Star Trek: Nemesis Review

Spoiler Warning

Star Trek: Nemesis is the much-maligned final installment in the TNG film series, and was roundly accused of killing the series (along with the series finale of Star Trek: Enterprise) until JJ Abrams revived it with the 2009 film that reset the entire canon and went back to the original crew of the Enterprise (Kirk, Spock, etc.). As anyone who knows me can attest to (or anyone who has read my previous reviews), I hold a lot of unconventional takes on movies, with some of my favorite films being largely disliked by mainstream audiences. So, the question is: does Nemesis fit that same description?

Well, yes and no.

Nemesis is by no means a great film, nor can I honestly say it’s even a good one. However, I think the level of hate that I’ve seen directed towards it is wholly unwarranted. Of the 13 installments in the series, Nemesis outpaces a few of those movies in most, or all, aspects. In other words, there are a lot of good things about Nemesis, most of which are too often overlooked. I think there are two general reasons Nemesis received such a negative reaction from the fanbase. To explain them, I think it’s best to look at this film in light of the previous installment in the franchise: Insurrection. And, before I dive into this analysis, I will go ahead and say that yes, I think Nemesis is a far better film than Insurrection.

Obviously, there are more than just two complaints levelled against this film, but I think most of them come from one of the following two sources.

First of all: of all the Star Trek films, Nemesis has by far the most wasted potential (if you’re someone who hates Into Darkness, you could make a claim for that one, but it’s not one I would ever agree with as I like that movie quite a lot). A lot of the ideas explored in this movie, such as the twisted mirror of Picard and Shinzon or the Romulan coup and the resulting chance for peace between the Federation and their longstanding arch-enemy, are never utilized to their fullest potential.

To bring this comparison to Insurrection back into focus, I have heard it argued that Insurrection is a better film because it doesn’t leave so many interesting questions unresolved, unanswered or almost completely ignored. In other words, the fanbase was happier with some of the previous films which didn’t under-utilize such interesting ideas. In my mind, however, I’d prefer to have these glimpses of interesting ideas rather than a movie that doesn’t disappoint at the end because no interesting issues are ever raised in it.

Secondly: Nemesis tried to do something different.

Now, I understand the objection to this observation. The ending sacrifice of Data parallels that of Spock in the Wrath of Khan to an unignorable degree, and there are a couple of other recycled ideas thrown around throughout the film, but other than that Nemesis is wholly unique among the first ten Star Trek films.

The designs used in this movie are very imaginative and unique, whether you like them or not. The Remans don’t look like redressed versions of other Star Trek aliens, their costumes are striking and memorable, and they even seem to have unique technology (their sidearms, the presence of numerous small attack craft aboard the flagship, even a pictographic language that Data can’t interface with). Shinzon’s ship, the Scimitar, is also designed in a way to make it stand apart from all other Star Trek ships (at least at the time). It’s massive, but still fast, and has a design that invokes a sense of menace that few other Star Trek ships managed to achieve. The tone of this movie is significantly darker than a lot of Trek movies (certainly the previous installment), and it’s received some flak for focusing too much on action. Even the score was different, as I know people who watched the film in 2002 when it was first released and said they were distracted by how different the score was from previous movies and series.

Now, I’m not saying all of these choices were necessarily good, or handled in the best way, but I think a lot of them were handled better than people give it credit for, as they wrote the movie off too quickly just for being different. Once again, I’d rather see a new installment that shakes up the formula and takes risks, rather than a film that just retreads old ground. So, while Nemesis has a lot of mis-steps, it does at least make interesting decisions and explore some new ideas, and therefore I can find plenty to enjoy or appreciate when I watch this movie so that I can’t say for sure that this movie is bad.

The movie opens on Romulus, where we get some hints of what’s to come, with mentions of the Remans and Shinzon, before one of Shinzon’s allies murders the Romulan senate with a mysterious weapon that disintegrates everyone in the room. With the leadership of Romulus all dead, Shinzon will have a clear path to taking over the empire, as will be revealed a little later in the film. This is an interesting beginning to the movie, and then it transitions to the long-awaited wedding of Will Riker and Deanna Troi.

While I’m glad that they finally provided this development for the characters, and also glad that Will finally gets his own command aboard the Titan (which he is set to assume at the very end of the film), I don’t think this sequence was very well written. All the characters feel like hollow imitations of themselves, and this is going to persist throughout a lot of the movie, just as it did in the previous installment. Had the main cast been written better, with a script that would’ve actually utilized the actors’ talents, the movie would have been a lot better and this could’ve ranked as another strong installment in the series.

