Nemesis or Star Trek X is The Next Generation crew's finest hour and possibly final adventure. The film is an action film that lives up to its name as an action film. The last 45 minutes of the film are one long action sequence. Its also a very character driven film, with a lot of character stories that seem to round off all the characters stories and in some cases open them up more. Picard is more relaxed and opens up his feelings more in this film both to Riker and to his enemy Shinzon. The main plot itself sees the Enterprise fighting the Remans and trying to stop the destruction of Earth. With this dramatic plot the producers turned to veteran Trek composer Jerry Goldsmith (has scored 6 out of the 10 movies) to produce a broad sweeping score with lots of action music but still have the Star Trek feel.
However, Nemesis does not hold up as the best Trek score ever as the sleeve notes would suggest. The result of Goldsmith's efforts is a score full of action music, some of it very good but that can't just fill an album. There is surprisingly little of the Trek theme to be heard throughout the score. And the performances of it that there are seem to be taken at a depressing and moody pace. Goldsmith's theme for the villain Shinzon is simple and quite effective but the theme is never expanded as Shinzon's character does on screen. The quieter moments of Nemesis are few and far between and exhibit more bland underscore but do have some refreshing bursts of the Trek theme.
All in all the main interest of the score is the good action music rather than the character moments. Tracks such as "Odds and Ends", "Scorpion", "Engage" and "Final Flight" are the highlights of the action music. These tracks have very little theme at all showcasing my point that the Nemesis score is all substance but with no style. The music is quite creative and has a driving pace that holds a lot of excitement but that can't help the fact that without you knowing it comes from Nemesis you couldn't tell otherwise. The score simply lacks the splendour, power and sensitivity of Goldsmith's previous Trek scores. Maybe Goldsmith is running out of fresh ideas. Or maybe the producers Rick Berman & Brannon Braga told Goldsmith to make the music less themematic and more wall-papery as they have done for all the Trek series since they took over the franchise. If that is the reason then shame on them. And shame on them for continually writing scripts for Enterprise where they simply regurgitate plots from TNG with bland dialogue. They should let the writers they've hired do the writing and they should stop interfering with the music.
Overall Nemesis is not bad. But its not that good either. The whole score is listenable apart from a few of the tension cues such as "The Knife" which ends up being wavering strings. As a Trek score fan I expected more. But instead the score joins DEEP RISING and U.S. MARSHALS as a score that is bland and overall boring but with a few tracks that remind of the previous Trek scores and manage to hold the score slightly above the latter two scores and the scores for Star Trek III & IV.
***
2. The Box
3. My Right Arm
4. Odds and Ends
5. Repairs
6. The Knife
7. Ideals
8. The Mirror
9. The Scorpion
10. Lateral Run
11. Engage
12. Final Flight
13. A New Friend
14. A New Ending