STAR TREK: NEMESIS
US, 2002, 116 minutes, Colour.
Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, Tom Hardy, Ron Perlman, Dina Maier, Jude Cicolellat, Kate Mulgrew, Wil Wheaton, Whoopi Goldberg.
Directed by Stuart Baird.
This is the fourth of the feature films focusing on the career of Capt Jean-Luc Picard as captain of the enterprise, played iconically by Patrick Stewart over a period of 35 years. He appeared in a television series beginning in the late 1980s. And, he was to take up his role again in the 2020s. And a number of the supporting cast in these films had roles or cameo appearances in the later television series as well as in a great variety of video games.
This film presupposes the basics of its three predecessors, the crew of the Enterprise and their confrontations with various evil characters, played by Malcolm McDowell, F Murray Abraham. In this film, the villain is quite young, in the court of the Romulans (which resembles ancient Rome), a praetor who rebels against the authorities and destroys them all. He is supported by a team of rather monstrous-looking characters. The surprise, especially in retrospect, is that the villain is played by a very young Tom Hardy in his early 20s. In the years following, he played a number of significant roles, but then Bronson which led to his international career and international prominence.
The development in the series is another character, an android, similar looking to Data and played also by Brent Spiner. In fact, Data has undergone quite a transformation throughout these films, initially a subject for jokes about being human and feeling and the limitations of androids to his becoming essential to the management of the enterprise and also some heroics.
The villain is self-confident, hostile to earth and humans, but injecting himself with the blood of Picard, bond in which he understands Picard’s mentality – and vice versa. This leads to some confrontations, verbal, threatening, the challenge to Picard to confront this something of an alter ego. Picard has the complete support of his crew, even, at the end, to Data achieving heroics and giving his life for Picard. The rest of the team are their usual selves – except that at the beginning of the film there is a wedding ceremony in which William Riker marries Deanna. Honeymoon postponed and their both being involved in the attack, even a psychic/physical assault on Deanna.
Ultimately, there is a huge battle, and a smashing finale as the enterprise bores its way through the opposing vehicle, smithereens. And then, the confrontation between Picard and the villain.
In 2009, the next series of Star Trek movies began, with Chris Pine as James T.Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock, prequel films.
