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"Just when I thought this couldn't get any worse..."

Janeway: Jean-Luc, how would you like a trip to Romulus?
Picard: With or without the rest of the fleet?

The One With… Picard’s younger evil clone.

Star Trek Nemesis is the tenth movie in the Star Trek film series, released in 2002, and serves as the big-screen Grand Finale for the Next Generation crew. It is directed by Stuart Baird, with the screenplay by John Logan and the story by Logan, Rick Berman and Brent Spiner, who also played Data.

After a coup, the new leader of the ever-secretive Romulan government makes an offer of peace to The Federation. Our heroes find out that this new leader, Shinzon (Tom Hardy), is a younger clone of Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), the by-product of a botched Romulan plot. At first, Shinzon's intentions seem honest, but they quickly turn malicious for convoluted medical reasons. There's also a subplot about a prototype of Data, B-4 (Spiner), which serves as a counterpoint to Picard's identity struggles. See here for a more detailed recap.

The film also stars TNG series regulars Jonathan Frakes as William T. Riker, LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge, Michael Dorn as Worf, Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher and Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi. Ron Perlman appears as Shinzon's Evil Chancellor. Cameos include Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher, Whoopi Goldberg as shipboard bartender Guinan, and Kate Mulgrew as Admiral Kathryn Janeway, the only one of the three to have lines.

The film was released on December 13, 2002 in North America. It did poorly at the box office due to a combination of stiff competition note  and, despite having the Star Trek Movie Curse in its favor, was not well received. It is generally viewed as a Franchise Killer signaling the decline of Star Trek movies, not helped by Star Trek: Enterprise also struggling before being cancelled several years later.

Nemesis provided a bookend in several ways. With a prequel show currently airing, this film was the chronological last story set in the 24th Century, and J. J. Abrams's Alternate Timeline Star Trek (2009) (which is somewhat of a Stealth Sequel to this film) made it appear to be the last of the Prime Timeline. But this would change as a new era of Star Trek television shows would return to the timeline with TOS-era Star Trek: Discovery, while Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Lower Decks are set after the events of this film. The Third Season of Star Trek: Picard would go on to serve as Putting the Band Back Together for the TNG cast, acting as another Grand Finale.


Nemesis provides examples of:

    open/close all folders 
    Tropes A-I 
  • Aborted Arc: Shinzon is an in-universe example. Picard's clone was created as part of an ambitious operation to replace the real Picard (who even at that point was a rising star in Starfleet) with a Romulan agent at the heart of Starfleet (and with none the wiser). However, the plan ultimately fell victim to a political shakeup in the Senate. A new government came to power, decided the plan was too risky, and pulled the plug and dumped Shinzon on Remus.
  • Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: The dinner scene, where Shinzon seems genuinely curious about the life that Picard lived.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Yes, his motives were unclear, his tactical expertise was debatable (see Informed Ability below), and he wanted to kill everyone on Earth, but there's no denying that Shinzon's life sucked. He was created solely to be a tool of war, and through no fault of his own, he was eventually condemned to a lifetime of back-breaking labor in a hellish mine. And even though he managed to overthrow his captors and the entire Romulan leadership, his engineered lifespan ensured that he had a very short time to live. In short, he lived a short, violent, brutal life, and never really had any chance to know love or happiness.
  • Antagonist Title: Shinzon is Picard's nemesis.
  • Anything but That!:
    Worf: ...Irving Berlin.
  • Apocalypse How: Class 6, threatened.
  • Applied Phlebotinum: Thalaron radiation.
  • Arc Words: "Never saw the sun shining so bright, never saw things looking so right..."
  • Activation Sequence: After the Enterprise rams the Scimitar, rendering their weapons inoperable, Shinzon activates the thalaron weapon, a process that takes about seven minutes as the targeting emitters on the wings are moved into position prior to firing.
  • Attack Pattern Alpha:
    • Attack Pattern Shinzon Theta.
    • Defensive Pattern Kirk Epsilon.
  • Author Appeal: Primary screenwriter John Logan admits in interviews to being a huge fan of Data and Picard, and Brent Spiner co-wrote, explaining why Data gets a Heroic Sacrifice and he and Picard both get Long Lost Relatives and so much badassery they approach Canon Sue status.
  • Backported Development: Even though Picard was supposed to have lost his hair with age, his clone is also completely bald. Shinzon's baldness can perhaps be explained away as being a result of his screwed up DNA and the resultant premature aging, but a photograph showing Picard as a bald cadet, not so easily. Especially since on TNG younger versions of Picard were shown twice; "Tapestry", fresh out of the Academy with a full head of hair, and "Violations", ten years before the start of the series, with the hairline starting to recede. Though maybe he just shaved his head at one point in the Academy.
  • Bait-and-Switch: At Riker and Troi's wedding party, Data begins singing the bridge of "Blue Skies" in a stilted, robotic way before switching to Brent Spiner's usual jazz singing style. In-universe, there's no reason for him to do this: all of Data's friends and people who have seen STTNG and its previous movies already know Data is a good singer. This seems to have been done solely to serve as an awkward Establishing Character Moment for audience members who aren't familiar with Data's character.
