Ranking the "Star Trek" Movies: #7 - Star Trek: Nemesis

I put this one a little higher on the list than a lot of other peoples'. It's the tenth and final Star Trek film of the original series, starting with the original cast in '79 and ending now with the cast of The Next Generation in '02. It's the final voyage of William Riker and Deanna Troi under command of Jean-Luc Picard before they go off on their own ship and their own adventures, and (spoiler warning) it's the final act of kindness from Data himself. That's right, this movie had the balls to kill of Data. That's like having the balls to kill off Spock *snickers incoherently*.

The film opens On Romulus where members of the Romulan Imperial Senate debate whether to accept the terms of peace and alliance with the Reman rebel leader Shinzon. Who is Shinzon? Why should we care at this point? Has he been discussed in any prior Star Trek form of media, or his race of anti-Romulans called "Remans"? (Get it? Romulan and Reman? Do you get it? Wacka wacka). He's Tom Hardy, you'll care in a few scenes and how the shit should I know? I'm not a Trekkie. Anywho. It turns out that the Remans are a slave race of the Romulan Empire, used as miners and as cannon fodder. To me that means that the Romulans load Reman personnel into cannons and fire them at enemy vessels. Wait...that's exactly what that means? OH THE HUMANITY. A faction of the Reman military is in support of Shinzon, but the Praetor and senate are opposed to an alliance. After rejecting the motion, the Praetor and remaining senators are disintegrated by a device left in the room by a military-aligned senator. Probably should've checked that guy's luggage.

Meanwhile, the crew of the USS Enterprise-E are at a wedding shindig for first officer Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis). As I said, they are also preparing to depart for greener pastures, which includes not flying on the most fired-upon, politically involved ship in the Starfleet. Kudos to them for signing paperwork to protect their futures. During a routine mission sailing through space, the group discovers a positronic energy reading on a planet in the Kolaran system near the Romulan Neutral Zone. Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), Lieutenant Commander Worf (Michael Dorn), and Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner) land on Kolarus III and discover the remnants of an android resembling Data. When the android is reassembled it introduces itself as B-4 (also Brent Spiner). After all, being identical to Data wouldn't warrant the need of a completely different actor, now would it?

Picard is contacted by Vice-Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew, a surprising MCU-esque inclusion) and orders the ship on a diplomatic mission to nearby Romulus. Janeway explains that the Romulan Empire has been taken over in a military coup by Shinzon, who says he wants peace with the Federation and to bring freedom to Remus. So...let me get this straight, the Romulan Empire; probably the second-most dangerous regime in the galaxy to oppose the Federation, was taken over and assumed control over by Shinzon and his band of cannon fodder? Just how well are the Romulans equipped to do anything, really? We find out in Star Trek (2009) that they can't even predict a supernova happening with years of "heads up", so this shouldn't even surprise retrospectively speaking. On arrival, the crew of the Enterprise-E learns that Shinzon is a clone of Picard, secretly created by Romulans to plant a high-ranking spy into the Federation. How do they know he's a clone of Picard? Because he's bald. That's it. He doesn't look a single thing like Picard other than the fact that he's bald. How cunning.

After many years, Shinzon became a leader of the Remans, and constructed his heavily armed flagship, the Scimitar. Initially, diplomatic efforts go well, but the Enterprise-E crew discover that the Scimitar is producing low levels of thalaron radiation, which had been used to kill the Imperial Senate and is deadly to nearly all life forms. There are also unexpected attempts to communicate with the Enterprise-E computers, and Shinzon himself violates Troi's mind through the telepathy of his Reman viceroy while she's doing the nasty with Riker, the dirty son-of-a-bitch pervert.

Soon, Dr. Crusher, in her increasingly subsidized role as each movie goes on, discovers that Shinzon is aging rapidly because of the poor process used to clone him, and the only possible means to stop the aging is a transfusion of Picard's own blood. One transfusion of blood will stop Shinzon's problematic genetic makeup. Makes sense to me *cough*. Shinzon kidnaps Picard from the Enterprise-E, as well as B-4, having planted the android on the nearby planet to lure Picard closer to the Border. However, Data reveals he has swapped places with B-4, rescues Picard, and returns with Picard to the Enterprise-E. So that renders the kidnapping of Picard ENTIRELY POINTLESS. They learn that the Scimitar possess the same kind of thalaron radiation in the form of a large-scale weapon, planning to use it on Earth and invade and take over the Federation. You know, that'll ruin some people's weekends.

The Enterprise-E races back to Federation space to unite with a large scale attack fleet (which wouldn't do any good anyway, but I digress) but is ambushed by the Scimitar in the Bassen Rift, a region that prevents any subspace communications. Two Romulan Warbirds come to the aid of the Enterprise-E, as they do not want to comply in Shinzon's genocidal plans (Why I don't know. He seems like such a stand-up guy). They prove to be about as useful as a kick in the balls, as Shinzon destroys one and disables the other within two minutes. Recognizing the need to stop the Scimitar at all costs, Picard orders the Enterprise-E to ram the other ship, in probably the coolest scene in recent Trek films. The collision leaves both ships heavily damaged, the Enterprise-E like somebody tried taking a fucking bite out of it, and destroys the Scimitar's primary weapons. Seeing no alternative, Shinzon activates the thalaron weapon to wipe out both ships. Picard boards the Scimitar to face Shinzon alone, and eventually kills him by impaling him on a metal strut. Data jumps the distance between the two ships (No literally, jumps the fucking distance between the ships through space) armed with a personal transporter (convenient device is convenient) to beam Picard back to the Enterprise-E, and then sacrifices himself when he fires his phaser at the thalaron generator to destroy the Scimitar, saving the Enterprise-E, the Federation and planet Earth in the process. The crew mourn Data, and the surviving Romulan commander offers them her gratitude for saving the Empire. Yeah fuck all that. Data's dead. Screw the Romulans and their wants and needs.

The Enterprise-E now back at Earth for repairs, Picard bids farewell to newly promoted Captain Riker, who is leaving to command the USS Titan and begin a possible peace-negotiation mission with the Romulans. All we can say is "It's about fucking time, assholes". Picard meets with B-4, discovering that Data had downloaded the engrams of his neural net into B-4's positronic matrix before he boarded the Scimitar, thus needlessly keeping the hope for a sequel alive in the fans and literally nobody else who was involved with this turkey.

Star Trek: Nemesis is a tired movie. It runs very much on the franchise's fatigue and even after marathoning all of the movies, you can't help but realize this one doesn't stand out all that well. I rank it above the others because it's got action and at least some interestingly repugnant characters to look at (Looking at you, Ron Pearlman). But it's just so 'meh' that it almost really isn't there. The final battle is epic, but the climax loses momentum when the battle stops and Picard boards the Scimitar. Also, Tom Hardy gave it his all, but the Remans weren't really as awe-inspiring villain as we'd like to think. I liked their warbird and the type of damage it could do, but the Remans themselves look like deceased pigs that got left out in the sun too long. All-in-all, not an awful Star Trek film, but it isn't very memorable.