Another nit: the Panda didn’t have that much of a part. I guess because the whole movie was a set up for the ramming which has a certain innuendo effect.
Seriously, that short, almost non existant marital relations scene got it a PG-13? Sheese! Should’ve seen what going on in the audience with some of bored non trekkers!
Oh, and to answer someone’s question earlier. In the trailer, Shinzon morphs into Picard.
Biggest problem for me? Enterprise is warping towards the rendezvous point being pursued by a wickedly nasty opponent right? Now the navigator completely FAILED to plot a course AROUND the rift which would disable long-range sensors and long-range communication. I can understand the need to go the straight-line route, but what kind of dumbass do you have to be to have your route lead into the spacial equivelant of a box canyon? Jeebus! They said the rift was small and it would only take a few minutes to get through, so why couldn’t they have plotted a course around it without impacting their ETA with the fleet too severely?
Dumbasses!
Enjoy,
Steven
Aha! Dina Meyer played the Romulan commander babe. I knew she looked/sounded familiar! OK, so that’s at least one thing I liked about the movie.
First of all, I have to admit I kinda liked this movie. However, my favorite point was…wait for it…need some space to emphasize:
When the movie projector crashed and rebooted to a Windows XP logo.
Verily, the audience erupted with catcalls and hoots of derision. Many cries of “Get a Mac!” were to be heard. 
“Mr. Troi, you have the bridge.”
Then Riker gives him an annoyed look.
It was quite clear to me from that scene that Picard had given the bridge to Will, but that he was referring to him as Mr. Troi because he is now married to Troi. I thought it was a clever little bit commenting on the gender equality of the future in that either partner could be taking the other’s name (although I did speculate about whether taking the wife’s name was a specifically Betazed tradition).
Did I miss something? Didn’t anyone else read the scene that way?
In other news, I really liked the movie. I took it in the spirit it was intended, as an extra-long TNG episode with great special effects, and on that basis it succeeded. It was no Khan, but since that’s my favorite movie of all time, that’s not surprising.
Did they ever say who designed The Weapon? 'Cause it could always come back.
Imagine:
Galaxy War I
Genesis torpedo vs Therion* Weapon vs The Ultimate Computer vs What would God need with a star ship? vs Borg vs Dominion vs Warp 10 Lizards vs … (!!!)
'Cept they didn’t say, “We don’t have enough power for transporters.” Geordi said, “That’s it. The transporters have shorted out.” And, if that disk was the source of the energy (or was a mini-transporter in itself), there’s a bigger problem. That means that the disk not only has the power to dematerialize something, but itself as well, beam it to whatever location its supposed to go (Is it preprogrammed or does it lock on the nearest Federation vessel?), and then rematerialize at the correct destination. If it can do all that, one has to wonder why it’s not surgically implanted into every Star Fleet member, with a cybernetic triggering system so that if one finds him/her/itself in deep shit, they can beam themselves out of it.
Seems to me, the smart thing for Data to do (even if it simply supplied power to the transporters) would have been to carry two of them. He could then slap one on Picard, send him back, set his phaser on “overload,” chuck it next to the weapon, and then send himself back.
I think the teleport disk thing was experimental and they only had one.
I imagine it’s preprogrammed, but either way would probably work. The reason they only had one is because it’s experimental; Data said as much himself when introducing it.
You hoo-mahns and your narrow minded view of the cosmos. Picard on Enterprise bridge existed simultaneously with Picard on other Picard’s ship’s bridge, the minidisc recording medium doubling as a faux transporter was actually a multiuniversal reality shifter that operates on the priciple of “Somebody Else’s Problem,” and requires the power of an entire galaxy somewhere in someone else’s reality imploding in on itself in femtoseconds, thus answering why it would rarely be used.
Yeah, I thought the teleport disk was their prototype, that LaForge hid on Data in case he or Picard needed it.
I think the discussion is focused on what happened later in the movie when Data gave the bridge to Troi right before he launched himself into outerspace.
Thanks, pepperlandgirl. Sometimes I think the reason that I enjoy these movies more than other people is that I don’t pay enough attention.
That may be, but Starfleet is a military organization and she’s a commander and a command-qualified officer. That’s all that matters.
Trust me, rank always trumps competence when you’re wearing a uniform.
One of my major nits with the whole series is the military/non-military question.
In one of the earliest eps of 1st season TNG, Picard says, “Star Fleet is not a military organization. We are explorers.” (Or the essence there of…)
Not military?!?
Hmm… let’s see…
Ranks and protocol - - - Military
Commissioned vessels - - - Military
Homeland/planet defense - - Military
Policy of being as heavily armed as you need to be - - - Military!
Sheesh! One of the earliest classes for Star Fleet officers is “How to intimidate indenginous species by showing that you could eliminate them but the Prime Directive prohibits you from doing so 101.”
I enjoyed the movie. But it probably wouldn’t stand on it’s own outside of the franchise.
Someone has been reading the Nitpickers guide 
Yeah, I actually submitted that to the nitpickers guide back in 1994 or so. Got me an honest to god Phil Farrand response. To bad my comp crashed and I never printed out the e-mail, cause I’m famous baby!
Actually he told me it had already been discussed in detail but he liked my Star Fleet course idea… A day late and a dollar short.
I agree, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing in this case. They drew on the characterizations we’ve gotten from the past 15 years. Would we have cared as much about Data, or understood Picard, as well as we do without the franchise?
It sucked. It was the best TNG film, but that’s not saying anything, because they’ve all sucked, too.
Data is standing next to Picard before he beams over to Shinzon’s ship, and knows systems are faulty. He doesn’t give Picard the micro-transporter then? Data would think of these things. But no, they had to contrive a way for Data to die.
In the screenplay, as he dies, Shinzon twists himself and the metal pole so as to trap Picard. If that’s what happened here, Baird’s piss-poor direction didn’t let us see it, because it looks like Picard’s just standing there like a doofus.
B-4 blew. Should have been Lore, in league with Shinzon.
The female Romulan should have been Sela. The male Romulan commander should have been Tomalak, and the Praetor should have been the one we saw in Deep Space Nine.
Picard should have told Admiral Janeway to get bent and called her “an incompetent tool who got her whole stinkin’ ship lost in the Delta Quadrant,” then hung up and waited for a real admiral to call him.
The dune buggy thing spits in the face of all Trek prime directive rules and anyone who cares about continuity.
The denoument was lamely handled. We got no real sense of remorse for the loss of Data. Riker bounded in happy as a school boy before leaving the ship. We should have had a last seen with Picard and Crusher (like the one in the script).
Please, God, let this be the last one.
The GPA ratings:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture. D
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. A
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. B
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. A-
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. D+
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. A
Star Trek Generations. C-
Star Trek: First Contact. C
Star Trek: Insurrection. C-
Star Trek: Nemesis. C+
And Star Trek V is still officially in continuity. It is listed as such in the Encylopedia nad the Chronology. Rodenberry didn’t consider it continuity, but frankly, he turned into a bowl of fruit loops before he kicked off (he kept wanting to do a movie where the Trek crew went back to stop the Kennedy assassination… wtf?)
I know that a lot of your rant is just bizarre, pent-up emotion, but let me at least address one of your points that I think you meant seriously. A fat lot of good that would have done! How is Picard supposed to stop the weapon and beam back? Maybe you didn’t notice this, as it was kind of subtle, but the ship blew up when Data did exactly what Picard was going to do!!! The only way Data was going to save Picard’s life was by physically slapping the transporter onto Picard himself.