Star Trek: Nemesis

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Not to be confused with Nemesis (Star Trek: Voyager).
Star Trek:
Nemesis
Star Trek Nemesis poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Stuart Baird
Produced by Rick Berman
Screenplay by John Logan
Story by <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Based on Star Trek
by Gene Roddenberry
Starring See Cast
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography Jeffrey L. Kimball
Edited by Dallas Puett
Production
company
Paramount Pictures
Digital Image Associates
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release dates
 <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
  • December 13, 2002 (2002-12-13)
Running time
 116 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $60 million[2]
Box office $67,312,826[2]

Star Trek: Nemesis is a 2002 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the tenth film in the Star Trek film franchise and is the fourth and last film to star the cast of the television program Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was directed by Stuart Baird and written by John Logan (from a story developed by Logan, Brent Spiner, and producer Rick Berman). The crew of the USS Enterprise-E are forced to deal with a threat to the United Federation of Planets from a Reman clone of Captain Picard named Shinzon who has taken control of the Romulan Star Empire in a coup d'état.

Principal photography took place from November 2001 to March 2002. Jerry Goldsmith composed the film's score. The film was released in North America on December 13, 2002. The film received generally mixed reviews, with publications criticizing the film for being the least successful in the Star Trek franchise. The film went on to earn $67,312,826 worldwide, making it a box office disappointment. Following the failure of the film and the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise, Berman and Erik Jendresen began development on the unproduced Star Trek: The Beginning. Three years later, Viacom split from CBS Corporation and Paramount eventually rebooted the film series in 2009 with Star Trek by J. J. Abrams.

Plot

The crew of the USS Enterprise-E prepares to bid farewell to longtime first officer Commander William Riker and Counselor Deanna Troi, who are being married on Betazed. En route, they discover a positronic energy reading on a planet in the Kolaran system near the Romulan Neutral Zone. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Lieutenant Commander Worf, and Lieutenant Commander Data land on Kolarus III and discover the remnants of an android resembling Data. When the android is reassembled it reveals its name is B-4, and the crew deduce it to be a less-advanced, earlier version of Data.

Picard is contacted by Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway and orders the ship on a diplomatic mission to nearby Romulus. Janeway explains that the Romulan Imperial Senate has been killed in a military coup and is now controlled by a Reman named Shinzon, who says he wants peace with the Federation and to bring freedom to Remus. On arrival, they learn Shinzon is a clone of Picard, secretly created by Romulans to create a spy into the Federation, but the project was abandoned and Shinzon casted off to Remus. There, Shinzon became a leader of the Remans, and constructed his flagship, a heavily armed warship named Scimitar. Initially, diplomatic efforts go well, but the Enterprise crew discover 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 computers, and Shinzon himself violates Troi's mind through his telepathy.

Dr. Crusher discovers that Shinzon is aging rapidly due to being a clone and the only possible means to stop it is a transfusion of Picard's own blood. Shinzon kidnaps Picard from the Enterprise, as well as B-4, having planted the android on the nearby planet to lure Picard to Romulus. However, Data reveals he has swapped places with B-4, and helps to rescue Picard and return to the Enterprise, though having seen enough of the Scimitar to know that Shinzon plans to use the warship to invade the Federation using its thalaron radiation generator as a weapon.

The Enterprise races back to Federation space but is ambushed by the Scimitar in the Bassen Rift which prevents any subspace communications. Two Romulan Warbirds come to the Enterprise's aid, as they do not want to be complicit in Shinzon's plans, but Shinzon destroys one and disables the other, and then returns his attention to further damaging the Enterprise. Recognizing the need to stop the Scimitar at all costs, Picard orders the Enterprise to ram the other ship. The collision leaves both ships heavily damaged, including destroying the Scimitar's primary weapons. To assure their mutual destruction, Shinzon activates the thalaron weapon. 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 with a personal transporter to beam Picard back to the Enterprise, and then fires his phaser on the thalaron generator, which destroys the Scimitar and Data while saving the Enterprise.

The Enterprise returns to Earth for repairs. Picard bids farewell to newly promoted Captain Riker, who is off to command the USS Titan, to begin a possible peace-negotiation mission with the Romulans. Picard meets with B-4, discovering that Data had copied the engrams of his neural net into B-4's positronic matrix before he died. Though B-4 does not yet act as Data, Picard is assured that he will become like his friend in time.

