Star Trek Fest - Star Trek Nemesis

All right, HP is in the middle of a coffee fit. Welcome back to my viewers to Star Trek Fest, the final film of the Next Generation. It's Star Trek Nemesis. Here's the trailer. Our eyes w reflct our lives dot.

I can see as well as you can. I can feel everything you feel. In fact, I can feel exactly what you feel. He said, He's a mirror for me. I need to know where the hell where he came from.

The same blood fight. So our face was as if a part of me had been stolen. You can feel you about. I must be activate you. Why because you are dangerous.

In the mirror see your soldier. I'm a mirror for you as well. That would be so fair. Set a course for kill everything. My god, that sounds exciting.

Doesn't it sound exciting? It sounds almost serious. It sounds like they're gonna send this out with a bang. Oh my god, it's the final one. HP, Yes, sir, thanks for joining us.

First of all, Hey, I'm happy to be here. Have you missed talking Trek. I have it is it's I'm it's interesting. I'm excited about the final Next Gen movie and getting into the next phase of a Trek movie. So yeah, this is it's an end of one era, beginning of another.

Indeed it is. And you heard in the trailer this is Star Trek and Nemesis, written by John Logan, directed by Stuart Baird. Actually the story by needs to be pointed out. Yes, John Logan, Rick Berman, and Brent Spiner, starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Franks, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Doran Gates, mcfad, Marina Sirtis, Ron Pearlman under a ton of makeup, completely unrecognizable, and a young bald Tom Hardy as Shins on the Clone. Did I give shit away?

Oh? No, of Captain Picard? Have I left anybody yet? Were there any other guest stars I'm leaving out? I don't think.

No, no, And I for the record, I don't think that's a spoiler because they get into that very early in the movie. And this is a twenty five year old movie, so it's But if it's spoiled, shame on you. Yeah, shame on you, folks. HP what's your initial impression of this movie overall? Are we going to get into this now?

Fucking hey, let's go, let's go to it. My opinion. Whi'd you firs see it? No? No, where did you first see it?

I always do that incorrectly out of order. Just two things in order. When did you go to the theater to see this? And if you didn't, shame I a bad Trek fan. I didn't see this in the theater.

I didn't see Insurrection in the theater because this one, especially, just I got bad vibes just from the commercials and the trailer it and the reviews. The early reviews did not do much to alay that way of thinking. I was more than happy to wait for home video, and that's very likely where I saw it. I probably rented it. I don't remember exactly where I was, but it was it was long enough and rare enough that me seeing it for this podcast, it was I'd forgotten a lot about this movie.

This movie came out on December thirteenth, two thousand and two, which means I saw it on December the twelfth, two thousand and two. I built this movie and watched it to make sure all the prints were quality, and so I ended up having to watch at least three prints. So I watched on that first night, I watched Star diag Nemesis three times. Some projectionists would just turn the movies on and then wander from auditorium to auditorium. Not me, sir, Oh no, I'm in for the long haul.

So I watched it three times in a row. Not that that was by choice, because I would have watched anything three times in a row to make sure the quality was good. So I didn't. Yeah, let's jump in, sure. But by the way, before we get into this, can I mention one thing before we get into this?

You sure, ken? I already mentioned that this was written by John Logan. Yes, just a little. Not that this is a cross promotional thing. But I might have mentioned this already.

Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes of a podcast and a YouTube show called Dropping Names with Brent and Johnny, and their second guest happens to be John Logan. So for more information on this movie and what went wrong and what went wrong, I would ask your listeners to check out this. It's a fabulous show anyway, but it is interesting hearing it from their perspective, because, as you said, it was story by Brent Spiner. He was one of the people who came up with a story and Frank's has some opinions because he was not asked to direct this movie, so it's not looked at favorably. And it's my understanding that Patrick Stewart himself thought of it as a rather weak installment.

Patrick Stewart liked the Insurrection, so he can go suck it. Okay, let's talk Romulins, shall we hp Here comes a dissertation. You're probably gonna get it again when we talk about the next iteration of Star Trek, the calvin Yus invert the Kelvin universe, folks, Let's talk about the Romulin Empire. Romulins way way back millennia ago and Vulcans were the same. Romulins chose not to pursue logic.

They left the planet. They landed on Romulus, so they became Romulins. Got it. Romulus has a twin twin planet Remi, which we know nothing about and never have through all of Trek. Okay history lesson total nerddom nerd alert HP.

Humans first get in contact with the Romulans in twenty one fifty two. That's the first Enterprise. Four years after that, that's the start of the Romulin War, which is basically just like a Cold War that only lasts for four years, and then twenty one sixty that is the creation of the Neutral Zone. Okay, twenty one sixty. Then in twenty two to sixty six, that's one hundred years later, that's when a Bird of Prey starts fucking with all the outposts and in balance of terror.

With the original series with Kirk and that is the first time we see the Romulins. It's the first time the Federation has seen them in one hundred years, when they only even briefly glimpse them. So we get the Romulins throughout all of original series and the animated series and all that shit up until Kiddimer, and that we have the Romulins are involved in the plot at Kiddimer. After Kiddimer, they go silent again for seventy five years and then re emerge in the Next Generation era. So that's I don't know what, anyway, twenty three hundred at this point, which eventually leads to the last time we see the Romans in the Next generation universes during Unification, which is when Ambassador Spock shows up and he's trying to negotiate peace between Romulins and Vulcans, right.

But before that, it is very important. Two years before that happens the Enterprise. See the previous enterprise fill through a rift in time, and that changes the timeline of the current next generation. So they became a very warlike race. And tashi Yar was back on the bridge of the Enterprise, right, So she ends up on the Enterprise seat, goes back through the rift, and that Tashiyar ends up the consort of a Romulin general who has a child named Sila, who ends up who grows up and then is now one of the main antagonists for the Romulin Empire.

The face of the Romian Empire really on the next generation. Okay. In fact, the last time we see her is at the end of those Unification episodes. She's on the floor of the Romulin Senate. I want to just bring that up because we've never really dealt with the Romulins in these films, and all of that is pertinent information as far as what they are and who they are as an empire leading up to the start of this movie.

Who named those planets Romulus and Remus. The same people who named them Klingons, the same It's look, it is obviously a nod to Rome and whatnot, But that's them. We're just taking for granted that there is a planet named Romulus and Remus, and it just so co happens. It just so happens to coincide with Earth mythology. It's lazy science fiction writers.

Is who named Romulus and Remus? It's like saying, why is that named the Bizarro world? Who would name it the Bizarro world? No? The reason for that, And it really bugged me when I was Many things bugged me in this movie, but that particularly bugged me because the Riemans figure very heavily in the plot of this movie, and as you said, we didn't know anything about them until now.

But I'm still hung up on the fact that these two alien worlds have been named after characters from Roman mythology, and that really got under my skin. And I know what you're saying, that it's just lazy writing that. Yeah, this is nothing else. This is the point where you get upset with that idea. No, this wasn't the only thing that upset No, no, no, I'm saying just the concept of Romulans, Like you didn't notice until two thousand and two that there was Romulus and Remus, and that was ridiculous because it's just based on Roman mythology.