The movie goes off on a weird and poorly executed tangent from there, with the crew of the Enterprise detecting positronic emissions only created from an android like the third in command, Lieutenant Commander Data. Given that he’s thought to be a unique lifeform (aside from Lore, but he’s never mentioned in this film), the crew goes to investigate and finds a disassembled android, identical in appearance to Data but with a much more limited intellect. Instead of a genius level super computer like Data, the new android, named B-4, seems to be incapable of any sort of higher thinking, as he’s unable to grasp simple concepts like Captain Picard being bald or Commander Riker having a beard. This, as one might expect, provides for some poor comedic moments that clash with the film’s dark tone in a really jarring way.

While the crew finds B-4’s scattered components on the planet, they are ambushed by a primitive race of aliens, using jeeps and machine guns, and a battle ensues. To non-Trekkies, this scene probably just seems like a poorly shot and randomly inserted action scene, but there are reasons why this scene is actually much worse than that.

To provide a brief explanation, Starfleet’s number one rule, the Prime Directive, forbids them from interfering with any culture that has yet to achieve Warp capability (a form of faster than light travel). This led to a lot of interesting episodes on TNG, but the main point is that it meant that Starfleet respected all other cultures as being equal to their own, and would never fight a primitive group of aliens that likely didn’t even know who they were or what they were doing there. This scene bothered me a lot, but there are a couple of things to note that I realized upon my most recent rewatch.

First of all, Worf (the only officer who fights back) is only acting in self-defense. Secondly, it’s possible he’s going for non-lethal shots or that his phaser cannon is set to stun, as none of the aliens are never confirmed killed. Still, the sequence seems to clash with Starfleet ideals that’s difficult to ignore for fans of the show.

However, the movie picks up from there, with a timely cameo from Admiral Janeway (the lead character of the spinoff series, Star Trek: Voyager), who informs Picard of Shinzon’s coup on Romulus, and that he’s extended an olive branch to the Federation, asking that negotiations between the two factions commence so that they can create peace between themselves. The Federation, committed to peace with all races, jumps at the chance and Picard is dispatched to Romulus to meet with Shinzon.

Here, the audience begins to get some of its questions answered as Data briefs the Enterprise crew about everything Starfleet knows about these new developments. First of all, the Remans are revealed to be a species inhabiting the sister planet of Romulus, but are a subjugated species used primarily as slave labor in mining and as soldiers in especially dangerous confrontations. Shinzon himself is a master tactician and successful military leader, who led Remans to victory in numerous battles during the Dominion War (the focus of the other spinoff series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). While this scene had the potential to feel exposition heavy, setting it in the confines of a Star Trek briefing, a staple of every series, makes it feel more organic.

Finally reaching the rendezvous coordinates Shinzon gave them, the Enterprise waits for hours without any word from the new leader of Romulus, before his ship decloaks in front of them.

I already mentioned before how much I liked the design for the Scimitar and the Remans, but I also think the score of this movie is fantastic. It adds so much atmosphere to so many scenes throughout the movie, making up for the lack of emotion in most of the performances. Here, that comes in the form of a subtler score building tension throughout the waiting game, and then an abrupt shift to mark the Scimitar’s arrival that makes its already impressive design even more intimidating.

At any rate, Picard and Shinzon finally come face to face and the negotiations begin… or at least they seem to. Before they are able to establish any formal diplomatic relations with Shinzon, they face a shocking reveal.

This is one of the film’s plot points that seems to have faced the most criticism: that Shinzon is actually a youthful clone of Captain Picard. Evidently, the Romulans obtained a sample of Picard’s DNA and created Shinzon so that they could replace one of the highest-ranking Starfleet officers (after activating an accelerated aging sequence inside Shinzon’s DNA). A lot of people, however, criticized this as being unrealistic.

First of all, I think this plot point leads into some of the most interesting character building the film did, so I’m willing to overlook some lapses in logic (such as the inconsistencies with Shinzon’s age vs when Picard first appeared on the Romulans’ radar) to get something of actual substance in this film. Speaking of which, this is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking plotlines Trek had tackled in quite some time, and it was nice to see them finally try to set some personal stakes for one of the heroes.

Secondly, and perhaps more to the point for some hardcore fans, this doesn’t seem much more unrealistic than some of the other Romulan plotlines across the various shows. For example, Tasha Yar being sent back in time only to have a child with a Romulan officer and then said child growing up to become a ranking military officer in the Romulan Star Empire. Or the time someone abducts Counsellor Troi and alters her to look like a Romulan so that she can pretend to be a top-secret spy to smuggle Vulcan defectors out of the empire. I’m not saying these shows are bad by any means, but the Romulan plotlines have always played heavily into spy-style intrigue, and they’re one of the most technologically advanced opponents the Federation has ever faced, so I doubt this would be beyond their abilities.

