Ye Olde Staging Point

I had a good feeling about this one going into the theater, and the movie did not let me down. A few things that struck me about the movie, and about what it reveals to us about the Star Trek universe:

• the Federation really, really needs to figure out the whole "cloaking technology" thing. I mean, enemy ships with cloaking devices have been terrorizing the freedom-loving peoples of the galaxy for how many ST movies now? Apparently every spacefaring race in the entire universe has developed cloaking technology for its ships, but the Federation, bastion of freedom and the pursuit of knowledge, just can't figure it out. I mean, it's a safe bet that even the primitive, gun-wielding, jeep-driving aliens from the first half of this movie probably had cloaking technology perfected.

• I would really like to see a Tholian. We don't get to see a Tholian in this movie, but for a moment they dangle before the audience the possibility that we just might see one, and for that brief anticipatory thrill, I thank you, Nemesis.

• the bad guy's starship--the Reman Scimitar--is hands-down the coolest bad-guy ship to hound the Enterprise since the Klingon Bird of Prey from several movies earlier. When it decloaked for the first time, I experienced a visceral thrill akin to the time in ST3 when we see the Bird of Prey decloak right behind a soon-to-be-destroyed pirate vessel. ST has always been great at using starship and architectural designs to communicate the values and dispostion of the owning race--from the brutish, predatory designs of Klingon warships to the non-threatening, almost soothing ovoid designs of Federation ships. The brooding menace of the Scimitar and its owners is clearly conveyed the instant we set eyes on it.

• annoying characters are kept mostly to the sidelines in Nemesis. There are a few terrible scenes in which Beverly Crusher has lines (helpfully informing the crew and the audience that lethal radiation is very very bad). But at least Gynan, the Star Trek character than which none more horrific can be conceived, only gets one or two short lines.

• the movie had some very strong emotional scenes--especially from captain Picard. Good, believable stuff; when something happens to one crewmember, the anguish of the others feels real and inspires empathy from the audience.

• I don't really understand why the evil alien viceroy employed his telepathic powers to cause mental anguish to counselor Troi. I guess he's just a very evil person who is really mean.

• I'm also not entirely clear exactly what the bad guy's motivations were. Why is he bent on destroying Earth exactly? And does he need captain Picard's DNA, or does he not? Because I counted over 8,000 moments in the film where he could have just gotten captain Picard and taken his DNA, but instead Picard kept getting released.

But all these comments aside, what clearly makes this movie great is the phenomenal space battle scene that occupies the final third of the film. The space battle in this movie--between the Enterprise and the Scimitar (with a brief but awesome appearance by two Romulan Warbirds)--is everything I have ever wanted to see in a Star Trek movie. We have not seen a Star Trek space battle scene this great since ST2. Some highlights:

• first and foremost, I loved the way that the battle scene really communicated the scale and nature of ST deep-space combat: less like Star Wars fighters and more like World War I dreadnaughts. I got a really strong sense that these were massive battlecruisers manuvering for advantage, struggling to outguess the opponent's moves, and unloading massive broadsides into each other at close range. In Nemesis, as it should be, killing a starship is a long and brutal process that requires hitting it with a massive amount of sheer firepower; there is no cheesy "weak spot" that when hit will cause the enemy ship to just explode. And defeated ships don't explode (as if any sane captain would keep a super-expensive starship in a fight long enough to be obliterated); they list off into space or are forced to disengage. ST is traditionally weak in this area, and so seeing an honest-to-God space juggernaut battle was simply awesome.

• seeing the Enterprise and the two warbirds moving in formation, probing the battlespace for the Scimitar by firing torpedo and phaser spreads, was just breathtakingly cool. Also, the ruse used by the bad guys to take out the last Warbird was classic and very ST. Occurences like this remind us that a ST capital ship battle is as much about outwitting the other captain as it is about having lots of guns and shields.

• it was nice to see the strengths and weaknesses of the different ships types as they played out in combat. The Enterprise is a formidable and manuverable opponent, but it can't go toe-to-toe with a fully loaded-out (but less agile) warship like the Scimitar. The smaller and faster Enterprise and Warbirds use speed to stay alive while taking potshots at the heavier Scimitar. The Enterprise's shields get knocked out entirely by the end of the fight, but the Scimitar's shields are still at 70% during the final phase of the confrontation.

• I was pleased to see that the Handrails of Death which seem to be standard issue in all Federation (and Klingon) starships did their jobs well, causing many a nameless ensign to flip over them dramatically when the Enterprise gets hit.

Was the movie perfect? By no means; it's riddled through with plot holes, unexplored moral issues (some of the scenes with B4--the earlier version of Data--were heartwrenching, and the tension-laden, melodramatic discussions between Picard and Zin-shon about topics like fate and free will should have been expanded),and shaky storyline development (what exactly is the bad guy doing?). But in the end, it made me wish that our universe was just a little bit more like the Star Trek universe, where good and evil clash and heroes push the limits of their own ability to overcome inner and outer demons alike. In classic ST tradition, it coats its tremendous action sequences and imaginative visuals with just enough "deep thoughts" to make you feel like you're watching a smarter movie than you actually are. And that's exactly what I wanted from this film.

Good stuff.