The thought of watching a new Star Trek film, at one time, was an exciting one. Seeing all your favourite characters up there on the screen taking on the latest galactic challenge while telling an engrossing and intelligent story brought a sense of glee and delight for many a Star Trek fan, myself included. With the exception of the fifth film, all the films up to and including “First Contact” made for some exciting cinematic experiences. And then, right around the time that “Insurrection” came out and “Deep Space Nine” departed the air waves, something unfortunate started happening to the franchise: it became stale. It was bound to happen at some time but this was still Star Trek; the most successful science-fiction television/film franchise ever produced. Seeing it degenerate was a disappointing experience to say the least because it is more than just a franchise, it is part of our culture.

Much debate surrounds which film is worse: “Insurrection” or “Nemesis”. Both are inherently weak but for very different reasons. Ultimately the lack of care taken with both of the stories presented in these films led to the demise of the feature film franchise, a demise which was simultaneously reflected in the television series being produced at the time (Voyager and Enterprise). Producer Rick Berman would create the often quoted phrase, “franchise fatigue”; Star Trek had been on for too long with too many episodes and films produced and it basically had just tired itself out of ideas. There is a certain logic to that, after all, if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, eventually you will run out of ways to keep it fresh and original.

For fans however, this sounded more like an excuse, and Berman, who for all intents and purposes did an excellent job of shepherding Star Trek after series creator Gene Roddenberry passed away, was becoming demonised in the fan community, along with co-Executive Producer from the television shows Brannon Braga, as the men who killed Star Trek. This is perhaps short-sighted and unfair; maybe all these guys needed to do was let it go and hand the baton on to a new set of producers who could bring something new to the franchise. In some sense, this has now happened, with new Hollywood wonder boy J.J. Abrams now the new keeper flame.

The final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “All Good Things...” was a brilliant finale to a great show. This episode’s greatest achievement was in creating a sense of anticipation for the new film series that was to feature the cast of The Next Generation. The character of Q tells Captain Picard that there are greater wonders and mysteries out there in the galaxy waiting for the crew of the Starship Enterprise beyond anything they could imagine; this was all that was needed to entice any fan in to believing that The Next Generation was going on to much bigger and better things in the film series.

In many ways, the first two films of The Next Generation, “Generations” and “First Contact” do a decent job of trying to deliver on Q’s promise, particularly the latter which is by far the best Next Generation film and almost on par with the best Star Film of them all, “The Wrath of Khan”. It was with great displeasure and disappointment however that the film series did an abrupt u-turn with “Insurrection”, the film that really started turning people away from the film franchise.

The average time span between Star Trek films was two years. In that time, much expectation would build for the next film. When audiences showed up en masse for “Insurrection”, especially after the high-water mark set by “First Contact”, they left with a bad taste in their mouth. Upon walking out of the theatre, I remember thinking to myself, “Is that it? We waited two years for a $60 million television episode?” And that was just the beginning of the problem; whoever had decided the film should be humorous really needed to be raked over the coals. Star Trek can be light-hearted, with Star Trek IV being an obvious example. What it shouldn’t be is silly and unfortunately, although a few of the laughs were genuine, most were just plain dreadful. Two classic examples of this: the karaoke session in the shuttlecraft with Picard and Worf singing to trick Data in to capturing him, and the moment where Riker pilots the Enterprise with a joystick. In the words of Nelson from The Simpsons, “that’s funny, but not ha-ha funny.” In the film’s defence, it still captured the heart of Star Trek and arguably went back to the core foundations of Roddenberry’s trek which dealt with galactic moral dilemmas that our characters must face tied in with real-life world scenarios.

Well over two years went by before we got “Nemesis”, the final Next Generation film. The build-up to this film was intriguing; the trailers seemed to suggest a film that was serious and was making an attempt to grow beyond the confines of the television show by demonstrating a cinematic vision the likes of which had not been seen before in the series. A sense of excitement was afoot again; maybe the odd-numbered film curse was right. “Insurrection” was film number nine. “Nemesis” was number ten. Surely they must have got it right this time?

Sadly, as far as I am concerned, “Nemesis” was worse than “Insurrection” and in ways that are not apparently obvious. If you look at this film as if it were not Star Trek, it’s actually a solid sci-fi action adventure. However, it is Star Trek, and as such, it fails miserably because it was truly the first film which offered absolutely nothing new. The story cannibalised the plots from both “The Wrath of Khan” and “The Undiscovered Country”, even down to directorial timings. The characters were two-dimensional and the bad guy, although played by a talented actor, just wasn’t strong enough to carry the threat of menace required by the story. When I left the theatre this time, all I thought was, “that was really bad...” And it was bad for no other reason than it had lost the essence of what Star Trek was all about.

“Nemesis” is a representation and culmination of how the then makers of the franchise had lost sight of what made Star Trek so good in the first place. The original Star Trek took risks in its story-telling and themes. In the end with a film like “Nemesis”, and as reflected in the last of the television series episodes, Star Trek had ceased taking risks and was now a formulaic commodity. Star Trek’s final Nemesis it would seem was not a bald clone of Captain Picard but a lack of bold direction and initiative. Let’s hope that J.J. Abrams brings a freshness and originality to the whole thing with “Star Trek XI” because the franchise does not deserve to disappear in to oblivion like it has come dangerously close to in the past few years.