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FILM CRITIQUE:
"Star Trek-Nemesis" and "Die Another Day," regrettably, have much more in common than the fact that
both of these movies use DNA as a major plot point.
The James Bond film franchise has been running for 40 years and I believe that this franchise is finally running out of
gas. Well, what film franchise wouldn't after so many years and so many films?
The Star Trek film franchise has been running for less than 20 years, and the latest film in this series, "Star Trek-Nemesis,"
is itself practically running on empty in spite of very convincing acting by the charismatic Patrick Stewart in his reoccurring
role as the Enterprise Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
One might think that deep space would offer many more ideas and opportunities for film stories for the Star Trek series
than our lone planet, Earth, has for the James Bond series, but this has proven not to be the case.
Every Star Trek film offers interesting characters on the space ship Enterprise but unfortunately boring personalities
for the other characters. Boring villains can prove to be deadly for any movie. With the exception of the Borg and their icy
queen, which are by far my favorite villains in this film series, none of the others stand out in my memory the way the many
Bond film villains have over the years.
Worse yet, virtually every Star Trek movie has the Romulans attacking the Enterprise with each movie showing in painful
detail the ship's protection shield loss of 60% power here or "We're down to 40% protection, Captain." These comments
go all the way back to the 1966 television series with Scotty, the space ship's engineer at the time crying about the loss
of this power to the then Captain Kirk. I believe that every film critic in the world, along with every other person viewing
this movie with half a brain still functioning, has to ask the question, "How long is it going to take to invent a truly
impregnable force shield for this ship?"
In every single movie that I can think of the Enterprise ship's bridge is attacked and everyone goes flying all over the
place. What, nobody wears seat belts during these attacks? In point of fact, none of the character actors seated on the ship's
bridge even have seat belts to use. Not too intelligent after all the years and all these attacks.
In many of the other Star Trek movies, including this one, the attacking enemy ship always seems to have a "cloaking
device" that renders the ship invisible to the crew of the Enterprise. Why doesn't the Enterprise have this same cloaking
device or, at the very least, the technology to render this maneuver ineffective?
"Star Trek-Nemesis" does have an interesting concept about an evil dark sister planet to Romulus and a genetically
duplicated clone to Captain Picard offering cooperation one moment and threatening to destroy not only the Enterprise but
also the planet Earth the next. But somehow all this comes off as flat, uninspired,
and, worse yet, emotionally distant.
Other than the wonderful Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner offers more human interest as the lifeless android, Lt. Commander
Data, than all the other live actors on the ship. This is, to be honest about it, no fault of their own as they are all capable
actors. This merely offers more proof that the writing for this movie suffers greatly when it comes to adding personality
and nuance to the actors portraying the secondary roles in this movie.
"Star Trek-Nemesis" will be a treat for Trekkie fans and for all those who love the gee whiz techno gadgetry
and thrive on the many battle scenes. If you are not a member of this testosterone group or if you would like a little more
intelligence in your movies, then take a pass on this latest version of the Star Trek series.
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FILM SYNOPSIS:
Captain Jean-Luc Picard is making the celebratory toast at the marriage of his second in command officer, Lt. Commander
William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) to the ship's doctor, Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden). The newly married couple then
fly off with the Enterprise and its crew to their honeymoon destination.
Somehow, we all know that they should have stayed behind...
The Enterprise ship is flying dangerously close to the edge of where the Federation space meets the Romulan space when
the ship picks up life force readings on a supposedly lifeless planet. Their curiosity peaked, Captain Picard makes the gutsy
decision to land and check these readings out. Racing over the scrub desert landscape in an all terrain vehicle, the officers
find each location of life force emanation to be strangely empty.
At the last location of the six emanations, a detached arm reaches out of the sand and grabs one of the officers by his
leg. It turns out to be the still active arm of an android. They race back to the other five locations and dig under the sand
to discover the rest of the body parts of this android, an android who, when assembled, looks to be an identical clone of
Lt. Commander Data.
Back on the ship the newly discovered and revitalized android is actually found to be an identical match for Data, except
for the fact that it is rather childish and undeveloped in androidal temperament. It is lacking the driving curiosity that
Data has used over the years to reach his present elevated state of androidal being, the sum total of which has rendered him
almost human in his personality, his experience, and his devoted loyalty to his human shipmates.
However, there is one difference that is found, and that is that this new android has a separate interface at the back
of his neck along with the normal one at the back of his head.
Continuing on with their flight, Picard is informed that the ship's computers have been raided and that information, some
of it proprietary, has somehow been sent to an outside source. It is only later that they discover that this android is a
Trojan horse plant and that it has been feeding information back to some one or some thing in Romulan space.
A message is soon received requesting inter space communication between the Enterprise and Remus. Remus is the sister
planet to Romulus, but the two planetary neighbors have been at war for centuries. While Romulus revolves around its sun like
a normal planet, Remus does not as it remains fixed in its orbit like our Moon is around the Earth.
Because of this, the sunny side of the planet is lifeless while the residents of the dark side of the planet have evolved
into a fierce, warlike society of mutants who live underground and detest the light. (This part of the movie seems to be something
of a rip-off of H. G. Wells' "The Time Machine.")
The Reman Viceroy (Ron Perlman) requests a meeting between his leader, Praetor Shinzon (Tom Hardy) and Picard. Picard
accepts, of course, or there wouldn't be much of a movie. After the initial diplomatic pleasantries, Shinzon appears and Picard
is
shocked to see a younger version of himself standing before him.
Years before the Romulans had stolen a tissue sample from Picard and had duplicated a genetic double to Picard for some
military plan long since discarded. Then useless as a "freak" on Romulus, Shinzon was exiled to the Reman planet
where he was thought to be even more of a freak than the Reman freaks themselves. However, with the help of the Viceroy, who
sponsored and protected him, Shinzon turned into a Reman military strategist par excellence.
Now Picard and the crew of the Enterprise have to ascertain whether this soft spoken war lord comes with peaceful intentions
or with a hidden agenda yet to be discovered.
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