  • Bald of Evil: Shinzon is completely bald.
  • Beam Spam: The Enterprise uses this when attempting to locate the cloaked Scimitar during the battle in the Bassen Rift before the other Romulans arrive.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: The Remans helped Shinzon survive in the mines, and now he's fighting to liberate them from the Romulans.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Commander Donatra arrives with two warbirds to assist the Enterprise and after realizing Shinzon was genocidal. Subverted, however, in that neither warbird succeeds in causing any damage whatsoever to the Scimitar, which then cripples Donatra's warbird and destroys the other one outright, meaning that Donatra's intervention ends up achieving nothing.
  • Big "NO!":
    • Troi screams it when Vkruk mentally rapes her, and again when Riker calls her name.
    • Vkruk yells one when Riker sends him falling to his death.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Data is dead, and the crew of the Enterprise is going their separate ways after so many years together. But thanks to their efforts, Shinzon is killed and the Romulan Empire is finally willing to talk with the Federation, which may lead to peace between the two, and Picard, along with all those who remain on the Enterprise, will continue their mission to go where no one has gone before. Sadly, Star Trek (2009) establishes that eight years after Nemesis, Romulus is destroyed in a supernova and the rest of the Romulan Empire blames the Federation for screwing up the project to stop it. In addition, Star Trek: Picard shows that Picard tried to help the Romulans, but The Federation chose to withdraw their aid, and Picard resigned in protest. Also, Data's attempt to download himself into B-4 failed.
  • Blank Slate: Data's "brother" B-4.
  • Board to Death: Romulan Senate not cooperating? Kill 'em all with an experimental thalaron radiation bomb!
  • Body Horror: The effects of thalaron radiation: it turns you into powder from the inside-out. Quite painfully, it must be added.
  • Body Snatcher: Data imprints his neural net on his mentally handicapped brother's brain. He plays it off as "helping his brother grow" or somesuch, but it's implied that in the future Data will completely take over B-4's body...until Star Trek: Picard reveals that the download failed.
  • Boldly Coming: Defied Trope. Shinzon, a clone of Picard raised on the Romulan twin planet of Remus, organizes a coup against the Imperial Senate and takes over. Commander Donatra later tries to flirt with him, but he stops her dead cold, as he grew up amongst the Slave Race of the Romulan Empire and thus despises ordinary Romulans. Instead, he settles for engaging in some pretty literal Mind Rape against the half-human Troi.
    Shinzon: You are not a woman. You are a Romulan.
  • Bond Villain Stupidity: "I have you now, Picard. Now I can proceed with the operation to save my life, a short time after I walk away and leave you in a room with one guard. I'm sure nothing will happen during that time."
  • Bookends:
    • When we first saw the Prime Universe Enterprise on the big screen in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, she was in spacedock undergoing a refit. In this last Prime Universe film, we last see her in spacedock undergoing repairs. The same Jerry Goldsmith Star Trek theme is played in both scenes.
    • Similarly, as of 2023, this remains the final Trek film set in the Prime Reality. So, Jerry Goldsmith has the distinction of scoring both the first and last films of the original, pre-reboot Film Series.
    • In their first meeting in the TNG pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint", Picard and Riker talk about how it was the first officer's responsibility to take on away missions. In their last meeting before Riker leaves for the USS Titan, Picard offers some advice about how to handle that with his first officer.
    • In the original ending, the Enterprise would have left for a mission to the Deneb system, which was where the TNG pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint" took place.
    • At the beginning of the film, Data sings "Blue Skies" at Troi and Riker's wedding reception. By the end of the film, B-4 struggles to sing the song as the Enterprise is docked.
  • Bottomless Pit: Riker kicks Vkruk into one of these; the Enterprise apparently has one starting at deck 29 (the bottom of the ship... or five decks below the bottom, thanks to a Continuity Snarl) and going down far enough to be fatal.
  • Call-Back:
    • In the last movie, Geordi was amazed at Picard's acute hearing. Turns out that it was painfully acute when Picard was a boy.
    • Shinzon's backstory is that he was a clone of Picard developed as part of a plot to undermine the Federation. In "Redemption: Part II", when they first met Sela, the identical half-Romulan daughter of Tasha Yar, Dr. Crusher briefly wondered whether she was actually Tasha's clone, created for undermining Starfleet.
  • The Cameo:
    • Janeway appearing as a (recently promoted) Admiral is the only Canon description of what happened to the Voyager crew after their Grand Finale, until Star Trek: Picard added some further details.
    • Whoopi Goldberg also has one line as Guinan.
    • Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher had a cameo that was mostly left on the cutting-room floor; you can see him on the far left with his mother at the wedding reception if you've got the widescreen version, but his speaking lines are gone.
  • Captain Obvious:
    Data: [picking up a robotic arm] It appears to be a robotic arm.