Picard feels a lot of sympathy for Shinzon, especially when he learns that he was raised as a slave in the Reman mines, after the plan to have him replace Picard was scrapped following a change in leadership (via military coup) on Romulus many years ago. As such, Shinzon was brutally mistreated, and Picard begins to feel that this younger, darker version of himself was denied the chance to become a hero the way Jean-Luc did, or live up to his full potential. However, his desire to trust Shinzon is rocked when he finds out that the Scimitar has experimental, highly dangerous radioactive weaponry onboard that could totally annihilate any life within its range (the very same weapon used at the beginning, albeit on a much larger scale). Geordi also learns that B-4 is somehow connected to Shinzon, and the crew begins to lay a trap for Shinzon, whenever he decides to play his hand.

However, things take a dark turn (and an unnecessarily uncomfortable one) when Shinzon, with his telepathic Reman Viceroy, attempts to establish a violative psychic link with Counsellor Troi during a romantic night with Riker. Troi manages to fight off the attack, but is badly shaken. This scene feels gratuitous and overly dark, but it does set up a genuinely emotional connection (other than that between Shinzon and Picard) during the climactic space battle later in the film.

At this point, Picard has obviously realized that Shinzon is their enemy, but before he has a chance to lay any plans, he is beamed off the Enterprise and to the Scimitar, before it cloaks, hiding itself from the Enterprise sensors.

With Picard as his captive, Shinzon reveals his true purpose for him (part of this is also revealed later, but I'm summarizing it all now for the sake of convenience). As an imperfect clone of Picard, Shinzon is suffering from terminal cellular degeneration, something which will cost his life within a few days. His only hope at survival is to harvest Picard’s DNA to stabilize his own. The plot point of having the villain need the hero’s blood for something is hardly original, but it does at least heighten the personal conflict between the main hero and villain, and provides added stakes and urgency to Shinzon’s character.

All seems to be lost, until another secret is revealed. B-4 served as Shinzon’s plant, providing him information about Federation fleet deployments so that he can launch an attack against them once he’s done with Picard. Just before kidnapping Picard, Shinzon had beamed B-4 over to the Scimitar.

However, the Enterprise crew had already learned of B-4’s true nature, and had Data switch places with him, so that Shinzon unwittingly beamed Data over to his ship. Data quickly frees Picard and offers him a state-of-the-art portable transporter device which can only beam one person at a time (and which he conveniently only has one of), but Picard refuses to leave him alone and they set off through the ship to find an alternative escape route.

A series of firefights ensue between Picard and a seemingly endless horde of Reman soldiers, all of whom are so incompetent that there’s no real tension in the battles. To make things worse, the action set pieces are completely uninspired, repetitive and lazily executed. It all boils down to Picard ducking behind corners in one nondescript hallway after the next, as Reman soldiers fire shots in his general direction, before he picks one off and ducks behind cover once again. Things get only slightly better when they commandeer a Reman fighter from the Scimitar hangar and fly it through the halls of the ship, before crashing out a large window and completing their escape from the Scimitar. While the action has been pretty lackluster so far, it’s about to get much, much better.

Things start to pick up in the second half of this movie, as the Enterprise crew learns that Shinzon is headed to Earth, to use his radioactive weapon to annihilate all life on the planet and destroy the Federation. While trying to find some counter strategy to stop this plan, Picard finds himself wrestling with the parallels between himself and Shinzon, leading to one of the best scenes in the film.

In the stellar cartography lab, Picard and Data search for the Scimitar, before he confides his doubts in his second officer: namely, that he may not have been any different than Shinzon if their situations had been reversed. Data, however, offers his typically wise advice, pointing out that the differences between B-4 and himself go beyond the differences in the sophistication of their programming. While B-4 is content to accept his nature and not try to better himself, Data is not and has spent fifteen years trying to grow as a person. Similarly, Shinzon has let himself be defined by his situation and never tried to change himself for the better.

This scene is excellently written, and stands out as one of the best character scenes in this film. It draws an excellent parallel to Data’s and Picard’s situations, grounds the movie in emotional stakes and serves as a way to explore an interesting aspect of Picard’s character, even after the past fifteen years of storytelling. It’s scenes like this that make me say Nemesis has a good plot. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of flaws that detract from these moments, but on its own, this is a stand-out scene.

