick Stewart's performance and some good visual effects went a long way to tempering my disappointment with the rehashed, leftover plot devices that the film is marred by. In the great scheme of things, this isn't the best Trek movie ever, but I've seen far, far worse. Grade: 3/5