Star Trek: Nemesis - "Do You Think This is a Wise Course of Action, Sir?"

The final film before the newest is Star Trek: Nemesis. It stars the same cast and crew with the addition of Tom Hardy, and is directed by Stuart Baird (who only directed two other films besides Nemesis, and is primarily a film editor by trade).

Nemesis begins with the Earth wedding of Troi and Riker. En route to the ceremony on Betazed, the Enterprise picks up signals of a positronic nature on a desert planet, and goes to investigate. Once there, they discover pieces of a prototype android, clearly made by Dr. Noonien Soong, and aptly named B-4 (Brent Spiner). They assemble B-4, a child-like version of Data, and, though his programming would allow him to evolve like Data, a complete memory transfer from Data sparks seemingly no effect.

Back en route to Betazed, Picard receives a transmission from Admiral Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) at Starfleet Headquarters ordering them to Romulus, where there has been a coup d'etat. A new person from Remus (Romulus' sister-world) has take power - Praetor Shinzon (Hardy).

The Enterprise goes to Romulus, and the crew discovers that Shinzon is not only human, but actually a clone of Picard. Shinzon was the product of an abandoned project to replace Picard. Shinzon tells Picard that he is only interested in peace, but Picard and his crew soon discover that Shinzon is harboring a planet-killing weapon. With this weapon, he plans to destroy Earth and cripple the Federation. To accomplish this, Shinzon had previously found and reprogrammed B-4, who transmits the information on ship placement within the Federation to Shinzon's ship.

After this discovery, the Enterprise takes off to find the bulk of the fleet, placed close to the neutral zone. Shinzon's ship fires and disables the Enterprise in the midst of a nebula, which hinders communication with Starfleet. A battle ensues, in which two Romulan war birds assist the Enterprise, but ultimately get disabled. Also, Troi uses her telepathic abillities to locate Shinzon's cloaked ship, and fires a blow that cripples his ship, and destroys the cloak.

Frustrated, Shinzon loses his temper, and decides to unleash the planet-killing weapon, which takes 10 minutes to deploy, on the Enterprise. Picard beams over in an apparent suicide mission to stop the weapon. He grapples with Shinzon, eventually killing him, partially by accident. While he stares at Shinzon in shock, Data beams over, quickly uses a prototype self-transporter on Picard (who beams back to the Enterprise), and destroys the weapon, the ship, and himself in one blow.

The Enterprise crew is stunned at the death of Data, and raise a glass to him in Picard's quarters. Back at spacedock where the Enterprise is being repaired, Picard bids goodbye to Riker, who is headed to his own command on the Titan. Picard also has a long conversation with B-4 about Data, which B-4 seems to not understand. As Picard walks away sadly, B-4 starts absentmindedly singing "Blue Skies," the song that Data had sung for the wedding. Picard smiles at this hopeful sign, and the movie ends.

There are several action scenes in this movie that Baird talks excitedly about in the behind-the-scenes and I find quite dull. One such example is the Argo, an off-roading vehicle and a complete copy of the Warthog from the video game Halo. Picard goes all gung-ho driving it, while they pick up pieces of B-4, and then driving it as they are chased by Tuskan raiders and Jawas that come out of nowhere. Wrong movie, you say? If they weren't Tuskan raiders and Jawas, they were awful copies.

I also had mixed feelings about seeing Admiral Janeway giving orders to Captain Picard. While she definitely deserved a promotion after all that Voyager went through, it's quite odd to see her an admiral while Picard is only a captain. I guess he took Kirk's advice from Generations, and never let go of that captain's chair.

I also felt very uncomfortable with the rape scene. There is a scene where Shinzon invades Troi's mind with the help of his Reman Viceroy while she and Riker are making love, and makes her see him in Riker's place. It's extremely disturbing, and, while this kind of thing does happen in Star Trek, it's rare, and I happily skipped past it during this viewing. It does allow Troi a good moment later in the film, however, when she invades the Viceroy's mind in order to get a fix on their cloaked ship's location. As she enters his mind, she says, "Remember me?" in an extraordinarily deadly tone - quite unique for her character, and appropriate for the scene.

Nemesis frustrates me. It is an excellent cast, the last in a series, and almost the same production team as the others. What this movie is missing is what is intricate to Star Trek in general, and Next Generation especially: human interaction. So much of this movie is merely pointless action scene after pointless action scene. The behind-the-scenes interviews confused me a great deal, since all of the cast and crew (with the notable exception of Baird, the director) talking about how this movie is about family - staying family while still moving on. Then I saw the deleted scenes. They were beautifully acted, completely heartfelt scenes between people about their relationships and themselves - much more in line with TNG and the interviews. I could not be more upset that those were the scenes that were cut. Those were the scenes that were missing, and I'm convinced that that was what made this movie a box office and critical failure.

One example of such scenes that made me actually cry was Worf and Geordi cleaning out Data's quarters after his death. There are objects that they see that are vital to Data's development - his violin, his book of Sherlock Holmes, his paintings. And Spot. Spot meows and leaps into Worf's arms. Almost unable to hold back tears, Worf looks at Geordi and says, "I am not a cat person." Geordi smiles back, places a hand warmly on Worf's shoulder and says, "You are now..."

If you have the opportunity, and want to watch this movie, watch the deleted scenes as well. Those at least will make you feel like you are coming home, not being hung out to dry.