Pop Culture Man Children
359: Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
(upbeat music) - Welcome to PCMC Pop Culture, man, children. Don't let the title fool you. We're not in that Joe Roganee. I feel like I'm afraid that people will hear the title and they'll be like, "Oh, that sounds Joe Roganee." Like, "Yeah, man." Yeah, like the man show. They'll be like, "Oh, the man show." - Oh, yeah. - It's like, "No, it's not, we're." - Yeah, we're not Spike TV in 2003. - Yeah, that's not a revive. I'm here with-- - That could be a whole episode. Have you done that topic yet? Spike TV brand to show for men? - No. - We got cartoons for men, like "Stripparella" and "Gary the Rat." - Oh, wow, yeah. I'm Mike Brinterano. I'm joined today by Mr. Vin Forte. Vin, how are you? - I am good. - Did you watch the last Spike TV? - Did I watch the last Spike TV? I watched it for the end of WWE at the time. They had RAW, but outside of that, like basically, that and they would have like movie marathons every once in a while. They would do like a James Bond marathon or something like that. But other than like syndicate stuff like movies, like not really, 'cause again, the rebrand, it was just a lot of trying to hard, bro. - Did they have that show that was like a Japanese game show that they dubbed in English and like made it really stupid with the dub. - Yeah, you're talking about most extreme elimination show. - Yes, was that Spike? - It may have been. That's, when I think Spike, I think of that. - That show I like, that show I actually did like. That's just a, they took footage from a Japanese game show called Takeshi's Castle and basically just, you know. - Yes. - Had it American dubbing. - Yeah, and they made it ridiculous. I remember, I actually loved that show. Was this one Spike TV? - Yes. - Okay. - Yes, read on TNN/SpikeTV from 2003 to 2007. - Nice. - Okay, wow, nice run. - Okay, so today we are talking about the 2002 film, Star Trek Nemesis. - Yeah, this is the one, this is the last of the original films before we get to the JJ Abrams reboot. - Right, yeah. - This is one that everyone has like very mixed opinions on because at the time, what was pretty unanimous is that people were just worn out from Star Trek. This movie did not do good at the box office. Was not well received at the time. - No. - Was seen as being like too dark for what, I guess most people would have wanted. - Interesting. - And then, yeah, it was just like at that time, Star Trek had bit on the air without missing a bit, like uninterrupted basically in some form or fashion since 1987. - And also, if you, this is the fourth movie with the next generation cast. And if you consider that part of the original film series that was the cast of the original show and then generations handed it off to the next gen cast, if you consider it that, then it's a film series that's been going since what, like '79? Something like that. - Yeah, yeah, this would have been I guess like the 10th film. - Yeah, something like that. And we should say we started this journey because Vin is a Trek-y and a Trek-er and a Star Trek fan and has seen a lot of it. And I was, it was always a franchise that I had like a toe dipped in, I had seen some of the movies and I always liked it but I had never seen the original series. So I watched the original series and we recorded that as a show and then we started doing the movies. And I have not watched next generation yet but we decided to just keep going with the movies and I guess next we'll do the JJ Abrams movies but this is actually, and I believe this is the longest running series in pop culture, man, children, history because we've done every one of these, we just keep going with these movies. I don't think there's any other, and it's interesting 'cause I think in the pop culture man children averse, I feel like there are other properties that are more core to our heart or to the heart of the show. Like some of the things are in logo, like Ninja Turtles and stuff like that. But yet we've done every one of these. And so I'm sort of newish to this and this is completely new territory for me. I've not seen Nemesis before I watched it this week. I watched it twice before recording. - Yeah so basically the primer on Nemesis is that in hindsight now, 'cause again I just said what the vibe of it was at the time, in hindsight it has mixed review because a lot of people, myself included, have kind of like warmed to it where like if you see it just in a vacuum outside of the context of you know people were kind of just fed up with Star Trek at that time. It's not a bad idea, there's good stuff in it but it is a flawed movie. Like there are some things in it where it's like they could have done this differently. Maybe they need a different director to edit some things down. But overall like my take on is I'm firmly in the camp of like I would give it a good critical reappraise. - Okay, okay. Well let me, so I watched it for the first time. I did not like it but I agree that there's things in it that are interesting. - I think in general it's much better than the last one. - Interaction. - I think this had come out a lot of the people, myself included who give it the more positive critical reappraisal, like to point out I think this is true. This is the movie that if it had come out instead of insurrection at the time, would have been more favorably received because insurrection was just like a total, total shift into like just you could go back and listen to our thoughts on insurrection. But it's just like almost like a complete opposite of what you got with first contact. And this is more in line with like, oh if you had gone from first contact right to this, it probably would have been better received. - Yeah, if you listen to our episode on insurrection, I was talking about how it looks so ugly. It looks so cheap. It looks so, you know, mad TV that I thought it was a smaller budget and I was shocked to find out it was a larger budget. This movie, actually I think looks really good. For 2002, its effects hold up, I think really well. A lot of the space effects and the ships and the planets all look really good. The beginning, you see an establishing shot of Romulus and it looks really good. I was like, wow, this looks real. It looks good for 2002, but even more than it looks good now. Like if you saw it now, you'd be like, that's acceptable. You know? But it definitely looks good for 2002, but it definitely looks better than the previous movie. I don't know how they fucked up that previous movie. - Yeah. - But it looks really good. My thing with this movie is I feel like there's a lot of