What went wrong with Nemesis?

Anyone visiting the alt.startrek news group might know that Star Trek Nemesis was far from my favorite Star Trek movie. One might even wonder why I continue to remind people of this movie's flaws. Well, I will tell you why: Because I love Star Trek! I want Star Trek to be more than what the powers in charge have made it. I want it to be about emotion, action, accomplishment, adventure, and most importantly, character interaction and development.

We've seen what Star Trek is capable of before. Great things! Real emotion! Interesting plots that make sense! Character development! Very few if any of these traits were present in Star Trek Nemesis.

Star Trek II vs. Nemesis Compared

For comparison, let's compare the movie regarded as the best Star Trek movie with Nemesis. Star Trek II:The Wrath of Khan is the best, and still would be if it was done today. Here are three major reasons why:

1. Character growth & development. 
We learn about Kirk's relationship with Carol and about David. We learn about Scotty's nephew (in the director's cut). We see Spock becoming a teacher. We see the continuation of McCoy's advice to Kirk. These characters are GROWING and DEVELOPING. Not just standing pat.

Kirk feels old in the beginning and is angry at himself for letting Khan get the better of him. By the end of the movie, he is a changed person. "I feel young." he says. (The GROWTH of a character is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of storytelling.) Even David changed from hating Kirk to finally understanding him. 

Let me repeat that two more times so it will sink in: 

The GROWTH of a character is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of storytelling! 

The GROWTH of a character is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of storytelling!

Khan, obviously has changed a lot since we first met him. He is bent on one thing: Killing Kirk and avenging the death of his wife. This leads into...

2. Emotions and Loss. 
Kirk meets his son for the first time. Khan is full of emotional rage. Spock represses his (as usual) but has learned it's value (and tells this to Saavik.) Anger at failure (both with Saavik and Kirk.) Loss of Spock. Loss of Scotty's nephew. Khan loses Joachim. David and Carol lose friends. Capt. Terrell is offed... Loss is one of the most powerful emotions and it is emotion that will make one story rise above the rest. (I'm not even going to get into the whole "sacrifice" theme from this movie!)

Spock's death is a poignant and powerful moment. So much so, that Kirk's sense of loss almost destroys him. That is, until David copes with his own feelings towards his father and begins the healing process.

3. Action, but with intelligence. 
Kirk was dead in the water and was "no match" for the Reliant. However, he used his wit to save the ship and crew on at least three occasions. Spock said of Khan, "He's intelligent, but not experienced." Kirk & Spock outwitted Khan's "superior intellect" by combining forces. (I could write yet another paragraph of "Character Dynamics and Interactions" but I'll save that for later.)

This wuss doesn't hold a candle...	to the wrath of Khan Noonien Singh.

Did Nemesis have any of the above characteristics? 

None of the characters in Nemesis grew at all. If there was any, it was from Picard, but that's stretching it. It certainly wasn't 1/100th the amount of character growth Kirk went through in TWOK. Remember Picard told Lily in First Contact, "We try to better ourselves for the good of humanity." There was none of that in this movie. As I said before, character growth is the most important part of story telling. Without it, a story will FAIL utterly. As is the case with Nemesis.

Shinzon had plenty of rage, but being it was misguided (he should have been trying to annihilate the Romulans.) This was an emotional failure and made little if any sense.

The audience should have been emotionally moved at Data's death. But the story didn't give anyone a chance to be sad. Surprisingly, only Troi shed a tear. Everyone else was stoic after the loss of one of their greatest friends. Where's the emotion? Baffling.

There was plenty of action at the end (the buggy chase was monumentally stupid), but special effects don't necessarily make for a good movie. A classic video game fan knows the difference between style and substance. Just because a game has "eye-candy" doesn't make it a good game. Conversely, just because a game lacks graphics, doesn't make it a BAD game. The battle scene in Nemesis was nice to look at, but not much more.

Nemesis: Point by Point breakdown

Here are the specific reasons why Nemesis failed story wise. (It's box office failure is a combination of these things as well as the fact that even the fans are sick of Star Trek.)

1. Promises broken. The previews promised a great space battle. I fully expected to see the Federation Calvary come in as mentioned in the movie. That never happened. The battle that we did get was about 15 minutes long at the very end. This battle had NO TENSION at all. It was just shooting a bunch of random phasers/torpedoes into space and seeing if they hit the target. There was no sense to it all. No strategy. Just FIRE ALL PHASERS! repeated ad nauseam. (Too much of a good thing isn't always a good thing.) Plus, these are CAPITOL ships! How/why they zip around like gnats being as big as they are is beyond me.

