Review of Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) by Rebecca H — 26 Feb 2009

The fourth and final Next Generation film again basically only stars Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Data (Brent Spiner), making me wonder why the other cast members bother turning up. And sure, Data is the best character, but Picard is a tedious hero and utterly self-involved, which isn't a likeable trait in a captain.

There's a lot of Romulan and Reman gibberish which completely went over my head and made it feel very 'Trekkies only' which annoys me, because I hate that stereotype and these films should appeal to more than hard core fans. In this film, the villains are the Remans, who are aliens who just happen to embody everything that we classically associate with evil. Their leader is a human clone, who is fairly interesting, far more than I thought he would be, but there isn't enough depth here to really care or understand all this Reman stuff.

And much like in the other three films, I simply don't get why this situation is so much worse than anything they have faced in the series. No one has even heard of the Remans, so why are the Enterprise and the Romulans so whipped by this one ship? And why is ramming one starship into another a viable move? Surely they'd just blow up - haven't they seen the programme?

And as for the infamous death of a main character, well, it's arbitrary, like Spock's death in Wrath Of Khan (actually, it felt like a rip off of this), and unnecessary, like Kirk's death in Generations, although nothing will ever be that pointlessly upsetting. It's all Picard's fault as well, which is just another reason to detest him, and Picard quite creepily seems to be planning on replacing his lost friend.

On the positive side, the chase on the planet towards the start of the film is surprisingly cool for Star Trek, new character B4 (Brent Spiner again) - Data's idiot brother is adorable and I found this the most grown up and polished of the Next Generation films.

This can't escape the fact that when Janeway briefly cameos, all I could think was how much I'd rather be watching a Voyager film. It's just better made, more engaging and with characters you can both like and care about. The Next Generation will never be that good, and now it's over forever.