Nemesis. What a name. What massive swaths of connotation are associated with that title. Does that title raise your expectations? It should. The tag-line "A Generation's Final Journey Begins" should send those soaring expectations through the roof. This movie carries with it the hopes of every fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation in a fitting end for everyone's favorite crew. It doesn't do anything to lower expectations when you recall that Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was an almost perfect end to the adventures of the crew of the original series. Shouldn't the crew of the prodigy sequel series get equal or better treatment? Of course! And so it gives me great pleasure to declare that yes! This movie was the perfect end to The Next Generation!
For realisies!
Ba-haha! Sorry. I've always had a hard time saying crap like that with a straight face. This movie... isn't terrible. That's about the nicest thing I can say about it. And if you skip the first hour, it's downright good. Not Star Trek VI good, but if the beginning were as good as the end, it would probably rank fourth on this list. And that's why I have such a hard time with this movie. It's the sendoff to arguably the best Trek crew, their last hurrah before they were literally too old to fly a starship anymore, and the end is really quite good, but... there are problems.
Among them, a title card written by your stereotypical kindergartener.
Let's address a few of them, shall we? First! The wedding. I know someone somewhere probably really wanted Riker and Deanna to finally hook up, but... really? The writers put this in to satisfy something like 5% of their fan base. The rest of us didn't care, and by that point they were just... too old. Like, that wedding was supposed to be sentimental. It came across as kinda icky. Not to mention this is Star Trek. A movie that doesn't start with ships in space and explosions yet carries the name Star Trek is seriously starting off on the wrong foot. To say nothing of starting with a wedding. Besides, we all know more people were interested in Beverly and Picard getting married than Riker and Deanna.
And based on the way Beverly is eying Picard's butt, that might have been where this was originally going.
Next, we have Picard, Worf and Data cruising around in a dune buggy. On a planet. On a treasure hunt. That turns into a car chase. I know that the Bourne Identity was pretty big around this time, but your cast is well aged, movie. Let's try to keep their activity to the much more believable level of piloting an enormous warship? Besides, any time you can use "piloting an enormous warship" in your back-of-the-case blurb, that's a small victory in and of itself. Those of use who watch sci-fi would much rather see that than a car chase.
This is a man who enjoys classical music, earl grey tea, and scenic horseback rides. Why would he enjoy this so much?
Then we have some politics, and some boring talking, then we finally start getting to the action. And other than a really weird bedroom scene that is, again, icky at this point, the movie starts to pick up. So let's talk about the high points, shall we? And the spoilers? Yes, let's talk spoilers.
Spoiler! Voyager makes it back home!
First let's talk about the villain. Is he one of the Star Trek Villain Greats (STVG)? Well... maybe a junior member. He's okay. Shinzon seems like a really quite decent guy at first, alibi a little weird. And that perception is helped by the fact that, TWIST! he's a clone of Picard. So if you want to be technical, we get bad-Picard fighting classic-Picard, and, of course, only one of them can survive. What a fun plot! Oh, also, Shinzon wants to use the Romulan Empire and the Reman military to conquer the Federation. So, you know, saving the galaxy and whatnot. Standard Star Trek stuff. But Shinzon is pretty convincing. He's over-the-top, but not in a way that ever pulled me out of the movie. So the villain get's a B.
Or maybe an SB, for Skinny Bane. Oh yes, that's Bane. Don't worry, he can talk in this movie.
Now let's talk about the ships. In one corner, we have the Enterprise E, Sovereign Class starship, designed to serve multiple functions as the flagship of Starfleet, but primarily it's a warship. And categorically the coolest ship to ever come out of Star Trek, in my humble opinion.
In the other corner, we have the Scimitar, some kind of variant of a Romulan Warbird, that weighs in at one-hundred and ten metric butt-loads of awesome-sauce war-making goodness. Capable of standing up to the Enterprise E on about any day, she also snags a cloak out of the deal.
Both ships are enormous warships, both are captained by a Picard (kinda), and from the first time you see these behemoths facing each other down, you just know they're going to get in a fight. You see promises like that squandered all the time in sci-fi movies. But Nemesis, while it does squander quite a few promises, delivers on this one.
Let's just say this. This movie has possibly the greatest space battle of all time in it. It's definitely in my top five favorite. And as an added bonus, Deanna Troi contributes something useful to a battle. Finally. Solid A+ for the space-battling.
Okay, yes, her "useful" face is exactly the same as her "useless" face. But I promise, she actually does something.
Now let's talk emotion. There's actually quite a bit throughout the battle, but by far the high point is at the end when Picard goes to board the Scimitar to stop the doomsday weapon and blow up the ship (did I mention there was a doomsday weapon?), and Data goes after him. And saves him. Then sacrifices himself to blow up the ship. Now, don't get me wrong, Picard did kill Shinzon. And he would have blown up the ship. So basically Data is sacrificing himself only for Picard, and that's tender, not logical. So Data dies, and they handle it beautifully. It's one of the most touching moments in the history of Star Trek, and it is about the best way I can imagine to wrap up the series.
"If I were human, I believe my response would be 'go to hell.' If I were human." -Unfortunately, not someone from this movie.
To be fair, though, it's not as good as when Lal dies. Or when Spock dies. Or even when Kirk dies (not Into Darkness, sorry, that was more funny than tender). So I think we'll give an A- for the tenders, and call that good.
The movie ends with a suggestion that life will continue, more or less as normal, for the entire cast, including Data, who may or may not have been able to transfer all of his memories to the prototype android they were questing after on the dune buggy. And somehow, it's fitting to know that the Enterprise is going to be repaired, Riker is getting his own ship, and their adventures will continue. This is in stark contrast to the sendoff the original series cast got, where everyone retired and the emphasis was on transitioning to new crews and new adventures. But seeing as how there were no great hopes to continue on after the movie, the decision to leave these people more-or-less as we have known them for over a decade is appropriate and satisfactory. The movie ends well, and if we're honest, that's all it really needed to do.
Just, when you watch it, skip the first half. You don't need it.
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