Movie Review – Star Trek: Nemesis

“A Generation’s Final Journey Begins…” (Taken from Memory Alpha)

“You’re wasting time!” – the Viceroy, to the movie Shinzon.

Premiere: December 13th, 2002

Written and Directed By: John Logan and Stuart Baird

Plot It’s 2379. The Romulan Senate has just been assassinated en masse by being turned into stone en masse. This is part of a chain of events involving Shinzon, a clone of Picard who found himself brought up in mining pits by Remans, an alien race disliked by the Romulans. As you would guess, the Enterprise is sent to investigate, and Picard gets a look at the mirror of himself… sort of.

Maybe.

If you squint hard enough.

Review:

You know, after the dull fest that was Star Trek: Insurrection, I was actually getting myself hyped up to review the fourth and final movie in the TNG part of the film franchise, Nemesis. Not because I was particularly excited for a movie often ranked as the weakest of the franchise, but because after Insurrection almost served as a sleep aid, I figured that Nemesis would be at least slightly better. I wasn’t expecting anything good, but I figured that it would be more interesting than its predecessor. In fact, maybe I would be surprised and the movie would actually be halfway decent. Even if neither the director or the writer were involved with Trek before (in fact, the former never saw an episode before), maybe some new blood was needed.

So, I popped the movie into my PS3.

And, indeed, I was surprised. It did actually hold my attention more than Insurrection did. Because Nemesis isn’t a bad film.

No, no.

It’s shameful.

In the interest of not burying the lede any further, it is hands down my least favorite of the TNG films. Pending a rewatch of Into Darkness, it might even be the worst of the entire film series. Oh, yeah – this movie is worse than the one where Kirk finds God. Worse than the one where Kirk gets crushed under a poorly constructed bridge. Far worse than The Slow-Motion Picture. Hell, even the reboot films are less irritating than this. This movie killed Star Trek the way fans knew it for 40 years – and depending on how charitable you are to the reboots, stuck the knife in one of America’s most recognizable franchises.

To paraphrase a quote from Jeremy Clarkson, how was so much done so badly by so many?

Movie Review – “Star Trek: Insurrection”

Taken from Wikipedia, made by Paramount’s marketing department, I think.

“In the event of a water landing, I have been designed to serve as a flotation device.” – Data. That’s the best piece of dialogue in the whole movie.

Premiere: December 11th, 1998.

Written By: Rick Berman and Michael Piller. (Directed by Jonathan Frakes.)

Plot: The Federation has to deal with a conflict on a planet that seems to generate youth. The Ba’ku and the Son’a are in cahoots, and the Federation seems to side with the Son’a. However, Picard and Co. seem to have a conflict with this arrangement, particularly after hearing the Ba’ku’s side of the conflict… and encountering the youth-generating properties of the new planet themselves.

Review:

There’s a general consensus in Star Trek fandom that Season 1 of The Next Generation is, well, not up to par. Various reasons have been cited, but the one that seems to take precedence was the overly moralizing tone that the first season had. Granted, Star Trek has always been about exploring the human condition, but there was a certain smugness to the first season of TNG – this idea that humanity had reached perfection, and the mere thought that earlier civilizations or those that had different ideas (read, those that went against Roddenberry’s socialistic utopia) were wretched and needed to be talked down to. Considering that this show was made in the Reaganite/Thatcherite era, it’s a small wonder that it didn’t get axed after one season.

Thankfully, Roddenberry was kicked upstairs and the show’s reputation improved dramatically. It became less pretentious, the characters became far more likable, and hell, conflict between the characters began to pop up. By the time TNG ended seven years later, it had etched itself as one of the most beloved TV shows of the late 80s/early 90s time period.

By 1998, the Star Trek franchise had evolved, with Deep Space Nine adding far more character complexities and an overreaching plot – the Dominion War – to the entire Star Trek universe. Still, evolution doesn’t necessarily mean perfection – DS9 was coming to an end the year after, having been punted to poorer timeslots due to the decline of syndicated drama; the consensus was that Voyager massively underperformed in terms of writing, with some accusing it of the same smugness that seeped through early TNG; and ratings for both never reached the heights of TNG. There was this slow feeling coming in that the franchise was starting to run out of steam.