2. No Fear. The audience is NEVER afraid of the super weapon because we never get to see it used. Remember how the Death Star destroyed Alderaan in Star Wars? Remember thinking, "Man, those rebels better destroy that thing before it reaches Yavin 4!" Nope. How can you be afraid of something you've never seen in action? Sure, we see the mini-version in the Senate chamber, but that ISN'T THE ACTUAL WEAPON IN USE!

This is the last time you'll see Picard. Maybe that's a good thing.

3. Faulty logic. The logic of the characters in this one is bad. Picard ramming the ship into another? Isn't a Captain actually supposed to CARE about his ship and the people on it? Isn't he supposed to do ANYTHING to save it? Picard could have surrendered to Shinzon and bought the Enterprise some time. (He'll figure out how to save Earth later.) Not to mention the dodgy physics involved with such a maneuver. I didn't see the Scimitar using it's thrusters to hold fast against the Enterprise. How is it possible for this collision to occur and the Scimitar not be pushed away (as we've seen in countless other movies)? Tap a pen in space and it bounces away. But crash the Enterprise into another ship and it gets buried into it!

4. Hackneyed plot. Why exactly is Shinzon angry at Picard? He never did anything to Shinzon! The Romulans are who he is angry at, shouldn't he be trying to annihilate them instead of the Federation? Shouldn't he be trying to make the Remans the top dog in the Romulan empire before trying to defeat the Federation? This is very weak motivation for a main character.

5. Dullsville. Up until the last few moments the story is very boring. My wife was about to fall asleep (and so was I), it was so bad. One thing they should have done (and the writer should KNOW this) is that exposition without demonstration is a bad thing. I mean, I can tell you I got my nose broken, but it doesn't have the same impact as actually seeing it happen. The few flashbacks in Nemesis were short, blurry, and hard to see. Again, lousy character development for Shinzon.

6. Too many coincidences. Isn't it a bit too coincidental that Data and Picard both meet a clone of themselves in the same movie?

7. Action for no reason. The whole Jeep thing was kind of dumb. I mean, why no explanation of the people who were chasing them? Why not just beam down to the parts? Or why not beam the parts to the ship? There must have been some techno babble reason for this, I suppose.

8. Ridiculous plot points. How exactly does a human slave from the mines of Remus get to be in charge of the Remans? That would be like allowing Usama bin Laden to become President of the United States!!

9. Missed opportunities. When I heard Riker and Troi were getting married, I got excited. Too bad we don't actually get to see the ceremony! Yet another opportunity to make the audience give a damn pissed away.

10. Sad ending (for a different reason.) And what about that ending? I fully expected to see the Enterprise to gracefully slide out of dry-dock and then zoom into warp speed. But it didn't happen! Some lousy send off for the NG crew, huh? At least Kirk and crew rode off into the sunset!

Finally (and this is the kicker)

No Geordi or Crusher in this photo. Well, that's appropriate since they were barely in the movie.

11. NO EMOTION! No emotion for the loss of a major character generated by this story. A few "nods" in his direction is not enough. And the whole ending was a slap in the face to anyone who MAY have felt any sadness at this character's passing. Do we even care that Data is gone considering we already know all his memories have been transferred to B4? Shoot, they just brought him back in the same movie! No point in getting upset at all. Not to mention the fact that even TASHA YAR got a better memorial! Pathetic!

Conclusion

Star Trek is meant to be a fun romp through the galaxy, true. But is that all you want and nothing more? Just a bunch of cardboard characters on a bridge with no development or internal struggles? Are you only interested in seeing new special effects? Or just space battles? Shouldn't you expect more? Shouldn't you DEMAND better? What is wrong with Star Trek today?

Think back into the glory days of The Next Generation series. Which episodes are the fan favorites? The Inner Light, Yesterday's Enterprise, and The Best of Both Worlds. Each of these stories deal with powerful emotions and include a HUGE amount of character development. In these stories, action took a back seat to the human drama being played out on the ship. And that is why they are so good. That is why they are fan favorites. People want to see character interaction and development. Never from Star Trek have I expected a perfect masterpiece but it should AT LEAST be worthy of the name Star Trek.

The honest truth is: The powers in charge (Braga and Berman) don't really care anymore. Their mandate is to keep Star Trek in the minds of the public no matter the cost. The reason Nemesis is so terrible is because they just don't CARE. If they could get fans to pay to sit in front of a blank screen for two hours, they would do it.

Maybe they won't make another one like this if we just give them our money in advance? At least then we could save two hours of our lives for something worthwhile.

Nemesis Links

Not surprisingly, I'm not the only one who felt Nemesis was a disaster. Visit these links for some other insights.