Cast

  • Marina Sirtis portrays Counselor Deanna Troi-Riker. According to Sirtis, she was "ecstatic" about the role Troi plays in the movie.[3] She was pleased with the wedding scene, saying that the dress she wore for Nemesis was nicer than the one she wore at her actual wedding. She was happy to work once again with Wil Wheaton and Whoopi Goldberg, but felt that the film would be the last one with the entire cast of The Next Generation, but remained certain that it would not be the last Star Trek film to be made as she thought that Paramount would want to make a film involving a variety of people from the different Star Trek series.[3]
  • Tom Hardy portrays Praetor Shinzon, the leader of the Romulan people. Baird and Berman had been looking for someone who resembled Patrick Stewart but aged about 25 years younger; at one point they had considered Jude Law. Baird specifically wanted an unknown actor, and Hardy auditioned by tape after Stewart asked Hardy's agent if they thought any of their clients were suitable for the role. Hardy was filming Simon: An English Legionnaire in Morocco at the time,[4] and decided against using the requested piece for the audition. Instead, he came into the possession of a full script for Nemesis and used a different part of the script, and filmed it partly nude.[5] He was flown to Los Angeles to do a screen test with Stewart, and Hardy later described his performance there as "appalling".[6] Fortunately, he had recorded himself performing the same piece in a hotel room the night before, and gave that tape to Baird, resulting in his casting as Shinzon a few days later.[6]
  • Ron Perlman was cast as the Reman Viceroy. He and Hardy became friends on the set, with Perlman saying in an interview eight years after the release of the film, "I loved him when I first met him. I loved working with him. I found him to be really smart, really a great kid."[7]

Production

The film was cut by about a third from a much longer running time. Many of the deleted scenes in the movie were "character moments", which served to further the characters' relationships with one another and the reason why they were cut was to put more emphasis on the battle between the Enterprise-E and the Scimitar. Rick Berman has stated that about 50 minutes worth of scenes were filmed, but cut (though not necessarily all of them were usable in a final form). Around seven deleted scenes were included on the DVD when it was first released in 2003, but then when the Special Collector's Edition was released in 2005, around 14 deleted scenes were included.

Glenn Cote and Brent Spiner on the set of Nemesis

Nemesis was to have been the first Star Trek film to feature the character of Wesley Crusher (played by Wil Wheaton). His scenes were almost entirely cut from the film, leaving only a brief, silent cameo during the wedding (which itself is only visible in cinemascope presentations, as he sits at the far end of the table). A deleted scene on the collector's-edition DVD features a brief conversation between Wesley and Picard: Wesley, now a lieutenant in operations-division gold, has returned to Starfleet and is a member of Captain Riker's engineering crew on the USS Titan.

Three "extended ending" clips were included on the two-disc edition. The first was Picard talking to Dr. Crusher about her return to Starfleet Medical and Crusher remarking how she works with a bunch of young doctors who are ready to cure the entire quadrant. The second was Geordi and Worf packing Data's possessions in his quarters. As they are cleaning up, Data's cat Spot jumps into Worf's hands and Worf states he is not a cat person. Geordi sees how Spot has taken to Worf and replies, "Looks like you are now." Immediately following this scene is the introduction of the new first officer, Commander Madden, which is included in the deleted scenes of the DVD. The third, titled "The Captain's Chair" features the goodbye scene between Riker and Picard, as well as the introduction of the new Enterprise first officer (Madden). The Captain's chair is newly installed with the special feature of automatic restraint straps that trigger when the ship goes to alert, to which Picard responds with a smile "It's about time!"

In promotional interviews for the film, Patrick Stewart stated that room for a sequel was left as B-4 begins singing "Blue Skies".[8]

Direction and writing

Stuart Baird was brought in to film Nemesis by executive producer Rick Berman. It was the director's third film following US Marshals and Executive Decision, although he had also directed a variety of second units previously. Baird didn't have a background in Star Trek; he was aware of the films and television series but didn't consider himself to be an expert on the subject.[9] Berman explained that Baird should bring "fresh blood" to the film and that he enjoyed "the sense of fun and action that existed in Executive Decision."[10] Baird said in a promotional interview that this resulted in a non-typical Baird film, saying that it was "perhaps a little different from the dynamics of the previous films."[9] He wanted to add energy to the actions scenes and added some scenes, such as the car chase. He called that scene a "signature piece" for the film which turns dark after the crew is put in danger by the inhabitants of the planet.[9] He also found that the cast would discuss any issues they had with the direction he gave to their characters. Despite Frakes being on the cast, and having directed the previous two Star Trek films, Baird decided not to seek his opinion on the direction of the film. He said that there was resentment on set, as Frakes was completing work on directing the film Clockstoppers as production on Nemesis began. Baird had hoped that Nemesis would be enough of a success that he could consider whether or not to take the lead on a future eleventh Star Trek film.[9]

Make-up

The make-up team sought to make Hardy look more similar to Stewart by creating latex prosthetics created from moulds of the latter's face. These included numerous versions of noses and chins, and in order to reduce the visible size of Hardy's lips a fake scar was added.[11]

Music

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Main article: Star Trek: Nemesis (soundtrack)

The music to Star Trek: Nemesis was composed and conducted by Jerry Goldsmith, who composed such previous entrees to the franchise as the Academy Award nominated score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Insurrection as well as the themes to the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation (arranged by Dennis McCarthy) and Star Trek: Voyager. One of his final works written before his death in 2004, Goldsmith had also previously collaborated with director Stuart Baird in Executive Decision and U.S. Marshalls.

