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rj_andersonYes, it's true, as of last night I have finally seen Star Trek: Nemesis. Took me long enough, didn't it? Thing is, I haven't seen any of the TNG movies since Generations, so it wasn't like I was rushing out in a frenzy to slap down $14 so I could see it on the big screen.
I must say, however, that it was not until seeing this movie that I realized my love for Trek in general and TNG in particular had not merely waned with the years, but actually turned up its little Starfleet regulation footwear-clad toes and died.
This discovery came as something of a surprise, since I've been a Trekker since forever. I mean, I even doggedly watched a year and a half's worth of ENT before giving up on it (and "doggedly" would be the right adverb since Porthos ended up being by far my favorite character on the show). But even at that I just figured there was something rotten in the premise or execution of ENT in particular, not that I had ceased to care about the Trekiverse entirely.
By rights Nemesis ought to have done something for me. I watched TNG faithfully for seven years. I saw nearly every episode of the show, some of them three or four times. I loved Picard, and Data, and Worf. I even dared to hope that some day Jean-Luc and Beverly would stop sandbagging and get together, already. So surely, if I were going to find my fondness for Trek rekindled, the latest TNG movie ought to have done it, unless it were really claw-out-my-eyeballs please-kill-me-now bad like Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Which it certainly wasn't. In fact, it wasn't boring, or over-long, or badly acted, either.
What it was, however, is a perfect example of all the things that make me most cynical about Trek. Playing fast-and-loose with Picard's characterization, for instance, so they could show off their newest nifty gadget and work in a big chase scene. Sorry, but Extreme!Picard just did not work for me. I kept looking at him with his feral grin and funky sunglasses and wondering, "Who are you and what have you done with Jean-Luc?"
But that wasn't even the worst of it. What finally made me roll my eyes and put my brain into neutral for the remainder of the movie were the incredibly contrived and heavy-handed plot twists. As soon as they picked up Data's "brother" from the planet I knew he had to be there to make the poor widdle audience feel all better when the real Data got killed. Because this is Trek, you know, the home of the everlasting reset button, and nobody can ever really die. So as a result Data's death, which ought to have affected me deeply since he was always one of my favorite characters, made no emotional impact on me whatsoever. None.
Then there was that hysterical subplot of Shinzon being attracted to Deanna Troi and inexplicably wasting precious time and energy (including his Viceroy's) making empathic contact with her -- just so that later in the film Troi can follow that link in the other direction and use it to locate his ship. Heck, why didn't he just hand her the coordinates on a silver platter as a token of his esteem? The whole scenario could hardly have been less silly if he had.
I also had some real problems with Shinzon's motivation. "I was created, brutalized and discarded by the Romulans, so my life's ambition is to destroy... Earth!" Sure, that makes perfect sense to me. But of course TPTB know (or think they know) that the stakes wouldn't be high enough if Shinzon merely set out to destroy Romulus, so somehow they have to make it All About Humanity. Again.
Excuse me while I yawn.
Not to mention the amazing convenience of having the whole doomsday weapon sequence take seven minutes to activate (ooh, look at the pretty wings!), thus giving Picard and Data ample time to get on board and stop it. Why on earth didn't Shinzon just beam one of those miniature t-whatsit radiation devices on board and fry everybody in a matter of seconds, the way he disposed of the Romulan Senate? Beverly did say, after all, that it would only take a miniscule amount of that radiation to do it... so the need for some honking humongous radiation death ray device escapes me.
You know, the sad thing about all this is that I am not normally picky about these kinds of things. I've been known to miss or ignore plot holes you could drive a Borg cube through. But I just couldn't overlook all the problems with this film, though I had enormous fun playing "Spot the 24 Actor" (Mike!) and I was rather taken with Tom Hardy. Oh, and I even began to understand the appeal of Janeway/Picard (yeah, you know where that came from. Stop smirking,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seemag and zakhad).
So, anyway. It looks like that's it for Trek, where I'm concerned at least. I can no longer bear the contrived machinations of TPTB, their continual ducking of consequences. I'm too spoiled by good writing now, thanks to shows like 24 and Alias, and I can never go back.