Romulans to me, that that word has lost It's like a mantra when you say something over and over again and it loses its real practical. But they have a senate and they have praturs. It is just Rome's are I don't know what to tell you. I never delve that deeply into history to divine that fact. It's just when I'm faced with them saying Romulus and Remus and Reemans and this and that, it really got under my skin, like many things did for this movie.

Yeah, I have so much to discuss. I didn't know we were going to get into minutia. You want to really get into it. Why do the Romulins have their little runabouts named Scorpions? If you want to continue down that road.

At least the sixties writers were like a little not sci fi shit like John Logan, as a fan of the series, should have gone, They would not call their ship the Scimitar, nor are there other aircraft the fucking Scorpions. Sure, now, I again, I just wanted to bring that up as a little side note. But you've basically confirmed my suspicions, which were already pretty like I said, pretty pretty confirmed it to begin with. Anyway, the plot such as it is or this movie, and this movie is very rangy. This movie, I would go so far as to call it dull in stretches.

I hate to bury the lead on this, but I don't look very favorably on this movie. But nevertheless, this movie deals with there's a coupd a tot in the Romulin Senate, a character which we'll get into Ariman, but he's not really a rieman. In fact, he's Captain Picard's clone, and we'll talk about the minutia of that plot. There's a couda tot a reeman takes over the Romulin Senate and hatches this plot basically to again, it's a big plot where they have a world destroying weapon and the Enterprise has to try and stop this character. There's some interesting wrinkles that we'll call them.

That with the fact that this character is a clone of Picard if played by Tom Hardy, which is probably the most interesting thing about this movie. But that's basically it. There's a world killing weapon that this crazy reeman has and they get to try to stop him. Too much stirring, not enough plot or vice versa. This movie's overstuffed and ultimately doesn't have anything to say in any direction.

Not even I don't know. Thirty minutes into the movie, I wrote, man, oh man, is this a boring movie? Because it was just this and Patrick Stewart is always watchable and I love the next Gen cast. They may be my favorite cast of all the Star Trek iterations. I think that's probably safe for me to say.

But boy, there's what little plot there is is stretched out over the course of what two hours This movie should have been ninety minutes tops, maybe even eighty two minutes. That might have been the sweet spot. I felt pretty burned after Insurrection, so I was not looking forward to this movie. And then it was called Star Trek Nemesis, and I thought that's interesting. And then I saw the writer and I went, oh fuck, it's John Logan, who I'm a fan of John Logan.

I think his series Penny Dreadful is one of the best things to ever happen at television, and I like his I don't know. People gave that movie the Aviator shit, but I really liked his script for that That was an incredible feat covering as much of Howard Hughes's life as he was able to get in there. It's very impressive, and everyone loves Gladiator for fock's sake. So he's an Academy Award winning excellent fucking screenwriter. And once I heard he was on board, not only on board, but was on board as a fan of the series, I was like, Oh, fuck, Holy, we're gonna get the best star Trek of all time.

And then oh no, Actually my enthusiasm increased because it was going to be about the Romulin Empire, which we've not covered in the films. It's barely covered in the television series, not to the degree that I wanted to cover, because I fucking love the Romulans. I want them to go to Vulcan and kick the Vulcan's ass. How about that the screenwriter found out or figured out that there's a second planet that has never been discussed, And there's nothing more tantalizing to a writer that something's been sitting and sitting out obvious and no one has ever tapped into. So now I'm going to tell their tale.

Then tell that tale, tell us the Riemann tale. What is this coup d'etat in the Romulin Senate. What story are we telling here? I said, too much story onopot or one of the other, because ultimately, in this movie HP, I have no idea what our lead villain's motivation is. I have no idea what Hinzon wants.

We spend a lot of time with Shinzon, much more than character, much more than original characters from the series. We spend a lot more time than with Jordi or Wharf Where's warf even in this movie anyway, My point being, as much time as we're spending with him, He's given a dozen motivations. Does he want revenge on Picard? Does he want revenge on the Romulins? Does he need he wants Picard's blood?

Is that his primary motivator so he can remain young? Does he want to destroy the Federation? Yes, yes, and yes is what the movie is saying. I agree with you on all counts. And I think he's interesting, becomes he because he comes from a theatrical background.

I think his movies reflect that. They're always interesting, they have great character pieces, and they're great rousing movies. The Aviator is a great fucking movie. Gladiator is iconic for a reason. A big part of it is his script.

But there's so much Not only do we spend all this time with hins On, but we don't really know much about his motivations by the end of the movie, but he's through the course of the movie, he's basically slowly dying. So he in effect, he becomes more ineffectual as the movie goes along, and I worried about him as a viewer less and less as because it's clear that his various plots and machinations just are not working out. A piece after piece of this plot just falls apart, and there was something clumsy. Jesus the actual coupe itself. And this happens in the first ten minutes of the movie.

I watched and I went, this is so oh basic. This is something that a writer with much less elegance and experience than John Logan. Right, it's the Senate hearing they're bringing up the idea that they're going to unite behind Shinzon and the Elders or whatever. The Senator is basically say no, we're not going to do that. Wait off with you, where we're gonna go on to other business.

And there's one senator who's been fiddling with this red thing. We don't know what it is. She literally gets up and says, oh, I need to She may as well have said I need to use the bathroom, and she leaves this red thing conspicuously on the table I want to leaves, and this thing basically starts glowing red, sends all these red radiation part or green radia, sparkles in the air, kills everybody in the Senate chamber, and that's it. But it was like anybody with half a brain who saw this person get up conspiculously and leave after they've banished these sort of would be coup to taught participants. Of course, something's bad, pad's gonna happen.

I just there's about one hundred ways you could have written that scene and made it more interesting and more shocking about what happens. I don't know. I just feel like this, And again, watch this show with Brent and Jonathan Frakes Brent spyder On Frakes, because they talk about this a little bit. It's like, I can't help but feel John Logan was maybe a little out of his depth with this because there's so much scrutiny as a star Trek fan. It can't help but not bear close inspection.

This is the opening scene. So I guess let's talk about it, because I agree with you. This is the way you defeat the Romulin Senate. This device that she has somehow snuck in past security. Where's security at the Romulin Senate.

I guarantee you she would not have gotten that in there. That is falien radiation. It's the new bugaboo. It's the new it's the new radioactive nightmare out there. Somebody would have said, what is this thing you have?

It's just it's so silly. Now here's the thing. HB. I went back and finally read John Logan's first draft of this script, and I did a lot of research on this one. So I watched all of the making of particularly the making of from at the time.

I always love those. They're in the middle of filming and everyone's buoyed by how great everyone's being and how fun it all is, and they're talking about the script and how deep it is and such. The script is one hundred and forty pages, right, and if that's two hours twenty minutes, basically, if you were to film that minute per minute, as any good filmmaker would to do. We're gonna talk about Stuart bard de minute. The script as it is was very star trek.

Actually it was we get to meet the rodulent Senate, We get to meet an envoy there talking for the viceroy, basically show up treating that and treating them to meet with shins On. And then we got a scene with shins On afterwards where they keep him in shadow, but we get to see like the terrain of the Riemann home world where it's all black and night and they're out like looking up at the up at Romulus. Seems pretty epic to me. And then we go to the wedding, right and then throughout the film there's all this intrigue in the realm in the Romulin Senate. There's all this back and forth where Shinzon is actually trying to create a coup d'atta while dealing with Picard.