The score opens with airy synthesizers under a trumpet performing an augmented triad before preceding into Alexander Courage's Star Trek: The Original Series fanfare. The score then quickly transitions into a much darker theme to accompany the conflict between the Reman and Romulan empires. Goldsmith also composed a new 5-note theme to accompany the character Shinzon and the Scimitar, which is manipulated throughout the score to reflect the multiple dimensions of the character. The score is book-ended with Goldsmith's theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, following a brief excerpt from the song "Blue Skies" by Irving Berlin and the original Star Trek fanfare.[12]

Reception

Release

The premiere of Star Trek: Nemesis took place at Mann's Chinese Theatre (best known as Grauman's Chinese Theatre) on Hollywood Boulevard. It was attended by the cast and crew, with the exception of Jonathan Frakes who was away directing the film Thunderbirds. The after party was held in the Kodak Theater complex.[13] Nemesis was released on December 13, 2002, in direct competition with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (released November 15, 2002), the 20th James Bond film Die Another Day (released November 22, 2002), and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (released December 18, 2002). Rick Berman (executive producer of the film) has suggested that Nemesis's performance may have been negatively affected by "the competition of other films".[14] This poor performance was predicted by reviewers, due to the short period in the film's release before The Two Towers was released.[15] The film's gross domestic income was the lowest of the franchise at $43,254,409 as of September 2008. It opened at #2 in the US box office ($200,000 behind Maid in Manhattan) and was the first Trek film not to debut as the highest-grossing film of the week.[16] It earned a total of $67,312,826 worldwide, against a production budget of $60 million.[2] Internationally Nemesis, as most previous Star Trek movies, was most financially successful in Germany.[17]

Critical response

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 37 percent, based on 157 reviews. This was the second lowest rating behind Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, with an average rating of 5.2/10 with the site's consensus: "Nemesis has an interesting premise and some good action scenes, but the whole affair feels a bit tired."[18] The film has earned a Metacritic score of 50% from 29 reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[19] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times had mixed feelings about the film, stating, "I'm smiling like a good sport and trying to get with the dialogue ... and gradually it occurs to me that 'Star Trek' is over for me. I've been looking at these stories for half a lifetime, and, let's face it, they're out of gas." Ebert gave the film two out of four stars.[20] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said that the film is a "rather hairbrained story that's relieved to a degree only by some striking visual effects and by Patrick Stewart's outstanding presence as Picard". LaSalle complained that Stewart gave "integrity and wry stoicism to Nemesis, but the movie [was] unworthy of him".[21] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a positive review, commenting that the crew "indulge[s] the force of humanity over hardware in a way that George Lucas had forgotten." Gleiberman gave the film a "B-".[22] Stephen Holden of The New York Times said that the film is a "klutzy affair whose warm, fuzzy heart emits intermittent bleats from the sleeve of its gleaming spacesuit". Holden praised the scenes where the Enterprise and the Scimitar ram into each other during the final battle.[23]

Cast response

Actors LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge) and Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi) have spoken critically of director Stuart Baird, criticizing him for not watching any of the episodes of The Next Generation.[24] Sirtis has bluntly called Baird "an idiot."[25] Jonathan Frakes voiced similar criticisms of Baird, believing the film would have been much better if he himself had directed, as he had done with the previous two Trek films, and he also said that if he had directed, the film would have made more money.[26]

Accolades and nominations

Hardy was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor, although he lost out to Sean Astin for his role in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.[27]

Home media

On May 20, 2003, Nemesis was released on DVD in both anamorphic widescreen and full screen editions in Region 1, and it was also released on full screen VHS. This initial release contained an audio commentary by director Stuart Baird, four featurettes on the film's production, seven deleted scenes, a photo gallery, and a preview for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on DVD at Amazon.com. Also on October 4, 2005, Star Trek: Nemesis was released on UMD in widescreen for Region 1 only; it is the only Star Trek ever released on UMD. The initial release was followed up with a "Special Collector's Edition" in Region 1 on October 4, 2005. Although this two-disc set contained several additional features, it also duplicated some of the features found in the initial release.[28] The film was released on Blu-ray on September 22, 2009 as part of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection in the United States. It was subsequently released individually in Japan and the United Kingdom. The Blu-ray edition contains high definition bonus features not seen on previous DVD releases.[29]

Planned sequel

During production of Nemesis, a script developed by John Logan and Brent Spiner was in the works for a fifth and final film featuring the TNG cast that would have wrapped up the adventures of the Enterprise-E crew, with tie-ins to historical aspects of the Star Trek franchise. However, the poor performance of Nemesis at the box office convinced Paramount that the franchise was suffering from 'franchise fatigue', and the script was abandoned.[30]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Haydock (2012): p. 37
  5. ↑ Haydock (2012): p. 38
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Haydock (2012): p. 39
  7. ↑ Haydock (2012): p. 43
  8. ↑ Patrick Stewart interview on Nemesis Revisited DVD Featurette
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Haydock (2012): p. 41
  12. ↑ Clemmensen, Christian. Star Trek Nemesis soundtrack review. Filmtracks.com. Retrieved April 10, 2011.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Star Trek Nemesis at Metacritic
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Haydock (2012): p. 45
  28. ↑ Star Trek - Nemesis (Special Collector's Edition) DVD at Amazon.com.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

References

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External links

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