Film Review: Star Trek: Nemesis

In 2002, Stuart Baird released Star Trek: Nemesis, based on the 1987 television series Star Trek: The Next Generation created by Gene Roddenberry, as the tenth film in the franchise. Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, Tom Hardy, Ron Perlman, Dina Meyer, Alan Dale, Majel Barrett, Baird, and Bryan Singer.grossed $67.3 million at the box office.

After a coup, the leader of the Romulan government makes an offer of peace to the Federation However, the new leader is a clone of Picard and the result of a failed Romulan plot. In the meantime, Data discovers an identical robot called B4 which he finds to be a less-advanced, earlier version of himself.

Star Trek: Nemesis was meant as a final sendoff for the cast of The Next Generation in the same way as The Undiscovered Country was for the cast of the original series. The only hang-up is that the latter is actually a good film and this one was a complete mess in every possible way. For one, the plot is practically nonexistent. Shinzon’s reasoning for doing what he does basically boils down to that he may as well perform evil actions simply because he's a villain. He hates the Romulans because he’s angry at the Reman’s status as the warrior-slave race of the Romulans, so he nukes the Romulan senate and takes over as dictator. The object of his hatred and the Remans problems are over. Further, he’s degenerating so he needs a transfusion of Picard’s blood, but that doesn’t work out and he decides the proper course of action is destroy the earth. His motivations keep changing and decaying until he just becomes a homicidal maniac for no reason other than the simple fact that he's evil. It could be argued that he wants to destroy earth because the Federation is based there and it’s a threat to what he now controls, but the Federation wasn’t even initially a threat him, nor did they have any ill will towards him at first. It was the Romulans themselves they’re enemies with.

That’s nothing to say how much of an idiot Shinzon is. He’s supposed to be a tactical genius and a successful commander. Yet, multiple times in the film, he shows exactly the opposite. He waits two days to speak to Picard, leaves the Enterprise in tbe orbit of Romulus after kidnapping Picard and then makes idiotic orders when the Enterprise is about to ram the Scimitar. What's more is despite being told repeatedly that he should begin the procedure to transfuse Picard’s blood, when they have him as a prisoner, he doesn’t and let’s Picard leave.

Shinzon’s ship also breaks any sort of suspension of disbelief. Here’s a ship that was built entirely under the Romulan’s noses that is custom designed with the firepower that’s equivalent to multiple state of the art warships put together. It has a perfect cloak and weapons system, making it so that it's too perfect a ship for the circumstances that surrounded it’s creation.

Shinzon isn’t the only one to blame for the film's failure. The entire crew also acts like gigantic idiots at one point or another. Case in point, they’re all supposed to be geniuses, or at least most of them are. They know that Shinzon is out for Picard’s blood and decide that they should fly into a gas cloud that would prevent them from calling for help.

Data's heroic sacrifice needs a mention as well as it could really have beent he best moment of the film. It was until Picard comes across B4 singing “Blue Skies" that this part falls. Since B4 is exactly identical to Data in every way except for being less advanced, it completely negates an emotionally powerful moment.

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Young Artist Award

• Best Family Feature Film - Fantasy

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Saturn Awards

• Best Science Fiction Film
• Best Supporting Actor (Tom Hardy)
• Best Costumes
• Best Make-Up