Movie Notes: Star Trek 10: Nemesis

May 16th, 2009

= 2 stars

Starring Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, Tom Hardy
Directed by Stuart Baird

Synopsis

The Enterprise crew must thwart Shinzon, a mysterious citizen of the planet Remus, sister planet of Romulus, who wants to destroy Earth with a powerful weapon.

The Good

Slightly prefer Bair’s directorial style to Frakes, who uses the depth of field and lighting – looks a lot more cinematic rather than yet another episode of Next Gen.
Simpler story than the preceding.

The Bad

The plot is what fails here, as it soon becomes clear the outline is the same as Star Trek 2. Several scenes try to outdo the original (face to face contact between Picard and his nemesis) but more often the similarities remind me how much better Star Trek 2 was.
Big opportunity missed with Shinzon, who is a clone of Picard – have Stewart play both parts, Mirror Mirror style. He could have pulled it off. As it is, Shinzon is not as compelling a villain as Khan.
The way Data goes out is surprisingly unsatisfying, with no foreshadowing and the odd reaction by the entire crew – essentially suppressed emotions and awkward silence. There are no poignant last words or even a cathartic funeral. It almost seems tacked on as an afterthought, and the end feeling is an aftertaste of disrespect.

Conclusion

It’s a shame the Next Gen crew had to go out this way. It’s like a flip-flop of Insurrection – while the look is much more epic and cinematic, the plot is much weaker, essentially a lesser copy of Star Trek 2. While nowhere near as terrible as Star Trek V, I’d sooner watch any of the other episodes than this dull one.

IMDB: Star Trek 10: Nemesis
Wikipedia: Star Trek 10

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