First Contact, though, was a resounding success commercially and critically – guaranteeing a 9th movie for the franchise. To keep up, Trek would need to continue to build its universe on a larger scale, keep in tune with the events of Deep Space Nine, to learn from the writing flaws of Voyager, etc. Frakes was back in the director’s seat, and Rick Berman was teamed up with Michael Piller to pen the new movie. Would the franchise that gave us Kirk and Picard boldly go into the 21st century?

Well, Insurrection came in and gave us our answer.

…It’s boring.

Far, far more boring than TMP. Yes, I went there – I was more fascinated by The Slow-Motion Picture than Insurrection.

But why?

Movie Review – Star Trek: First Contact

“Resistance is Futile” (Taken from the Memory Alpha)

“And you people – you’re all astronauts on some kind of star trek?” – Zefram Cochrane, reminding moviegoers what they paid obscene amounts of money to see.

Premiere: November 22nd, 1998

Written By: Ronald Moore and Brannon Braga

Directed By: Jonathan Frakes

Plot: The specter of the Borg still lingers over Captain Jean-Luc Picard – largely because he was kidnapped and assimilated by them for a while. Thus, when the Borg comes back to attack Earth, he defies Starfleet orders ad demands that the Enterprise lay waste to a Borg Cube. Unfortunately, a Borg Sphere (seriously, what is with the Borg and simple geometry) comes out of said cube before it gets destroyed, and the Enterprise follows it into the past where they intend to assimilate all – not to mention, ruin the first contact between Vulcans and Humans.

The crew try and keep Dr. Zefram Cochrane on track when it comes to the launch of his epochal ship, despite him being a bit different from his idolized portrayal in the 24th century. Picard tries to take on the Borg. However, he slowly goes mad with revenge much to the concern of Lily, a resident of Cochrane’s settlement who wound up on the Enterprise. In the mix-up, Data gets captured and is tempted by one particular Borg – the Borg Queen, who fancies herself the end and the start of the collective.

Review:

Well, Generations was a bit of a misfire to pass the torch. Not that I won’t ever watch it again, but it really was just a double-length episode of TNG. Really, the only things film-worthy were a) the cameo by Captain Kirk, who proceeded to fall victim to poor lair construction, and 2) the Enterprise-D getting trashed by the Klingons. Still, the movie made a decent profit, and a follow-up was commissioned.

With Johnathan Frakes in the Director’s Chair, Braga and Moore back in the writer’s room, and the franchise arguably just coming off its cultural apex (with Voyager and Deep Space Nine airing at the same time), the sequel finally embraced the cinematic atmosphere by doing a deeper analysis of the series’ most well-known and well-renowned antagonist – the Borg.

(Warning: minor spoilers for TNG are in this review. Continue at your own risk.)

Movie Review – Star Trek: Generations

“Two captains. One destiny.” (Image stolen from the Memory Alpha)

“Who am I… to argue with the captain of the Enterprise?” – James Kirk. Well… the former Captain of the Enterprise, missing for 78 years?

Premiere: November 18th, 1994

Written By: Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore

Directed By: David Carson

Plot: In the year 2293, the first voyage of the Enterprise-B goes south when the ship has to perform a rescue mission. An energy wave comes into contact with the ship, taking with it a scientist who was rescued, as well as Captain Emeritus James T. Kirk.

In the year 2371, the Enterprise-D comes into contact with that same scientist – Tolian Soran. He wants to continue his observation, but Picard prevents him from doing so. Going mad, he kidnaps Geordi, trades him to some Klingons, and holes up on a planet where he can shoot a rocket into the sun, bringing the energy wave – the Nexus – over to him. Only one man can stop him… but he himself is emotionally shaken up, having lost his brother and nephew. So… what about two men?

Review:

Three hundred posts, give or take. Hot tamale, that’s… three hundred more (give or take) than I thought I would post back in February of 2013. Guess I got into this reviewing thing a bit, eh?

Two years ago, in an attempt to combat a lull in my reviews (because of a relative lack of content from Gravity Falls and Red Dwarf), I decided to take up reviews of Star Trek movies. It actually helped – a jog of my brain helped me start reviewing Steven Universe, and I managed to bang out five of the six movies over the second half of the year – only skipping Wrath of Khan because I reviewed it a year prior. My intent was to review the four TNG movies in December, but personal commitments led that astray, and my review of The Undiscovered Country wound up coming out on Christmas.

Now, I’m back reviewing the TNG films – and I’m about to formally move this blog over to WordPress. And what better way to start (and end) than reviewing the bridge between TOS and TNG – Generations?

Well, it’s a bridge weaker than the one in this film.