“If blood was thicker than water…”

Have you ever wondered what you would have been like if you had been brought up in a different environment - socially, politically or even physically.  Say, for example, poor instead of rich or healthy instead of sick.  Have you ever asked yourself if would you have made the same choices, chosen similar careers, liked the same foods, even ….be the same person.  For Captain Jean-Luc Picard, he faced that very issue quite literally square in the face!  Picard meets his clone.  Yikes!  What a shocking experience for any individual, however, not too uncommon in the sci-fi fantasy world.  Although this clone (aka Shinzon) was genetically identical to Picard, he was anything but the captain that we have become all too familiar with.  Shinzon's background was a perfect breeding ground for true vengeance.  He was Picard’s genetic clone, conceived by Romulans for some devious purpose, then cast away when he turned out not to be of any use.  Shinzon grew up on Remus - perhaps one of the darkest and harshest worlds of the Romulan Empire (hmm…wonder if Kirk has a clone on Rura Penthe?).  This rough environment caused a unique situation for social and physical development for any human.  The result was a character ripe with contrast as compared with his “brother” Picard.  This created a unique setting for when the two would eventually meet or rather clash.  The first one-on-one meeting (dinner scene in the Romulan senate chamber) between Picard and Shinzon was interesting.  Picard  gave Shinzon the benefit of the doubt.  Although, official federation matters were supposed to be Picard’s mind, in the back of his mind he was trying to figure out who this “kin” really was.  Picard was indeed curious.  Shinzon, while playing the getting-to-know-you routine, was always intent on vengeance upon earth and humanity.  Picard just happened to be the focal point.  Shinzon just wanted to know what his life might have been like if things were different.  The forgoing scenes mainly focused on the Picard-Shinzon drama.  With each passing scene, Picard begins to suspect and uncovers more and more of Shinzon’s true intent.  Yet with each revelation of Shinzon, Picard also begins to wonder  how his life might have turned out if things had been different.  Picard truly wanted to save Shinzon.  After all, Picard’s humanity could “feel” his pain, but was unable to persuade Shinzon from damnation.  It was inevitable that the two would eventually end up on a head on collision course (which literally happened).  In the end, the writers decided let Shinzon die, rather than turning the whole drama around into redemption.  Oh well, there are always more chances in the sci-fi drama world to make more clones.

The Picard-Data character relationship in this movie was not forgotten.  As usual, Data was always there to help out Picard in time of need.  And Picard still relied on Data for those miracle ideas to save the day.  For a moment, I thought that Data might “feel” threatened by or even jealous of  Shinzon.  That definitely would have kicked Data's emotion chip into overdrive!  After all, here comes Mr. Clone out of nowhere and all of a sudden Picard  was spending more and more time getting to know Shinzon and seemingly ignoring Data.  But, nothing of the sort ever took place.  If so, it would have made for a more interesting sub-plot twist.  The discovery of B-4 was quite interesting.  In this situation, Data gets his chance to see what life would have been and still is if he were one of the earlier models of Dr. Soong’s androids.   By downloading Data’s memories to B-4 (yep, the android version of katra), Data was able to give B-4 what Picard was unable to do for Shinzon – a chance at a better life. Kudos to the writers for not making this another dumb and dumber parody.  Although, this plot did not have as much screen time or emphasis as the Picard-Shinzon scenes, I thought that it was a lot more dramatically and emotionally fulfilling.  Data’s death scene was a bit dry.  It could have had a more dramatic feel to it.  After all, this was a major supporting character for Picard as Spock was for Kirk.  At least the producers and writers could have given the death scene more feeling to it so that at least some of the viewers would have cried!

How' bout that wedding!  It was nice to see most of the familiar faces and aliens of TNG in that scene.  Too bad, some scenes were cut.  I would have loved to see more of the past guest characters on the big screen.  Personally, I would have scrapped the whole Starfleet type lame wedding scene and gone for a true a Betazoid wedding!  When in Rome…

You know who really got shanghaied in this movie?  The Romulans!  At least when Klingons appear in Star Trek movies, they get the honor and dignity of being killed off in some great battle.  If memory serves (taken for the Iron Chef), Romulans were the first great and one of the classic adversaries of the Federation (see TOS: Balance of Terror).  This movie was an excellent opportunity for some good big screen time and good character development for the Romulans, perhaps even for more subplot development from TNG: Unification.  Ah but alas, they were merely a mediocre back drop for which any alien race could have sufficed for.  Speaking of Klingons, the Remans get credit for being the ugly alien for this movie.

Definitely a big A+ for special effects.  Although Star Trek has never focused much on special effects for movie making, I think that this movie did an outstanding job – a definite rival to Star Wars special effects.  The Planet Romulus, Scimitar ship, battle scenes, and others all made me say “WOW”.  If nothing else, Nemesis should get and deserves an award for their special effects work.

1) Cool Scimitar ship!

2) Where was Spock?

3) Where was Sela?

4) Still no signs of restrooms on the Enterprise.

5) Ambassador Worf:  Federation ambassadors now where Starfleet uniforms.

6) Speaking of uniforms, I guess Wesley has stopped being a “traveler”.  He’s back in a Starfleet uniform.

7) Photon Torpedoes: I guess Starfleet ran out of quantum torpedoes during the Dominion war and are on back order from Amazon.com.

8) No Klingons were killed in the making of this movie.

9) Romulan Ale IS legal.  See DS9: Inter Arma Enim Silent.

3 cool peace signs
MJC rating scale: 1 to 5 cool peace signs (1 - god awful to 5 - WOW!)
MJC 200301.02
Copyright 2003 
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