Advertised as "a generation's final journey," it would seem that the franchise's development of the sub-set of characters who comprise the Next Generation, the first of several spinoffs from the original series, has come to a close. It could also be, however, that hinting at such a final curtain is an attempt to generate a curious audience at the box office.  Either way, be it narrationally or financially motivated, there is something of the swan song to the film, an aura of denouement which stretches beyond mere promotion to seep into the work's formal elements. Nemesis is haunted by a tone of "endings," a strangely expressionistic awareness reflected in the odd resonance of the overtly allegorical script, the dark, subdued color palette of the cinematography and the mannered quietness of the performances, particularly those of Stewart, Spiner and Tom Hardy as the villainous Shinzon.

All this aside, the film is not a terribly effective one or, on some level, even a good one. It seems that Star Trek films operate on a different level than the average Hollywood sci-fi release. With a loyal band of followers ready to sit through just about anything the series has to offer so long as its writ large across the big screen, the series even retains a certain appeal to non-fans, call it a casual curiosity, perhaps because the concept has become such a staple of the culture. Of course, even that slight populist interest appears to be waning, something which is perhaps responsible for the epilogic mar-keting of this, the tenth film to bear the brand name logo.

Concerning the attempt of intergalactic revolutionary leader Shinzon (Tom Hardy) to lead both his people and himself to political power, and the direct confrontation that leads to with Earth's Starfleet, Nemesis concentrates on developing two main narrative themes which parallel and compliment one another. Intermingled with a consideration of the clashing
rhetoric of empires and insurrectionists, and the warfare which results, is a more philosophical rumination on issues of duality, the evolution of individual identity and the choices which work to engineer a life. Focusing on contrasting two sets of characters, Capt. Picard and the radical, angry yet compromised Shinzon, and the android Data and an earlier version of himself called B4, discovered in pieces on a distant planet, the film seeks to ponder the essence of a melancholy introspection. While Data's storyline is relatively compelling in its attenuated nature, the android's confrontation with his origins is not only far less immediate in terms of narrative urgency, more a rumination shaded by an existentialist inev-itability, it is not as politically substantive.

Since Science Fiction affords a certain symbolic overtness within the expanse of possibilities offered by its generic con-ventions, Nemesis concretizes this internal reflection by pivot-ing on the narrative conceit that Shinzon is in fact a clone of Picard himself, albeit it a much younger one. They are, genetically speaking, the same person, and therein lies the
film's central question: what is it that makes up a life? Is it the culmination of one's experiences or the intrinsic working of one's insides, the hard wired biological programming. This rehash of the old heredity vs. environment debate, while perhaps awkward when expressed in such stark terms, is reasonably well handled, the highlight both narratively and
stylistically being a face to face confrontation between Shin-zon and Picard when the former reveals his true nature. 

Telling Picard of his origin, designed as a weapon by one of the Federations's traditional enemies, The Romulan Empire, and then discarded into slavery, Shinzon literally joined the  underground, sent into the bowls of a vast Mine to dwell in servitude with the subjugated populace of the Romulan's neighbor planet. It is posed that Picard, composed of the same "pieces" as Shinzon, would have forged the same radical cabal in the face of such oppression, had the captain not been a part of the elite. The political/ethical rightness of Shinzon's cause to liberate his people from enslavement, himself a slave literally designed in the image of the master, is a challenge to Starfleet's proclaimed public dedication to libertarian causes but fundamental self-interest in maintaining the status quo. 

The film disarms the possible explosive political challenge of this threat by revealing in Shinzon a mad desire for power, thereby transforming the romantic rebel leader into a power hungry tyrant and diffusing the drive for revolution in favor of the comfort of established order. While the series and the films, for the most part, have never been as one-dimensional
as many other science fiction vehicles, allowing for narratives which occasionally leave the viewer less than positively certain of the "rightness" of the heroes, the franchise couldn't allow any completely unqualified provocative responses to Gene Roddenberry's vision of a universal peace. When Shinzon rots away at the end, one is witnessing the film's attempt to per-suade the viewer that the would-be revolutionary's ex-ternal deterioration reflects the final outcome of a certain internal corruption, his political beliefs "betrayed" by an individual rage for power. Betrayed or revealed at last for what it really is?

While the film's commentary is not a simple minded one and offers a passing complication, the outcome is imprinted with the lingering traces of propaganda, that chaotic forces will always, rightly, be suppressed. As a Star Trek film, as it must be ultimately judged, Nemesis is enjoyable enough, touched with that mixture of philosophizing and apocalyptic threats
to be vanquished fans have come to expect, and is certainly better than the last film in the series, the truly dreadful Insurrection. If this is the final film, and there's really no reason to think so, especially given Patrick Stewart's own surprise, expressed during a recent interview, at the use of the "final journey" tag line, then it's a less than spectacular finish. But in itself, Star Trek: Nemesis succeeds as one of the better films to come out of the now thirty year old television series, and the DVD release is quite a full package, sure to please any Trek fan.

Director Stuart Baird's commentary is functional enough, enjoyable for anyone curious to learn the byways of the production of a Trek franchise film. What is of more interest, though, are the four featurettes detailing various elements of the production, from more ruminations of Baird's to discus-sions of the action sequences of the film, yet these featurettes suffer from what all featurettes suffer from, namely their insubstantialness. Packaged together as a kind of glossy promotional tool, there is often far too little in the way of in-depth analysis in these elongated commercials; after all, "featurette" is a term used in place of "documentary" for a good reason. These pieces are terribly different than the standard fare but will still be of interest to the fan. The most
compelling extras to be found on the DVD, however, are the seven deleted scenes. 

It is always fascinating to see what didn't make it into a given work, what, due to time constraints or other editorial reasons, wasn't included in the finished product. This is primarily be-cause, it seems, that these sequences, on some level, must have informed the rest of the film. In other words, whatever is contained in these scenes was originally conceived of as, no matter how slightly, effecting the rest of the piece. Their inclusion is a way to "fill in the pieces" somewhat, and they are a welcome addition. 

What remains, beyond the usual photo gallery/stills kind of material, is a preview of the DVD release of Deep Space Nine, the series which took over from Next Generation and pre-ceded the never as popular Voyager. Effectively a com-mercial, even more so than the featurettes, little seems needed to be said about it other than the fact that it's inclusion is an example of preaching to the converted. 

The DVD of Star Trek: Nemesis won't change anyone's previously held opinions as to the film's quality. Fans will presumably maintain a fundamental loyalty despite any doubts as to the film's qualitative place in the overall series if, indeed, they have any doubts. When a film franchise trudges along for as long as Star Trek has, the collective baggage of all those years can either mire down any new entry into the series or encourage the creative forces behind that entry to stretch further. Nemesis, paradoxically, shows signs of both tenden-cies. It will be very interesting to see where the franchise goes next, if it goes anywhere at all.

(Released by Paramount and rated "PG-13" for sci-fi action violence and peril and a scene of sexual content.)