During this conversation, the Enterprise passes into a region of space known as the Bassen Rift, which prevents them from sending long ranged communications to Starfleet. It’s here that Picard realizes they’ve fallen into Shinzon’s trap, as he uses this region of space to ambush them and disable their warp core, leaving them stranded in the rift.

The resulting battle sequence is the true standout sequence of the film, as the Enterprise goes up against the seemingly unbeatable Scimitar, complete with two shield generators and a cloak that allows them to use their weapons even while it’s active (only seen before in Star Trek 6). There’s a lot of things that make this battle so good, but I’ll try to cover most of them.

First of all, the visuals are really good, even holding up nearly twenty years after the film’s release. Secondly, while the Scimitar clearly overpowers the Enterprise, it’s handled in a way that doesn’t just make the outcome feel inevitable or boring. The Enterprise inevitably loses the battle, but only after employing a variety of strategies that deal heavy damage to the Scimitar and nearly turn the tide multiple times. As such, the showdown between these two feels more satisfying. Especially since Picard doesn’t just give up on trying to hit a cloaked ship with the Enterprise weapons (unlike Star Trek 6) and fires phaser volleys everywhere, hoping to get shield impacts so that he can fire torpedoes at the Scimitar. Seeing the level of strategy used in this battle shows that a lot of effort was put into it, and that makes it even better.

In addition to all of this, we get a few standout character moments in it as well.

Shortly after the battle begins, Shinzon sends a holographic projection of himself to demand Picard’s surrender. Picard tries to reason with him, urging him to give up the battle and try to change his nature. Picard admits that Shinzon may serve as a mirror into the darker parts of himself, but asserts that the same is true in reverse: that Shinzon is capable of all the good that Picard has done. This is one of Tom Hardy’s finest moments as Shinzon in the film, as he seems to be genuinely tempted by Picard’s offer, reluctantly saying that there’s no way he can change, even seeming frightened by the prospect of giving up his rage and hatred. However, he eventually refuses and vows to claim so many lives in his assault against Earth that he will be remembered forever, making history forget about Picard completely, and thereby making Shinzon the only of the two who will matter in the long run.

Before the battle can resume, two Romulan warbirds, led by Commander Donatra (a minor character who served as one of Shinzon’s supporters who wasn’t prominent enough to be mentioned earlier), arrive. Having realized how unstable and treacherous Shinzon was, she’s decided to help the Enterprise. This marks the first potential turning point of the battle, as the Warbirds and the Enterprise coordinate fire, making Shinzon’s cloak less and less effective. It also keeps their battle from getting stale or repetitive, as it’s not just twenty minutes of the same two ships shooting at each other. However, neither Warbird lasts long, with Shinzon destroying the first in less than a minute, and drawing Donatra’s ship away from the Enterprise only to cripple its engines and leave it dead in the water, making it a one-on-one battle again.

However, the sequence adds in yet another turn and another bit of character development, as Troi tries to establish a psychic connection with the Viceroy to locate where the Scimitar is. He tries to resist her, but she ultimately has her revenge, and aids Worf in locking onto the ship. The Enterprise fires a volley of torpedoes and destroys the Scimitar’s cloak, leaving them vulnerable for the first time.

The battle continues, much more evenly matched, and Shinzon sends the Viceroy over with a boarding party, beaming them onto an unshielded section of the ship. That part bothers me still, as it’s the first time there’s been part of a ship that’s unshielded in Star Trek (conveniently preventing Shinzon from beaming Picard off the bridge), especially since they could’ve just as easily used the fighters seen earlier (which only serve to provide Data and Picard a means of escape) to board the ship.

Anyway, Riker and Worf lead a security team to beat back the intruders, and Riker and the Viceroy end up fighting one-on-one. This action scene is horribly edited, with a lot of quick cuts and close shots that make it almost impossible to tell what is happening. The only good moment is Riker using the Remans’ weakness to light to blind the Viceroy and give himself the upper hand, but its quickly blotted out of the audience’s memory when Riker kicks him down a random, bottomless shaft on the Enterprise, never seen before or since aboard the ship (or any Starfleet ship). I like the idea of having Riker fight the Viceroy, responsible for the attack against his wife (predictable as that idea might be), but it’s executed so poorly that it doesn’t really add anything to the film.