interesting ideas here. But they don't ferment and grow into anything. Like what we have here isn't a stew. We have hot water with vegetables and bouillon cubes and chunks of meat in it. It's not a stew, but it's that stuff in water, basically. Like there's stuff in it that it's like, I can see where you would get to something better, but you don't ever get there. Is that any sense to you? - Yeah, 'cause again, like there's goods, I think this movie just needed a better director and a different, maybe a better edit. - Well, let's talk about this director. This director's name is Stuart Baird, and he was not a Star Trek fan. And if the trivia on IMDB is to be believed, he did not get along with some of the cast. He really didn't care about the movie very much. - Yeah, and normally we wouldn't, like I wouldn't care about that kind of thing of like, oh, he didn't see the, you know, he's not a Star Trek fan, because Nicholas Myers wasn't a Star Trek fan. - Right. - And he made some of the best movies, but I think the difference is Nicholas Myers wasn't a fan and took the time to like rewatch everything and discover like, okay, this is what makes these characters tick from like an outsider perspective. Whereas Stuart Baird, it seems like just kind of didn't even like read the notes. Like apparently he called like-- - Oh, he seemed to give a shit. - Yeah, like he kept calling like Jordy the wrong name. - Well, he was like, yeah, this Jordy is an alien, right? And like, no, the character's not an alien. - Yeah, so it seems like he didn't even like do his fucking homework. - Yeah, and you get that feeling, I think, watching it, that it doesn't, it doesn't feel very Star Trek-y actually. I like it in his filmography. He's mostly an editor. He edited Superman, the original Superman. And there was an Omen. - Yeah, no, he's not a bad director. It's just, I don't think this was the project for him. - Well, he only directed three movies, Nemesis, US Marshals, which was the sequel to The Future, which I think is a good movie, and Executive Decision, which I've never seen. Yeah, he's mostly an editor in his career and seems to edit a lot of interesting good movies. Yeah, the vibes are off. I, it doesn't, you know, like, you're coming into like a huge friend, like, like, I agree. Like, I don't like when nerds are like, "Oh, this, this beautiful young actress "is in this genre movie that I love." And she doesn't know everything that I know and I hate her, you know what I mean? Like, I hate shit like that. But this is the director of, you know, whatever, the 10th or 11th, whatever the fucking movie this is in this franchise that has established an aesthetic. - Right, again, like do the homework. - Right, it does, it, it, it feels off. It doesn't feel, and like I said, some of it's very banal to me. Like, I'm kind of watching it and going like, okay, I don't think this is good or bad. It's just sort of here. You mean, like, I'm, it's, yeah. - Who wrote this movie? I wonder-- - No, Brett Finer had a big hand in it, which, boy does it show. - Brett Spiner's story, Rick Berman's story, John Logan's story and screenplay. Yeah, Brett Spiner who plays data. So this is a very data-heavy movie. - Which normally I guess would be fine, but I don't, like, you could do a story that incorporates data finding something out about himself. - Yeah. - But to literally have him find a second data that we know about until now, and that is basically their excuse to spoiler alert, kill off data at the end. - Yeah. - It takes the weight away from them killing data. - Right, because he finds this other prototype of data, whose name is B4, and it's very convoluted how, there's a lot of missing narrative pieces in this. I've heard, again, if I'm DB is to be believed, there was a lot of editing going on here and a lot of-- - That's what I'm saying. Like, I think there's a version of this movie that could have worked a little better. - Yeah. - Because on paper, I see what they were trying to do, sort of having the B plot of data and his brother mirror the Picard shins on stuff. - Right, but it doesn't totally-- - No, it doesn't, as is, it doesn't really connect. The data plot just kind of seems like oddly thrown in. - Right, there seems to be some theme about nature versus nurture, but they don't ever seem to land on how they feel about that theme or that question of nature versus nurture. And you're right, like, so this was meant to be the last of the next gen movies, right? Because you have Riker leaving to go be the captain on the Titan, right? And you have Riker and Troy getting married. And you have data dying or sacrificing himself and dying. But it's not, it's nothing like, say, Spock's death, right? Because, and then again, he came back too. But you kind of like, it kind of just feels like, oh, that's one of the things they want to happen in this movie. Like, more than, like, he seems to want to die because at one point he's like, Captain, you could get off the ship and I'll stay here. And he's like, no, we'll find a way for us both to get off. And then they both do get off. And then later on he finds another way. It's like, it's very weird. It's like, he seems, it seems like they were insisted on somebody has to die. And I think, again, you said Brett Spiner was part of the story process. It feels like it would have been more impactful if had it been Riker or Troy or anyone else really. - Right, imagine they kill, like, Troy or Riker off after doing a wedding. - Yeah, yeah. - That would have been more impactful. Or they could have not killed anyone off. - Right, I don't think anyone needs to die. - Because here's the thing, I don't know if you know, and again, this is legitimate spoiler alert for something more recent with Picard Season 3. Or they, for people who don't know, Picard Season 3 was basically like another next-gen movie as like a mini series. Like, the real final story for these guys. They bring back data. Like, data comes back. - How? - They basically, like, they steal him back from the fucking, like, robotics institute. They steal his body back, and they basically, like, re-upload his program. And he basically becomes like closer to being human than he is. Long story short, they steal his body and they re-upload data into his body. And now he's back. - Right, which is part of why I think the narrative stakes of an android dying is not, won't be as deep as someone else dying because it's always possible to keep their memory. It's always possible to just upload them somewhere. I mean, what this movie seems to do, as you were saying before, is he, you know, he finds this prototype version of him and