| Star Trek Nemesis | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Stuart Baird |
| Produced by | Rick Berman |
| Written by | John Logan (story and screenplay) Rick Berman (story) Brent Spiner (story) |
| Starring | See table |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematography | Jeffrey L. Kimball |
| Editing by | Dallas Puett |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | December 13, 2002 |
| Running time | 116 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $60,000,000 (estimated) |
| Preceded by | Star Trek: Insurrection |
| Followed by | Star Trek |
Star Trek Nemesis (2002) is the tenth feature film based on the Star Trek television series. It is the fourth and last film to star the cast from The Next Generation. The film's tagline was "A generation's final journey begins".
The film was directed by Stuart Baird, from a script by John Logan, with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith.
Contents |
The film opens with a major political assassination — what appears to be the elimination of the leadership of the Romulan government.
As the crew of the USS Enterprise prepares to bid farewell to longtime first officer William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), who are soon to be married on Betazed, an away team discovers the remnants of an android resembling Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner) on a planet close to the Romulan Neutral Zone called Kolarus III. When the android is reassembled, it reveals its name as B-4, a predecessor to Data.
The ship is then ordered by Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) to conduct a diplomatic mission to the Romulan Star Empire, which has undergone a military coup and is now controlled by a mysterious young Reman named Praetor Shinzon (Tom Hardy). This is a surprising development, given that Remans are considered something of a "sub-race" to the Romulans who generally use them as slave labor.
Upon their arrival at Romulus, the crew learns the new leader is a clone of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. While he claims to want peace, he also unveils his newest ship, a heavily armed warship named Scimitar.
Shinzon's plan soon becomes apparent. Picard has been lured to Romulus to be kidnapped so that a dying Shinzon can receive a genetic transfusion from the source of his DNA. His Scimitar has been designed to destroy Earth using a thalaron weapon and establish himself as the leader of a renewed Romulan Empire. Picard is rescued, with the Enterprise racing back to the Federation with the Scimitar in pursuit.
With the assistance of two Romulan war birds whose captains and crews now oppose Shinzon, a space battle ensues in which the war birds are severely damaged and forced to back off. The damaged Enterprise is eventually forced to ram the Scimitar to disable it from continuing on to Earth. Shinzon then activates the Scimitar's super weapon, bent on taking the Enterprise down with him. Picard boards the Scimitar to stop the weapon and ends up fighting Shinzon. The fight ends with Picard victorious, but unable to deactivate the weapon. Picard kills Shinzon by impaling him through the abdomen.
Data arrives and has the captain beamed back to the Enterprise before ultimately sacrificing himself to shut down the weapon and destroy the ship.
While the severely damaged Enterprise is repaired in a space dock, Picard bids farewell to newly promoted Captain Riker who is off to command the USS Titan. Picard then meets with B-4, whereupon he learns that, much like when Spock's katra had been planted in Leonard McCoy's mind at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Data had copied the seeds of his neural net into B-4's positronic matrix not long before his death, giving hope that B-4 may one day have the same capacity for growth that Data enjoyed and keeping Dr. Soong's legacy alive.
The film, as with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, 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. 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, some might be redundant with other scenes, etc.). Around 17 minutes of deleted scenes were included on the DVD, including:
Nemesis was to have been the first Star Trek film to feature the character of Wesley Crusher (played by actor Wil Wheaton). However, his scenes were almost entirely cut from the film, leaving only a brief cameo during the wedding scene (he is visible at the far end of the head table, with gold trim of operations branch on his dress uniform), in which he has no dialogue, and is not even visible in the VHS release of the film. As a result, he has none in the final theatrical print of the film at all. A deleted scene on the collector's edition DVD features a brief conversation between Wesley and Picard that explains that Wesley has returned to Starfleet and is a member of Captain Riker's engineering crew on the USS Titan.
Two "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, "You are now." Immediately following this scene is the introduction of Commander Madden, which is included in the deleted scenes of the DVD.
The movie was released on December 13, 2002, in direct competition against Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (released November 15, 2002), the 20th James Bond movie Die Another Day (released November 22, 2002) and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (released December 18, 2002).
The movie's gross domestic income (not adjusted for inflation) was the lowest of the series at $43,254,409 as of September 2008. It opened at #2 in the US box office (behind Maid in Manhattan) [1] and was the first Trek film not to open at #1. It earned $67,312,826 worldwide on a budget of $60,000,000.[2] Out of 148 professional reviews compiled by the Rotten Tomatoes movie review database, 53 (37%) are positive, giving the film a "rotten" rating. However, the film has earned a "fresh" rating from site users (out of 420 user reviews, 267 [63%] are positive).[3] The film has earned a Metacritic score of 50 out of 100 (mixed or average) from 29 reviews.[4]
Rick Berman - executive producer of the movie - has suggested that Nemesis's performance may have been negatively affected by "the competition of other films" [1].
On May 20, 2003, Star Trek Nemesis was released on DVD in both anamorphic widescreen and full screen editions in Region 1. 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's 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.[5] It has also been criticized for not reintegrating several deleted scenes into the film, à la Star Trek: The Motion Picture, to improve the narrative.
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