    Worf: Very astute.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • The micro transporter Data attempts to use when rescuing Picard is used later on... to rescue Picard.
    • Troi uses Vkruk's telepathy (which she knows about after her Mind Rape) to locate the cloaked Scimitar. She even says "Remember me?"
  • Commonality Connection: Shinzon tries to forge a connection with Picard, though it's ambiguous how sincere he is given that he plans to kill Picard for his blood.
    Shinzon: I want to know what it means to be human. The Remans have given me a future, but you can tell me about my past.
    Picard: I can tell you about my past.
    Shinzon: Were we Picards always warriors?
    Picard: I think of myself as an explorer.
    Shinzon: Well, were we always explorers?
    Picard: I was the first Picard to leave our solar system. It caused quite a stir in the family, but I'd spent my youth...
    Shinzon: ...looking up at the stars, dreaming about what was up there, about...
    Picard: ...new worlds.
  • Continuity Nod: There is one for every Trek series and crew up to this point in time:
    • One of the ships waiting for the Enterprise is the USS Archer.
    • A maneuvering pattern during the battle is called Kirk Epsilon, and is used while trying to locate a ship that can fire while cloaked.
    • Data finds B-4 fascinating.
    • A mention of the Dominion War and an appearance by Admiral Janeway.
    • Troi taking the helm when the first helm officer is sucked into space and consequently being given the order by Picard to ram the Scimitar with the Enterprise is a humorous nod to her similar actions on the Enterprise-D and its status as a meme among the fanbase.
    • The most subtle nod happens with Worf. While moving to intercept the boarding party Worf mentions that "The Romulans fought with honor." In the Next Generation episode "The Enemy", Worf went so far as to refuse to help save a dying Romulan's life (said Romulan made it clear he'd rather die than accept Worf's help in any case) while Dr. Crusher and Picard could not convince him otherwise (his family was killed in a Romulan surprise attack at Khitomer). The fact that the people he despised so much managed to impress him says a lot.
    • Another subtle reference is the planet Remus itself, which was first mentioned all the way back in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Balance of Terror" (and never mentioned again until now).
    • Riker recalls Data's failed attempt to whistle way back in the TNG pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint", though he can't remember the song. For the record, it was "Pop Goes the Weasel."
    • Picard mentions Riker's refusal to let him lead away missions, also first mentioned in the TNG pilot.
    • A technological nod occurs when Geordi notes that the Scimitar's cloak is perfect and doesn't leave any tachyon emissions or residual antiprotons, which were previous methods of revealing cloaking devices.
  • Continuity Overlap: Nemesis has the distinction of being the first and only TNG film not to be released alongside one of its spinoff shows (as Deep Space Nine ended its run after the release of Insurrection and Voyager ended its run just before filming began). Neverthless, the movie does acknowledge and is affected by the conclusions of the other 24th Century shows:
    • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The now-concluded Dominion War is acknowledged, as is the Romulan involvement in the conflict (which is used as a plot point to help establish Shinzon's military background). However, Worf's post-series status quo as the new Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire isn't acknowledged at all. He simply rejoins his old crew without any on-screen explanation (though a deleted scene from the Wedding confirms Worf had resigned from the Diplomatic Corps prior to the film).
    • Star Trek: Voyager: The ship's triumphant return home to the Alpha Quadrant is non-verbally acknowledged by Janeway's cameo.
  • Constantly Curious: B-4 in the car-chase scene.
  • Cool Old Guy: Picard is 74 years old in the film (Patrick Stewart was only 62), but you wouldn't know it judging by how active he is, including how he single-handedly takes out not only everyone on the Scimitar's bridge, but also manages to defeat Shinzon in hand-to-hand combat.
  • Cool Starship:
    • The Scimitar is a decidedly evil-looking vessel, with forward-swept wings, dark gray hull, and an overall design that just oozes menace. It can also use its weapons and its shields while cloaked, something that, except for the Klingon Bird-of-Prey in The Undiscovered Country (the weapons at least, it still couldn't use its shields), is normally impossible.
      Picard: (awed) She's a predator.
    • Plus the Enterprise-E remains as cool as ever.
    • The new Romulan Valdore-class warbird, essentially a sleeker D'deridex-class without the lower hull.
  • The Coup: At the start of the film, disgruntled Romulan senator Tal'aura and a group of Romulan military officers assassinate the rest of the Senate so they can install Shinzon as Praetor. They eventually turn on him (though to little effect) after realizing he's a genocidal maniac.
  • Creator Cameo: Director Stuart Baird provides the voice of the Scimitar's computer.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: When the Enterprise is hailed by the Romulans after the battle, Picard habitually says 'on-screen' despite a hole into space existing where the viewscreen once was - he quickly corrects himself with 'open a channel'.
  • Dawn Attack: Picard reflects on this trope while recording his Captain's Log during the Lock-and-Load Montage: "...and like a thousand other commanders on a thousand other battlefields, I wait for the dawn."
