I think the Gorn nailed it. The movie on it's own... not bad. The movie as a Trek movie SUCKS!!!! First off, why on god's green earth would the romulans go all that way and then half of them settle on a rock that is so hostile, that one side is always facing the sun, and the other is in darkness (that is the same side always faces it, for those of you who are picking things apart, since all planets tend to have one side facing a sun, and one side facing away.
) Where the heck did these Remans come from? Whose lame brained idea was that? Ooooh, let's make scary vampire people. They don't even really have the structure of a Romulan, assuming they are supposed to be from the same stock (which I hope they aren't). I haven't read any of the books, by the way, but then again they say that the books aren't canon anyway.
The possability of them being from the same stock brings me to one of the great travesties of modern Trek. Romulan Forehead Ridges! I feel my heart beating faster already. What the heck? Not only did we have a whole episode through which the whole subtension was based on the fact that they look EXACTLY like Vulcans, but given the life cycle of Vulcans, their length of life and whatnot, how much longer would it take to create such a drastic facial change in the population? Hmmmmm. I see a problem, given Trek history and when they left Vulcan to colonize elsewhere. All that aside, what was really, really cool about the Romulans was that they were just like Vulcans. They could in fact be the Vulcan standing next to you, whereas the opposite would be much more difficult. Can you see Vulcans acting emotionally just to fit in as a spy? Hmmmm. (here's a thought, that I had after an episode I saw a while back. Where do pudgy Vulcans come from? Wouldn't logic dictate that they eat a healthier amount of food and get more exercise? Shouldn't they be more selective in their actors? They've got to start somewhere).
The Romulans now are pathetic (as per the above outline posted above, of the most rediculous plot imaginable involvingr Romulans). I was so excited when I heard that finally the Romulans were going to get a major movie appearance and not be window dressing. Ooops. They were still window dressing, even in a movie that was supposed to be about them. Instead we get Shinzon, lord of the Nosferatu like vampire people. I didn't see this movie for a very long time. In fact I just checked it out from the library the other day, because I couldn't bear to part with any cash in order to see it. I had mixed emotions. Not a horrible movie on it's own, but a travesty for anyone who has even a mild liking of Romulans. S'Cipio is so right in his post. The guys who came up with this whole thing should be punished in a very public way. No wonder Trek is going through such hard times. They just don't give a rat's butt about history, the fans expectations, or anything. Let them make their own shows if they want to tell something that doesn't fit (heck they could have even created a new race like in Insurrection in order to tell the story. I guess we should just count ourselves lucky that they didn't have saggy skinned Gorn or Andorians in that one.
) Of course after the relatively poor performance of that movie, I think they were probably tied to using "major" Trek race for the followup, no matter what story they decided to go with.
I was also wondering why they don't have any kind of bomb, or biological agent scanners in the Romulan senate. Heck you sneeze in any room on the Enterprise and an alarm goes off. It's not like they should have had to walk through anything, it should have just sensed something dangerous was in the room, shouldn't it? I mean it's the freaking Senate! The seat of power for the entire Empire.
The plus to having watched it, though, was that I decided to sit down and knock out a little Trek music on my computer. I've got some cleaning on it to do and a few more sections, but I've been really enjoying listening to it.
Now I'll stop posting and go back to dreaming of the days when Romulans had no ridges, and were actually intelligent warriors of honor, instead of the weak, moronic mutants we are now presented with on a regular basis. And to think of all the fantasies I could have had about Dina Meyer in "real" Romulan makeup and dress, instead of looking like a washed out troglodyte. Oh, well.