He's only dealing with Picard ultimately because he wants to stay young. His motive, let me put it this way. In the script, his motivations are clear. And then they filmed what nearly three hours. The first cut was like two hours and fifty minutes, and then they cut out four point fifty fifty five of those minutes to get the movie that we did, and what wasn't gonna be character they were taking it anyway.

I'm going on and on. I'm just saying the script as it was is no better ultimately, because we're still dealing with Picard and a mirror image. We're still dealing with fucking Data and his stupid, imbecile doppelganger. We're still dealing with the ridiculous mind rape of Counselor Troy. I'm not only laughing because this movie throws so much at you, and honestly, within that scene, it's awful.

It's a shocking scene. But I was distracted by the fact that Jonathan Frakes looked like he was trying to eat her face while they're having what should amount to a love scene. But it's so artlessly shot and portrayed. And I read this crazy tidbit that Jonathan Frakes refused to shave his back hair, so they had to go in and ceg out his back hair for this ridiculous love scene. The problems that I ultimately have with this movie were there, but it was a lot smoother and a lot a lot more structural with the script that they started with, and then they hired Stuart Baird, director of US Marshals and executive decision the movie that is only remembered because they kill Steven Segal in the first twenty minutes.

That's the only reason anyone continues to watch. That's the only reason I would go back to watch that movie. And US Marshalls is just it's okay. Baird was still is an editor. He's a fantastic editor as a matter of fact, not for pacing overall, but seeing the scene.

He's very good. He was Richard Donner's guy for all of Richard Donner's work, and obviously he works fast and he works under a budget, and that's what they were looking for here. I've heard talk that you watched the interview with them at the time. He claimed that Franks was still working on clock Stoppers or clock Watchers, whatever, that fucking time travel kids movie that he was doing. So even if he had wanted to direct this one, he wouldn't have been able to.

Which doesn't mean you can't ask. Do you want us to wait a few weeks so you can start this movie? Anyway? I think the look of this movie is really good. I think it's appropriately dark, because the story should be dark if we're dealing with these themes.

He makes what several of the other movies have fallen into set bound territory, particularly when we were on one of the spaceships, and that doesn't feel that way here. But he doesn't know pacing overall for a movie. I don't think he understands what anything actually means. He was, by his own admission, I watched the commentary with his fucking He was not a Star Trek fan, barely watched the show, certainly had no knowledge of Next Generation at this point. His knowledge was of Kirk and Spock, and everybody apparently kept calling LeVar Burton Laverne, Laverne.

I read that too. It's it, hey, Zeus. I agree with you the look of the movie, and by look, the texture of the movie. The quality of the image is actually very good, and this movie doesn't read as cheap looking as Insurrection. So that's a plus for this movie for sure.

But in terms of the pacing, and I would go even go so far as to say the action scenes themselves are very poorly paced, poorly shot. There there's no sense of context, a lot of times with these sort of battle scenes, A lot of it just amounts to people. It's like the Old West where they're hiding behind a bar and they poke up and shoot and they poke down, poke up. There's a lot of that happens in this movie, because there actually is a decent amount of action after a fashion, but it's not shot well and the pacing overall is I would label it sluggish, because, like I said, I'd been watching this for about thirty minutes and I was already writing to myself, boy, this is so boring. It just felt interminable.

I think you might have been bored during the most ridiculous scene in the entire movie, which is the Dune Buggie treasure hunt. Let's break it down on so many fucking levels. We'll get to the plot point, which is the be four B nine in the original screenplay, like Benign, which is a little more clever, and I guess we're too stupidest fans to have taken that. It's got to be before anyway, that's what a Starfleet all terrain vehicle looks like. It doesn't have a windscreen.

Yeah, why is there a gatling gun on the back. It's like it's fucking rat patrol from Rat Patrol. Right Rimber rat Petrol or something out of the Mad Max. Now, if I if this were like the mid eighties and Star Trek was something more akin to Star Wars, I would be accusing the filmmakers of putting in this ridiculous vehicle to sell children's toys. Because that's because out of the blue, Captain Picard is saying, I can't wait to take the RG out for a spin.

And I've never heard him mention this thing ever, and now here we have him grinning like a fool driving this ridiculous aluminum all terrain vehicle around some desert planet. Barred it was like, bully about this. We're getting to show that Captain Picard is actually a little bit of an adrenaline junkie here. And all I could think is what a terrible sequence. And it's completely slowing the plot of this movie down.

And when you step outside of the scene and think that they cut fifty minutes of other characters having relationships, even just dialogue between Beverly Crusher and somebody, would be welcome over this ridiculous sequence. They land on this planet, they're just humping around trying to find body parts, and then a bunch of local show up. Who are they? What is any of this? I couldn't help thinking that this whole first of all, the excursion makes no sense because they just all of a sudden, out of nowhere, they get this reading on a planet.

Oh hey, this a positronic signature. There's no this has nothing to do with shins On or the Romulans or anything. But they say that, they talk about the planet, that these pieces of positronic life form are found on it. They say it's a pre warp society. So to my mind, and them trumping around this planet and a giant ATV with a Gatlin gun, that's a violation of the prime directive in my book, because they are They're not trying to be covert.

They're not trying to slip in and out without alerting or influencing this pre industrial society that's on this planet. Why are they bopping around without of care in the world. It just seems so silly to me. Once they get into the atmosphere, just to have the shuttle sensors figure out where the pieces are, beam down, grab them, and get out of there. Now we've got to have this adventure scene that forwards the plot, not at all waste everyone's time and just pisses off the fans.

Good idea, wonderful Stewart Beard. Look, it was in the script, but like you can tell, the scene is built up and up and it has no business being anything because it's not exciting. We've seen all of this action done better, just in Any random Mad Max movie was better than this, Any random knockoff of a Mad Max movie, anything coming out of Australia basically was ten times the action of this Desert rat sequence. Megaphorus was better there a sequence which is the high water mark for cheesy, bad action in the eighties. But let me ask you a question, father Milan, since we're talking about Before, who is essentially a prototype, another prototype of Data.

It's another positronic human being. Now do you suppose, and maybe you've done a lot more research on the background of this than I have, do you suppose beyond the fact that he figures into a plot point where Data has to rescue Picard pretending to be befour because Before is a tool of Hinzon to gather data about the Federation. But olright, he is a tool, But Ultimately, I couldn't help this was my take on it. I couldn't help thinking that. So before I get to this, it's been established that Brent Spiner wanted Data killed off because he was getting too old to play the part.

I think in this movie. I think he was fifty three years old the Whereabouts? So do you pretty old for an android? Pretty old? You can't blame him because eventually he's not going to look like Data.

And eventually we get him in Pocard season three and everyone's what, Oh, he had an upgrade? Gotcha? But my take on this Father Malone, and I wonder if you maybe assume you've shared the same thing. The fact that they could be for is that them stacking the deck? No?