  • Demoted to Extra: Pretty much everyone except Picard and Data, but particularly egregious in the case of Dr. Crusher, who essentially disappears from the film after informing Picard of Shinzon's genetic problem, with a brief appearance in Data's wake scene (without any dialogue) being the only time she even appears after that. To a lesser extent this also applies to La Forge, who is mostly limited to providing bits of Technobabble and expository dialogue, and Worf, who is the butt of a few jokes early on and then has a minor action sequence late on, with neither getting any real character development. All three do get additional scenes in the novelization, though.
  • Diabolus ex Nihilo: The Scimitar. It breaks suspension of disbelief that the Remans could build, almost literally under the Romulans' noses (whose society's most prominent feature is Big Brother-level surveillance and paranoia), a starship custom-designed for their kind (it's noted that the controls are in Reman) and with the equivalent firepower of what has to be at least a few dozen top-of-the-line warships, not to mention its perfect cloak and primary weapon system.
  • Disney Villain Death: Vkruk falls to his death into a bottomless pit towards the end of the film.
  • Disposable Pilot: Poor Lieutenant Branson, who you knew would die the very moment you saw him.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: B-4 acts and behaves much like there stereotype of someone with an intellectual disability. It is used for cringe-worthy jokes about social cues and an attempted Tear Jerker moment when he is deactivated.
  • Doomsday Device: The Thalaron radiation weapon.
  • The Dragon: Vkruk serves as Shinzon's second-in-command.
  • Dream Spying
  • Drives Like Crazy: Flying an attack craft through the corridors of a starship? Pretty crazy.
  • Driving into a Truck: The Argo Jeep and a cargo shuttlecraft play this role. Picard even drives the Argo over a ledge in order to park it in the shuttle. (They also drove out of the shuttle at the beginning of the scene.)
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Data's death was generally considered an underwhelming one for such a long-established character. In fairness, it wasn't as severely anti-climactic as the Trope Namer, nor as much an utterly pointless Shoot the Shaggy Dog moment as Tasha Yar's or Jadzia Dax's deaths, since Data does at least go out in a Heroic Sacrifice while saving the Enterprise. It's more the execution that's at fault here, since his death is pretty abrupt and filmed more in the manner that you might expect some Red Shirt to meet their end in, rather than a main character.
  • Earth Is the Center of the Universe: Or, at least, The Federation, which is why Shinzon makes it his first target.
    Riker: Destroy humanity, you cripple the Federation.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: The Romulans start to side against Shinzon when they realize how genocidal he is. They want to conquer The Federation, not wipe it out completely.
  • Evil Twin
  • Explosive Decompression: An energy torpedo from the Scimitar blasts a giant hole in the front of the bridge, obliterating the viewscreen. A hapless conn officer is sucked out into space, with another one holding onto his console for dear life, as well as the rest of the bridge crew. They are only saved by the timely activation of the atmospheric safety forcefields.
  • Fairytale Wedding Dress: Troi wears a pink one at her wedding.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Shinzon.
  • Five-Second Foreshadowing: The Enterprise is being stalked by Shinzon's cloaked ship, so it's hoping to rendezvous with the fleet for protection. On the way, they enter an area of space where long-range communications don't work. Data and Picard realize that this would be a perfect place for Shinzon to attack them. Guess what happens next?
  • From Bad to Worse: With the Enterprise already outmatched by the Scimitar, two more warbirds show up. Subverted when they offer to help fight Shinzon.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Shinzon may not have been the most competent Big Bad ever, but given that he started out as the weakest slave in the mines, getting as far as he did in life was quite an accomplishment.
  • Fun with Homophones: During the fight with the Enterprise, Shinzon slowly and viciously says "Fire at will." Followed immediately by a cut to a frantic Will Riker.
  • Generic Doomsday Villain: Shinzon. The extreme actions that actually relate to his supposedly well-intentioned goals occur entirely in the opening minutes of the movie: as he was raised by the Remans, he understandably doesn't like their status as the Warrior-Slave Race of the Romulan Empire. But when he assassinates the entire Romulan Senate and installs himself as the new dictator...he's already solved all the Remans' problems. At that point his only real explanation for wanting to destroy Earth is to eclipse Picard in the history books and make sure nobody ever subjugates the Remans again. For a poorly explained reason (to prove to everyone that the Remans are to be taken seriously), he has a super battleship way more advanced than every ship it comes up against. He also got a planet-destroying superweapon from... somewhere. The Star Trek Novelverse spent quite a few pages writing (non-canon) fix fics to explain this mess.
  • Grand Finale: For the Next Generation crew, and more: as the next film returns to the TOS gang in an altered version of history, it was the final entry of the Next Generation, of the whole 24th Century era, and of the entire Trek Verse as it has been from day one... until Star Trek: Picard was announced in 2019.
  • Guns Akimbo: Picard wields two disruptors while Data figures out how to access the hangar on the Scimitar.
  • Hand Wave: Tom Hardy looking nothing like Patrick Stewart is handwaved during their characters' dinner scene where Shinzon notes "Not the face you remember? A life of violence can do that."
  • Hangover Sensitivity: Worf and Romulan ale do not mix very well.