Sorry 'bout that.
I must say, however, that it was not until seeing this movie that I realized my love for Trek in general and TNG in particular had not merely waned with the years, but actually turned up its little Starfleet regulation footwear-clad toes and died.
This discovery came as something of a surprise, since I've been a Trekker since forever. I mean, I even doggedly watched a year and a half's worth of ENT before giving up on it (and "doggedly" would be the right adverb since Porthos ended up being by far my favorite character on the show). But even at that I just figured there was something rotten in the premise or execution of ENT in particular, not that I had ceased to care about the Trekiverse entirely.
By rights Nemesis ought to have done something for me. I watched TNG faithfully for seven years. I saw nearly every episode of the show, some of them three or four times. I loved Picard, and Data, and Worf. I even dared to hope that some day Jean-Luc and Beverly would stop sandbagging and get together, already. So surely, if I were going to find my fondness for Trek rekindled, the latest TNG movie ought to have done it, unless it were really claw-out-my-eyeballs please-kill-me-now bad like Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Which it certainly wasn't. In fact, it wasn't boring, or over-long, or badly acted, either.
What it was, however, is a perfect example of all the things that make me most cynical about Trek. Playing fast-and-loose with Picard's characterization, for instance, so they could show off their newest nifty gadget and work in a big chase scene. Sorry, but Extreme!Picard just did not work for me. I kept looking at him with his feral grin and funky sunglasses and wondering, "Who are you and what have you done with Jean-Luc?"
But that wasn't even the worst of it. What finally made me roll my eyes and put my brain into neutral for the remainder of the movie were the incredibly contrived and heavy-handed plot twists. As soon as they picked up Data's "brother" from the planet I knew he had to be there to make the poor widdle audience feel all better when the real Data got killed. Because this is Trek, you know, the home of the everlasting reset button, and nobody can ever really die. So as a result Data's death, which ought to have affected me deeply since he was always one of my favorite characters, made no emotional impact on me whatsoever. None.
Then there was that hysterical subplot of Shinzon being attracted to Deanna Troi and inexplicably wasting precious time and energy (including his Viceroy's) making empathic contact with her -- just so that later in the film Troi can follow that link in the other direction and use it to locate his ship. Heck, why didn't he just hand her the coordinates on a silver platter as a token of his esteem? The whole scenario could hardly have been less silly if he had.
I also had some real problems with Shinzon's motivation. "I was created, brutalized and discarded by the Romulans, so my life's ambition is to destroy... Earth!" Sure, that makes perfect sense to me. But of course TPTB know (or think they know) that the stakes wouldn't be high enough if Shinzon merely set out to destroy Romulus, so somehow they have to make it All About Humanity. Again.
Excuse me while I yawn.
Not to mention the amazing convenience of having the whole doomsday weapon sequence take seven minutes to activate (ooh, look at the pretty wings!), thus giving Picard and Data ample time to get on board and stop it. Why on earth didn't Shinzon just beam one of those miniature t-whatsit radiation devices on board and fry everybody in a matter of seconds, the way he disposed of the Romulan Senate? Beverly did say, after all, that it would only take a miniscule amount of that radiation to do it... so the need for some honking humongous radiation death ray device escapes me.
You know, the sad thing about all this is that I am not normally picky about these kinds of things. I've been known to miss or ignore plot holes you could drive a Borg cube through. But I just couldn't overlook all the problems with this film, though I had enormous fun playing "Spot the 24 Actor" (Mike!) and I was rather taken with Tom Hardy. Oh, and I even began to understand the appeal of Janeway/Picard (yeah, you know where that came from. Stop smirking,
seemag and zakhad).So, anyway. It looks like that's it for Trek, where I'm concerned at least. I can no longer bear the contrived machinations of TPTB, their continual ducking of consequences. I'm too spoiled by good writing now, thanks to shows like 24 and Alias, and I can never go back.
Sorry 'bout that.