Is that them hedging their bets in case Bren Spiner ever wanted to do Data, because effectively it's a replacement data. We'll get into the fate of data, the actual data and a little bit. But is that Am I reading that right? Based on what you know or what your opinion is, what do you think? Yeah, it's that's exactly that's We need an escape hatch, a pressure release of valve, We need a remember from Star Trek two.

Yeah, so we can just download his positronic matrix and put them in any old body and then it's a new data, right, So there were no stakes when Data decides that he's going to make the suicide mission play here at the end. It wouldn't have mattered if before it didn't exist. In the movie, we could have just said, if they find his head, there's a pretty good chance we can get data back. Or at the end of the movie they could say I saw data at this terminal and he was entering some information and know what it was, but it's like this folder that I can't it's encrypted, but there's something that tells me that maybe there's more to this. Maybe we'll figure out what's you know.

So he could have effectively downloaded his version of himself into the enterprise computer do not open unless in case of emergency type of thing. So I just the idea that they had to go in this ridiculous detour to this planet to gather it's like a video game. Find all the pieces of B four and put them all together, and you have this creature. But I don't know if I'm fond like what I'm saying. There's a dozen different ways they could have played this, and this was probably one of the worst ways because it takes attention away from the main plot and it's just boring.

Let's take a step back by taking a step forward, shall we. The thing about before that ultimately pissed me off is the it would be one thing to just have him around after Data does this thing, and you could, as an audience member, go, we've got that other one. So there's a possibility, right, they could leave that open to us. Having him sing blue Skies at the end made me want to burn the movie theater down. And let's talk about that.

This is the stepping back. I meant, let's get back to William Riker and Deanna Troy's wedding, which is lovely, by the way, good for them. I'm happy. Hey we get to Wesley Crusher has a little cameo. Yeah, man, Guynan's there, fucking wharf is still hungover from Romula and Ale.

That's my favorite line in the entire scene. That should be illegal. It is. It is, And I was gonna I thought that in my head before they said it. I'm like, of course it is.

They always talk about how illegal it is, but it is a lovely wedding, and that is what gave me initial hope because the look of the wedding it looked fancy and expensive, expensively shot, is my point, So I thought, Wow, they're actually gonna spend money on this movie. That's pretty cool. Yeah, and then no, I don't have any problem with the wedding scene per se, except it ends with another fucking serenade. Man. I know John Logan and Brent spinerre friends, and I know John Logan claims that was him his idea, and it probably was, but that doesn't mean you have to film it.

It's not adorable. Nothing Data does here is adorable. He's not the wandering Knafe anymore. And having the imbecile come in and try and be Data, even if he's a little bit malevolent, was really insulting, in particular because Data already has a twin and we already like him a lot, and that's lore. Why not just bring it?

If we're dealing with mirror images, HP, are you familiar with the concept of the mirror universe? This might be what the fifth time you've asked me that question through the course of trek Best that's become a bit of a runner. So I'm familiar insofar as I know you've talked about. Is the series the Last Ship? Yeah?

Yeah, the Last Starship? The Last Starship? Yeah, why don't you enlighten me again. On this is None of this is from the Last Starship, by the way, this is a This is from many comics over many years, and novels and other Trek ephemera. But if there was ever a time in Star Trek, particularly cinematic history, that it would come to embrace the mirror universe, it's right here.

John Logan looked at the fucking symbol for Romulus, which is the Romulan warbird with two claws out, Romulus in one hand, Remus in the other, right, and thought, oh, mirrors. It's all about mirroring. I'm gonna mirror everybody. And that's what he does because the Nemesis is a wash in mirror imagery. Right, there's fucking two picards.

We get two datas, we get two Troy's really because the Viceroy is just the psychic version of her like helping shins on. Why are we involving the Romulins at all? Just go to the fucking mirror universe and have those exploits there more. To my point, there is a mirror Star Trek universe or Mirror Next Generation universe, but Picard has multiple choice because they've done various Mirror universes. I want to bring up the one just because I think you'll enjoy it where he was initially aboard not the Stargazer, but the Star Crusher, where he killed Jack Crusher murdered him straight out, there's no question about it here.

And then after Barclay murders Tasha Yar, he promotes Barklay and then they the two of them hunt down Emperor S. I feel like you're making this up. Where do I find I looked for this. I have not been able to find the Last Starship. It's not this has nothing to do with the Last Starship.

The Last Starship let me, folks, if don't be swayed by AGEB. The Last Starship takes place in like the thirty second century. It's about a reconstituted Captain James T. Kirk, a clone, basically trying to put the Federation back together after it's been decimated. When I'm talking about the Mirror Universe episodes, they're only ever found in cartoons and comic books, they've been Star Trek comic books forever and ever, and and the novels, which are vast and varied.

No, I'm not lying, but I will say that Picard himself is eventually murdered by William Reiker, who then becomes Emperor Wich. That all happens in the Mirror universe anyway, just some idea of what things you could be doing here in this Star Trek as far as the villain. And by the way, if they think that this, and they did most of the thought, this is it right, this is the final voyage, this is our last shot. Let's put the nail in the coffin. Why then, is not que the villain of Star Trek Nemesis.

I don't know. That's a very I don't know. Because they all speak highly of John Delancey. I think he's part of that tight knit group of but he is the quintessential next generation villain. So I don't know why he's part of the cliffhanger ending of Picard's season three.

I don't know. I like your idea, by the way, of having a movie that deals with the Mirror Universe, that would be interesting to me. There's some sort of plot that's going on. Picard falls into the mirror universe, the Enterprise goes in, and now you have these evil versions in reality of Troy, and they could bring back Tashi Yar in an interesting way. That seems like a pretty cost effective way to populate your movie with villain to have the same person.

Do you think to two parts? Barring that, say, you want to do one about I don't know, the Romulin Empire, why not have Cela from the next generation. I already said she's the established face of the Romulan Empire. She's half human, she's half Romulan. The Remons.

You could even dispense with the idea of the Riemons as a race and just have the Remans be a political movement on Romulus, like to overthrow the Empire. There are so many things they could have done with I'm really mad HP that they squandered the Romulans here. I'm even more angry what happens in the future in cinema with the Romulans. But in this case, I don't know why other than we need to service Patrick Stewart, we need to service Brent Spiner because everyone loves Picard and Data, So let's give them even more to do by doubling their fucking roles. Here, by the way, just taking a step back, you were talking about how we don't want to see Data do the cute see you act like a nap.

I will say two things. I'll say on that. Number one, I might prefer my Data has always been my favorite character in Next Gen, shading towards Picard, but really Data, and as a fan of the character, I don't like it when he's doing the I want to know what it's like to be human. I'm gonna all these fumbling attempts at humor and whatever. I like it when Data kicks ass like a super being who can type really fast and lock things down like first Contact.

To me, is the quintessential Data performance, if you will, because he gets to kick ass, he has range, he does some interesting things. I don't want to see him in a shuttle singing HMS Pinafore songs or singing nothing but blue Skies at Riiker and Troy's wedding. It just that to me, And that's part of the reason why I agree with you that I hate Before, because that's all he is. He's an empty shell who has doesn't have the sophistication of data, and that's what we get. And fortunately he goes away for long stretches of this movie.

