Canon-Strike IX: Star Trek

[Asura]

Insurrection is one of my favourite Trek movies, for the reasons we've discussed.

Firstly, it's a Seven Samurai-a-like, sharing that in common with many movies. It's basically Trek-does-Battle Beyond the Stars. It's also very closer to an episode, conceptually; like I said earlier in the thread, there's a setup, that leads to the crew discovering something on the far reaches of space which is basically space-magic, they explore the impact of this (how far someone would bend their ethics if the prize is immortality), there's a battle to save paradise, a few twists, and it ends neatly.

Now, given... A big budget episode is not what some people want to see when they go to the cinema for Trek, but for me, I love that some of the movies can be like this. I also think it's really well-shot, with a great score.

I also wrote the Memory Alpha article for The Riker Maneouvre.

I get that it's a small-scale story in so many ways, but personally, I loved it.

[prinnysquad]

I loved First Contact. It was everything I wanted from a TNG film. My anticipation for the next film was huge...

then this rocked up.

I haven’t ever been able to get over the disappointment. It just felt like a damp squib of a spectacle, with nothing differentiating it from a standard series episode. Even the ‘weighty’ ethical issues were tedious and predictable.

Maybe I should watch it again.

[Neon Ignition]

Star Trek: Nemesis
The final Next-Gen film is next in the canon as the USS Enterprise-E takes on a clone of Picard in the wake of an attack on the Romulans. The film aimed to bring more action back to the franchise after the slower paced previous film and as part of this saw almost a third of its runtime cut in editing to tighten up the pace. The film also aimed to set up an eleventh film that would have followed on from the B4 ending and acted as the true final film for the current cast but the film failed to find box office success and brought this iteration of the franchise to an end, breaking up the Next-Gen crew after a fifteen year run.




Was Nemesis truly the death nail the series deserved at this point?

[Dogg Thang]

Nemesis is a bad film. I don't think there is any getting away from that. I feel like Nemesis was probably, at one point, an attempt to achieve what I felt was missing from the Next Gen movies - make it more movie-like, more grand, establish some distance from the series. But that resulted in stuff that just felt flat-out wrong with the characters, especially Picard, doing action stuff that just didn't match. It didn't feel true to the characters. And then it tried to pull from Khan by having a villain with a personal grudge against a main character but, in what would be repeated in every single Trek movie after this, the motivations were muddy, hard to buy and it just left the central conflict feeling weak.

And the B4 thing totally stripped a core moment of any weight.

That said, I would actually watch this movie over Generations or Insurrection. Even with the character disconnect, some of action bits are pretty good. The movie looks good and feels a bit more cinematic. It has Jim from Neighbours. And even though I didn't quite buy the character, Hardy is an enjoyable watch as he chews the scenery. So I don't think it's abysmal. I just think it's bad. But I kind of get why it's bad. I see what they were trying to do. It didn't work. But I get it.

[Neon Ignition]

I find Nemesis to be a bit of a guilty pleasure. The chase sequence is nice and I enjoy Picard's genuine seeming joy at letting loose in them. At the cinema it was great seeing the Enterprise E slam into the Romulan ship as well but that kind of sums up why the film is a guilty pleasure, it's the anti-Insurrection and so by far my preferred film of the two even though it's flawed as hell. The mind rape sequence feels like an unnecessary inclusion because it feels like its just there for the sake of it, there's mileage in it that the film never utilises so it'd be better without it. The B4 element is dire as well, it would have been better to see B4 sacrificed to save Picard and have Data have to experience valuing purposely taking a 'life' - and one so close to his own - to save another.

[Asura]

Hate it. Hate it hate it hate it.

Absolutely despise it.

It's just so terrible!

With this movie, I often come back to a bit where Picard and Shinzon are face-to-face, and they do that bit where the villain intimidates the hero. They have this whole conversation about how they're a mirror for each other, they mirror each other, they see each other's face in a dim mirror...

Then Shinzon leaves the room and says "now, Picard, you will find out what happens when the echo is louder than the voice!"

On the surface, it seems like a cool line... But on rewatch, I've always wanted this to happen:

• Picard: "Echo... Wait, we're doing sound?"
• Shinzon: "Yes. It's a metaphor."
• Picard:"Just we've been talking about mirrors, so the conversation's established that our analogy is about mirrors and vision, not sounds."
• Shinzon: "I think you-"
• Picard:"I mean, we can do sounds, if you want."
• Shinzon: "-but-"
• Picard: "Earlier in the movie we made up this totally new thing about us having a congenital hearing defect! You want to use that as the jump-off point?"
• Shinzon: "SILENCE!"
• Picard: "Yeah, let's start with that!"

