HIM
Posts: 9685
Joined: 30/9/2005 From: Star Trekkin', across the universe
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Here's my defense of Star Trek Nemesis (copied from Star Trek thread in Future Films, so it might not make sense as it's combining several different posts): OK just watched Nemesis and I still love it! With regards to Shinzon's motives he clearly explains these. He may be human but he was raised as a Reman. They showed him compassion, cared for him and protected him. And Reman's are bred to fight. To conquer. It's in their very nature, much like the Jem'Hadar. Once he'd conquered the Romulan Star Empire he needed Picard in order to survive. So by luring Picard and the Enterprise he was bound to start a war with the Federation. Hence why he wanted the positions of every ship in the fleet. His initial plans weren't to conquer the Federation, that was merely a cause of his actions in both conquering Romulus and killing Picard. It's alluded to that Shinzon still has at least some humanity in him. He hates Picard because he knows if their roles had been reversed he (Shinzon) wouldn't have had to endure the torture and brutality of the Reman dilithium mines. But at the same time he owes everything to the Reman's for saving him. It's nature versus nurture. As mentioned, he's still human and part him feels emense guilt for what he's doing and part of him wishes he'd had the opportunities that Picard had. There's a wonderful scene between the two where Shinzon (in justifying his actions) says that he's a mirror for Picard and if the situations had been reversed Picard would have done exactly as Shinzon had. Picard retorts that he is a mirror for Shinzon also. Shinzon acknowledges this be saying "Not for long." Essentially Shinzon wants rid of Picard because he doesn't want to look at himself in the mirror. Deep down he doesn't like what he sees. Also, I thought Tom Hardy was a great villian. Reminded me a lot of Juaquin Phoenix's Commodus in Gladiator. The space battles were excellent too and the Scimitar was an awesome ship. Loved the new Romulan Warbirds as well, although I probably still prefer the original Next Gen era ones. They were great looking ships. I'm not sure I agree that there's no character moments either. Sure Worf, Crusher and Geordi have little to do but sometimes it's better to not shoehorn in character moments just for the sake of it. Oh but I do agree about the ending being a tad rushed. I understand why they did it. The film is 1hr 51mins as it is, but even so an extra 10 or even 5 minutes to round off each character would have been the least they should have done. After all these are characters that fans have followed for 15 years. We know Picard stayed on as Captain and Riker assumed command of the Titan (and Deanna went with him). Data obviously died and we'd assume Worf went back to DS9. But why cut out Dr Crusher going back to Starfleet Academy? And what of Geordi? He's lost his best friend. Apparently Jonathan Frakes wanted to direct the film but the studio wouldn't allow it, which is a shame as he did a great job with First Contact and Insurrection (which you should watch again, Timon). Oh another plus point for Nemesis is that it featured the lovely Dina Meyer who's sexy even as a Romulan. As for people saying it's trying to tap into Khan all over again, I say it goes much deeper than Khan/Kirk. That was a simple revenge tale. Ahab versus the white whale. But that was already covered in First Contact. I believe the Picard/Shinzon plot is the deepest of all the Trek movies. It's multi layered. I think the story and script is possibly the best of all the Trek movies, but it's just a shame that the director chose to focus on action. I think it's testiment to the story and script that the dynamics of Shinzon/Picard came through, for me anyway.
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