In fact, he's basically deactivated until the very end, which is weird because they detoward the whole fucking movie so they could find him on some remote planet, only to basically mothball him for the two thirds of the movie. That gun and that first act might want to bring it back in the third just. Saying, Chekhov's android, what's this thing on his neck? Here? This redundant folder?

I don't know, let's look, come directly into you data and then give him free access to the ship. Now I know that ends up being a tactic they like. They fill him with the incorrect information to throw shins on off. The whole thing rubs me the wrong way. Why does the man have the fuzzy face?

Why does he have a fuzzy face? Why aren't we having a conversation right now? Please tell me what is happening? Are you kidding? We're this far into trek and they're still doing wide eyed fucking I don't even have the words for at HPF.

It is so I'm beat down by before I. Want to talk about something that I thought had a lot of potential and actually started off as an interesting concept. I want to talk about shin Zone and by extension, Tom Hardy. First of all, I totally forgot that Tom Hardy was in this. We all did, because he's so refined.

I'm used to see he Usually he gets bumped up in a lot of his movies, and he's a tough guy. That the movie what was the movie that he did where Ron he was you know, that's a good one, but the one where he's one of two brothers that had to enter like an ultimate fighting competition because they need money or they need you know. I'm talking about yes with Nick Nolty. He was fantastic in that. But I'm used to him being like Bronson, like this tough guy that became his stock in trade.

He was like a Robert de Niro type who could who's protean and he could make himself into all these venom and all this. He's so skinny, I guess that's the character. He's painfully thin. Actually, I thought he They did a good job of making him resemble a young Picard. I thought that was good.

But the idea is the Romulans at some point created a clone of Picard with the express purpose of some plot that they were going to execute. But the plot fell through for some reason. I don't recall the details, but they so they had. Regime change HP the same as every political story. In the world.

So he was no longer useful. So they took him and they basically exiled him to the di lithium mines on Remus, and he basically became He was shunned. No one wanted to deal with him anymore. They crumpled him up and threw him in the garbage. It was the viceroy who became his advisor, who apparently stepped in for him and took care of him while he was in this awful mining colony, like fending for himself.

That's an interesting idea for a character, this character that was bred, born and bred for a specific purpose that is no longer useful, that they just like I said, crumple up and throw them away. And at least part of his motivation is to get back at the Romulens for treating him thusly. That's a great genesis of a character. But it's just a shame that it became so muddied and so incomprehensible over the course of two hours that you're not really sure what the character's aims or motivations are. At that point.

But it has to be said, I love the notion of the character, and I liked a lot of what Tom Hardy did with the character. Such as it is, there are moments where he's had There are scenes with him in Picard having a conversation that are at times they're actually griveting because you can tell he's trying to match Picard and his energy and his cadence and every thing, And for at least a few moments it works for me. What did you think of Tom Hardy as Shin Zong? Like you, I always forget it's him, and then I'm always pleasantly surprised because he's he is unrecognizable. This is the shaved head, and it is the cuckoo iridescent spacesuit that he's wearing, and most of the time Ron Perlman's latext hands are caressing his dome, so it's hard to remember that that's Tom Hardy.

But I think it's an excellent performance. I don't think it's a studied one, because I don't think he's going for that, because they are different humans with different experiences, but certain things. And this is John Logan as well, like they're just the not what they're saying, but how they say it. The sort of speech patterns of Picard and shinz On are exactly the same. They all start with a thought and then stop and then continue with a different thought that reinforces what they were trying to say.

Initially, I thought that was interesting, and I think Hardy is doing a like I said, I'm used to in virtually every performance after this, I'm used to a level of ferrel on the top of a Tom Hardy performance. Here it's buried so far down that we don't really get it until the end, which is unusual for him, or at least unusual for me, And seeing a performance of his that makes me marvel at the movie as it goes along. I like that story, but you know what, look, I got to come at it sometimes from a fucking nerds perspective here. And if the Romulins were planning a cloning program in order to replace Jean Lukeicartt, first of all, he wouldn't be the only one that they were going to try, and there would be dozens in case anything went wrong there aren't.

This movie. A lot of it's reflective of that opening scene, the dunderheaded notion that you can just walk into the Romulin send it with this new fucking weapon of mass destruction. No one's going to notice you toying with it, first of all, rather obviously, or you don't have to pass through a scanner of any kind. You couldn't get that into the Senate now. They'd be like, what is this metal thing?

Even if it wasn't giving off radiation, they'd be like, open that up, and then the outer foyer would be would be turned into crispy toast. What are the fucking rom What was the fucking plan there? With the Ramans? We're given everything and nothing at the same time. Maybe that's what I'm trying to say.

Because we're so focused on this thing between Shinson and Picard, we never really get to know anything else that's going on. I don't know anything about the Riemens now than they did at the beginning of the movie, except they look like fucking vampires from Middle Earth. Where did they get that ship? Hp They're like a slave race. It is a little, like I said, not a lot that's thought out about this.

But what I was gonna say was one positive is I actually thought the makeup effects on Ron Pearlman, like the actual Riemann visage. I thought it actually looked really good. I liked their makeup effects because it looked real without being like too late texy and fake looking. Because Ron Perlman's kind of an odd looking chap to be to begin with, got a rather large face, and that kind of worked. You put something, you put a bit of latext on that you color it a certain way, and bam, you got a riemon that actually worked.

What I didn't like, though, is there's not a lot of discussion about the Viceroy's powers. That was very unclear to me because he, like you said, he kind of caresses shins On at times, and all of a sudden he's able to basically psychically invade Deanna Troy during this love making session, and he can also it seems as if he can heal shins On to a degree or calm him down in this st I wasn't really understanding of what the scope of his powers, and. As I come to I've come to understand that the Viceroy is a telepath and mpath the way that Troy is. But obviously he's got healing hands at least, or is he really healing him or more than caressing him when they're giving him like a medical treatment, you know what I mean, It's time for the procedure.

He keeps saying it over and over again, so. Sharp that but I thought it was more like he can't heal him because there's some kind of mysterious procedure that has to take place. But I thought it was like he can take care of him to a limited degree until he can have this final procedure. But what is also odd for talking about the Viceroy and this procedure is at one point they managed to capture Picard and they take a sample of his blood, a rather big sample of his blood, but a rag rather large needle in fact, and they apparently they need his DNA because this is all mumbo jembowie like. Doctor Crusher figures out that the clone shin Zon was designed to age rapidly at a certain point and when that point when passed, then he started to run into these health issues and it started to basically break down his cells or whatever.

And so for a good portion of the movie, they're on the hunt for Picard because they need his DNA to perform this procedure. They have a whole vial full of his blood. Why could they not have done the procedure at that point? Yeah, at any point? Come on, now, this is so silly.

First of all, the idea, let's start at the top of all the ridiculous. The idea of putting B four in pieces on the planet was to lure the Enterprise E to romulent space. But then they ask for them, and Starfleet says, go, so what was that plan? To get them on the ship, to get their confederate on the ship. It's ridiculus.

Shout out to Janeway. So nice to see Janeway. Interestingly, I did a little research for myself, and apparently what I'd read supposed to be. It was supposed to be Jerry Ryan was going to be seven of nine. She turned them down, and because I think she was doing Boston Public at that point, and she was rightfully probably fearful at that point of being typecast.

