:maize:

Wow.

Just wow.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, the bad:

There seemed to be great chunks of plot exposition that just weren't there. I came away with three main questions.

First, whatever happened to Data's emotion chip? He had it installed in Generations, learned to turn it off by First Contact, and could remove it when he left the Enterprise before Insurrection. Did he lose it (perhaps it fell off a shelf when the ship got knocked around in the Bryar Patch)? Did he simply decide that he didn't want it anymore? A single line of dialogue would have been enough explanation.

Secondly, where did Worf come from? Heck, in an interview, even Michael Dorn couldn't explain how Worf suddenly went from Federation ambassador to his old job at Enterprise's tactical board. Despite John Logan's award-winning fame and avowed Trekkie status, I'm inclined to call this lazy writing; the only line that couldn't have come from a new character (just who has been security chief these past few years?) was a single throwaway semi-non-sequitur comment during a firefight.

I can see him showing up for the Riker/Troi wedding, 'cause Riker was his best friend (as opposed to O'Brien, who apparently thinks he's Worf's best friend ;) ). And I did like how Logan wrote him; Worf has become a lot more casual since DS9 --"old" Worf would never have made that snarky comment to Data (upon finding B4's arm).

As for B4: huh? I thought all three of the "Sons of Soong" were accounted for. Aside from Data, Lore was destroyed after the "Descent" 2-parter (where Data gained the emotion chip), and the nameless "prototype" was found in the remains of Soong's lab and is currently in Data's possession (scavenged for spare parts, probably).

That said, however, I fall back on my earlier speechlessness. This one was good.

A personal high-point was the confrontation between Holo-Shinzon and Picard in the ready-room. It was fascinating to me personally because I've. . . considered those issues myself. How much of what we are comes from our personal history? How much comes from choice, and how much is predetermined by our heritage? Do we really have the capacity to be better than we started out to be? Can we change? This is what Star Trek is all about, people. This made me proud to be a Trekkie.

As I said above, John (Gladiator) Logan is a self-professed Trekkie. The story was by him, Brent "Data" Spiner, and Rick Berman, and apparently Logan knew more about Treklore then either of them. His appreciation for the franchise shines through just about everywhere; the cast and crew rave about his infectious enthusiasm, and the "guests" gave as good a performance as the seasoned pros.

I enjoyed the cameos, though they seemed mainly there for tokenism. The only one who really did anything was Guinan. Admiral Janeway's role could've been done as easily by any other admiral. (Whatever happened to Adm. Ross or Paris?) It only really serves to underline the impossibility of a Voyager movie, unless anyone wants to watch Kate Mulgrew sitting behind a desk for two hours. I'd have liked to see more of Wesley, or at least a notice of how he pulled himself away from apparent Godhood to attend a wedding --and in a Starfleet dress uniform, no less!

Once again, the Enterprise gets the scrap kicked out of her ( :roleyess: ), but this time you could actually see her as the Pride of Starfleet. I mean, ramming a ship like the Scimitar like that would have ripped most other ships to tinfoil; the Big-E only looked to have lost about a quarter of her saucer.

I liked the new Romulan ships. At first I was hoping that that Scorpion fighter would turn out to be a Predator (see the Star Trek: Invasion video game), but the Pred would never have been able to make those turns. (Picard is one hell of a pilot!)

Besides, it makes sense for the Praetor's personal ship to be equipped with the latest class of support craft. Just as it makes sense for Picard's Romulan "friends" to have newer-model warbirds, and for the Enterprise to be equipped with Starfleet's latest "toy" --the Argo.

What I really loved though wasn't a matter of scripting or cinematics. In fact, it wasn't up on screen at all. I don't know if Logan did this on purpose or not, but the story (except for Worf's presence) fits into an arc that's been moving in the background for over a decade now.

See, the last time we saw Spock, he was living on Romulus, running an underground pushing for Unification of Romulus and Vulcan. For years, that was the last we heard of it. Then, in one of the novels (possibly one of Shatner's, I'm honestly not sure), we see Spock again. This time, he makes a solemn judgment to one of his romulan "disciples."

After a thorough evaluation, he has found only one possible conclusion. The Romulan Empire is impractical. Within 200 years, possibly less, the Empire will collapse. Totally.

This, of course, was before the Dominion War.

Now, Gene Roddenberry's universe is an allegory first and foremost. Each of the major species represents some facet of the human condition (vulcans=rationality, klingons=passion, humans=curiosity/self-improvement, ferengi=greed, etc). So, what do the Romulans represent?

They descended from vulcans, so it would have to be something that derives from rational thought. What makes a romulan into a Romulan? Their culture. Think about it. The "proto-romulans" left Vulcan to protect their culture from Surak's philosophy. When we see them in Enterprise and TOS, they're so paranoid that they won't even let themselves be seen. The cloaking device, the Neutral Zone, the Tal Shiar, it's all about protecting Romulan culture from "pollution" by "foreign" ideas --romulans even wear gloves when they deal with aliens. They've closed their borders and they pretend that they're alone; that the rest of the universe doesn't exist.

In Roddenberry's allegorical universe though, this isn't an option. The romulan mindset is stunted and crippled by paranoia. Like Spock observed, the whole system is only a century or two from crashing down in flames.

Then the Dominion War happened, and the rules changed. Romulus entered the war, and Romulan outposts began springing up everywhere --there's even one on one of Bajor's moons.

Suddenly, romulans are interacting with the rest of the galaxy again. Being exposed to new, "seditious" ideas, and bringing those perspectives back home when the war ended.

It makes perfect sense that everything would be going to hell. The iron grip of Romulan Authority is probably weakening, the Tal Shiar is weakened, possibly beyond repair --the people (romulan and reman alike, evidently) are about to revolt.

Heck, even the "smaller, faster, sleeker" Newtype Warbirds make sense after the War (where big, powerful ships got their asses handed to them by small, agile Jem'Hadar fighters and the tiny Defiant-class gunships ended up turning the tide).