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam: Subverted. Shinzon slams it himself.
  • Heel–Face Turn: The Romulans.
  • Heroic BSoD: After Shinzon dies, Picard suffers one. When Data appears, Picard barely registers his arrival at first.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Data, homaging Spock's heroic sacrifice in Wrath of Khan.
  • Hoist by Their Own Petard: The Romulans create a clone of Captain Picard for a Kill and Replace gambit, only to have their tool kill and replace the Romulan Senate. So this is a case of Hoist By Their Own Picard.
  • Idiot Ball:
    • So to be clear: the series has established that quite a few members of the Enterprise are geniuses, and they know, by this point, that Shinzon is literally out for Captain Picard's blood. And yet, it doesn't occur to any of them that flying the ship alone into a gas cloud which prevents them from calling for help is a really, really bad idea.
    • The last time they found a disassembled Soong-designed android, he turned out to be Data's Evil Twin and went on to nearly kill the crew on two separate occasions. Why not ONE of the senior staff, all of whom were present for both events, brings up even the vaguest mention of this...
    • So, Shinzon and the Remans discover B-4 somewhere, add programming to turn him into their spy, and plant his remains in the desert for the Enterprise to find. The goal here is to acquire the position of the Federation fleet, the same fleet the Scimitar can trivially bypass thanks to its perfect cloak. The whole thing failed anyway, but it's not made clear why he ever needed the data in the first place, given his plan never involved the fleet in the first place. Presumably this would have tied in to the deleted subplot where Shinzon intended to launch a full-scale assault on the Federation, and the information would have been for the benefit of the rest of the Romulan fleet, which would have otherwise been vulnerable to the Federation's normal methods of rooting out cloaked ships.
    • In the original script, Doctor Crusher and several others ask B-4 how he'd ended up on the desert planet after turning him on. He then launched into his autobiography, explaining every moment of his life since he was first turned on by Pakleds ("they are fat.") Most of the tale would repeat several times over because he would also include instances of others asking him where he came from, at which point he tells the story about telling those people the story. On a second watch, the viewer would realize that at some point in there, B-4 had actually spilled everything about Shinzon's plan, but Doctor Crusher had long since fallen asleep.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The Reman side of this is lampshaded early on when it's pointed out that the Romulans used Remans for cannon fodder in the Dominion War.
  • Inertial Impalement: At the climax, Picard inflicts this on Shinzon with a piece of broken-off metal.
  • Informed Ability:
    • Shinzon is stated to be a tactical genius and a successful commander. However:
      • He waits for two days to talk to Picard personally, along with other general procrastination (due to Clone Degeneration, Shinzon at this point has something like a week to live) because he was "curious" about Picard.
      • He unveils his secret flagship, the Scimitar, in a show of strength, not only nullifying the surprise of his trump card but also eventually revealing to Picard that he has a planet-killer weapon.
      • He leaves the Enterprise in orbit of Romulus after kidnapping Picard.
      • While ambushing Enterprise, he flies unnecessarily close to them, allowing them to hit him despite Scimitar's cloaking device.
      • He orders the Scimitar to move to port when he sees the Enterprise proceeding to ram it, rather than moving full reverse. Even if the Enterprise had inertia on its side, moving back would have softened the blow considerably.
    • Shinzon says the Remans are "A race bred for war", yet they get slaughtered easily in most of the combat scenes. To be fair, they do slightly better against the generic security team members on the Enterprise. It could be their problem is they constantly go into combat against main characters who are protected by Plot Armor.
  • Interface Spoiler: At one point, the subtitles spoil the surprise of Picard being beamed off the Enterprise mid-sentence a few seconds before it actually happens. The details may not be obvious, but it's clear that something critically interrupts him.
  • It's Personal: The only explanation for Shinzon's attitude towards both the Romulan establishment and Picard.

    Tropes J-Z 
  • Kick the Dog: Shinzon's Mind Rape of Troi, which serves no real purpose except to demonstrate how evil he is.
  • Killed Off for Real: Data.
  • Kirk Summation: Picard gives Shinzon one during the climactic battle, trying to get him to see past his rage and become a better man. Unfortunately, Shinzon responds with a Shut Up, Picard!
  • The Last Dance:
    Shinzon: I'm glad we're together now - our destiny is complete.
  • Lean and Mean: Shizon is especially skinny, emphasized with the black latex outfit with tall shoulders. This is somewhat amusing given that Tom Hardy later became famous for packing on a lot of muscle.
  • Lightning Bruiser: The Scimitar is faster than the Enterprise while boasting more firepower and stronger Deflector Shields. Even the combined might of the Enterprise and two Romulan Valdore-class warbirds isn't enough to defeat it.
  • Lock-and-Load Montage:
    Picard: All hands...battle stations!
  • Looks Like Orlok: The Remans were explicitly designed to resemble Nosferatu.
  • Losing Your Head: B-4.
