Star Trek: Nemesis

Date: August 12, 2021

Musical Accompaniment:

Interstellar News: Today all the Freds came out of the woodwork, we watched an excellent panel on Alan Rickman, and I realized how many things are scheduled for a certain upcoming date. I wonder if it’s too late to clone myself… oh wait.

So I actually watched this on August 7, but I was a bit behind on my Voyager write ups.

TL;DR: A bunch of Romulans get Medusa’d, Riker and Troi get married, the crew finds a precursor to Data (B4) scattered about a distant planet, and Picard meets his clone (Shinzon) who has pulled a coup on the existing Romulan government. Shenanigans ensue, Picard kills Shinzon, and Data makes the ultimate sacrifice. Riker becomes captain of the Titan and heads to the Neutral Zone in order to make peace with the Romulans while B4 begins singing the song Data sang at the Riker-Troi wedding.

Favorite quotes:

• Worf – “Romulan ale should be illegal.”
• Troi – “No, no speeches and …no clothes.” (talking about their ceremony on Betazed)
• Picard – “Now, if you’ll excuse me, …I’ll be in the gym.” (after telling Worf that everyone’s going to participate in the naked wedding tradition)
• Shinzon – ” You are not a woman. You are a Romulan!” (apparently he didn’t get the memo that you can be both, sigh)

My Thoughts and Impressions: So this was an absolute shit show of a movie. Most of the bits I enjoyed of the movie were the shots from the wedding and the special feature included on the DVD with Mirina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes discussing “Reunion with the Rikers” and I would totally watch that!

There are some things that were of note. Tom Hardy and Ron Pearlman were absolutely unrecognizable to me. Troi getting her revenge and guiding Worf to blow up the alien ship. The pure joy on Picard’s face when he takes out the Argo. B4 being absolutely naive and the bait-and-switch with Data. Crusher figuring out how Shinzon was related to Picard, why he was sick, and what he was after played such a pivotal role in the plot and she doesn’t get near enough screen time for that. I did enjoy Data and Picard basically pulling a Juggernaut through the ship to escape the first time and the fact that Picard sends a fucking text message… it’s super epic. Data pulling a Superman/General Organa is wonderful and of course his demise makes me sad. I did love that Spot made an appearance and I wonder if Worf took him in after Data left.

I absolutely hated how Picard basically dismissed Troi being violated and also how damn useless Riker was almost the whole time. He yells at Worf to put the shields up after Picard is taken, he can’t help Troi when her mind is violated, and he gets beat up a lot. At least he didn’t completely ruin the ship like every other time he’s been at the helm. The plot left much to be desired, but at least it wasn’t as bad as “What does god want with a starship?” bad. I’m mad about missing the Betazed ceremony, but am happy that Picard ribbed Riker by calling him “Mr. Troi”.

Movie rating: Check out my Rankings page for an up to date listing.

Tomorrow, we dive into Enterprise!

TA Out!