I bought the cd for the movie Star Trek X : Nemesis, the tenth feature film based on Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek vision. Starring : Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Johnathan Frakes as Commander William Riker, Brent Spinner as Lt.Commander Data, Michael Dorn as Lt.Commander Worf, LeVar Burton as Lt.Commander Geordie La Forge, Gates McFadden as Commander (Dr.) Beverly Crusher & Marina Sirtis as Commander (Counselor) Deana Troi. The tagline states what hard core fans like myself fear – A Generation’s Final Journey Begins – this appears to be the final Star Trek movie with the cast for the TNG series (as it proved to be).
A very successful tv series, TNG era has made 4 movies; all of which I have seen and loved but Star Trek X : Nemesis was a failure commercially due to a few reasons beyond the actual story. The movie starts when a Romulan senate is assasinated as a result of a milatry coup and is now controlled by a Reman warrior named Shinzon. Meanwhile, the Enterprise crew is getting ready to say goodbye to the newly wedded Riker & Deanna as Riker has been promoted to Captain of his own vessel. Enroute to the Romulan homeworld, the Enterprise investigate a planet where they get energy readings from and find the seperated parts of an android that looks just like DATA. After reassembling it, the crew understand that the anderoid is a prototype of DATA called B4. They are then assigned to meet the new Romulan Preator, Shinzon, on a diplomatic mission. On meeting Shinzon, the crew and especially the Enterprise Captain are stunned to find that the warrior is actually human and a clone of Picard!
Shinzon seems to want peace but infact wants to destroy the humans and the Romulans. He was cloned by the Romulans in order for them to kidnap Picard & then replace him with Shinzon at a later stage so they can have a spy among the Federation. However, when that plan was abandoned, a child Shinzon was abandoned in a Reman mine where he was taken care of my the slave race. With Shinzon at the helm, the Remans gradually built up momentum and they finally took power. Now, Shinzon is dying as he needs a full blood transfusion from the only matching donor – Picard. He is captured by the Remans and freed by Data later in a thrilling fight scene on the alien ship. A showdown occurs when the Enterprise is attacked by the warbird and is later joined by two Romulan ships who want to dispose of Shinzon. One Romulan ship is destroyed and another paralyzed. Picard goes to Shinzon spaceship to stop the Reman from destroying the crew by activating a super weapon. DATA joins the fight, in which Shinzon is killed and bravely sends the captain back to Enterprise while he is destroyed along with the Reman spaceship.
At the end, B-4 who has been downloaded with all of DATA’s memories is possibly touted as a replacement, without actually mentioning it. Since he is an android and now has all of DATA’s memories, it might only a matter of time when it could be as if DATA was never killed. With that optimism in mind – the crew bid farewell to Riker who is about to take command of the USS Titan as captain, along with Troi.
It’s been stated before that one of the best things about the Internet is that you can discover & share truly wonderful music that you wouldn’t be able to using traditional methods. My mp3 & cd collection is littered with artists who I first heard of from some well meaning music afficionado, either through email or his / her blog. Rodrigo y Gabriela are one such duo and what a fine pair of flamenco guitarists these two are. Raised in Mexico and based in Ireland, these former thrash metal & classic rock musicians have turned to Rumba Flamenco as a form of expressing their music and you will hear flavours of their metal past in everything that they do. There 2006 self-titled album, has songs like Tamacun, what I would like to call world anthems! As the person from whom I found out about this duo puts it, songs like these are enough to deliver world harmony! It is the best track on this album.