So she turned them down, and so they went to They went to Janeway, which I think actually is a better. Call, makes more sense. What are you crazy? Yeah, Admiral Janeway is going to be calling the shots at this point. Sorry, yeah, no, I loved I love Janeway.

What else are we talking about? I'm just not forgotten. I got so wrapped up in the reverie of fucking Janeway like showing up and she was supposed to be in the script. She was supposed to be in it. More like she was caught.

They were constantly like having back and forth about what they're supposed to be doing in this situation. Because there was a situation going on Romulus. There was a potential war, civil war about to break out, and so the Enterprise had to stick around and it was dealing with this fucking idiot who has decided that he's the representative of the Remans. One thing I want to bring up on a high level about these movies, and I have the same it's the same criticism that I've levied at the Marvel movies. The NCU is every It seems like every single movie has to deal with a villain that has a some plot that a planet or the universe is in jeopardy and only the Enterprise can save them.

My problem with that is not every Next Generation episode, Let's say dealt with something that was such a grave threat. Sometimes it's just, hey, our Picard is a boorg and we got to try to save him, or Rikers in some kind of weird dream world where he's his love of his life is named Minuet. It's not to say you can have a whole movie structured around something like that, but come on, does it have to always be a maniac who has a world ending weapon or universe ending laser beam on a ship somewhere and only the enterprise that this is just another one of those kind of movies, And it's just it just bores me to tears for them alone. I think what I'm saying is not every movie has to have the highest stakes.

Sometimes a plot is just something that affects us, a small group of people. Maybe that's one of the things that it puts this movie below, puts Insurrection above us, because Insurrection was that it wasn't about the world being or the universe in any sort of peril. It was about this planet and a small scale conflict. Well, I think I'm going to blame Rick Berman for that. I think Rick Berman learned from Insurrection small scale doesn't pay.

And when we had just done First Contact, where they saved all of Earth, and that was a huge success. We have to save the universe, probably went the cry. But this was a tale of either a revolution on the Romulin home world, and if any world was going to be threatened, it would be that one Shinzon hates the Romulins, does he not? Would he not be happy to just destroy both worlds and then fly off and be a king somewhere of his own making. Of course he would.

See what you just said, that's perfect. This movie could even should have been about a plot against the Romulin Home World, and somehow the Enterprise is on a diplomatic mission they get involved. It's not there's no concern about the Earth going to be destroyed unless they can stop it. What does it have to do with anything, It's got nothing to do with it. It would have been nice for them, the Romulins, who they've had a checkered history with, they step in and try to make sense of this conflict, maybe concerned about dealing with matters that may or may not be their business.

This all would have been so much more interesting and so much more rich of a plot. These details like I just don't know why you couldn't have that. I would have been delighted, because again it's a culture and a race that we don't know a lot about, and it's been underserved in terms of the Star Trek universe. That would have been great. I can't imagine going I can do whatever I want.

This is gonna be the last next generation. No one's done anything with the Romulins. We're gonna go to fucking town with the Romulins here and instead telling a tale not about the Romulins at all, We're telling a tale about the distant relatives of the Ramens. By the way, when I was making fun of the look of the Reemons here not the makeup, which I do think, I agree with you, is extraordinary. In fact, there's another Rieman on the bridge whose eyes are bigger, and he looks even more alien.

He looks like a real alien. Right. It's one of my favorite makeups in all of Star Trek. However, what are the Remans? This is what I'm talking about, as far as like giving tantalizing holding stuff out as the carrot.

Are the Riemens actual former Romulins and they ended up on a colony on this other world and then they developed it differently because the time between Vulcans becoming Romulins was like millennia. There couldn't have been an evolution of these creatures from the So what are they even anyway? Where were we even talking about? Now? God damn it, this movie's so confounding.

I don't know what Shinzon wants. He wants revenge against Picard, he wants revenge against the Romulins, he wants revenge against the Federation. What also, and more importantly, where's the Empire? During this this one little band of riemons has taken over all of Romulus. Are you fucking kidding me?

I'm gonna say it again, the Romulin Empire? Where's the fleet? As soon as he unfolded his little wings on his little ship, I don't give a shit how many fucking disruptors and photon torpedo tubes they have in there, Higherty of the Romulin Empire would have come down on that ship. It's so ridiculous, It's so vague, and it's in its storytelling like it makes me mad, makes me really mad. And what makes me particularly mad is is how the movie should have ended.

By the way the it should have ended, like the Warriors HP with with shins on about decimate all of Kirk to destroy the Enterprise, and then the Romulin war Birds just decloak all around them, like we'll take care of this fellow. Yeah, and look, the Enterprise is the flagship of the Federation. Right, but yet again we have another movie with a ship that's bigger, badder, faster, more heavily armed. The Enterprise is a hair like once again a hair's bread away from being totally destroyed yet again, like where's the badass Enterprise that can save the day and figure it out? And as super year armament and superior captains in superior flight capabilities.

I'm just I'm so tired of seeing the Enterprise a big crumpled mess, like a tin can that's been crushed in your hand. It feels like every movie ends with the Enterprise on the brink of destruction or destroyed. They fuck it up here too. I will say though, that the ramming speed sequence here where they just plow into the Scimitar is fucking fantastic. All of the effects here are cgi except for that one where they built a saucer and part of shin Zen ship and then fucking crashed it into that and did it upside down so all the particles would fall down so it looks like they're floating away.

Oh, what a beautiful shot. And but like when it breaks into the cargo bay, that cargo bay is entirely cg and you don't even see the ship coming in, But when it's reversing out, they show it and it looks beautiful there too. Anyway, that's my favorite shot in the movie. Just wanted to point that out. But I agree with you, like, there needs to be more if you're going to have a naval battle, the Enterprise has to be adapt quit making it so clumsy when it comes to fighting.

It smirches the crew and it does a disservice to that ship. That and I'm going to say this again, I probably said it earlier, not today, but in another episode. The Enterprise e my favorite configuration of the starship Enterprise after original series. Okay, we've talked about some of the things we liked about this we've sure as hell talked about the things we didn't like about this movie. Yeah, what are some of the other things that because I don't want that to be the only thing we harp on.

What are these some of the other things that we might have enjoyed about this movie that were worthwhile father alone anything. Oh no, I'm still thinking of the things I didn't like. Okay, scratch that, take that out. Yet I got one more. I got one more than I didn't like.

That is troubling. You've ahead, and then I'll go after you. Yeah, but yeah, you got another bad thing. Are you going to try and turn this around? Okay?

It has to do with the pacing and the way it shot is there's for there's one of the things you and I have talked about, of course, over the course of all of these over the course of the fest is we love it when they get into the naval battle aspect, when you have this the Enterprise and another ship or ships and they're doing broadsides and maneuvers, and that's the best. That's always really cool. We love that. But here it's so boring because what you end up having is the so the shin Zong's ship, the Scimitar, has the ability to firewall cloaked, which, if you recall back in the Undiscovered Country, that was a big deal. Like they it was unthinkable that you could have a ship that could firewall cloak.