It's just so clumsy. Every part of it.

And what narks me is that it was a sound idea, the central premise. The TNG universe had built Picard into this unassailable hero, so to defeat him, the writers would have him face Bizzaro Picard. It's a well-worn idea. I just don't know how they executed it so poorly.

The only bit I like is the bit where the two ships crash, and how that plays out, visually. That's literally it.

My favourite thing about Picard is that it ensures that Nemesis is not the last ride of the TNG crew. I'd forgive that show many sins, just for performing that service.

It's probably, for me, the very, very, very bottom of Trek. Like if I was to try and hierarchically rank every part of Trek, including the X-Men cross-over, it's at the absolute base of the ziggurat, crushed under the weight of everything else.

[Dogg Thang]

But you'd agree it's better than Insurrection, right?

->Open Spoiler<-

Joke! I'm only winding you up.

[Asura]

But you'd agree it's better than Insurrection, right?

Love ya too, DT.

[vanpeebles]

“Fammydoddsman, take us off, ahead slow half impulse”
”Aye, Cappin!” Fumbles with bridge controls, sound of gearbox going sssskkkkk skkkkk choo chooo bzzzzztttt karchoo.”Hold on cappin, it’s in there somewhere!” Skkkkkss, ssskkkk carchoo car choooo ssssskkkkk.

Captain looks at number one with a glare, number one glares back.

Both lurch backwards and grab their seats, as the ship jars forwards.

[Asura]

oh god I HATE Star Trek Nemesis so much.

I don't think I conveyed that enough it remains probably my most disappointing ever cinema trip.

[Blobcat]

Oh no...Someone brought up Nemesis didn't they...

[prinnysquad]

Don’t think I’ve watched it since the cinema.

I went in, hyped up.

- Even numbered film.
- Lessons heeded from Insurrection.
- Promise of more action.

I walked out numbed by how underwhelming and amateurish it all was.

[Neon Ignition]

Star Trek
A supernova tears Romulus apart causing a surviving Romulan ship to travel back in time when Spock attempts to use red matter to create a Black Hole to stop it from happening. The eleventh film overhauled the franchises aesthetics completely in a fan baiting move because it grates with the canon, that and the event resulted in the Kelvin timeline whereby the Romulan and Spock events cause the timeline to split resulting in a young Kirk taking command of the USS Enterprise years earlier than he originally did following the new event of the death of his father. The film livens up the tone of the series as well as the focus on action as a new cast take over the iconic roles but this split in the timeline has always been a controversial move which was intended to create room to break from the decades long set in stone events of the original timeline.




Is the Kelvin timeline and it's changes to established history controversial?

[Dogg Thang]

As reboots and recasts go, Star Trek probably did it in the best way possible, creating a new cast and new stories building in a level of change but in a way that didn't discount the originals. It was able to modernise the feel of much of the original design and yet retain the soul of that design - it can be done and this film did it really well. The original cast is irreplaceable. There is no other Shatner or Nimoy but the casting in this movie was pretty excellent, mostly allowing for the new cast to do their thing in a way that was reminiscent of the original performances without being strangled by them.

And it's a fun action movie. So in many ways, I think the Star Trek reboot is a huge success.

It does carry lots of the problems that come with Abrams. He doesn't care about logic or science and, while that's easy to wave away in a Star Wars, it's especially unfortunate for Star Trek. There are so many inconsistencies, contrivances and conveniences that this movie only just about gets away with but I could see them really bugging some people. And the villain, like Nemesis before it, is weak. Yet another attempt at a Khan but confused and difficult to relate to. His motivation made no sense. And so the movie loses some of the thoughtfulness of Trek, instead building on a sort of pop culture vision of the show which exists mostly in the minds of people who didn't actually watch the show. It missed the core triumvirate of Kirk, Spock and McCoy instead giving focus to just Kirk and Spock, although I feel it does explore that relationship pretty well and in a way that feels different to any Trek before it, with those differences making sense in the context of the movie.

Total nerd gripe but I wish they had swapped Chekov out for Gary Mitchell and established Chekov later.

Anyway, I rewatched this only a few weeks ago and it's an easy, fun watch. It holds up pretty well. And it looks great. When it came out, there was too much focus on making everything in CG and this movie, while it does feature a lot of CG, uses many practical sets and uses that sense of space really well. It's a good movie.

[Asura]

I liked the original Abrams Trek as a bit of action movie fodder; even if the lens flare is crazy in the movie.

There were some cool touches; like how in Wrath of Khan, when Kirk etc. discuss the Kobayashi Maru scenario, Kirk is peeling an apple - and in this movie, when they're DOING the scenario, Kirk is eating an apple. Little touches, but they're fun.