Last year Beautiful Mind won the oscar for best makeup and Planet of the Apes WASN'T NOMINATED!!! Planet of the Apes wasn't a very good movie, but there is no denying that the make up used in that film was far more impressive then anything seen in Beautiful Mind.

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"New Jersey Girl, New Jersey Girl
Come on and rock my world
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I wanna love you
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Some perspectives...

1)Steve fails to point out that although NEMESIS had 652 theatres over the weekend for 38th place, it made as much or fewer than other movies that had far smaller theater counts. You won't find a movie that has a similar theater count until you reach #25, The Wild Thornberrys.

2)I admit, it's generally easy to quickly point fingers at the head when things aren't going well. It happens with sports coaches, it happens with corporations. And as the head, Berman does take the heat. But when you look at the bigger picture as a whole, in terms of Berman's entire term, one blip in the road with NEMESIS a legacy doesn't make. As for the polls saying moviegoers gave the movie an A-, this might have as much credibility as the polls on this website, which gives any episode of Enterprise, good or bad, incredibly high marks, whether they actually really deserve them or not. The first week attracts hard core fans who would give an A to anything with a Trek label.

3)You mean to tell me that the sight of a neon green/black poster of some latex dressed guy holding a wicked big knife in the air doesn't get the public's curiosity enough to see the movie? Ridiculous. If anything, the marketing is innovative and original. It would get the public talking about the movie.

4)Forget about the outrage of the Academy's snubbing of NEMESIS for Make Up. What about the snubbing of Best Picture and Best Editing? If I were Rick Berman, I would be stewed. For evidence, I would hold up the news sheet showing that for the first week in release, moviegoers gave the film an A-, on par with other prospective Best Picture flicks.

5)I hear too much about "fans being driven away by the mighty Two Towers". What about the fans who were driven away from The Two Towers because Star Trek has finally appeared for the first time in four years? I'm sure there must have been some moviegoers who could only afford to see one movie and would have chosen The Two Towers if that dang Star Trek movie hadn't reared its head.

6)If I were Rick Berman, I would immediately attempt to regain/recoup losses by producing another Star Trek movie and have it on a target release date of Memorial Day weekend, 2005. George Lucas better be quaking in his boots over losing prospective sci-fi fans to real Sci fi competition. If this is too queasy for Paramount's seemingly iron stomach, maybe postpone it to July 4th, 2005, when Indy IV comes out.

7)The past few years have seen the gradual rise of Rick Berman, who has consolidated enough power to be the undisputed Lord of Trek. Like the Founders, he can never be wrong. Otherwise he would have never won the rise to power. We as the fans have failed him. If we can't support NEMESIS, why did we not dedicate half of our paychecks to it, or even better, send it directly to Berman? Berman has a vision, which although it doesn't seem entirely clear or good to us mortals for the moment, is obviously something that Berman can see that you cannot.

8)Dump high priced salaries like Stewart (who may have been the only performance worth watching) and have Berman take the controls himself. Captain Rick! Directed and Produced by the same man. If people can't do something right, then as the old saying goes, you just gotta do it yourself. Box Office riches follow.

LONG LIVE RICK BERMAN, LORD OF STAR TREK! You other mortals just can't open your eyes past the present...

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Academy members who vote for Make-up should be ashamed of themselves. A movie being left out of nominations because not enough members saw it is ridiculus. If they were impressed by the presentations, they should have made an attempt to see the movie. Paramount holds special screenings for Academy members, so they really don't have a good excuse.

Also what is the deal with only 2 nominatiosn for make-up and only 3 nominations for visual effects and sound effects? Why don't they nominate 5 movies like other categories. It is good publicity for movies just to be nominated. I don't understand why these departments are so stingy with their nominations.

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If you want me to shell out more money on Nemesis, I will do so by buying a DVD of it. HOWEVER, I demand that you reinsert deleted footage to give the movie more character moments and to give the villain more motivation for his actions. From what Berman and the director Stuart Baird have said, they're against that idea. Why? The film failed, so why not make some changes and hope for better performance on DVD? Hell, if I had my way I'd also pay to have a better soundtrack added. Anyway, that's my two cents. Please add some deleted scenes -- not as extras, but insert them into the movie. If you do it, I will buy it. Thanks.

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Saving Trek..

Easy.

Pay Stewart a small sum for a short day of work playing admiral picard. I.e "M" in bond, or Hopkins in Mission Impossible. He sits in an office and puts together a team for the enterprise.. and maybe has a second day of work debating with Starfleet higher ups about a crisis, or commanding a fleet of starships from earth.

This gives you shots of Picard in the trailer.

The enterprise leads a fleet to do something.. Starship fighting effects are easy and cheap to do, and look cool.. remember the Battles on DS9? At a million an episode.

