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"Nemesis" Slammed in AP Review ( minor spoilers)

Posted: 2002-12-12 01:49pm
by Ted C
Just read the following review on Yahoo! News, and I'm now convinced that I don't need to waste money on Nemesis. Maybe when it comes out on video...

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2& ... k__nemesis

Posted: 2002-12-12 02:12pm
by Stormbringer
Doesn't suprise me at all. Nemesis so wants to be tWoK but isn't.

Posted: 2002-12-12 02:23pm
by Stravo
As every Trekker knows, Federation starships lack the firepower of Romulan or Klingon war birds, so a captain must use his wits if he's drawn into battle with one of them.
My fav quote from the review. It made me stop and actually roll my eyes.

Posted: 2002-12-12 02:25pm
by paladin
Gee, a bad review for a ST movie. Why am I not surprised. Anything with the hands of B&B usually sucks.

Posted: 2002-12-12 02:26pm
by Ghost Rider
That was funny because it shows a lack of actually understanding the subject or really ever watching the show. I mean a cursory look of the TNG series practically enforces the whole "The Enterprise is the bad-ass of the Federation and can take on anything but uber-weapons of unknown cultures".

Kirk used his brain not only because it was needed but because that's what smart commanders do...jeez the review was basically"It good action flick but not to ST2 or ST6 levels...thus it sucks."

Posted: 2002-12-12 03:44pm
by Isolder74
Well I'm Spending my money on LOTR The Two Towers. We can all say goodby to Star Trek

Its kind of sad really

Nemesis

Posted: 2002-12-12 03:49pm
by Engineer_00
Nemesis isn't from the hands of B&B (although I agree about Braga being a bad Trek writer). Nemesis was written by the same guy who wrote "Gladiator", John Logan. As usual, Berman helped produce it, but no Braga this time (Phew!).

Posted: 2002-12-12 03:54pm
by Zoink
Well, I'll go see it even if you people aren't. I'll judge for myself.

Just saw Solaris which was OK, certainly don't regret seeing it. It had some interest ideas; just suprized to see a pro-athiest movie, wasn't expecting that theme... but it's still going to bomb big time if it hasn't already.

Posted: 2002-12-12 03:56pm
by Laird
Zoink wrote:Well, I'll go see it even if you people aren't. I'll judge for myself.

Just saw Solaris which was OK, certainly don't regret seeing it. It had some interest ideas; just suprized to see a pro-athiest movie, wasn't expecting that theme... but it's still going to bomb big time if it hasn't already.
Yah what he said.

Posted: 2002-12-12 03:56pm
by Darth Servo
I'm "celebrating" Nemesis this weekend by seeing AOTC again on IMAX. :)

Posted: 2002-12-12 04:16pm
by Zoink
Darth Servo wrote:I'm "celebrating" Nemesis this weekend by seeing AOTC again on IMAX. :)
How is AOTC on IMAX? I saw "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" in IMAX, and well, it was too big. Maybe if the thing had been done with a telephoto lens, but as is, large section of the screen were out of focus, and you kind of had to look around to see what they they were focused on. It was kinda cool to see it that big, but the smaller screen was better.

Posted: 2002-12-12 05:49pm
by Kamakazie Sith
I keep it as a policy to at least take into consideration more than ONE REVIEW, before I judge a movie. If I didn't then I would have never have seen AOTC.

Posted: 2002-12-12 05:57pm
by TheDarkling
Kamakazie Sith: Wait you lost me you make out as if that would have been a bad thing :P

Posted: 2002-12-12 05:58pm
by Ted C
Kamakazie Sith wrote:I keep it as a policy to at least take into consideration more than ONE REVIEW, before I judge a movie. If I didn't then I would have never have seen AOTC.
Well, I also saw the theatrical trailer when I saw "Die Another Day", and it didn't do anything to encourage me to pay full price to see "Nemesis".

Posted: 2002-12-12 07:11pm
by Kamakazie Sith
TheDarkling wrote:Kamakazie Sith: Wait you lost me you make out as if that would have been a bad thing :P
LOL

AOTC didn't change my outlook on life but I didn't go into the movie expecting that.

Same thing for Nemesis.

Posted: 2002-12-12 07:14pm
by Kamakazie Sith
Ted C wrote:
Kamakazie Sith wrote:I keep it as a policy to at least take into consideration more than ONE REVIEW, before I judge a movie. If I didn't then I would have never have seen AOTC.
Well, I also saw the theatrical trailer when I saw "Die Another Day", and it didn't do anything to encourage me to pay full price to see "Nemesis".
I can understand why you feel this way. B&B have delivered nothing but crap, I'm almost expecting to go into Nemesis and see one of their infamous cop outs.....to spending money. Like a decent battle (Generations, FC, Insurrection) it was obvious they didn't want to spend money.....especially in Generations!