he tries to give it his memories and it doesn't sort of take. And the prototype doesn't have any of his memories and is, like, way more naive than data and played way more wide-eyed. But in the beginning of the film, Ad Riker's wedding data sings "Blue Skies." And at the end, after data's dead, you have Captain Picard talking to the other android before. The other android before. And he starts like humming "Blue Skies," which seems to imply that the memories are kicking in and therefore he just is data now. - Yeah. - So what, I wonder why they even did that because if they wanted this to be the end, why even set up another data? - I guess to like have their cake and eat it too, where it's like, oh, see, we did a big thing. We killed off one of your favorite characters. But if we wanted to make a never movie, we could figure out how to get him back. - Right, right. So let's talk about the plot of this movie and the antagonist Shins On. So this is a movie where it begins on Romulus and we see there is, we're told that there is on one of, I guess, one of the moons or one of the planets in the Romulan Empire, they have these minds and they even slave these people called Remans to... - Remans, they're subservient too. - Yeah, they're subservient. They mine for the Romulan Empire and they have some leader named Shins On who's trying to, I guess, broker a deal with the Romulans but the sort of mainstream, the mainstream Romulans don't want to work with them. So one of the Romulans, this female who is on their side, she opens up this little compact thing and walks out of the Senate room and then this green light comes up and it shoots up into the ceiling and then this green dust settles all over everything and then everybody turns to stone and dies. And it's pretty good looking and it's an interesting opening and it also, it's interesting that it's dealing with something that's been part of Star Trek from the beginning, this idea of the Romulan Empire and the neutral zone and will there ever be any kind of peace between them and stuff like that? Shins On, what do you think about Shins On? All right. - It is. - Well, first off, it's Tom Hardy. - It is. - In a very, like maybe his first major role and he looks-- - He's very young. - He's, I think he's like 22 or something, like he's very young. - Yeah. - And he is hamming it up. He is having the time of his life and you just mentioned the Remans and the whole situation like Shins On talks about how he was a Reman and he used to be in the caves and in retrospect, it kind of is almost an exact mirror of him as Bane. - Yes, yes. Exactly. It's exactly like Bane. See, you said like he's going wild and having fun. I actually think, and I like him as an actor and I do think he's wild. I like him in a lot of his later stuff. I actually think there, he's obviously going for something and I don't think he's bad, but I don't see that fearless Tom Hardy that we see now. I see some-- - He's trying to be very theatrical. - Yeah, and supposedly, and the thing that is revealed about this character is he is a clone of Jean-Luc Picard and supposedly originally they wanted Patrick Stewart to play both roles, which sometimes, it could be interesting. It could have been Corny, whatever, but I feel like the movie still, the problem is he doesn't look enough like Patrick Stewart and we're told like, oh, this was what Patrick Stewart looks like young. Like at one point, Patrick Stewart has a picture of him when he's first going into the academy and it's Tom Hardy. And it's like, okay, you know that, but I don't know that. I'm the only it's member. Like when he's first introduced, he's in old darkness and he's just being super weird. He's being weirdly sexual towards Troy and he's like, can I touch her hair? And it's like, okay, this is really weird. And then he's like, raise the lights and the lights come on and we see him and he's just like a bald guy. And but the way that the movie depicts it and the way that Patrick Stewart plays it is like, whoa, huge reveal. And I didn't, I didn't know, I didn't get it because he doesn't look like Patrick Stewart. Like you had, and he does like drive it home. Like really, really, he's like, hmm, we should hang out later, the two of us or maybe I should say the one of us. You know, he like makes a lot of very obvious, I'm your clone, by the way. In case you didn't catch what's going on here, I'm your clone, but it's not obvious. Like the way that the movie, like the light turns on and there's a close up of him and it's like, boom, boom. And it's like, what is, he's just another bald guy. What are we, what are we? - Right. Well, if you have any specific skills or knowledge that, you know, make him comparable to Picard that you have to have like a 10 out 10 or something. - Right, and they do keep making the point in the movie of like, oh, we're the same, we're the same DNA. He says like, if you had lived my life with the violence, you would have turned out just like me. But there's nothing in the performance that seems to echo Patrick Stewart. You never, like other than the fact he's bald, you never feel like, oh, he's a clone of him. You know what I mean? - Yeah. - He doesn't sound like him, he doesn't talk like him. He doesn't seem to move like him. - Maybe it would have been-- - An interesting idea, but like just didn't, they didn't take it far enough or it, or like something needed to be re-aired. - Yeah, maybe it would have been better with Patrick Stewart playing him. Because it just, it doesn't, it doesn't work. You know, and you know, and then a lot of it has to be told to us. Like, we have to be told, oh, this is his, this is his clone. And then the whole, again, a lot of stuff that I feel like would be, should be important story gets like lost over very quickly, like, because it's like, well, how is this guy a clone of him? And he's like, oh, well, the Rhymeilins made me, they got your DNA somehow. And they made me because they were gonna grow me, and then they were gonna kill you and replace me with you. So I was gonna be a Romulan spy inside the Federation. And it's like, whoa, that's a big, that's a big fly. And then because like, what happened? And he's like, ah, you know, regimes changed, and they just didn't care about the man anymore, and they were worried about it. - You know what? I've never had this thought until now, but now that I'm thinking back on it, like, that actually maybe would have been a real good movie. Like, if they had gone with the Patrick Stewart playing both characters. - Yes. - And it's like, hey, this Patrick Stewart is evil, and he's gonna infiltrate the Federation. And now evil Patrick Stewart's like, commanding the Enterprise is like, what's gonna happen? - Yeah, it's a very specific backstory to set up this thing that doesn't exist, 'cause it's like, of, in all the places in the galaxy where he could find a clone of himself. You know what I mean? Like, it could have had something to do with the Borg, right? 