So the same guy who did the 70 min. Phantom Menace Review (Red Letter Media / Harry S. Plinkett), has also done several other reviews of sci-fi classics. I found his review of Nemesis particularly amusing. But I thought I'd link to the first installment for each of the Trek ones.
I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to find the subsequent parts. Fair warning: there are a number of ghastly references to serial murder which are intended to be taken lightly, but which may upset younger and more delicate sensibilities. Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
You should link the Star Trek 2009 review, that one particularly colorful with its humor.
Posted by Axeman 3D (Member # 1050) on :
The man knows his Trek, that's for sure. His ripping apart of the scene at the end of Generations with Picard tossing aside his priceless clay artifact is endlessly funny and very well observed.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Kay... I've known Insurrection and Nemesis were terrible for years... but these really make you realize just how lazy the production and story telling was. Especially when compared to the TWoK.
Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
I particularly enjoy his suggestion that in Nemesis when they need to beam one person over to Shinzon's super-weapon to kill all the Remans and blow up the ship, that instead of the 65 year-old man with arthritis, that they instead send Worf loaded down with knives and bat'leths.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
Just watched the Nemesis one. Wow. I laughed quite hard.
I'm amazed that he picked up stuff I'd not noticed - perhaps it was that bad my brain filtered it for me, or maybe they were bits where I was cradleing my head in my hands. I dunno.
The bit where he shows the unadjusted box office gross for the films made me crease up, just because of the dumb music. But then I thought does that still hold up? Yes, yes it does. Inflation adjusted or not it's still the worst performing Trek movie, by quite a long way...
But dispite that, it's still better than Star Trek V: The Final Time We Let Bill Direct.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Aban Rune: Kay... I've known Insurrection and Nemesis were terrible for years... but these really make you realize just how lazy the production and story telling was. Especially when compared to the TWoK.
Man...I dont agree- TWOK's plot is kinda rushed to say the least, and there's the huge plot hole that Kirk somehow knows why Kahn is captaining Reliant and looking for payback- without anyone bothering to say "WTF, Kahn?!? I left you on the planet of your choice with a babe and all your pals- why the hell are you shooting the ship I just fucked over another captain to re-command?"
Insurrection, while slow, tells a story from start to finish, First Contact does the same, but faster and with cool ship battles.
quote: I particularly enjoy his suggestion that in Nemesis when they need to beam one person over to Shinzon's super-weapon to kill all the Remans and blow up the ship, that instead of the 65 year-old man with arthritis, that they instead send Worf loaded down with knives and bat'leths
Or just, you know, a bundle of torpedos.
Or a skunk- that would sure screw their day.
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
The last couple minutes of part one of the Insurrection review had me rolling with laughter.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
You know I've often wondered if the blue background inside the collector ship in Insurrection was by design or just that they really did just run out of money and decided to not fill-in blue screen elements. There are a couple of CG effects shots that look very poorly lit, so I have to wonder if there was some issue there.
Posted by Pensive's Wetness (Member # 1203) on :
Yet another reason why Nemesis should have never been made (that way it was)
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
The problem with that is that if you consider Wolf359, Picard gets a lot more kills... and Sisko as well, when you consider all the ships destroyed over the course of the Dominion War.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
I dislike Insurrection for portraying the Enterprise as an impotent little frigate, after having rocked the Borg six ways til sunday in FC. Also, the plot felt too localized to warrant a movie.
Despite its flaws, I put Nemesis above Insurrection and Final Frontier because it redeemed the Enterprise as a Ship Of The Line again, in a retelling of the Khan-Kirk dogfight but with more muscle, which I thought fitting since it's the last time we'll see the Sovereign on the silver screen. After that, the rest of the criticism against Nemesis just feels like pointless whiny bickering. To quote Mr Plinkett up there, "we're not watching this stinker for the plot". I don't watch "Way of the Dragon" to see Bruce Lee eat dumplings with Nora Miao (even though she's a hot cookie), I watch it for the Chuck Norris-fight.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
You're implying that Shinzon is Chuck Norris?
I can see the CBS show now... Shinzon: Reman Ranger Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
LMAO! Just finished Gen part 2 review...hilarious!!!!
Hmm, can't see part one of First Contact - "set to private". Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Jeizon:
quote:You're implying that Shinzon is Chuck Norris?
I can see the CBS show now... Shinzon: Reman Ranger
Well, maybe not the Walker but he's Bob Wall, at least. (I love how Lee kicks him so hard in the face that it creates a dust cloud around his head, Peanuts-style.)
I don't know, I felt Tom Hardy pulled his weight in Nemesis, I thought he took to the role as a megalomaniac better than I felt Joaquin Phoenix was as Emperor Dick van Dyke in "Gladiator", the closest comparison. Hardy certainly got more stuff done, killing his entire senate, built a Rap-star class battleship and dreamraped Troi. Joaquin Phoenix killed one (1) gay senator with a small snake and then limited himself to trying (and failing repeatedly) to bed his sister. The historical Commodus would've succeeded in all that and "free lobster for everyone" within a week.