However, I figure I would give John Logan a chance.....he is supposed to be a fan, like us.

Posted: 2002-12-12 07:48pm
by Patrick Degan
From this review and the trailers I've seen the past two weeks, essentially this movie is going to be about three Big Action scenes stitched together by long passages of boring pretentiousness.

"This movie SO wants to be TWOK but isn't" as somebody said. I'm certain that this was the objective but it was doomed from the outset. We have neither the emotional investment or history embodied in Picard's EvilCloneâ„¢ Skippy that we had with KHAAANNN! Without those elements, you really cannot access the personal dimension to this conflict that the viewer could grasp readily with TWOK. Berman Braga might try to float the lame argument that there were viewers who went to TWOK the first time who never saw TOS, but they would have been in the minority, a very tiny minority of the audience which did turn out. TWOK traded on the Trek legacy quite consciously, and the media push for that movie definitely highlighted the links between that movie and the plot to "Space Seed".

As for the Remans, they're just Orcs/Vampires/Borg/whatevers with different style leather. Cannon fodder to be blown away by the legion to fuel the action scenes.

Basically, this movie strikes me as confused as to what its goals are as a movie. It is clearly going to lean on its Big Action sequences to pull in the mass audience; proving that Berman Braga haven't a clue as to what Star Trek's strengths are and unimaginatively thinking that Big Action is the sure key to boxoffice gold. Big Action fails 50% of the time.

My guess about this film's performance is that it will make most of its money opening weekend, but that its audience will be tepid even then. Unless it has a $100 million opening, it will get slaughtered between The Two Towers and The Chamber Of Secrets. If bad buzz comes out even before the opening, it will never make back its capital costs domestically. It will probably realise a weak profitability on the international market, but it may wind up being the weakest performing Trek film in history. It's going to struggle for every dollar it gets before it withdraws with a whimper.

What a way for a franchise to die.

Posted: 2002-12-12 08:58pm
by CmdrWilkens
I think one of the truly sad things is that the Remans sem to have potential to be true bad guys of the future but they are gonna be cut off at the head in this movie (I assume). Just judging by small parts of the novelisation which I have read they have so much potential to be extremely awesome long-term villans but in typical fashion for recent Trek they will be sent into the sidelight, never used again, or totally forgotten.

Posted: 2002-12-12 09:07pm
by neoolong
CmdrWilkens wrote:I think one of the truly sad things is that the Remans sem to have potential to be true bad guys of the future but they are gonna be cut off at the head in this movie (I assume). Just judging by small parts of the novelisation which I have read they have so much potential to be extremely awesome long-term villans but in typical fashion for recent Trek they will be sent into the sidelight, never used again, or totally forgotten.
Where would they be used?

The only things left are

1. Additional movies
2. Enterprise
3. Books
4. A new series set after TNG

Posted: 2002-12-12 09:20pm
by beyond hope
assuming the Trek franchise struggles on long enough for them to make it onto Enterprise... Paramount's been looking at the ratings with a very critical eye.

Posted: 2002-12-12 09:22pm
by Darth Wong
Here's another review from FilmCritic.com, also bad.

Posted: 2002-12-12 09:34pm
by Patrick Degan
I have to wonder about the writing of this movie. After all, John Logan wrote a fairly decent version of The Time Machine, he wrote a rather good script for Gladiator.

So why does this movie seem such utter crap? It's as if Logan had a partial lobotomy before getting the assignment for this film. Either that, or the script's been monkeyed around with, which I'd bet on. Or Berman Braga simply outlined what they wanted to see, and Logan wrote to the assignment.

Either way, from the advanced draft I read at Filmjerk.com and which seems to conform to the plot details I've heard of and the trailers, this movie is a mess; plot elements and what seems to be three different stories kludged together very sloppily. Has all the earmarks of something written by committee.

All that remains to be seen is just how embarassing this movie will turn out to be in the end. So far, it seems that every reviewer who hasn't been paid off by Paramount is trashing Nemesis.

Not a good sign, that.

Posted: 2002-12-12 09:37pm
by Darth Wong
Patrick Degan wrote:I have to wonder about the writing of this movie. After all, John Logan wrote a fairly decent version of The Time Machine, he wrote a rather good script for Gladiator.
Ah, but he's a self-professed Trekkie fanboy. We have seen many examples of Trekkie fanboys who may seem reasonable when discussing matters other than Trek, but appear to suffer crippling loss of brain function as soon as the subject of Trek arises.

Posted: 2002-12-12 09:37pm
by neoolong
If Wesley is there, why doesn't he just save everybody with his Traveller powers? Oh wait, bad writing.

Posted: 2002-12-12 09:39pm
by beyond hope
that reminds me... Rocky VI is in the works, apparently

*shudders*