'Cause he had been assimilated to the Borg. Like, just this weird offshoot of Romulus, this weird planet Remus has this clone of him. It just seems so random. And it's also like, weirdly, I think, I don't know where the right way to put it. It's kinda racist because he considers himself a Remus because when they decided they didn't want him anymore, they wanted to hide him. So they were like, oh, let's go put him on the mines and he'll die and then no one will know that we did this clone. And he gets taken in by the Remins or the League of Shadows. - I was just gonna say that I lived in the Darts. - Yeah, oh, you adopted the Federation. - Oh, I was born 'cause they belonged to me. - Yeah, and then he, so he's like adopted by them, but then he becomes their leader. And he's this white guy and then he considers himself them. He calls himself the Remus. - But all the other Remins are like goblin people. - Yeah, yeah, like his second in command is his Viceroy who is played by Ron Perlman. - Ron Perlman, which is crazy to me because maybe it's just like right before Hellboy, but like, I don't know, even at the time, I was like, wow, Ron Perlman, like-- - I didn't know it was him. I could have a bigger role. - I didn't know it was him. Like the makeup is so thick. Like he usually would be like, oh, that's Ron Perlman. But the makeup is so thick. I didn't know it was him until I looked it up. But this guy who was his Viceroy, his right hand man, is the person who's supposedly adopted him as a child. So how do you go from like, you took in this kid to now he's your leader? - Right. - And like, he gets to be the white face of your whole operation. It's weird. - I guess, I just always assumed it was because we, you know, hey, we cloned Picard and this guy's got all the gifts that Picard has for leadership. But now we don't need them. So we're gonna throw those gifts down into the well. And because that, because Shenzhan still has that, you know, the Picard jeans or whatever inside him, that like, now he's using those leadership skills to raise an army instead of like protecting. - Okay, okay. That makes a little more sense. I think another way to go about it to make the story work better would be to introduce him, almost like Spock's brother, introduce him as a good guy and then have the turn. Because he's sort of mustache twirly evil from the second we meet him. And then when he sort of tells his backstory to Picard, Picard sort of wants to- - It's almost empathetic. - Yeah, he wants to sympathize with him. But clearly he's up to fucking no good. - Again, it's the editing. Like if you flip those scenes, it would have made a lot more sense. - Right, right. - Like the scene where they're having dinner on Shenzhan's ship and he's like sympathetic to it. - Right, and he's like, tell me about the Picard. Have we always been explorers? You know, like I want to know our family's history. It's like, right, if you had started with that, it would be better. And I was, another thing that sort of is very weird. And I think it's, to me, it's not set up or paid off very well, is what's his, what's with his obsession with Troy and what's with his sexual assault of her? And how does that work and why does he do it? It seems, it has nothing to do with the rest of his plans. His plans- - These are, the in-universe answer, I think, is just to fuck with Picard, to be in his crew, to be like, oh, I could take any of your people and like mind fuck them at any time. And here's what I'm gonna do. See, like here's a taste of what I can do. I don't know if I- - I don't know what I say. But- - But it's so sexual. - Yeah. - Yes. Well, the out-of-the-universe reason, I think, is because whoever fucking wrote this just wanted a sexual assault scene to like artificially raise the stakes. - Right, it begins as like a sex scene, which again is uncomfortable. And if IMDB is to be trusted, supposedly, what's his name, who plays Riker? - Jonathan Frakes. - Jonathan Frakes would not shave his back so they used CGI to remove the hair on his back, which is incredible. They said, "Will you shave your back?" And he went, "No, no way." - No, not a chance. - No, not a chance. And so at first you're like, "Oh, we really just doing a love scene in Star Trek." But then he turns into, in her mind, I guess, he turns into Tom Hardy's character. And but Tom Hardy had already crept, like when he first met her, he's like, "Oh, you're beautiful. You're the first female human I've ever met." So that kind of makes sense. Like, he's enamored with this woman, and he's never seen a woman before. I feel like that's something you've seen in Star Trek before. But he's got this very intricate plan, and it's like, how does this, I don't see how this becomes a part of the plan. Like, he's got this political thing he's going on. Like, he's using the Romulans, he's acting like he's like brokering priests with them, but really, or like, he can help them gain more power if they just let him off his leash. But really, he's-- - Really, he's doing a hostile take-off. - Right, and he wants to destroy Earth, which would be good for the Romulans that are less peace-like, because they can, that would weaken the Federation and they can take more control over the galaxy. And the other thing he wants to do is he wants, and this is also not very clear, he needs, because he's a clone, he was built like Jango Fett, like Boba Fett to like, to age up really quickly, but he got stopped at some certain age for some reason, and now he's like dying. Similar to the villain in the last movie, he's like sick and dying. - Yeah, he needs Picard's blood. - Right, but did he get it? When he has Picard capture, did he get it at that point, or does he not get it? - No, he didn't get it. - Then what's the procedure they're doing? 