While this battle is going on, the Scimitar scores a vital hit against the Enterprise, nearly destroying the bridge and leaving its weapon systems so badly damaged that it can’t mount an effective offense against the Scimitar. Shinzon brings the Scimitar to a halt in front of the Enterprise, demanding Picard’s surrender. Realizing that he is out of options, Picard decides he has to make one last-ditch effort to stop the Scimitar so that it can’t turn its weapon against Earth, and rams it in a head-on collision with the Enterprise-E.

The resulting destruction, shown across the interior and exterior of both ships is fantastic and some of the best visuals in all of Star Trek. The use of CGI is something most movie reviewers are more critical of than I am, but I think it works undeniably well here, as it allows for a level of detail in the destruction that just wouldn’t have been possible for models.

Picard’s plan, however, doesn’t defeat the Scimitar. It does, however, leave it so crippled that it can’t fire its weapons against the Enterprise, so Shinzon orders them to activate the Thaelaron matrix and annihilate the Starfleet crew. He even includes Picard in this, realizing that the time has come for him to sacrifice his life for his plans. I’m not sure if this is because the medical facility on the ship was supposed to be destroyed or if he just realized that he was running out of time to destroy Earth, but I like that the writers threw this curveball in at the end of the third act. After seeing Shinzon’s motivations explored for nearly two hours by now, I like seeing him not only have to choose between his two goals, but also for his focus to shift, so that the audience is given something new to digest in the final few scenes of the film.

There are some leaps in logic to get Picard over to the Scimitar alone (such as a convenient short-out of the transporter) and it still doesn’t make sense that Data’s site-to-site transporter can only accommodate one person and that he only has one, but we do get a nice showdown between Picard and the main villain. And, surprisingly, a lot of the action beats are really well thought-out.

Picard beams over with a phaser rifle and a hand-phaser holstered at his belt, before he begins firing on the Reman soldiers defending Shinzon, the bridge, and the connected room with the Thaelaron matrix. One of the guards manages to sneak up on Picard when he turns his attention to the weapon and tackles him. The struggle causes Picard’s hand phaser to fall out of his holster, and Picard has to use his phaser rifle as a club to defeat the guard, thus breaking the weapon. All this serves to leave Picard alone, unarmed and virtually defenseless against Shinzon. Given the leaps in logic throughout the rest of the film, I appreciated seeing that Picard beamed over with more of a plan in mind, but circumstances messed it up to the point that he had to fight Shinzon without a weapon.

Their resulting struggle around the weapon, while not excellently choreographed, builds a lot of tension, thanks in part to the amazing score that plays throughout the fight and to the ticking clock of the Scimitar’s ultimate weapon. While Picard is nearly beaten by his younger opponent, he manages to impale him on a broken pipe, and Shinzon says that they will die together.

Picard is traumatized by the death of his younger self and stands there and does nothing, before Data arrives (having jumped through space to reach the Scimitar) and forces him to beam back to the Enterprise. This moment of indecision on Picard’s part seems pretty out of character, and conveniently serves to kill off Data. Given how Picard-centric this film was, I feel that him sacrificing himself and actually dying with his darker half might have served the movie better, as Data’s death just seems like an obvious attempt to make the audience feel something at the end of the movie.

But it still comes up hollow because his death doesn’t have a lot of impact on the story. While that could’ve provided some extra emotional weight to the story, those scenes are rushed through so much that the audience isn’t left with enough time to digest what just happened to this beloved character before they’re given a hint that Data might live on inside of B-4 and the credits roll. Brent Spiner tried to defend this decision by arguing that sacrificing himself for his friends was the ultimate moment of humanity for Data, which I can respect. However, for this movie in particular, it felt too random for it to have had the same impact. This film, after all, barely tapped into the idea of Data trying to become human.

The potential behind this story was obviously immense. This could’ve been a great Star Trek film if the work was put in. In fact, it could’ve very easily been a good one if it’d gone through another draft of the script and the actors had turned in better performances (though that’s likely at least partially the director’s fault, who famously knew nothing about Star Trek or the characters). There’s a lot of great ideas that are bounced around throughout this movie, there’s a lot of potential for great character moments and growth, there’s interesting questions presented, the technical aspects of the film (visuals, score, etc.) are all fantastic and there are even one or two scenes throughout the movie that are undeniably good.

Unfortunately, there’s too many glaring plot holes to be ignored, and everyone involved in the movie clearly cut some corners, whether that’s in writing or acting, to get through the project rather than deliver their A game, and that hurts the film.

Nemesis isn’t an entirely bad movie, but it isn’t good either. There’s entertainment to be found there, but it mostly serves as a reminder of how great of a story this could have been… which is also one that we’ll never get to see fully realized.