Monday December 16, 2002 at 04:13 pm

Aight here we are again, another Monday, another day to contemplate why the hell I still sit at this place day in and day out, but better yet, another slow, boring Monday to which allows me ample time to write this LONG, and yes, that was a warning, blog to cover this weekend events.

Friday – A day that shall live in some infamy, at least for those who lives transcends reality into that of the silver screen, and who loose themselves within it. But I won’t really delve into to much detail but let’s just say a tragic event occurred. I had almost forgotten about it until Tom called and told me I should go home sick from work so we could roll out. Initially I just thought it was because he had hooked up a gig, with potential to be all that, but I was wrong, he wanted to go peep out…

The Federation is about to encounter its greatest challenge – The Romulans want peace. Conceived in the regal senate halls of Romulus and forged in the dilithium mines of Remus, comes a nemesis bent on destroying Picard… and the entire Federation.

Ordered by Starfleet to be the first line of diplomacy in ushering in a new era for the Federation, the crew of the USS Enterprise-E is dispatched to Romulus for an unexpected peace mission. Once in the shadow of the Romulan Empire, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the Enterprise crew are thrust into the center of a plot that couldlead to the destruction of Earth at the hands of a new and chilling nemesis.

Damn, I couldn’t believe I had totally forgotten about it coming out this weekend, but nonetheless, me going home early to see it, was out of the question, however that’s not to say there’s wouldn’t be many later showings. Now before I go to far let me just say I’m am not a diehard Trekie like what some of you may seen on TV, but I am a fan. I have been since I was a little kid, it was the only thing me and my dad ever used to watch together, unless it was something like Star Wars, or some big Sci-Fi movie or series. So yeah I’ve always been a Sci-Fi nut. Anyway, over the years I’ve narrowed my following down to a few shows/movies, but Star Trek always being one of the top ones; it’s a classic that’s lasted the test of time. So I leave work, roll over to Tom’s crib, and then we roll out to Arizona Mills to peep out the 12:30am show, all the while anticipating what to expect the from the very darkened and shadowed trailers that have been showing since last summer. One thing I had not taken into consideration was “The Curse” of all Star trek films, but I’ll get into that later.

When I went to see this I, had one major anticipation in mind, and that was to see the Enterprise F, which I feel is still a reasonable aspect, especially after seeing the movie.

In the end there were a few things that I think many Trek fans have to question.

1)���� In all previous episodes and even series Worf, marries Deanna Troi, yet we begin this movie with Deanna marrying Cmd. Riker. Can we say lack of consistency here?

2)���� Even though Wesley was written off in the original TNG series to have become an all powerful traveler, he somehow manages to make it back for Riker and Deanna’s wedding. Hmm how did they get a hold of an omnipresent being?

3)���� What was the deal with Data’s makeup; we’re talking the verge of a Tammy Faye epidemic here.

Now for some more, severe issues, after we realize the enterprise if going to be in a huge fire fight.

After encounters with the Borg, the Cardassians, the Dominion, and Specifies 8472, you would think Star Fleet would increase their pride and joy flag ship with a more firepower and better defenses and off all else a faster engine, but they don’t.

1)���� Enterprise gets hawked down while fleeing at maximum speed like a dog trying to outrun a cheetah. How is this possible when the Enterprise is one of the fastest vessels in the galaxy, especially after it is made known that Capt. Janeway and Voyager have returned from their 7 year journey being stranded in the delta quadrant?

2)���� They have no transphasic weapons, and the weapons they have do little more than scratch their opponent’s vessel. Once again due to Janeway’s presence being known, why has Starfleet not implemented outer shielding to it’s pride and joy, that they so frequently choose to handle the most delicate and dangerous missions? Voyager was outfitted with both of these items in their final episode and yet Enterprise doesn’t have them, seems a little strange. And if you ask well what if Enterprise was away when she returned? Well they weren’t the finale episode of Voyager shows almost the entire fleet including the Defiant and Enterprise, awaiting a possible Borg invasion as they come through.

3)���� This one is more like common sense. Deanna has crashed the Enterprise in 2 of the three previous “Next Generation” movies, why would you let her drive again. Maybe it’s an inside joke, but you guessed it another Enterprise collision, the only difference in this one is Picard actually orders her to do so, which I must say is a great visually sequence.

4)���� Now onto the spoiler, for those who have not seen or read the dozens of sites that had info on the script beforehand. In the beginning, Enterprise picks up faint signals that match those of Data’s, and everybody is stunned and doesn’t know what to think. My 1^st thoughts were Lore, Data’s corrupted brother, whom was last seen on a deserted planet with a band of renegade Borg, and was later blown up, dismantled and tossed into the dark regions of space. So why it is that no one else thought of this possible scenario, that he ended up in pieces on this remote planet near the neutral zone. But it turns out it’s not him and is in fact a prototype of Data with almost the exact same features, but without the knowledge and self evolved neural networks that Data has built up over the years, but has the addition of a 2^nd memory bank (hmm can we say leaving a nice lead)

5)���� The last bit I would say is the lack of originality, big spoiler here…Data dies. But wait, before he dies, in an attempt to find out more about this prototype called B4, he downloads his entire memory bank into the B4, to try and jumpstart the child like B4, into making sense of things, and providing some useful info, this of course failed, or so we think, because at the end we see b4 singing a melody Data, had sung earlier in the movie. This is almost a direct copy of Spocks death in the Wrath of Khan, where Spock sacrifices himself to save everyone from an antimatter breach, but before hand transfers his mind into Dr McCoy’s. As we all know this lead to Star Trek – “The Search for Spock”.

Okay enough of the bad critiquing, and onto the curse, the curse, basically has shown that all even numbered Star Trek movies, are good, and all odd number movies, suck, well Nemesis, I have to say very likely broke this curse, as though it wasn’t as great as First Contact, it defiantly was better than Insurrection, as well as some of the other Classic Star Trek Movies, for instance Star trek – The Motion Picture, in which the only aspect that I liked about it, was that in the end the villain threatening the Earth was the Voyager space module launched in the 1977 that had evolved, but what some may say is the original version of the Borg, has it’s main goal was to assimilate information. Overall I give Star Trek – Nemesis, 3 ¾ out of 5 stars.

But wait there’s more, not about the movie, but about the weekend, but since I’m going to lunch now, and it took all day to find these links, I’ll write the rest later.