'Cause the visor I keep saying like, "Oh, let's do your procedure." - Uh, he got me on that one. - If he needs his blood, why wouldn't he take it when he hasn't captured? Again, it feels like there's scenes missing here, there's puzzle pieces missing. - I thought, I don't think it was a, I think, 'cause he was like, "Oh, we could do the thing with the blood," or there's like another procedure that he could be doing, that's the way, that's what I remember it. - It's- - And he was like, "No, we're gonna do it this way." Like, I'm gonna, I need Picard's blood. It's got like dream logic, because you have to connect dots between every beat. It doesn't connect on its own. You've got it in your head, make it work, because it just feels like shit's missing. And like I said, the Troy, and also, okay, so then Troy, he's like, it's like creepy, it's like too much. Like he's like kissing her, and she's like very, very scared by it. And then you see on his ship, which is, I like his ship, it's cool, it's called "The Symmetar." It's like very cool looking ship. It actually reminds me of the ship from the next movie, "The Romulan Ship." - Yeah, so this, I'm glad you brought up the ship, because this is where, I think, if you give this movie a lot of slack, is where like a lot of the general entertainment value comes in, because the last half of this movie, I think they actually do a pretty good job of being like, "We're gonna go all in on like a space fight." - Uh-huh. - And that's where the CGI looking good helps a lot. - Yeah. - I think the space battles look great. - Yeah, it does know what it's good. - And I think there is a lot of good, like back and forth between the two ships. - Yeah, and I like the production design. If you look at the post of "The Post" is old green, and the villain is sort of coated with like green, like the radiation that he uses to kill the Romulans in the beginning is green, and his ship is green, like he's sort of like coated green, but like in almost like in a sort of extraterrestrial way, like almost like a non-diagetic way, like he's just coated that way. And it's interesting, visually. But what I wanna say was we cut to him on his ship when the thing with Troy's happening, and he's kneeling and the Riemann played by Ron Perlman has his hands on Tom Hardy's head. So it seems like he's the one powering this psychic invasion. - Yeah. - But it's like, we've seen mind-melding before. How is he getting into her mind, but his friend is the one making it happen, but then also he turns into a Riemann. Like he looks like he has like a Riemann face at one point in her mind. And then she's like, she's like real fucked up, and she's like, you know, Captain, I wanna leave permission to, you know, take leave, whatever. And he's like, no, no, no, you cannot. Also, I feel like it's a little bit like frigging because we begin this movie with Riker and her getting married. And then we have the first scene with Shins-On where he's being a creep and he's like, oh, I've never seen a woman before. May I touch her hair? And Riker is sort of like on guard, like this guy's like creeping on my wife. And part of me feels like a lot of this is just to be like, it's for Riker's sake. - Yeah, well, I'm glad you mentioned that because, and this is one of the issues people have with a lot of the movies, but in this one especially, there is nothing for some of these people to do. - Yes, this movie actually had more for Troy, Riker, and Crusher to do. This is actually Crusher's best movie because she had nothing to do in those other movies, except like one vague dialogue scene. The person who gets really fucked in this movie is Worf. - Yeah, Worf is just like, they're like, oh, we need you here, but not really. - You and I have been talking about how the character Worf goes on to Deep Space Nine. So to have him be in these movies, they have to have reasons for why he's there. And each movie has a more vague reason. In this movie, they don't even say the reason. He's just there, I guess, because it's the wedding? - Yeah, that's my assumption, but they never say it. They're never like, it's just like, they're almost expecting you to have not seen Deep Space Nine in a weird way. - To give a shit. - Right, right. - It's like, oh yeah, Worf was in the next generation. Of course, he's in the movie. - Right. And supposedly he was unhappy on the set 'cause he felt like he had nothing to do. - And I don't know if you got this trivia on IMDb, but apparently in this movie, they like artificially lowered his voice a little bit. - Really? - To like make him sound a little deep, which like, why? - That's such a weird choice. - See, that's a new director who's not fucking on board with all this shit. - Right, and I guess he was like, oh, we gotta make the Klingon guy, the dog face guy sound like scarier or deeper? - So weird. - But which is crazy because this movie does, if it continues the trend that the last movie did, which was just used Worf as a comic relief, like in the last movie, that's the movie where they go to a planet with like, makes them young again. So like, he's nothing to do with that movie, except like he grows like a pimple and he's going through puberty and like, haha, that's all there is for him to do. In this movie, he's like drunk at the wedding and that's fun. And then like, they're going, well, that's the wedding reception, but then they're gonna do the wedding on some planet where they have to be naked. - Oh, he doesn't wanna get naked. - And he doesn't wanna get naked. So it's like, he's just a buffoon. Like he's, there's nothing menacing or cool about the character. Like in this movie, in the last movie, there's no reason for him to like, there's no reason for him to be there 'cause they don't even use him. - No, and again, it's extra infuriating if you're a fan of "Beep Space Nine" because by this point, that series had just ended like a year and a half prior. And by the time that show ended, Worf is like the chancellor, Mark Hox, like right hand man on, and he's like, has like a very prominent, like the second most prominent position on the Klingon homework. So he's like big time and he's like a big war hero because he's being divorced. Yeah, so now he's just back with the enterprise. - Right, and we were, you were talking to me last time we talked with the last movie about the Dominion Wars and how that's a big part of "Be Space Nine" and how they kind of like, don't really get into it. This movie, like the last movie, has vague reference to it. They were like, oh yeah, they used Riemann in the Dominion Wars. - Yeah, it's like great, what were those? - Right, right. We weren't involved. - Yeah, we weren't invited. - Did you, have you ever read that originally they wanted seven of nine to be in this movie? - Yes, and they were gonna get rid of Troy because she was asking for more money and Jerry Ryan was like, I have nothing to do with this movie. Why would I be in this? - Right, 'cause she was a popular character from "Be Space Nine", right? Or Voyager. - She was on Voyager, which there is a Voyager cameo in this movie. - There is. - You get a Captain Janeway telling Picard he's