  • Made of Iron: The Enterprise. While she's not nearly as well-armed as the Scimitar, she takes a beating during the battle and keeps on going (granted, Shinzon wanted Picard taken alive). The only thing that stopped her was running out of torpedoes. And then when Picard decided to ram his opponent anyway, the Enterprise only loses about 1/6th of its saucer section while the Scimitar folds like cheap cardboard, losing all its disruptors and the cloaking device in the process. If not for his Wave-Motion Gun, Shinzon would have been defeated right there.
  • The Main Characters Do Everything: Riker and Worf leave their posts on the bridge during a battle to go shoot it out with the Reman boarding party below decks. Why the ship's senior officers needed to leave their posts in the middle of battle to go do basic grunt work is anyone's guess.
  • Meaningful Name: Shinzon is a Chinese name meaning "heart". It's also a Japanese name meaning "new existence".
  • Military Coup: The entire Romulan Senate is assassinated by Shinzon and a group of Romulan generals who were promised that he would invade the Federation.
  • Mind Rape: Shinzon and Vkruk use an unusually literal version on Troi, though she turns it back on them.
  • Misapplied Phlebotinum: Mr Plinkett went into a long rant in his review about the shuttle that brings the Argo buggy down to Kolarus III. Complaining that a flying space vehicle is vastly more useful than a car but they only use it to house and transport a vehicle that's less useful than itself.
  • Misplaced Retribution: Shinzon despises being Picard's clone and is willing to kill every person on Earth just to make sure that his name is the one history remembers.
  • Missile Lock-On: Averted for most of the Battle of the Bassen Rift thanks to the Scimitar's advanced cloaking device. Similarly to General Chang almost a century earlier, Shinzon's firing through the cloak and thus Worf can't achieve targeting locks. He has to fire blindly and manually (which scores as many hits as misses). The Valdore has the same problem, necessitating Worf coordinating with them to triangulate fire on any shield impact. It's not until Troi telepathically locates the Viceroy that Worf's able to finally knock out the cloak and achieve automatic targeting locks — though by that point in the battle, the Enterprise has already expended most of its weaponry and is heavily damaged.
  • More Dakka:
    • The Scimitar is more loaded for bear with more disruptors and torpedoes than almost any other Trek ship, not to mention its Wave-Motion Gun.
    • During the battle, when Troi gives Worf a solid point to aim at, he starts firing the Enterprise's quantum torpedoes. These are a lot more powerful than the standard photon torpedoes, and at this point the barrage succeeds in bringing down the Scimitar's cloak, but it's still not enough to break through the shields and do any meaningful damage.
  • Named by the Adaptation: The Viceroy's true name, Vkruk, is given in the novelization.
  • No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Shinzon invites Picard to a private dinner, where he shares his backstory with him.
  • Non-Human Non-Binary: Data makes a brief reference to "invited transgendered species" early on in the movie, the franchise's first reference to transexuality. However, the word was badly misused. Instead of having anything to do with a person whose gender identity and physical sex do not match, it was added onto "Ladies and Gentlemen," meaning it referred to races whose physical sexes are not the same as humans. note 
  • No OSHA Compliance: Not only is there nothing protecting anyone from coming into contact with the beam coming out of the thalaron generator, which is located in an anteroom just behind the bridge of the Scimitar, but firing a hand phaser into the beam is sufficient to blow up the entire ship. Downplayed a little in that the beam is only present when the thalaron generator is active, and it's still a much lesser case than what was in the original script, where it was the ship's warp core that was on the bridge.
  • No Seatbelts: A deleted bit from the ending would show that the Enterprise was finally being equipped with them, to which Picard even says "About time!"
  • "Not So Different" Remark: Picard and Shinzon, explored at some length. Shinzon claims that he is what Picard would have been under different circumstances, then brushes off Picard's attempt to turn the "mirror" metaphor around on him. Data later points out a key difference by comparing him to B-4: Neither makes any attempt to better themselves. Subtly lampshaded when Shinzon tells his ship's replicator to give him a hot tea.
  • Noodle Incident: The twelve major engagements Shinzon fought in the Dominion War. We don't learn any details, save that they establish his backstory and reputation as a young, capable, and successful commander.
  • Not Worth Killing: For obvious reasons, Shinzon doesn't want the Enterprise destroyed with Picard still aboard, and tells his gunners to focus on her weapons and shield emitters. When he then demands Picard's surrender, he claims that he has "little interest in [his] quaint vessel", implying that he'll let the Enterprise go.
  • Novelization: The film's novelization stays mostly true to the finished film, with several small scenes deleted from the film, but notably expands on Shinzon's motivations: Having bonded so much with the Remans after his years of slavery, he honestly wants the best for them, and intends to lead a galactic war to make them the dominant species in the universe, and it's made clear that with the Scimitar, and the Thalaron radiation, he could have pulled it off. The book also expands Worf's role during the final battle, and actually gives Beverly something to do: Worf battles a few more Remans, and chases one into a cargo bay that's been converted into a makeshift hospital, only to be near-fatally wounded. Beverly stuns said Reman soldier, and with the help of Romulan doctor, manages to save Worf's life.