But now it's it's everyday occurrence. No it's not. Actually this is seventy years later and the Romulans finally figured it out here. However, it fucks up everything going forward because nobody else pays any attention to it. The idea of firing Wall cloaked changes the entire balance of the galaxy.

Yeah, it's I don't see how any battle couldn't be completely imbalanced because you have a ship that can It's crazy, what an advantage. So what you end up having is the Enterprise and the Scimitar, and then later a couple of other Romulin vessels join the fight to try and take him out, take out the Scimitar. But it's all you have is a sequence where it's interminable, where you have this ship that's invisible and you have these other ships that are firing blindly trying to take it out. There's no rhythm, there's no pacing to these battles. It's just three ships blindly shooting at a fourth ship that no one can see and sometimes hitting it, but more often than not, just they're getting their asses kicked by that.

I don't it's not enjoyable to see. There's just it's not a it's not a battle. It's completely one sided, and that to me is it's just not fun to watch. It's a Star Wars dog fight when it should be a battleship broadsides. Again, Stuarte is the wrong guy for this movie.

I can appreciate. Look, you gotta go to director jail. He fucking did Insurrection. It's terrible. It's terrible.

He's got to own up to some of his responsibility. Jonathan Frakes for not getting this gig. However, don't give it to this guy who's friends with him. He's not even on the same lot. Mainly like Richard Donner's stuff was all at the Warner Brothers lot.

This is Paramount. They couldn't pick somebody up off the Paramount lot, was there? No like hungry got a film school kid wanting to fuck up the Star Trek universe, like in a good way. The fact that he makes no bones about the fact that he doesn't know Star Trek lore, has no interest in learning it, and applying those that level of detail to the movie says all that you need to hear on this, Like why it's almost contemptuous that they would give someone like that the keys to what is It's still a very viable and lucrative franchise. To me, that seems unthinkable to me.

Here's a guy who doesn't have any real love for a star trek or any appreciation for what it brings to the table, and you give him the keys get the fuck out of here. Two things. If you look at the what came out the same year as this movie, you can understand that I got lost in the shuffle. There was like another Harry Potter movie that year, and there were a bunch of big ticket items and this wasn't It was going to have a hard time standing out any year with no competition, but this was a year of particularly high competition. Having said that, Stuart Bird is a terrible director, and let me go back to the thing that I didn't like, which is, I'm not harping on having two datas again, but when we spend that much time on a nowhere plot that accomplishes nothing, Honestly, it doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't accomplish anything.

All it does is potentially set up the fucking return of data. And this is our last voyage with this crew, and they don't spend it with Data and Jordie, this is a ship. Their enemy has come forth with this new form of radiation. Who on the Enterprise could help them with that? Are you kidding?

And if Data was going to sacrifice themselves, how many sacrifices himself to save Jordi. Jordy, I'm getting you off this ship. I'm putting this transporter thing on you. Oh I got blown up. Oh my god, Data.

My friend, my best friend. I can't believe you sacrificed yourself for me. But instead, like you said it before, Jordi and Wharf have fuck all to do in this movie. I don't even really know what Jordi does except below things from the engine room. Oh cool leaker, Oh, then acels are gonna blow.

It's all the typical stuff. Wharf, aside from having that very funny sequence at the beginning of during with. Jordy, it's their only good scene. But other than that, I look, if I were them, I would be the actors. I would be fucking pissed because this is going to be our last hurrah and you're giving me nothing to do.

Nighters thing man, Jordy, and. They had so much to do, not two movies ago. I'll put aside insurrection because whatever. But this is another reason why. And this isn't a show about First Contact.

We already talked about that. But First Contact is such a perfect movie because it just ticks all the boxes, and this ticks virtually none of them. Nothing, man, I don't care that the card clone knows the phrase Imzadi as a fan. You know what I want more, Jordi the Forge. I want to spend a little more time with doctor Beverley Crusher.

I want to know that this is her last mission because she's been promoted. She's going to be heading up a starfleet medical section now right. I want to explore more the fact that, yes, Deanna and Will are now married, but he's accepted a captainship. This is it. He's taking over the Titan when this movie is over.

It isn't this might be the last movie, folks. It's this is the last movie, folks. And we've taken the time to set up these things. By the way, some of the things I just mentioned were cut out of the movie, Like Beverly Crusher is the fact that she's moving on isn't really brought up in the film at all. We get the idea about the Titan and Will's stationed on the Titan, Will Riker, Will Will Wheaton, what's his name, Wesley Anyway, it just seems like unusual that we would spend the time to have double the Picard, double the Data, and minus everybody.

Else, everybody else. And that was the big complaint everybody should remember back in the old the original series, was that it was really William Shatner and maybe to a certain degree, maybe Nimoy who were taking line away from the secondary actors quote unquote secondary actors. But everything I've known and heard and seen and read about the next Gen cast is that there really were There wasn't that sense of ego from the main again, main characters like Data and Picard, they all this was an ensemble in their eyes. So there's you can't blame an actor for leading with their ego and taking time in a movie away from them. So who do you blame?

You have to You have no choice but to blame the writer in this case, what was he thinking? I don't know. I think I also think part of the blame, A lot of the blame goes to Rick Berman. He's not a good writer. Just wanted to say that, but.

He wasn't involved in this movie. He read the story and he produced the movie. He is paramount, by the way, when they say, oh, the studio mans, it's Rick Berman saying, hey, guys, not the student he was making us. Hey, guys, you know it would be good. That's Rick Berman?

Or was Ric Berman? Is he dead? No? But when we get to the Kelvin timeline, he's not. Oh no, No one's involved past that man.

But he went on. Look I'm being hard on him. I know he's intimately involved with Deep Space nine and Voyager, the whole thing. I just don't think he's a very good storyteller. I think the scripts that he wrote himself are okay, And if the ones that he did that were really good were somebody else's words.

I just feel bad for these actors like LeVar Burton and Gates McFadden and all these and who brought a lot to their roles and put a lot of time and effort and became beloved characters for a reason. And to your point, this is the last Hurrah. They knew that this was going to be the last Next Generation movie. For better or for worse, this was it. Maybe the well had run dry, but surely, why did it?

I guess my point is why did it take another almost twenty five years after this movie to get to the true spiritual ending of the next generation cast and storyline? That's insane to me. Should we rank them. Only the next gen movies? No TS, tng TS and tn G.

That's almost impossible. There's so but I'm opening my notebook, so we might have to do just that. Okay, let's do it. See, but here the problem we're going to run into is you could make the case that something like First Contact is the better movie. It's a better movie than Star Trek two.

However, Star Trek two I think is more important to the Star Trek cinematic universe than First Contact. You can argue these things any way you want. I'm mad, I'm not doing no there no prime directives here, will be breaking. Okay, all right, let's do it. Nemesis.

By the way, that to the font at the beginning was created by a fellow name Jonathan Barnbrook back in nineteen ninety one. He was trying to approximate the Greek and Roman letters, and it's one of the cheesiest fonts I've ever seen, even by two thousand and two, and I could not believe they used it. They might as well have used papyrus. There are ten movies in Toto HP think about. Do you want me to name him?