gotta go investigate the Romulans he should. - Yeah, she's a higher rank than him. She's an admiral. - Yeah, 'cause by that point, Voyager had wrapped up and she made it back to Earth. - Right, there's a couple of cameos. You've got, you have, what do you call it? You have Will Crusher. He doesn't say a word. - Yeah, but he's there. - Supposedly he didn't have dialogue that was constant. - Yeah, but it also doesn't make any sense that he's there given his storyline in next gen, but whatever he's there now, because in the last season, next generation, there was sort of a running plot line of what's these character where there's like alien being kept like coming back to him and sort of hinting at like your destined for bigger things. And he basically becomes-- - Oh, I said William before, it's Wesley. - Wesley, yeah. - His real name is William. - Will we? - Yeah, like he becomes what's called a traveler where he's like a super smart like otherworldly alien being and he's like being-- - Wow, that's crazy. - Yeah, like-- - He completely forgot that. - Yeah, so the fact that he like shows up at the wedding just like in a regular ass like Starfleet uniform makes no sense. Also, Whoopi Goldberg is there, he's dying again, getting drunk with Worf. - Yeah, there's a lot of fucking-- - Yeah, there's cameos and there's also like, at some point they post some maneuver and they call it like the Kirk maneuver. It feels like it's filled with a lot of shit, a lot of stuff. - Yeah. - Like you don't need that Janeway scene at all. All she does is say, hey, can you wanna go be in the movie? The movie's happening over there, go be in the movie. - Yeah, it's literally like in the movie. - Yeah, it's for no one else but Voyager fans, like just to be like a nice little, oh, here's two characters that you never thought would be in the same scene. - Yeah, yeah. - What do you think of Shin San's outfit? - It's very holographic, it's like a shiny trading card, it's like a shiny black trading card. - It's definitely going for like villain. - Sure. - It's very villain coded. - Yeah, for sure, for sure. - I'm fine with it. I do, I think I get what you're getting at though, where like they could have had him in more of like, if he's really Picard's clone, have him be in like alternate Picard style outfit. - Yeah, I don't know if I'm getting at that. I just don't, look, I do think the production of this movie is really good. But there's some, there's just something about it that feels too much. And I know that's crazy to say in a Star Trek movie 'cause you've got alien faces everywhere. Something about it, it feels like Ming from Flash Gordon. - It does. - Something about the silhouette of it, like the big shoulders feels like, what are you doing here? And it all fits with this feeling of like, you know, there's no way does this feel like Picard. I know you keep telling me he's Picard, he's a mirror of Picard, but he doesn't look at, smell, sound like Picard, and you're doing nothing to bridge that gap. - No, they're not, they're absolutely not, there's like, he's a villain. - I like the way the Enterprise looks in this movie. Very cool looking Enterprise. - Yeah, yeah, I do like the design of the latter, I like movie Enterprise. - Yeah, yeah. It feels like a nice evolution. - Yeah, it's looking, yeah. - Notice is interesting, again, it's a Tom Hardy choice. He refers to Picard as car. He gives me like, card. And it's like, well, we've heard Picard say his own name and he doesn't say it like that. So what kind of a clone of you that you see the name funny? - Again, I think it was a director choice where it's like, nah, be more villainous. - The card, right. - Yeah, I wonder, did Frank's director last movie? - Yes. - I wonder, well, that movie didn't do great, right? So maybe they didn't want to hire him back. - They told him, yeah. 'Cause I know you definitely wanted to direct this one. - It's just weird that they went with this guy who like only directed two other movies. Who like, it doesn't seem too keen on the project. I mean, it's an interesting thing, like it looks good, but it doesn't, story-wise, it doesn't work, I don't think. Does Jordi have anything to do at all in this movie? - That's a great question. - Especially because he, again, this is maybe something that you would only know if you watched the series, but even still, he's data's best friend. And when data dies, it just feels like-- - Oh, right. - It just feels like, oh, there's no extra emotion from Jordi, he doesn't get an arc that builds up to his best friend dying. - Yeah, you're right. Well, he hasn't had a lot to do in all these movies, right? - They give him enough to do, again, like first contact is the best one, 'cause they kind of give everyone a little something to do. - Right. - But, yeah, I guess like even in the last movie, they give him a scene where his eyes, like they fix his eyes on the planet, because the-- - All right, 'cause he's getting younger, so his eyes are healing or whatever. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, in this movie, he just gets like a couple scenes where he's like talking techno babble with data a little bit, but like, that's about it. - Speaking of fan service, one point data does the Vulcan neck pinch. - Yes. - A little more fan service for you. Oh, did you see the cameo from noted sex offender, Brian Singer? - No. - Brian Singer, who directed the X-Men movies, and-- - If you hear Reiman? - No, he's actually just a Federation officer, like at one point, I think, is it worth? Somebody leaves their console on the bridge, and he just comes into, like very quickly, just comes into like, relieve him, and it's Brian Singer. - Okay. - Noted creep Brian Singer. - No, dude, I'm looking this up right now. - Yeah. - 'Cause wasn't there a rumor at one point that like he was gonna direct a Star Trek movie? - Oh, yeah, that is him. Okay. