STAR TREK: NEMESIS was declared the beginning of the final journey for the next Generation cast, but the box office proves
it might be the last Trek film. Then you never can tell. Another Star Trek movie may come around the corner.
This latest STAR TREK film does have many flaws that can be blamed on the script from John Logan and Stuart Baird's direction.
The first half of the movie has it's moments, but many scenes are easy to skip over if you have seen NEMESIS before.
The second part is more interesting with the battle between the Enterprise and the Scimitar. The plot boils down to
an upheaval in the Romulan Senate leads the Enterprise being invited to talk to the new Romulan leader (Praetor) Shinzon (Tom
Hardy). Shinzon has his own plans for Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) which leads to some shooting and big spaceship
battles after a little song and dance (dinner with Picard and the use of the B4 android and the mind rape of Troi). TNG
writers never warmed to the Riker and Troi romance, but they did finally write the wedding (the fans wanted it) and filmed
it.
NEMESIS is the weakest of the TNG movies. It doesn't pack the punch that FIRST CONTACT has. It doesn't
even have the better written scripts like GENERATIONS or INSURRECTION had (FIRST CONTACT is the best TNG film). If they
ever do another movie with the TNG cast, I think they would be wise to use a Star Trek writer and someone who has directed
the show or movies before.
VIDEO: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen)
Colors and shadow values are fine, but the transfer does almost look like the same one on the single disc release.
AUDIO: English 5.1 Dolby Surround, English 2.0 Surround, English DTS, French 2.0 DS.
Nice use of sound and surrounds. Jerry Goldsmith's last Trek score sounds wonderful and the battle scenes have some
boom to them.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
DISC 1- Two audio commentaries are on this release. The dry commentary with director Stuart Baird is from the single disc
release. The new audio commentary is with producer Rick Berman (which is better than the director's commentary even though
the track has many gaps of silence, but Berman does explain he didn't agree with some of the director's choices and many were
lukewarm on the wedding scene). Also a text commentary by Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda is on the disc for the movie.
The text commentary is better than both of the audio commentaries with it's tidbits about the production and Trek lore.
DISC 2- The featurettes are divided into three sections: PRODUCTION, THE STAR TREK UNIVERSE, and THE ROMULAN EMPIRE. A
few featurettes are from the first DVD release- NEW FRONTIERS: STUART BAIRD ON DIRECTING NEMESIS (PRODUCTION), RED ALERT!
SHOOTING THE ACTION OF NEMESIS (PRODUCTION), A STAR TREK FAMILY'S FINAL JOURNEY (STAR TREK UNIVERSE), and A BOLD VISION OF
THE FINAL FRONTIER (STU). The first two featurettes are boring while the next two are much better.
New featurettes are NEMESIS REVISITED (one of the better featurettes of this CE) where the cast remember working on NEMEIS
and how it came together (I love Brent Spiner tell the different enemies Picard would face (like his son or himself) before
settling on what they did). STORYBOARDING THE ACTION has a storyboard artist talk about how he storyboards a scene. BUILD
AND REBUILD goes into set design and how much they re-use props from other Trek sets. FOUR-WHEELING IN THE FINAL FRONTIER
looks at the off road racing trucks used for the desert chase from building and designing them to shooting the sequence. Another
thing included is a SHINZON SCREEN TEST featuring Patrick Stewart and the actor who would play Shinzon (the screen test is
six minutes long).
Moving on to the STAR TREK UNIVERSE, the only new featurettes is on THE ENTERPRISE E (set design of the Enterprise featurette). I
did find an Easter Egg (hidden) featurette on director Bryan Singer's cameo appearance as a Starfleet officer.
THE ROMULAN EMPIRE features a variety of design featurettes (ROMULAN DESIGN, THE ROMULAN SENATE, and THE SCIMITAR). SHINZON
& THE VICEROY focuses on the two villains. The best featurettes is ROMULAN LORE which looks at the various appearances
of the Romulans from the original series to Next Generation to Nemesis to STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE.
Thirteen deleted scenes are here (seven were previously seen on the single disc release). Six new deleted scenes are
shown, but the watermark on five of the new scenes is slightly distracting. I just wonder why they couldn't clean them up
to remove the watermarks with lettering or a name (Rick Berman) or even add some effects to finish the scenes (and replace
the green screens for all 13 scenes). The Archives features extensive STORYBOARDS, PRODUCTION, and PROPS galleries. Rounding
out the disc two extras are the teaser and theatrical trailer for STAR TREK: NEMESIS and yet again another trailer for BORG
INVASION.
MENUS: Not bad design to them (I like the Romulan Capital menus for disc two over the Remas menus of disc one). Not my
favorite menus of the CEs, but better than the INSURRECTION CE menus. The Remas menu does pale in comparison to
the main menu design of the single disc release (why couldn't they have used that again baffles me).
DISC CASE: I don't why Paramount decided to change the disc case design on how the discs are held in the case. One disc
overlaps another disc. I hated when Universal used it for their TV on DVD releases and I still hate when Paramount decided
to use it for the last CE of the STAR TREK Series.
FINAL ANALYSIS: STAR TREK: NEMESIS CE DVD has an extensive assortment of extras even though some of the featurettes
are not up to snuff (the ones that came from the single disc release). This DVD is for Star Trek fans period.
if you just want the movie, keep the single disc release.
this DVD Review is (c)9-30-2005 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. send all comments to
