[JR585]

Nero is angry. No doubt about that. He's an angry future Romulan. However, I think he wouldn't be so angry if he received a nice foot massage.

Don't you think?

[MagaditH]

Yeah if he got one from Riker.

[Summer Storm Pictures]

While I enjoyed this last movie, not only for it's experimental value, but for it's big-budget treatment and box office success that proved Star Trek could be relevant to a wider audience, I have to admit that Nero was one of, if not the most uninspired villain in all of Star Trek.

It's hard to make an ''uber villain'' credible anymore. Even in the last Die Hard movie, which I thought was absolutely incredibly entertaining, the uber villain was the weakest part of the story. Uber villains really only work in stories like The Dark Knight, and perhaps the late Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker may be the high point of this kind of mentally challenged/tortured villain. Who knows. I'd like to see a villain with a diabolical plot that wasn't so far fetched and that didn't rely on a suspension of disbelief in human nature (or ''alien nature''). Twenty-five years is a long time to harbor a destructive hatred--not to mention that somehow his crew would have to have to be equally inspired. What was their motivation? Who wants to spend their life on a mining vessel pursuing such a silly premise for revenge? Maybe they all drank and ate from mercury laced tableware--I'd go with something like that.

If one looks at the treatment of ''forces of evil'' in for example the Bourne trilogy or in the last two Bond movies, there's really a lot of room for a deeper level of inspired creativity in storytelling.

[kevin]

The Die Hard villains got a bit dull - but by the time John McClane was standing on a fighter's wing engaged in combat with a truck I had kinda given up caring about anything happening in that flick - and Nero is a skoosh on the weak side.

Not that I would call the last two Bourne...er Bond...flicks particularly inventive re villainy. Bourne knock-off's maybe, but not overly creative in and of themselves.

However, it does highlight a shift in some films portrayal of what a 'villain' is and how they operate. Complexity and depth has never - despite some claims to contrary - been a particularly core ingredient of a Star Trek villain and while on the one hand one could argue that they were maintaining the normal status quo for a Trek villain, they could maybe have moved with the times a bit.

Then again, as Nero is more a catalyst than an active villain and is little more than an extended cameo, one could concede his failure is less detrimental to the overall picture than the similar lack of inspiration in the two villains of the last Bond flicks. Who were abysmal.

Where Bourne got it right, Bond screwed it up. Royale-ly!

[kevin]

Originally Posted by JR585

Nero is angry. No doubt about that. He's an angry future Romulan. However, I think he wouldn't be so angry if he received a nice foot massage.

Don't you think?

I think I want whatever you take in the morning.

[Kaboom]

Nero was cool, but it's not surprising that he wasn't too deep (unless you've read Countdown, at least). The character focus was on the Enterprise and her crew. Nero was merely the common enemy that brought them all together.

He's still better than Shinzon and Sybok, though.

[Saquist]

I'm sure the future technology ...like everything explains the anger and ineptitude of Nero-stupidus.

Maybe it's..."evolution"

[kevin]

Originally Posted by Kaboom

He's still better than Shinzon and Sybok, though.

Oh Goodness yes!!! On a scale of them all he would absolutely be above those idiots, even if he also wouldn't be at the top remotely! He'd also be ahead of R'uafo.

Originally Posted by Saquist

I'm sure the future technology ...like everything explains the anger and ineptitude of Nero-stupidus.

Maybe it's..."evolution"

Hey, it could be - that could explain the ultimate ineptitude of most Trek villains!

[Kaboom]

Originally Posted by kevin

He'd also be ahead of R'uafo.

Who?


... Oh right. Insurrection's villain.