Blog #30: Insurrection & Nemesis

Recently on the 'Nerd Lunch' podcast they guys discussed the TNG films 'Insurrection' and 'Nemesis'. For those of you who are reading this and have not listened to 'Nerd Lunch' I highly recommend you do. It is a great podcast that I must listen to every week. CT, Jeeg and Pax are really cool guys and they have put together a great show. I made a guest appearance on episode #28 of Nerd Lunch where we discussed (you guessed it) Star Trek. check them out on iTunes. Anyway listening to their discussion on the last 2 TNG films inspired me to write a commentary blog post about them.

 

 

- With 'Nemesis' they were really trying to recreate 'Wrath Of Khan' (Data dying: Spock dying, enemy out for vengeance Shinzon/Khan). Also the idea of a ship that can fire while cloaked was stolen from Star Trek VI. If they wanted to do a vengeance story why not simply have 'Lore' be reassembled by foolish star fleet techs, then he goes after Data, Picard & crew.

 

- I don't think 'Nemesis' was actually supposed to be the final TNG film. I think they were waiting to see if it was a box office success, then if all went well make another. But it did not go well...

- I think they killed Data because Brent Spiner felt he was getting too old for the character... my simple solution: Get 'Q' in a movie and have him make Data human. Snap of a finger and all is well. Why was 'Q' not in one of the 4 TNG films? John Delancie was great as Q and I really wish we could have seen him interacting with Picard and crew again. Trying to forget he made guest appearances on 'Voyager'...

 - If they were going to go the Romulan route why not have it be a move about Spock's resistance movement. Bring Leonard Nimoy back, which he would have done with the right script as he proved with 2009's 'Star Trek'. Bring Sela and Tomalok back as the villains... it would have been awesome.

 

- Really the only thing I liked about 'Insurrection' was that  Riker/Troi finally got together, and even Riker shaving the beard was cool. other than that there ain't a whole lot I like about this film. I know they were trying to do a more light hearted film, like Star Trek IV, but the jokey humour just didn't work for this film. The bad guys sucked, but the special effects were OK. The 'Admiral' character was not interesting at all, would have loved to see Ronny Cox come back as 'Admiral Jellico' for this film.

 

Finally on a final note it retrospect it is sad that TNG only made 4 films and they were these 4 films. Overall the TNG films were forgettable when compared to the Original series cast's films. Again I lay huge blame for these films, and the state of the Trek franchise (up until 2009) on Rick Berman. Had someone else who actually cared and had a clue about Star Trek been in charge of the franchise it would be in a better state than it is now.    

 

See you next week!