An Analysis of Star Trek Nemesis (SPOILER)

This is a SPOILER. Do not read if you haven't seen the movie!


By Sav.

Star Trek: Nemesis, the latest installment of the highly successful movies staring the cast of the prime-time hit show Star Trek: The Next Generation, tackles many critical issues facing our modern society while repeating, and trying to augment through, age-old motifs found in mankind�s ancient myths.

Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), the Captain of the infamous Starship Enterprise, faces off with Shinzon (Tom Hardy), a clone of Picard who has a beef with the Romulans (who created him), Earthlings (who most Star Trek villains hate), and Picard himself. The dialogue between Picard and Shinzon and about Shinzon by other characters raises some critical questions poised by our own modern society about the morality, and possibilities, inherent in cloning.

One of these questions is whether a genetic duplicate will look identical to the original being. Star Trek scriptwriters decided that nurture might be a more powerful indication than nature of an individual�s mental and physical characteristics: Shinzon, far younger than Picard, physically appears much different than his donor in more ways than age. He describes being constantly beaten by his Romulan overseers and that his broken nose and bludgeoned face have healed, and scarred, forming the familiar-yet-different face.

Another question poised by our society is: will a clone share its donor�s intelligence, personality and emotional makeup? Shinzon proves to be an intellectual match for Picard. He is a tactical genius, besting both his Romulan enemies and Picard at almost every turn, secretly constructing a ship that can destroy starships and entire worlds, and galvanizing the people of Remus (slaves of the Romulans) into a coup of the Romulan Senate. He shares Picard�s confidence, charisma, wit, and war tactics. However, he is proven to be very unlike Picard in his lack of sympathy, morality, or honor. He is a vengeful, over-confident, and altogether evil villain eager to impose his will on the Romulans and, eventually, the Federation.

Shinzon represents our current questions of whether it �can be done�. He has been created with Picard�s genes and has grown into a younger, near-replica of his donor, but he suffers pangs of pain and it is soon explained that he is dying. It seems the Romulan Senate responsible for creating Shinzon �programmed� his genes so that he could undergo �accelerated aging� later on in his life cycle. This was replaced by another Senate that decided it didn�t need Picard�s clone anymore and decided to send Shinzon to Remus to mine dilithium as a Romulan slave. The plan forgotten by the current leaders of Romulus (the Romulan home planet), he was never treated for this condition and is now dying. The only way he is to survive is to bleed Picard dry of �good blood and genes� and put these originals in his own, cloned, body.

The writers surely took pains to ensure the audience knew Shinzon was an unnatural, if not unholy, abomination by settling the matter, and ending Shinzon�s life, with an Arthurian motif, replicating the scene from Le Morte d�Arthur where King Arthur stabs Mordred (the bastard son of the incestuous union between Arthur and his sister Morgana LeFey) with a spear. Mordred then pulls himself, hand over hand, up the spear to deliver Arthur�s death-blow. Shinzon dies as Mordred did. And where Arthur survives and is taken away to the mythical island Avalon, Picard is delivered haphazardly to the bridge of the Enterprise.

The finding of the parts of the android B4/Before (Brent Spiner), the prototype, and physical replica, of Commander Data (Brent Spiner) alludes to the Age-old Egyptian god Osiris. Osiris, murdered by Typhon, or set, was cut into pieces that were spread along the Nile. The goddess Isis then collected Osiris� body parts and she reassembled him. He is reborn and becomes the god of the underworld.

B4 is reassembled by Doctor Crusher (Gates McFadden) who comments to Data, standing nearby, that she prefers Data�s eyes to B4�s: an allusion to Osiris� symbol in hieroglyphic text � the eye. Commander LaForge (Levar Burton) conveniently downloads all of Data�s memories into B4 in the hopes that the rediscovered, �newborn� android might better be able to function in the interstellar community if it has access to Data�s experience. After Data is killed off, Picard hears B4 sing a song earlier sung by Data and it seems inevitable that Data will arise from the ashes in the next installment of the series. Sigh�

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[Edited on 16-12-2002 by Savonarola]

[Edited on 16-12-2002 by Savonarola]

[Edited on 16-12-2002 by Savonarola]

yeah sure, the freudian and Jungian analysis is fine, and the reviewer sure knows his mythical history and can draw parallels between this movie and the rest of mythical history (be they pertinent, relevent, or even valid is another question)

... but is it a good movie???

I don't want to know how smart the reviewer is, I want to know how good the MOVIE is...

[Edited on 16-12-2002 by Netchicken]

I enjoyed the movie alot...other then one part that as a loyal tng trekkie i didn't like

Netchicken,

I'll give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Breakdown of Pros goes like this:

One star for being a star trek movie - Star Trek: the Motion Picture was a 1 for this reason.

One star for having a kick-butt space battle.

One star for tackling issues such as cloning and biological weapons and forcing viewers to consider the implications.

Cons:

Lost one star for having way too much inter-trek character dialogue - if you didn't watch the TV series or the previous movies you will feel vary lost in this movie.

Lost one star for being too melodramatic - far worse than any Trek movie to date. That 'choked up' sensation in my throat didn't come from sorrow or even a sense of trek nostalgia. It was bile.

There you have it. 3 out of ten.

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at least it's an even-numbered Star Trek, so it can't be all bad...

Haven't seen it yet, but will soon...

Did you note that the reason Shinzon was dying was that he was treated to suspend the rapid aging in his genetic make-up and thus rendered his DNA unstable? Did you also take note of Picard's reluctance to kill Shinzon and the mental anguish of killing his 'mirror'? One other thing, on the "One Sheet" it said "A Generation's Final Journey Begins". This can most assuredly be taken to mean that there will be no more movies featuring the STTNG cast. Riker and Deanna were married and after the honeymoon had orders to another vessal. That breaks up the crew and that will be that. It was interesting to note that Admiral Janeway debuted in this picture, which may indicate that the next movie in the series may feature the Voyager crew. (One can only hope). I enjoyed this outing and look forward to the next one.

Troy

I think they will skip the DS9 and Voyager series and start doing Enterprise movies