[NAHTMMM]

Re: the (rather foul-mouthed) link.

But we also, with Winona Kirk, get to catch a first glimpse of the "wonderful" and "strong" female characters we'll see throughout the movie. All she does is give birth and cry.

She also manages to remain coherent and to try to include her husband in the experience as best she can, instead of (for example) dissolving into repetitions of "No! Get out of there! YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME! YOU CAN'T LEAVE US!" etc. Part of her dialogue does move the plot along, yes, but it's neither stilted nor forced-into-the-scene. So yes, I'd say she's strong.


The part with the car kinda jarred with the rest of the movie for me, yes. Not having seen the deleted scene, it likely was deleted for purposes of audience appeal, sure. But unless there was some really good stuff in it, I personally could do without such scenes. You can guess how they're going to play out for the most part, for one thing, and . . . I dunno, I guess I just have an aversion to them.


Never occurred to me to question a chasm in Iowa.


Oh, right, the Klingon thing. That just sounds ridiculous, and I'm not going to defend it.

But then the movie suddenly remembers, "Oh, yeah, talking is lame and boring. We gotta get to the action!"

It rather felt like that, but for dramatic and plot purposes they needed Kirk's standing to be in that gray area. He had to be able to move around freely to get to the ships, but if the hearing had concluded -- cheating or security-violating -- the punishment would probably have been too harsh to allow for that, even if he weren't thrown out of the Academy.


This next bit about Uhura and Spock's relationship is, just to be clear, entirely made-up. I would be equally justified to wonder what the man's opinion of black women must be, for him to think that Uhura would have to be having sex with Spock to get a compliment out of him. It's that unsupported and . . . stereotypical, for lack of a better word.


Not fond of the movie's warp "effect", myself. I like my warp effects to be kinda flashy, and the SFX people went with . . . barely anything at all. Probably the "realistic" route, sure, but this is supposed to be a blockbuster action movie and you're going to put an arrogant cadet in the captain's chair of Starfleet's best ship at the end, so give it some flair dagnabbit.


Not very happy about Amanda dying, especially what with her standing needlessly far out from the rest of the group for no apparent reason, but it wasn't just for cheap emotional value. It wound up driving the plot later on. Just to be fair.


The finale was not over-explosive. Kirk was not very bright, though.

But why did Nemesis fail where Trek XI had succeeded?

Because Nemesis's "plot" was disjointed, made precious little sense repeatedly, and screeched to a halt whenever it was time for a "kewl" scene?

The man has a point -- Nemesis contained more of a 'deeper message' than XI does, even if it did feel like an afterthought at times. But people don't generally watch a movie--even a Trek movie--primarily for its deeper messages. They might watch it for the engaging story, for the plot twists, for the characters, for the dialogue, for the SFX, for the scenery (human, landscape, or otherwise), for the humor, for the emotional effect, for the curiosity of seeing what on Earth the producers did with a thirty trillion dollar budget. Most of these, I felt, were missing from Nemesis. I think the biggest difference in terms of quality between the two movies, for me, would be the emotional impact and the story. (Have you guessed? ) XI's story, like it or not (and I don't entirely), mostly held together and flowed from one minute to the next. That much is good writing.