STAR TREK: NEMESIS teaser poster
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NEW YORK TIMES tees off on STAR TREK: NEMESIS

While STAR TREK: NEMESIS has been receiving a good deal of positive buzz in recent months from those who've seen early versions and read the script, the film has now received its first bit of negative word.

Writing in the NEW YORK TIMES, Stuart Klawans has teed off on the film and the STAR TREK franchise in general. And for many fans, his words may ring a little too true.

"Once again, the history of the future repeats itself," Klawans wrote in Sundays NYT. "Go back in the series from the 24th century to the 23rd, substitute Klingons for Romulans and James T. Kirk for Jean-Luc Picard, and you will discern the outlines of STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY [in NEMESIS]. This duplication is not simply a matter of one generation following another onto the bridge of the Enterprise. As true fans can tell you, NEMESIS will seem new and yet vaguely familiar: the 10th film in a series that has five plots."

He also shot off these points about the creative... malaise maybe?... the film series has been in from time to time:

"A megalomaniac tries to seize the power of life itself (STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN; STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER; STAR TREK VII: GENERATIONS; STAR TREK IX: INSURRECTION).

"A senior officer of the Enterprise comes back from the dead (STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK; STAR TREK VII: GENERATIONS), or a fate worse than death (STAR TREK VIII: FIRST CONTACT).

"The crew of the Enterprise goes back to an earlier century on Earth, to make sure that history happens as it should (STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME; STAR TREK VIII: FIRST CONTACT).

"A spacecraft threatens to destroy Earth, and we're to blame, either because our technology is more advanced than our ethics (STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE) or because we've trashed other species (STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME)."

Wrapping up, Klawnas said, "Poverty of narrative invention has nothing to do with predicting the success or failure of any STAR TREK film. THE WRATH OF KHAN has more incident than the others put together and is by common consent the best of the lot. But THE VOYAGE HOME also ranks high, despite a story that can be fully retold in the listing in TV Guide. Like the original television series, which put expansive ideals into rudimentary settings, THE VOYAGE HOME charmed audiences by blending self-aware goofiness with outer-space liberalism."