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
Mmm...pizza rolls...I'm very hungry now. Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I re-watched (or rather re-listened to) his Star Wars prequel reviews this week while I worked. I continue to be amazed at how truly bad those movies are.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Worst line: "Yippee!" from pre-pubecent Anakin. Fuck's sake, Lucas even had him kick up his heels there...
Hayden CHristensen got hosed badly in Ep.II but I think he did quite well in III (overall). Mostly those movies are only worth watching for the amazing effects and Ewan McGregor's amazing performance- both playing the role and channeling Sir Alec nicely.
His shooting Grevious to death was hilarious.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
After watching his review for Nemesis, something compelled me to watch it this weekend while I worked on some freelance stuff. Utter dreck. The E looks great, but that's about it.
My favorite thing I hadn't noticed before was the following: Picard orders the self destruct after ramming Shinzon's ship so he can destroy it. The self destruct fails. Minutes later, while the Enterprise was still close enough for Data to space-jump between ships and within the range of a micro-transporter, Shinzon's ship *blows up*... and yet the Enterprise survives just fine.
*shudder*
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Actually, that's not necessarily true. While the fireball explosion is visible from the bridge, the Scimitar itself is not seen *from the bridge* prior to the explosion.
So, we could presume some extra distance, whether as a result of continued drifting, unseen time, or action to put some distance between the ships.
Mind you, that's still a weak excuse from a continuity sense, because the danger zone for a warp core cooking off is usually shown as pretty large (far exceeding visual range). So, having the Scimitar blow up from the phaser to the magic green junk and *not* wipe out everything within a thousand klicks seems kinda weak.
Not to mention the fact that something resembling flaming solid chunks are visible, at least in the quickie Youtube-uploaded version I watched to double-check the visibility of the ship.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Yes, Picard did order Data to "try and put some distance" between the Enterprise and the Scimitar. An order which Data then ignores before taking the chief engineer with him so he can lower a forcefield.
So let's assume that Troi actually pretended there were other people on the ship who might appreciate their lives being saved and followed orders. Considering that Data gave her no information about what he was going to do, she would have immediately started moving the ship off, if she could. Yet when Data arrives in the forward section, both ships are still just a'sittin' there.
Come to think of it, the whole movie is chalk full of Picard and the senior staff treating the crew as though they were unimportant extras in a crappy sci-fi movie. Picard rams the Scimitar without so much as turning the com on and yelling "Everyone evacuate the forward sections NOW! You have 15 seconds to get as far aft as possible." How many people did that kill? You see several crew members caught in the crash.
Posted by Pensive's Wetness (Member # 1203) on :
maybe the resulting court martials were on the cutting room floor...
you know, that makes a great alternate continuity! you got the post-Nemmy-Borg-are-gone-MikeTysonPact line, the STO line, the NuTrek line and now, the former-senior staff line now working at various NON-feddy Starbase Walmarts around the galaxy...
maybe he did make the call off camera (or someone else did), which brings a thought to mind, where is everyone when your starship is at GQ? maybe the one's caught in the smash were the ship riders & airwing personnel who fuck-off & don't play the GQ~games, like in the real world? Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think I gave up trying to make sense of that movie right after they randomly picked up a "positronic signature" from halfway across the Federation and by the time they started randomly shooting at the locals I'd given up even caring...which was what? 10 mins in?
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Yah... one minute they're in Alaska... the next minute they're close enough to the Romulan Neutral Zone to pick up a signal on the planet of the Aardvark-People... which conveniently makes them the closest ship to Romulus when Shinzon throws down.
And since when does the Federation flagship take time off to haul an officer to his (naked) wedding? Which is what they were doing when they picked up the signal.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
And since when is the Neutral Zone on the way between Earth and Betazed?
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I was always bothered by the dialogue between Riker and Picard when they're mentioning the Argo, Picard's "new toy". And then the weird smiles they gave each other, ugh.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Aban's right about the crew not being shown- the thing that made First Contact so good was the danger to the crew- in Nemesis, crew casualties are never mentioned: a scene with Beverley busting ass trying to deal with all the wounded would have gone a long way to making this dramatic- maybe with a Mccoy-esque call up to the bridge to knock it the fuck off!
Plus the Enterprise not having an auxilliary bridge- or even controlling things from engineering- anything except staring out a gaping hole, pressuried by a force field that could go the nect time the ship takes a hit...
Or the bad physics of the Enterprise ramming and later pulling out of the Scimitar...and th Scimitar breaking like glass when rammed. Worse still is the idiotic things that come out of the scimitar like a fucking transformer- stuff that would fill the interior volume of the ship suddenly ops out of arms and opens like claws. What. the. fuck were they thinking?!?
Or the two new Romulan ships showing up to get blown to hell in seconds- if EVER there was a time where a correctly-scaled Warbird would have blown audiences away, it was here, but instead we got scrawny pointy bird designs with pointy things instead of nacelles...
Cutting Wesley's moment was shit too- they should have cut that idiotic dune-buggy chase scene.
...and of course, not showing the USS Titan.
but aside from that stuff, it's a great movie- very well thought out.
Posted by Josh (Member # 1884) on :
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