You name them for you, just to get him in everyone's mind. Let me name him for the for the listeners at home. The movies in order, Motion Picture, Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, Voyage Home, Final Frontier, Undiscovered Country, Generations, First Contact, Insurrection, Nemesis. All right, that being the case, let's we're gonna go. Worst to best, then, correct sir?

All right? For my number ten, I'm gonna put Final Frontier, Star Trek five, Final Frontier. That's my worst movie. What's your worst movie? Insurrection?

Terrible? Insurrection is worse than Nemesis. Yeah, way worse than Nemesis. Oh I disagree, but we'll get there. I did so much, I did so much complaining about Nemesis in this episode.

You're going to be shocked. No, okay, yeah, I'll do nine and eight? Ready, Yeah, go for it? Yeah, okay, Insurrection, Final Frontier nine, eight Generations. My number nine is Nemesis and my number eight is Insurrection.

That's fair as this is all subjective number seven, Motion Picture, Me Too, number six, Undiscovered Country. Ooh, My Number six was Generations. I guess I liked it better than you. Number five, Nemesis. Search for Spock on My.

List number four, Voyage Home number three, Search for Spock. Number four, Undiscovered Country number three, Voyage Home. Number two, Wrath of Khan number one, First Contact, Me. Too number two, con number one. First Contact.

Objectively, that's First Contact is the best movie. You get more of the crew, It's more electric as far as an action movie goes. It isn't burdened with a lot of Nicholas Meyer's worst traits. I'm gonna get killed. I just like it First Contact better.

I think it's a better movie overall. There are so many plots going on that all have meaning, and they all feed into each other. And it is a continuation of the series while paying off as a cinematic effort. And it does everything I want from Next Generation. And it handles all of the Roddenberry portion and the I want to see a space adventure portion of what I look for in Starter.

It's the most even First Contact is the most even handed in terms of the entire cast. It feels like an ensemble piece a true ensemble piece, which, as we've gone into detail over all these movies, that's exceedingly rare with any Star Trek movie, be it original series or Next Generation. So that's for me, that's why it puts it a cut above. I still think con is the more important Star Trek movie, but I think First Contact is the better experience. Yeah, I'm echoing you, echoing me.

Yeah. Star Trek was on the ropes when they made Star Trek to the Wrath of Khn, so it was a pleasant surprise and revitalized the system. Had it not worked, there might not have been more Star Trek. People like to say that, but I don't agree with that. There was always going to be a Star Trek a couple of years later.

We were going to get Next Generation. If we weren't going to get that, we're going to get some other lunatic going, hey, we should do Star Trek again. It's such a potent idea. It would continue on no matter what. Clearly, there are so many versions of it now, so many series, so many avenues you can take with it.

Unfortunately, this is our last cinematic next Gen, which it's all the more tragic, I'll say, even though I did play this place that is so fucking high on my list. The other tragic portion of this is it's another scenario where not only do they know it's their last film, but they didn't think they were getting it. Insurrection bombs so fucking hard that there was no way they were bringing them back. They might be able to have cameos on Deep Space nine or that new or some other thing, but I could Deep Space and I was over by that. There's other Star Trek places that they could go to.

So the fact that more people I wish the cast had spoken up a little bit more honestly, instead of being bowled over by the script that they had gotten. I don't know. I'm just talking about my ass now because I can see their point of view. I did read that script. It is a good script that I'm sure was tantalized to them that an Academy Award winner was coming and putting words in their mouths.

Because as much as I'm bitching about all the plot machinations and all the fan service that they're not doing, or all the actor service that they're doing because they want to make the two leads happy, maybe I do think it is a well written script, and I like a lot of the dialogue in the movie, and I like a lot of the ideas in the movie. You brought it up at the beginning. There's so many cool ideas here that could have been explored as its own feature. But ultimately the responsibility is on poor John Logan's shoulders here. He should have killed it.

As a Star Trek fan, we'd written fan fiction at least in his head over the years. Maybe don't go with that, Maybe come up with something new. I get the sense that he had always wondered about the reemans, but this isn't the way to present them. Do you think I mean again, you've done more research into the making of than I have, clearly, But do you think he had a lot of boundary setting by the powers that be that you can't do this and you can't talk about this, and you have to stick to this one lane. Is it possible he was constrained above and beyond what he wanted to.

Do the fact that there are such wild differences from draft to draft, say that was I don't know where it's coming from specifically, but obviously actors have input and stuff that they like and don't like, and think that their character wouldn't do and at that point they are the stewards of those characters, so you got to listen to them. So there's that, But then I gotta say, there's Rick Berman, and there's Paramount itself, and then there's the rest of the cast and the production crew and the Roddenberry's potentially, I don't know. There do seem to be a lot of cooks in the kitchen when it comes to these big franchise movies at studios, so you never know who really to lod and who to blame. What is that to the famous John F.

Kennedy quote that they say that victory has a thousand mothers, but failure is an orphan. Yeah, I think that there's probably some truth. To that here that, yeah, there is no truer environment than the world of Star Trek when it comes to that phrase, Matt, everyone's quick to jump on the fucking success and everyone runs like the fucking rats when it comes to and you know what, like, let's blame part of this on Brent Spiner. His name's on the fucking story. I'm sure by the way, everyone could claim that credit over the years, like oohhuah.

Michelle Nichols probably said I'd like to do a fan dance and technically could have claimed a story about credit. Yeah, how could I forget? I don't know. I'm just being silly now because I like Brent Spiner overall. Obviously I love these characters.

I love this cast like I'm you know what it may by the way, just preemptively, HP and I are going to do an away mission specifically about Picard season three. But the idea that Will Riker takes over the Titan and then the Titan figures heavily in Piccard's season three. In fact, while we while I was watching Percard season three, I kept looking at that ship and going, do I like the Titan better than the fucking Enterprise? It shows very well in season We'll get to it. There's so much to love about season three.

I guess here's the thing. Ultimately, what people should understand. People like me who hadn't seen Piccard's season three, whose last experience Filmicalley of the Next Generation was Nemesis, understand that it took almost twenty five years, but flash forward, Piccard season three is the ending that all of those cast members deserved, all those actors. It's I can't wait to talk about it because it's fabulous. And on that note, we're gonna kick it out of here, kick it on over.

We're gonna kick it to the end of all the true Roddenberry Touched Trek characters and situations. He wouldn't have his hand in anything going forward. Really definitely not the Kilvin universe. All right, folks, go to the Patreon channel that we've got away missions there based on other Star Trek epemera. I keep saying efemera based on other Star Trek material.

And the next episode we are Yeah, it's Star Trek. It's called Star Trek as a matter of fact, from two thousand and nine J. J. Abrams it's Star Trek HP. Until then, where can we find you?

All Right? I co host The Night Mister Walters, a taxi podcast with Father Malone here, and I host the Noise Junkies music podcast, and I also have a band campsite Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. As for me, you're listening to the show we're on twice a week. Patreon channel gets other stuff that you don't. Father Malone, let's Patreon dot com slash Father them alone or if you just want to get in touch with me and yell at me all my star Trek thoughts.

The best place to do it is on Instagram at midnight underscore viewing, but if you want to hit me up directly, you can do so at father Malone seven to one at gmail dot com. All of this stuff is in the show notes. Let's get out of here, Captain Kirk Picard, Captain William Riker of the type