By BWilliams / 18:22, 3 October 2005 / Reviews - Products

Star Trek: Nemesis - Special Collector's Edition
DVD

Price: $19.99
Pub Date: October 2005

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Introduction:

After the fair-to-middling performance of INSURRECTION, the ninth feature film in the STAR TREK franchise and the third in the series of NEXT GENERATION feature films, it seemed that the film series, if not the entire franchise, was in jeopardy. DEEP SPACE NINE was in the record books, VOYAGER had been struggling in the ratings, and ENTERPRISE had fallen into the same trap VOYAGER was previously in. But Rick Berman was determined to get at least one more TNG feature film produced, and it was one that was met with much speculation, anticipation, and what would later amount to certain dread.

Enter John Logan. The Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of the Ridley Scott epic GLADIATOR (one of my personal favorite films) had been a long-time TREK fan and was invited to develop the plot for the tenth feature film. Along with Berman and Brent Spiner (Data), Logan crafted a tale that would spell the end of the NEXT GENERATION crew's adventures together. Under the title STAR TREK: NEMESIS, Logan sought to explore one element of the TREK universe that, where the films were concerned, had remained largely ignored: the Romulans. To that effect Logan introduced the Remans, an offshoot of the Romulans obviously inspired by the classic horror film NOSFERATU. To tie the film's elements together, Logan crafted a framework paralleling THE WRATH OF KHAN, with the Enterprise crew moving forward through different stages of life. Among them was the long-awaited wedding of Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), their departure of the Enterprise to Riker's new command, the U.S.S. Titan, and Beverly Crusher's (Gates McFadden) departure to head Starfleet Medical. But a side trip to Romulus brings Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and crew face to face with the new leader of the Romulan senate, a young charismatic head of state named Shinzon (Tom Hardy), with a secret link to Picard's past and a plan to conquer the Federation the same way he annihilated the Romulan praetor and senate.

The choice of Stuart Baird as the film's director was an unusual and, in the fans' minds, uncertain choice to helm a STAR TREK feature film. Baird had been well known in the Hollywood community as a successful film editor whose credits include SUPERMAN and the first two LETHAL WEAPON films for director Richard Donner, and whose own directorial credits include EXECUTIVE DECISION and the FUGITIVE sequel U.S. MARSHALS. Could Baird follow in the footsteps of Nicholas Meyer and give the film the same kind of energy that Meyer did for THE WRATH OF KHAN? And what could Baird bring to the ailing franchise? Apparently, based on reports from some within the TREK camp, a grander epic scale than what was originally envisioned, and more emphasis on action. But at times Baird had no knowledge whatsoever of all things TREK, repeatedly referring to LeVar Burton's character of Geordi LaForge as an alien and at times referring to Burton as 'Laverne'. A recent interview by Wil Wheaton (whose cameo as Wesley Crusher was cut from the film) on TheFandom.com served to further add a strike against Baird, who was overheard by Wheaton as saying on more than one occasion on the set, 'I don't care about STAR TREK.'

If INSURRECTION served to dull the TREK masses, then NEMESIS polarized the fan base into two camps: those who liked the film and those who didn't. And those who found fault with NEMESIS found plenty of fault. At 160 minutes, the film had a lot of material to cover; here, in its final released form, there's not much personal character growth that marked TNG during its successful seven years on television. At best there are just fleeting moments. Granted, editing a film down to a palpable time for theater audiences is a necessary hazard in the filmmaking game, but too much personal time that had influences throughout the film were lost in the process. The upheaval of the Romulan Empire by Shinzon and the Remans sounds on paper to be a great concept, but at the expense of that concept it falls by the wayside as it becomes a personal vendetta between Shinzon and Picard, with Shinzon threatening to attack Earth. The discovery of yet another Soong-type android, this one called B-4 (also played by Spiner) is enough to make your head spin long enough to throw TNG continuity out the window. How many more Soong-type androids are out there in the galaxy? For that matter, there's the controversial handling of Data's demise at the end of the film, mirrored by the earlier transferal of his neural network into B-4's body. Can anybody and everybody say, 'Remember?' And having a dumbed-down version of Data is not a lot of fun, either. Part of the fun of seeing Data grow on TNG was the fact that he continually learned in the seven years on TV. Here, B-4 is forced to absorb everything all at once, and he's still an android version of an idiot savant at the end of the film. By trying to appeal to a broader audience, NEMESIS wound up alienating the TREK fan base who had already grown tired of retreads and, to borrow from Hawkeye Pierce, wanted something else.

On the flip side, however, NEMESIS does have an epic film scope that the other TNG films were lacking to an extent; this really did look and feel like a big screen TREK at times. The late Jerry Goldsmith once again contributed a very subtle and effective score that was quite different from his previous TREK scores. The introduction of the Remans is a good attempt at giving us a race that we had never seen before in STAR TREK. There's also a very timely discussion of cloning and stem cell research that continues to be a controversial story in today's times. And Tom Hardy's character of Shinzon got to snog Deanna Troi; what red-blooded male wouldn't want to?

At a budget of approximately $70 million, NEMESIS was released on December 13, 2002 and performed extremely poorly at the box office, earning a measly $43.2 million in domestic grosses and an overall worldwide total of $67.3 million. Where the domestic market was concerned, NEMESIS became the only TREK film to wind up in the red (by comparison, STAR TREK V, which many had considered one of the worst of the TREK films, earned back its production budget in its domestic box-office intake and finished in the black). And there are a number of reasons why the film failed, any and all of which are valid. Pitting the film in its opening weekend against the latest J-Lo tripe MAID IN MANHATTAN served as notice that any time a piece of J-Lo tripe beats a STAR TREK film, you're definitely in trouble. By releasing the film only five days before the 800-pound gorilla of the Christmas season, the second LORD OF THE RINGS entry THE TWO TOWERS, it proved to be certain cinematic suicide for the struggling franchise. The unnecessary editing of 45 minutes of crucial story and character footage also crippled the film, as many strong character moments and the film's original ending were among the casualties of the editor's blade. Add to it the fact that ENTERPRISE had fallen in the ratings due to the same tired, worn out storytelling that plagued VOYAGER, and you had a franchise disaster on your hands. And having a director at the helm who apparently didn't seem to care to immerse himself in all things TREK made for an extremely shaky outing all the way. If there was a true nemesis in this picture, it certainly wasn't Shinzon; it was STAR TREK itself. And this was one turkey dinner that was extremely hard to digest.