Did anyone else think that when Riker and the bad guy jumped through that chute that they’d end up in the garbage compactor?
“I don’t care what you smell, get in there!”
And when Data blew up, I thought “Man, he’s gonna need a serious defrag!”
I didn’t understand why the bad guy wanted to smoke Earth, either, and I thought the whole “I am you and you are me” crap was annoying. I could believe that the Romulans got ahold of Picard’s DNA one of those times he was captured during TNG’s run (i.e. “Unification”), but creating a clone of him sounds almost Bond-villianish in its stupid overcomplexity (not to mention leaving Picard with one inept guard in a blatant Austin Powers ripoff).
The bad guy (who doesn’t look anything like Picard, except for the baldness, and certainly doesn’t resemble the young Picard we’ve seen in the “Tapestry” episode and elsewhere) took a sample of Picard’s blood, but for some reason didn’t take enough to cure his ailment, forcing that dumb chase. Bad guys never behave logically. They like to delay for no reason.
Another dumb cliché: Picard saying “This is something I have to do!” Well, okay, John Wayne, you go ahead and abandon your ship and risk capture because a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Picard’s shocked paralysis after he impales Cloney is out of place, too. HeLLO! The countdown is conTINuing! Please dont stand there like an IDiot!
The genetics thing is actually kind of distasteful, implying that a genetic copy of Picard would naturally rise to the top of his local society. Edgar Rice Burroughs did the same kind of thing in his “Tarzan” books, implying that a white man of noble blood would naturally end up ruling his environment. Apparantly, experience and training count for squat in the Trek universe. Also, apparantly, accents are genetic.
The deus ex plot point hinging on Troi’s telepathy is another tired premise. This guy meets Troi once and he’s ready to waste time doing a little mind-raping? Geez, pal, I know you’ve never seen a human (well, half-human) woman before, but why not take the free’n’easy nookie, like that Romulan babe who threw herself at you? It might have been more interesting if the clone was attracted to Beverly Crusher, as it has been well-established that Picard is.
That Romulan babe did change sides with surprising alacrity, I thought.
Actually, if you wanted to do the whole “mirror” premise (a painful cliché in itself), they could have brought in Thomas Riker, recently freed from his Cardassian prison at the end of the Dominion War and incredibly pissed off and vengeance-minded. Maybe he goes nuts when he hears about William Riker and Troi.
And “Admiral” Janeway? BLECH! How does she rate a promotion? Her ship was in the Delta Qaudrant for seven years because she fucked up! GW Bush has nothing on Janeway when it comes to “falling up.”
I’m sure a lot of people though the duplicate android in the promos was Lore, but where the hell did the “B4” droid come from, and how did the bad guy get hold of him? When they found the droid, I felt like shouting “Didn’t you even watch the show?!” when Picard ordered him re-assembled. Great sense of security you have there, JLP! Not only are you assembling a droid of unknown origin, programming and capabilities that looks exactly like one of your own officers, but you let that officer download all his memories into it (including, presumably, classified material) and then leave it alone in engineering, where experience shows a Soong android could seize control of the ship with ease!
By piling on the relentless clichés and stupidity, I put this movie at the bottom third, a hair above Final Frontier and Insurrection, mostly because the effects and the title font were moderately cool.