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Man, he's so happy. - Well, yeah. I guess he-- - Oh, I don't like this. Yeah, there's like a glory shot of like them all tank in the middle chair. - No, no, I don't like that one bit. I don't like that one bit. - Star Trek's got a lot of like weird cameos of people, just like famous people who are like, "I'm a fan, can you put me in this?" - The weirdest would be Christian Slater in-- - Christian Slater. - Which of one that was, four or five or whatever? - Was it like the Crown Prince of Sudan was in like an episode of Voyager or something? - Was that true? Wow, that's interesting. - I know Tom Morello from Rage against the Machine was an Voyager. - It's one of your famous and you just ask, they'll do it. - Yeah, fucking, I was watching episode of Voyager the other day that Jason Alexander was in Hot Off of Seinfeld. - Hot. - Where he was playing an alien who like tries to manipulate you by getting you to join basically a multi-level marketing think tank scheme. - That sounds like a Lower Decks episode. - It kinda plays like a Lower Decks episode. - Let me ask you, so we were talking about how they wanted seven of nine in this movie and she was like, "Why would I do that?" She's in Picard season three, isn't she? - Yeah, but because she was in Picard season one and two, so they did find a way to bring her in. - So they-- - But it wasn't like-- - Okay. - It wasn't like they made her join the cast of the end of her, like this was like, they wanted her to basically replace Troy and Nemesis. - Okay. - When she shows up in Picard, it's more, it's way more natural. It's more just like, you know, part of the Federation and she's back on Earth and she's getting in. - Okay. - Picard and his gang, like, so it's, and she ended up becoming kind of like a fan favorite character because remember in Picard season three, they jettisoned most of the fucking new crew from seasons one and two, but they kept her. - Right, it just becomes like, they redo this. They redo next gen, right? - Yeah. - Okay. So there's, we've talked before about in these next gen movies, their desire to put more action in, which has better and worse results, depending on the movie. This one, I think, the end has good action, but at the beginning, they do this thing where they have to go to this planet to find the other data. - Oh, and they're like, should we take a ship or something? They find like, no, the atmosphere is some bullshit where we can't take the dune buggy. - Right. And then it's basically just, they're just off-roading and driving real fast. And then the, they're completely breaking the prime directive. And the people who live on the planet start chasing them really for no reason, and then they also have dune buggies, and then with just a chase, really the adds up to nothing. There's no point in this chase. All you need narratively from the scene is to get the other Android. - Right. - Which, by the way, we haven't talked about that weird part of the plan, which is they, in the beginning they get this, I guess they sense radiation from this planet, and it is the kind of radiation that an Android would have. And they're like, oh, so then they go down, and there's like parts of the Android all over different parts, like just scattered around the planet. And then later on, you find out that Tom Hardy's character planted it there because he knew the data would want to find it, and he wanted someone to be on the inside to hack the Federation. It's just like the amount of weird moving parts in Tom Hardy's plan. It's just like, why did this have to be this way at all? - Yeah, it doesn't really make much sense, it doesn't. - No, but at the end, there's, I think, a cool scene where they're on Tom Hardy's ship, and the data in Picard are in a shuttle and they can't get out through whatever. So they go through the ship. They actually fly a ship in a ship. - Yeah. - And I thought that was cool. - That was cool. I think them ramming the Enterprise into the Simitar was a really good scene. - Yeah, that's something I can't think of seeing before. Like they don't have any more weapons, so they're like, fuck it, let's just hit our ship into his ship, that was cool. I also like that their view screen is destroyed and becomes a hole, and a crew member sucked out into it. Yeah, so there were some different interesting things, and I do like them flying the shuttle inside the ship, that was cool, but that opening, fucking, it looks like a Jeep commercial. - Yeah, it's all like orange saturated and-- - Yeah, the early 2000s was when they started doing CGI, like digital color timing. So you had like, they would really went too far with it. So like, it basically just looks like a desert, but they've made it super yellow. And we've got a chase scene really for no reason. Pretty much. - So how would you rank the next gen movies, and you could count generations in this? - Yeah, I would say, first contact number one, without a doubt, usually I would put nemesis right below, but in re-watching generations, I kinda like what generate, like there's a good movie floating around in generations. I don't know, like, part of me wants to give it a tie for a second and third, because I do like both of them, I feel they're wildly different movies, but I feel the same about both of them, where there's like good ideas and good scenes rattling around in both generations and nemesis. But gun to my head, I would probably give the nod to nemesis, just because I think it looks better, it's more of what you would want from a full on Star Trek movie, whereas generation still sort of has the look of the TV show. And again, I think just like the good stuff and nemesis outweighs the bad, like if I had to rank it, if this was Cisco and Ebert, it would be one of the like, I'm giving it a mild thumbs up. - I think I would do, obviously first contact is the best. I think I would put generations at two, and then nemesis and then at the very bottom insurrection. - Yeah, insurrection undoubtedly is the best. - Because you don't, like yes, generations is not a great movie, but you do have Captain Kirk in it and that's cool. And you do have how it wraps up that era. But yeah, it is a mixed bag, for sure. What do you think works the best? You seem to like nemesis more than me. What do you think like works about this movie? - I think, again, I think the effects hold up really well. And I think they were smart to lean into that near the end of the movie, where the last like 45 minutes to an hour is kind of nothing, but it's sort of like, okay, we've set up the plot. Whatever you think about the plot is whatever you think about it, but like now we're gonna get into all the stuff with Picard and Data on the scimitar and they get in the ship and they lead and they bust out and then like the Romulans come in and help and they're fighting the scimitar with the Enterprise, but like that's not enough. So then they have to crash the ship into the scimitar and then Picard has to go back over there and there's some action going on with that. So it's like, it does deliver on having like movie scale action and it doesn't skimp on it when the action starts. And I think that gives it a leg up over generation. But you're right, the plot stuff is very clunky, like there's no denying, like, but again, like it's the ideas there are good enough where like, like you say, if you