Star Trek: Nemesis
Paramount
5/20/2003

reviewed by Julian James

I’ll admit it. During the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV years, I was quite a trekkie. Every week my family would gather in front of the television for an hour of futuristic/scifi bliss. Why, for my fourth grade halloween costume I even got my mom to make me an authentic looking starfleet uniform. And let me tell you, I ran it absolutely ragged. Even after halloween, I’d wear that uniform everywhere. Whether it was playing Star Trek with my friend Jesse or meeting family friends at the airport, there I was sweating my ass off in my starfleet uniform. Damn I loved that show. Now over 9 years later, Paramount brings to DVD the box office flop Star Trek: Nemesis. While it is true that Nemesis had an extremely recycled plot, Paramount has almost made up for it with an above-average DVD.

The film opens upon a meeting among the Romulan Imperial Senate in which they are discussing the possibility of an alliance being formed between the planets Romulus and Remus. The talks are interrupted when a member of the council excuses herself, leaving behind some sort of talisman that transforms into some sort of mysterious weapon and kills the whole Romulan Senate. We then switch over to our beloved Enterprise crew members who are celebrating the marriage of Commander Riker and Counselor Troy. We soon learn that Riker is being promoted to Captain and has been selected to command the Titan with Troy being the ships counselor.

After a very bright and cheerful reception, we are reminded that this is a Star Trek flick in a way that would make Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock proud. Right in the middle of a rant, Lt. Commander Worf is interrupted by a slightly unusual sensor reading.
Worf: “Captain, I am picking up an unusual electromagnetic signature from the Kolarun system.”
Picard: “What sort of signature?”
Worf: “Positronic.”
Cue ominous music as the camera pans over to Data.
Now for all we know Worf could be telling Picard that the Enterprise is running low on gas. But this is exactly what Star Trek’s all about: Using big words that sound scientific and futuristic. It turns out that Worf was actually telling the captain that he’s detecting another android that seems a whole lot like Data. Picard, Worf and Data go down to the planet in some kind of crazy retro dun buggy and are met by a group off angry aliens that are cruising around in go-carts with guns. The Enterprise group quickly picks up this mysterious android and than take part in a chase that looks like something out of Mad Max.

Once they make it safely back to the Enterprise, they begin to analyze their new find and learn that it’s actually a prototype that Data’s creator, Dr. Soong, made prior to Data and ironically named B-4. Interrupted by “an alpha priority communication” from Starfleet Command, Picard is ordered to investigate the events that occurred on Romulus and to wait in orbit of the planet where he will be contacted by the new praetor named Shinzon. Shinzon is pushing for peace between the Federation and Romulus/Remus but, in actuality, wants to destroy Earth. The crew of the Enterprise must stop him from carrying out his deadly plan and also must unravel the mysterious web that connects both Shinzon and Picard.

Star Trek: Nemesis left both my trekkie side and my movie critic side feeling a little disappointed. The biggest problem is that there just isn’t anything new here. Yeah there’s that thing between Picard and Shinzon, that I won’t give away, but let’s be honest, it was pretty lame. It almost seemed like the writers ran out of ideas and decided to mash up a bunch of elements from the show and past movies into one recycled script. How many times has the crew of the Enterprise come up against a villain who want’s to destroy both the Federation and Earth? How many times have those damn shields on the Enterprise dropped to 30%? How many times has something from one of the crew members past come back only to bite everyone in the ass? Too many if you ask me. Yet, even with it’s mediocre script, Nemesis does not disappoint in terms of action. From a starship battle in which the Enterprise plows, head on, into another ship to the aforementioned Mad Max buggy chase with Worf at the guns, Nemesis has action up the wazoo. I only wish they could have put half of the effort they used to make the action sequences look cool into making an original story.

As for the DVD side of Star Trek: Nemesis, Paramount really has done an excellent job here. We got a director commentary, four documentaries, deleted scenes and a photo gallery. All of this comes wrapped up in the excellent audio and video quality that we expect from Paramount.
First let’s start with the commentary from director Stuart Baird. Overall, just like the film itself, it’s rather middle of the road. While Baird does give plenty of insight into his directorial process, long pauses and periodic droning caused me, more often than not, to be bored and uninterested. I just want to know why Paramount didn’t see fit to do a cast commentary that surprisingly enough has been absent from every Next Generation film thus far.

Next, we have the four documentaries, the first of which is about Stuart Baird directing Nemesis. Most of this is just fluff in which the cast and crew praise Baird’s ability as director while we also get some pretty cool behind the scenes shots to look at. The next documentary has to do with bringing the script to the screen and is arguably the best of the four. If you ever wondered about the process of building the set of a starship’s bridge or how they make it look like the Enterprise is being rocked by a photon torpedo then this is what to watch. Next we have an extremely sentimental featurette in which the cast describes what it’s like for them to come back to the characters that they’ve portrayed for 16 years. Last but not least we have a documentary covering the major action scenes throughout the film. While there is a little bit of retread from some of the other documentaries, there is still quite a bit of neat behind the scenes shots and interviews.

Lastly, we have the deleted scenes and the photo gallery. The deleted scenes included on the disc are actually all pretty interesting. We get a few that are character builders and even an alternate ending in which we see the new first officer of the enterprise. The photo gallery also has some good stuff. With 40 photos, we get a chance to see many of the preliminary sketches that were used in the film and even a few that weren’t.

Overall what we have here is an excellent DVD treatment for a mildly entertaining Star Trek flick. I just wish that we could have said goodbye to the crew of the Enterprise ( Nemesis was billed as “A Generations Final Journey Begins”) in the form of a better film. It’s a good thing that Paramount sort of makes up for it with the slew of special features they included. If you aren’t a trekkie, you may want to rent this one first. On the other hand if you are a Trek fan, hell, you’ve probably already picked it up.

Official Website:
http://www.Paramount.com/homeentertainment