  • Oh, Crap!:
  • Orcus on His Throne: Shinzon needs a transfusion of Picard's blood to prevent his own Clone Degeneration. Despite having Picard prisoner for quite some time and being repeatedly told by Vkruk to begin the procedure, he does not... for some reason.
  • Out-of-Character Moment: The Dune-Buggy Scene. Picard apparently decides to screw decades of adherence to the Prime Directive and perform Car Fu on a pre-warp planet, despite being willing to condemn entire species to death rather than break it before.
  • Palm Bloodletting: Shinzon does this to provide our heroes with a blood sample so they can see that he is Picard's clone.
  • Phlebotinum-Proof Robot: Data, not needing to breathe, launches himself through outer space to go from the Enterprise to the Scimitar.
  • Pull Yourself Down the Spear: The last scene between Picard and Shinzon is a nod to King Arthur, as Shinzon pulls himself down the beam stuck in his gut to to make his final verbal attack against Picard, a poignant parallel to Mordred hauling himself down the spear to aim a final attack at his father Arthur.
  • Punny Name: B-4, Data's prototype. The name was planned to be B-9 but got changed. Lampshaded by Picard:
  • Ramming Always Works: Subverted. While the egg-like structure of the saucer section gives the Enterprise physical resilience against head-on impacts, and it did seemingly succeed in disabling the Scimitar's primary weapons and destroy the hangar containing her complement of Scorpion-class fighters (hence why the Enterprise wasn't reduced to space dust for its failure), it also disabled the Enterprise completely while the Scimitar still had impulse and warp capability. In the long run, however, the Scimitar also had a damaged cloak, which would have rendered it a lot more vulnerable to the Federation fleet.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking: By the end of the movie, Picard blasts his way out of prison, single-handedly wipes out the entire bridge crew of the Scimitar, and defeats Shinzon in hand to hand combat. Not bad for a 76-year old.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot/Reality Subtext: Data's death came in large part because Brent Spiner, in his own words, is getting older and can't play an ageless artificial human so well anymore.
  • Redemption Rejection: Picard tries to convince Shinzon to see past his rage. It doesn't work.
  • Red Shirt: Lieutenant Branson gets sucked out into space when the Scimitar blows a hole in the bridge of the Enterprise.
  • Remember the New Guy?: The entire Reman species which, given its back story, should have shown up at least once or twice on the various series — especially given they fought during the Dominion War. Everyone just acts like they've always existed. The film does try to justify it by saying the Romulans consider Remans less than real people, and thus keep them locked away on Remus toiling in slavery, but it is a bit difficult to swallow.
  • Replacement Goldfish: It's implied that B-4 will become this to Data thanks to the memory download he underwent. Star Trek: Countdown, the non-canon prequel to Star Trek (2009), embraced this and featured a restored Data, though Star Trek: Picard eventually confirmed that the download didn't take, and that B-4 was dismantled.
  • See the Invisible: Geordi tries this, but fails — Shinzon's Invisibility Cloak is just that good.
  • Self-Destruct Mechanism: Picard tries to activate it as a last-ditch attempt to stop Shinzon, but it's offline from the battle.
  • Series Continuity Error:
    • Picard, who has consistently been depicted as being willing to lay down his life before violating the Prime Directive, happily takes part in a car chase on a pre-industrial world. He's also violated it just about as much as Kirk did, but not so whimsically and randomly.
    • Picard as a younger man has consistently been shown as having hair, or even thinning hair. Nemesis presents a bald Picard in his cadet days and correspondingly a bald Shinzon. Note that the shooting script actually specified that Shinzon did have hair at first, only for it to start falling out as his condition deteriorates ending with him being bald by his climatic fight with Picard, but the director apparently decided that Tom Hardy with hair didn't resemble Patrick Stewart strongly enough.
      • Also, the photo shows him in the Star Trek II-era trainee/NCO uniform, not the cadet/commissioned officer uniform.
    • While trying to reason with Shinzon, Picard tells him "Your heart, your hands, your eyes are the same as mine," despite the fact that TNG established that Picard has an artificial heart due to an incident where he was stabbed as a young man.
    • The script goes out of its way to have Data say that he doesn't feel emotion; he gained the emotion chip three movies ago, and is shown having a wide range of feelings like any other character in the previous film. There isn't so much as a throwaway line to handwave this, let alone a real explanation.
      • A deleted scene shows Geordi discovering the emotion chip in Data's quarters. By Insurrection, Data had figured out how to remove the chip, and seems to be using it less frequently. The fact that he displayed emotion at the end without the chip is the culmination of his Character Development.
  • Series Fauxnale: As the final theatrical Next Generation film, Nemesis would serve as the sendoff for the Enterprise-D/E family for two decades, until the final season of Picard in 2023 would deliberately affirm itself as the true Grand Finale for the TNG cast and story.
  • Shoulders of Doom: Shinzon. Lampshaded on-set by his co-star Frakes, who described his outfit as "a reject from Rollerball."