can dream logic it and just sort of like fill in some of the gaps yourself, it's like, yeah, it's fine. - Yeah, okay. - Yeah, I like the action at the end, but one thing that happens at the end of this movie that also happened at the end of Insurrection, which is a lot of ship hopping. We're all on this ship, then we're back on this ship. Well, no, we're going back to the other ship. And sometimes that gets a little bit confusing. Talking about things I did like, I did like data jumping through space. Like he, to save Picard, you know, the ship has been damaged. So like there's just an open fucking, like it's open into space. So he goes with Jordi and Jordi like opens up the force field and data like gets a running start and like jumps into the other ship. And I thought that was very cool. - Yeah, I think the opening scene on Romulus, like you said, is really good. - Yeah, it is. - It's it's everything up pretty good. - It's without a doubt Insurrection is the worst. It just looks bad, the story's bad. It's boring at times. It's just everything about it stinks. - I agree with you though, that if this had been in place of Insurrection, it probably would have done better. - Yeah. - And maybe the series would have gone on longer without it being rebooted. Maybe they would have been more. In Canon, do they ever mention this character? Do they ever mention Picard's clone ever again? - I think they mentioned him in Picard a couple of times because they definitely, Romulus definitely plays a bigger part in the Picard series, especially season one. But not necessarily because of this movie, though this whole stuff with Shinzan is mentioned because it's a huge part of the Romulan lore after this point that he did this huge coup. But more so to deal with the next movie, which we all think of as a reboot, the first JJ Abrams Star Trek. - And it is, but one of the things I appreciate about the JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot is that it's sort of launched what we now call like soft reboots where it's a different timeline. - Right, but it's like we're still gonna have some connective tissue to sort of ease the old heads as they say into the new product. - And it doesn't erase everything that happened before. Like a reboot normally would. Like this is a different timeline version of Kirk and Spock in it. - But specifically what that Star Trek movie did is if you remember at the beginning, they destroyed Romulus and then next gen universe. And in Picard season one, the main plot line revolves around Picard having sort of gone rogue to save a lot of people on Romulus when it was attacked and was about to explode. 'Cause apparently like the Federation told him like, no, we're not, we're letting it explode because we're letting the Romulans die. And he was just like, no, we can't do that. Like we're, I'm sending people in to save them. - Interesting, interesting. - I wonder where they're going because they did three of the JJ Abrams ones. And then they, for years they've been saying that they were gonna do a four and it's been on, it's been off. And I don't know where that is now, but you have still have a lot of Star Trek. You've got Strange the Worlds on, Picard is over, right? - Yes, but now you've got the new, they just started filming, I think this past month, the Starfleet Academy show. - Is that live action? - Yes. - Okay. - That's gonna be-- - Discovery over? - Yes, Discovery is now over. - Okay. - But the Starfleet Academy show is gonna take place in at the end of that Discovery timeline. So I think what they're doing, which is smart is sort of resetting the deck a little bit and being like, okay, we've got a wide open field, we could do anything. - 'Cause it's far flung into the future, right? - And we're at the end of the timeline. So like we could do, we could start fresh, we could have a whole, like I think they're hoping that the Starfleet show is like the kickoff. 'Cause I think they realized that Discovery was kind of a mixed bag. It was their first attempt at a new series. Fans didn't really take you at the same way they would take to something like Strange New Worlds. - I love Strange New Worlds. - Strange New Worlds is great. And I think this is their big play to kind of be like, okay, we've kind of done our internal research. We know what you guys like now, we know what you're angling for. So like this is gonna be sort of, we're starting fresh. We have characters here that were starting out in Starfleet Academy that if it goes well, like, hey, these characters could get their own chips in the future, we could jump ahead. We could have it expand off into a whole new series of shows. - Right. It's a much better move than if you had been like, let's do a prequel where it's like Kirk at the Academy or whatever the fuck. - Right, 'cause that was like in the cards for a little bit where they're like, oh, the Starfleet Academy show is gonna be a prequel. And then they announced, no, it's gonna, it's gonna be like at the end of the timeline so everything can start fresh. That's better, that's much better. - Okay, so there's, and I think of lower decks you're sending too. And I like lower decks. - Yeah, lower decks has one more season, I think? - Oh, it does, okay, okay. - They've announced that that is ending. - Okay, so this, I don't know when they're doing another movie, but we'll come back and we'll do episodes on the "JJ Abrams" produced films. 'Cause I like those a lot. - Yeah, I like them too. I think critical, I did not like at the time that some people were like so against them where it's like, oh, this is, they're trying to make this not your daddy's star trek. It's like, so don't watch them. - Yeah, it, yeah, I get it. - Like they did everything they possible. My old thing is, if they, even if you wanna be a real stickler about it, it wasn't like they were saying, hey, we're rebooting the whole thing. And these are like our new Kirk and Spock and all these, they actually took the time, like I was just saying, to build the connective tissue to be like, hey, we still love the stuff that you love. - Right. - But this is an alternate timeline. And I thought it was very cool how they brought like Spock Prime in and like just, they took a lot of care of it that they didn't need to take. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Vin, thank you so much for being here. Today was Star Trek Nemesis. We continue on, as we always do. We come out every single Wednesday from the dawn of time to the end of time. Vin, thank you so much for being here. We end every episode by saying, go buy bang. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]