just finished watching the director’s commentary for star trek: first contact. man, that movie is SO good. The Best Star Trek Movie, in my opinion. oh, there’s wrath of khan and everything, but the fact of the matter is first contact is almost perfect. i think a big part of what makes first contact so good (and what made nemesis so very very bad), is jonathan frakes and brannon braga and ron moore. nemesis, while well-meaning, was like a kick in the nuts. what kind of send-off for the franchise was that? the director clearly didn’t care about the character relationships or the history of the show, and i’m appalled that no one stopped him at some point to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing.
meanwhile, jonathan frakes was intimately familiar with the source material (the tv show), had a real respect for the franchise and knew how to capture the moments that made the audience feel the history of the characters and their loyalty and sense of family and all of those other fuzzy feelings that make a movie special (also, patrick stewart’s ripped arms. mustn’t forget the surprising sexiness of picard as action hero). brannon braga and ron moore wrote a script with fantastic pacing, a titillating premise and rich secondary characters – i cannot honestly, or in good conscience, refer to shinzon as a ‘rich character’. i’m not even sure that’s john logan’s fault – i think the movie was simply poorly executed. it was stylistically interesting, but where was the heart? no moment with geordi about the death of his best friend? wtf? sad. really really sad.
i think i’ll continue my nerd-day by either watching the commentary for insurrection or the hunt for red october (another facet of my nerdiness: submarines. also naval aviators. it runs in the family. the navy, not the nerdiness.)