  • Shout-Out: All (then-)five television series in the franchise are referenced at some point. Screenwriter John Logan, an avowed Trekkie, says he explicitly tried to combine all the best parts of the franchise as a whole into a movie.
    • Is B-4 hacking into the Enterprise computer or The Matrix?
    • The Jackal knife in the film was a prop used in TV before. Who else wielded that weapon? Faith.
  • Sinister Scimitar: Shinzon's warbird, which proves to be more than a match for the Enterprise.
  • Soul Fragment: B-4 sings "Blue Skies" at the end.
  • Space Is an Ocean: Averted. The majority of the final battle takes place in mostly a flat plane but there is still plenty of swooping over and under each other. Also, a major part of the combat involves the Enterprise rotating damaged sections away from the Scimitar's line of sight, which includes turning (relative to us) upside down.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: The film plays out like a Picard and Data Fan Fiction, with most of the main cast limited to holding the floor down. They were the primary characters of all the TNG movies, but not quite to this degree of no one else having much to do at all.
  • Status Quo Is God:
    • Despite leaving Starfleet in the finale of Deep Space Nine, Worf is back in his old position of tactical/security officer on the Enterprise without so much as a line of dialogue to explain it. In the other movies he didn't belong in, we got an explanation: in The Undiscovered Country, the TOS era Colonel Worf is the guy TNG's Worf is an Identical Grandson of. In First Contact, the crew of the damaged Defiant was beamed onto the Enterprise. In Insurrection, he was asked what he was doing there but the action cuts away before he answers; we're given a humorous Un Reveal but the fact that he's stationed elsewhere and a reason why he dropped by this time exists in-universe. Here? He's just there, in full uniform from the start, manning his old station like it's still his station. Not even a Hand Wave, or events that make a Fan Wank easy. A deleted line had him saying that he wasn't suited to the life of a diplomat.
    • Despite their wartime alliance against the Dominion during Deep Space Nine, relations between the Romulans and Federation have reverted right back to their traditional cold war status quo within less than 4 years after the War ended. This at least can be justified in-universe, as it was made clear repeatedly on DS9 that the Romulans joining the War effort was an alliance of necessity (and that the UFP and Star Empire would be left as the major powers vying for control of the Quadrant in its aftermath).
  • Stealth in Space: The Scimitar can fire while cloaked and its cloaking ability was capable of countering previously established means of detecting cloaked ships. The Enterprise does manage to land a fair number of hits on it, though, suggesting that the Scimitar's constant firing gave away its position. Not a big deal, however, since unlike most ships in Star Trek, the Scimitar also retains its shields while cloaked too.
  • Stupid Sacrifice: Several (attempted) times in fact. First Data tries to do this when saving Picard, but Picard tells him no. Then Picard attempts to do this when the Enterprise is disabled. Then Data comes to save Picard again, before following through on his initial plan to kill himself in a semi-heroic fashion. The latter two are because no member of the crew seems to realize that the Enterprise has functioning shuttles with functioning transporters.
  • Taken for Granite: The entire Romulan Senate (save for Tal'aura) are turned to stone at the beginning of the film. This is also the fate that Shinzon intends for the Enterprise crew, and then Earth.
  • This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself
    Picard: Data, this is something I have to do myself.
  • Thrown Out the Airlock: When one of the Scimitar's torpedos hits The Bridge. Bye bye, Branson.
  • Tidally Locked Planet: The Remans evolved on the dark side of tidally-locked Remus, explaining their photosensitivity.
  • Timeshifted Actor: Technically, Tom Hardy as Shinzon, although they didn't bother to get an actor who actually looked anything like Patrick Stewart.
  • To Absent Friends: Borrowed from Star Trek III.
  • Trailers Always Spoil: The reveal of Shinzon being human was originally meant to happen quite early on, but was pushed back to much later in the film when the producers decided it'd be more dramatic if the audience found out about Shinzon at the same time that Picard did. Something that might have worked better if not for the fact that the first trailer showed a good chunk of Shinzon's original introductory scene.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Data's switch with B-4.
  • Villain Opening Scene: But, y'know, who really liked the Romulan Senate anyway?
  • Weapon of Mass Destruction: The planet-killing ship.
  • Weld the Lock: Picard seals the door to the shuttle bay but discovers that that door is the only way out.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: To Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
  • Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Shinzon utilizes this in the finale battle. In a three-on-one fight against the Enterprise and two warbirds, it was becoming easier for them to track down the Scimitar even with the cloak. He lured in the lead warbird by dropping part of the cloak, making them think they were doing worse than they were. Once in close, a full weapon spread at close range quickly disabled them.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Picard attempts to convince Shinzon of this. He fails, miserably.
  • You Have Failed Me: Shinzon orders a Reman guard who failed to stop Picard shot. So much for that whole "freeing your Reman brothers" bit.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Romulans pulled this on Shinzon before they even started using him — they abandoned their plans for him when he was still a boy and sent him to the Reman mines, not expecting him to survive.

"I am a mirror for you as well..."

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