I liked Jerry Goldsmith's music, but only the usual TMP music. Digital Domain did animate the Enterprise quite nicely, although it didn't quite feel real -- partly due to the excessively curvy ship design (think how the Batmobile and Batcostumes changed over the course of the movies), partly due to the excessive use of CGI. The drawback of CGI is that it allows an incompetent producer to make the visuals cool and cartoonish -- in fact, that's much easier than making them realistic. That's how we get the Star Wars disc-style explosions or the swirly green lights wherever you look. Remember how the first "Batman" was basically black with a few colors strewn here and there, while "Batman and Robin" became excessively stylish and colorful? It happened because Schumacher wanted to bring Batman from a real-world kind of setting (wasn't totally real-world, but very much so) into a comic book world. Nemesis wants to do the same with Star Trek. Things just happen for no reason, and I'll expand on this later.
I liked some of the scenes between Picard and Shinzon, especially the part where he goes into his history. Those kinds of flashbacks are fairly new to Star Trek, and they seemed to have used a different style of cinematography for that and the desert scenes (which have an odd monochrome feel). Shinzon is portrayed as an utterly fantastical individual, completely larger than life. He can telepathically rape Troi, and all Picard says is "can you withstand more of these violations?" He can have somebody walk into the Romulan Senate and kill everyone with an unknown device. He can -- we're not sure how -- go from a slave to an individual with a huge warship. I want to know how he did it, but that's left to the imagination, or maybe a few lines I can't remember. First, we never hear of the Remans. And then they come out and do all of this?
The few risks that were, including the gory details of senate killing and raping, felt like comic-book style transformations (remember Poison Ivy pumping the guy with chemicals and him expanding, the Super Shredder in Ninja Turtles?)and horror that are completely out of spirit for Star Trek, as opposed to genuine risks that expanded on the concept. A good example of the latter is First Contact, with Lily and Cochrane as outsiders questioning the basic premises of Starfleet -- "humans have evolved" and all that. That's expanding on the concept -- the former is just violence for the sake of showing that Shinzon can break every rule and go unquestioned -- i.e., he's some kind of a supervillian.
It seems the movie was primarily concerned with introducing new items without bothering with the how's and why's. The Remans just rose up. Worf just came back. Wesley just was there. Starfleet just built a dune buggy (ok, it seemed clear that this could've been Picard's own Delta Flyer type of hobby vehicle). Data just doesn't have emotions. Rather than making this into a TNG movie, the idea seems to be "just do it for the sake of fun and coolness, and leave the explaining to the bothersome group of viewers familiar with the TNG concept".
A few other concerns:
1) The opening. What's with the morphing logo and the inverted R? Why not the usual simple lettering? It reminds me of how we went from "B A T M A N" to the Bird & Bat logo in "Batman and Robin." It just takes the seriousness out of the movie.
2) The bland-humor injokes. If you don't have a sense of humor, stop trying. I laughed at Data's Blue Skies until they CUT IT AFTER A FEW SECONDS! Let's see, what's the other part I laughed at...something that wasn't meant to be funny...ah well.
posted
It's almost as if the letters, were, like, mirrored or something. I cannot imagine what significance this could have!
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Aaah, now I get it. Thanks, but to me it's just scary, overused symbolism that intrudes into the reality of the movie. Ooh, the bird surrounds the bat in the new logo!
Romulans/Remans. Dark side/Light side. Shinzon/Picard. Data/B4. It reminds me of American Pie and sex symbols pointlessly strewn all over the place, except that it's neither funny nor very believable. You can't use symbolism to the point where it stretches believability.
And isn't Nemesis really the abandoned Insurrection script based on Heart of Darkness? Actually, this may be an appropriate way to describe the movie. Nemesis is the mirror image of Insurrection. Opposite but equal!
posted
It could be for all I know. Paramount could have brought Logan to flesh it out into Nemesis.
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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posted
I can't believe it, I've checked both my two major swedish cinema companies, none of them have Nemesis either as playing movie or upcoming. Is Paramount boycotting us??
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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That's how we get the Star Wars disc-style explosions
Huh? The first one of those I remember seeing was when Praxis blew. I don't remember that sort of effect in the Star Wars movies until the special edition releases in 97.
-------------------- The difference between genius and idiocy? Genius has its limits.
Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Boris: The Remans just rose up. Worf just came back. Wesley just was there. Starfleet just built a dune buggy (ok, it seemed clear that this could've been Picard's own Delta Flyer type of hobby vehicle).
Fair enough with the first three, but saying, "Starfleet just built a dune buggy" is rather like watching TOS, seeing "The Galileo Seven", and then complaining, "Starfleet just built a shuttlecraft!" Surely you understand that writers have to have the freedom to introduce new pieces of, say, technology from time to time? And that, just maybe, they might be particularly useful in the story in which they are introduced?
Registered: Dec 2000
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capped
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posted
quote:Originally posted by Boris: It's not the same thing. Ships in Star Trek usually explode without much fuss, so why the change now?
Boris
Because its more realistic that they dont explode completely?
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
I'm talking about the disc-shaped explosions.
As for the buggy, it was not useful to the story.
Geordi implies that if the transporters had worked, he could've beamed them to all of the spots directly (or simply beamed up the parts). They should've used a low-flying shuttle, perhaps with an open floor hatch, to pick up the parts -- it would've been a lot safer. What possible reason could you have for landing the shuttle and driving around, other than irresponsible fun? Again, they didn't explain why, and it is implied that the post-Insurrection Picard has become a complete, total slacker. Did we ever learn how nobody predicted the attackers? No, they just were there. Let's move on.
posted
Regarding the Dune Buggy sequence...did they discuss the planet's civilization at all? Or did they just violate the Prime Directive by dropping in and playing Mad Max with the locals?
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
This is, unfortunately, the worst TNG movie yet. It's too bad, too, because the script was pretty good. The main story of Shinzon and the Remans is good too. But the execution was, overall, poor.
I am tired of these disappointments. I started out liking Enterprise a lot, but nowadays it's a shot in the dark as to whether the week's episode will be good, decent, tolerable, or terrible. God, I hate what's been done to the franchise in the last 5 years...
Okay, enough with the griping.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
My major gripe is HOW COULD THE AUTODESTRUCT SYSTEM FAIL!?
Geeeze! Just go down to the antimatter pods and pull the plug/trip the breakers/shoot them with a phaser. Then you get one huge mutterflogging fireball.
Overall, I liked it. Rather enjoyable way to sneek out of the office during preformance reviews.
Thats the one thing I hate about being the boss... preformance reviews.... Eeeaarrgh.
-------------------- Like A Bat Out Of Hell...
Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Nimrod Pimding: I can't believe it, I've checked both my two major swedish cinema companies, none of them have Nemesis either as playing movie or upcoming. Is Paramount boycotting us??
The UK doesn't even get Nemesis until mid-January, so I expect a Swedish release wont be until at least March at best. You unfortunately have to wait.
-------------------- "Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
-Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney, LeMans
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