So Star Trek: Nemesis happens to be on cable tonight, and I figure I might as well watch. (Which since I have it on DVD, doesn't really make sense to watch it cut and with commercials, but oh well.) Anyway, this is my first time seeing this movie since "Dark Knight Rises" came out. Both Shinzon and Bane are played by the same actor, Thomas Hardy. His performance as Shinzon was generally panned, his performance as Bane generally praised. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think Shinzon wasn't that bad a villain, and that Bane was not necessarily as good as he got credited for. I also find it interesting that the backstory of the two are not dissimilar.
I thought Tom Hardy was fine as Shinzon; in fact, his performance belongs in a better movie. But I thought he was absolutely terrific as Bane.
Actors can only do so much beyond the script. Hardy was one of the few high points in NEM but of course there are limits. He made the best of an incredibly weak script, as did the rest of the cast
Nemesis wasn't a good film for a variety of reasons but Tom Hardy's performance wasn't part of the problem. He did a fine job in Inception as well.
Hardy's performance was fine. But the character and the situation was very poorly conceived at best. IIRC, it is either stated outright or strongly implied that Shinzon was "created" DECADES before Nemesis. Back when Picard would've been just another nondescript Starfleet officer of no special note. Why would the Romulans bother trying to duplicate and replace some random Starfleet officer. One thing that turns me off in a major way from Star Trek movies like Nemesis, The Final Frontier, and for that matter Abramstrek is that they are trying to take existing characters or features of the Star Trek universe (the Romulans & Picard in Nemesis, Spock in The Final Frontier, and well almost everything in Abramstrek) and introduce radical alterations to the backstory and other features that have never even been hinted at before. Note, I was no fan of Kirk having a never seen son in The Wrath of Khan but given Kirks reputation as a ladies man it was quiet pardon the expression "conceivable".
Maybe I'm in a festive mood, but "Nemesis" didn't seem to suck as much as people generally say. Sure, there probably were a gazillion plot holes and the aping of "Khan" still is irksome, but I enjoyed it.
I almost walked out of Nemesis. They should have just done a mirror Universe storyline. Picard vs. Picard, ENTD vs ENTD. That would have been epic. But Hardy did a fine job with the pile of shit he was given.
It is rare that a film is any good when an actor is allowed to write the story. Even more rare in Star Trek.
Decades earlier, they'd have learned from interrogating the "Yesterdays Enterprise "Tasha Yar that Picard was going to be captain of the Federation flagship one day. I'd assume Shinzon was dumped on Remus after Picard lost the Stargazer. The Romulans probably didn't expect Picards career to continue after that, and assumed Yars information was incorrect because she came from a diferent timeline.
I don't think it's stated outright that he was created decades before Nemesis, at least in the chopped up version that appeared on IFC. (Why this was on IFC, I don't know). There is a scene of young Shinzon on Remus. He appears to be about a pre-teen. The implication is certainly there that he lived decades on Remus to be the 30-something. It's also possible that through his imperfect clone nature, his growth accelerated faster than normal and he only spent a few years, or less than decades, on Remus. The film states that Riker had been Picard's first officer for 15 years. So even if we're going to say that the plot to clone Picard was 20 or so years old, Picard would have still been a captain or relatively close to it. In terms of why replace a random Starfleet officer, if the Romulans took a page from "The Manchurian Candidate," they could have made a random officer into a hero.
.... I didn't think Hardy's performance as Bane was all that great. It wasn't his fault... That ridiculous voice Nolan chose for him to use was too distracting for me to take seriously. He sounded like a big moron to me the entire movie.
Couldn't disagree more. The more I hear of Bane, the more I love the voice. It's highly distinctive and more than a little disconcerting.
If Shinzon had been the size of Bane, that would have been epic. Although a better match would have been Shinzon & Band vs. Charlie Bronson As an aside, I read where Hardy is playing Max in the new Mad Max movie next year.
Shinzon was inept to the point of being stupid, frankly. He fails as an antagonist, but that has nothing to do with Tom Hardy and everything to do with the bad writing and direction in the movie.
I've just assumed some branch of Romulan Intelligence knew that Picard would one day be a captain through something involving time travel. Be it Yar or another source. Time travel is so easy in the Trek universe that it is surprising it isn't used more as a military tactic.
Thething I like about Hardy's Bane is not just the voice, but that he delivered the great dialogue with an almost perfect cadence and inflection. He absolutely nailed the delivery.