Meanwhile, give us Captain riker, leave Spiner behind.. (Data is a non issue, and who needs B-4) And get familiar faces. Guarantee Siddig would be cheaper and more interesting than McFadden. Or have him on another ship. If we have a fleet, show us Captains O'Brien or Chakotay or LaForge.

Its easy to do, it would be pretty cool to see, and there you go! Focus much of the attention on the enterprise's new crew.. and give the fans what they want. A "Q" movie.. a Klingon Movie.. A DOminion Movie.

You could even have it be socially relevant.. give it allegorical meaning to today.

The point is, Stewart would be A mil or 2 for 2 days work.. and you could give him talky scenes intercut in the whole movie. No holding out for money for SPiner or Dorn, we see characters we've missed.. the movie could be made for 30-40 mil and if you released it in Feb, it would probably do better than Nemesis, but wouldn't have to.

Final point.. take Stewart and Frakes and the Enterprise out.. and you have a miniseries or TV movie there for 10-11 mil. (Fewer effects). Run that on CBS on Sun Nights and see what happens.

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This is why Nemesis failed.

Despite being a fair "movie", it failed to embody the spirit of Trek. It was dark, gloomy, intense, and ultimately a downer, with a tragedy at the end of the movie. It was missing personal stakes for the characters.. (i.e. Khan with Kirk feeling old, a son, an ex-wife, and a feel of adventure). This discouraged repeat views. I liked Nemesis, like I liked say, "Gods and Monsters" (not comparing the quality, don;t rant).. but it was too dark.

Add to this the saturation of Trek in the marketplace. Its hard for me to justify spending another 15 bucks on Nemesis when I'm watching daily TNG on DVD. And seeing new trek on Enterprise.

Add to this the Ad campaign.. lackluster, too little too late, and the best part, the trailer, missing from theatres.

FInally, the release date.. TTT mopped up Trek. I saw that the next week. Many of my friends who wanted to see Trek didn;t because they were too busy and there were just too many movies they wanted to see. If they missed it the first weekend, there was TTT, then Christmas. It was Bad timing.

As for the UK and Germany, the release date wasn't there, but thte bad buzz was from its US "failure" and the saturation certainly was in effect.

Finally, remember the SEQUEL rule. A sequel does business based on its predecessor. Ace Ventura 2 was terible by comparison to the first, but prople saw it, and it did well. Cable Guy was good, but people were turned off by Ace 2.. You get the idea. Insurrection turned off the borderline fans. So, they didn't see this movie.

I hope there's a next time to fix these problems.

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Oh that is laughable.. the Time Machine for a make-up Oscar?

Not enough people watched ST: Nemesis?

The Time Machine only pulled in $56.8 million... and was 10 places higher on total domestic gross for 2002 than Nemesis.

What a crock.. Has the make up guy for the Star Trek series and movies gotten a life time achievement award or SOMETHING from the Academy? Talk about an under appreciated job...

Frida? The Time Machine? Just goes to show how out of touch the Academy is with reality and will continue to lose more and more viewership to shows like the People Choice Awards, The Golden Globes, etc.

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It's A HIT!!!!

$50 million?! Wowwwww....

Ya know, they could almost make another movie with that much money...maybe a made for TV movie? How about SISKO: THE RETURN? :) Or maybe they could use that money to pay for Patrick Stewart next time...what to do?...what to do? So much money, so few ways to spend it.

Keep on Trekkin! :)

Cinepixel

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"See this? This is my BOOMSTICK!!!"
Ash from ARMY OF DARKNESS

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Over a decade of abuse fades away for Shatner as the final numbers roll in for Nemesis. Redeemed? Maybe not, but his film sold more tickets and didn't kill the franchise.

Go, Bill!

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I think, anyone can understand that the scheduling in USA was bad. When I told my friends about Nemesis and that it was so close to The Two Towers, they immediately said "Oh no.. that's not good". This is common sense to every consumer, and Paramount can't ignore it. Of course, I am curious to hear what Berman has to say.

What strikes me, is that Nemesis has the same problem in ALL countries, even those where the schedule wasn't as close to The Two Towers. I have no idea why this could happen.

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It's really unfortunate that NEMESIS is basically the worst performing STAR TREK film of all time. I think the studio deserves a fair share of the blame for horrible scheduling. Even December 6th, one week earlier, might have led to a larger opening weekend gross. I recall hardly anything came out that weekend and it was just silliness to debut less than a full week before LOTR TTT. As I believe Deus pointed out on the BBS, the studio will no doubt look on this as a failure of STAR TREK and not give a second thought to its scheduling and/or its less-than-broadly-appealing marketing campaign. As has been hinted at, Rick Berman in an upcoming interview may ignore the release entirely, saying the fans let the picture down on its Fri/Sat opening. While that's conjecture until Berman's quotes are released in full, it's wholly unsurprising based on what we've come to expect with regard to the treatment of the TREK features in the Berman era.

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-Steve Krutzler
==V/-/== Rocks

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