Star Trek 10 “Through A Glass Darkly”
Updated
User reviews
14 reviews
Overall rating
8.9
Audio/Video Quality
8.7(9)
Audio Editing
9.4(8)
Visual Editing
9.1(9)
Narrative
8.4(8)
Enjoyment
8.7(14)
(Updated: September 15, 2012)
Overall rating
9.0
Audio/Video Quality
9.0
Visual Editing
9.0
Enjoyment
9.0
Review by LastSurvivor — April 22, 2012 @ 12:16 pm
BionicBob, probably the most prolific faneditor out there at the moment, brings us his first and maybe only edit on The Next Generation Star Trek franchise in the form of possibly the worst Star Trek film of all, Nemesis. Okay, that dubious honor might actually go to JJ Abrams’ over-rated reboot, but hey, before I start a war let’s get onto Bob’s Through a Glass Darkly ;)
It’s difficult to know where to start with the problems which plague Nemesis. I think Bob actually puts it very well in his “About this Edit” feature, in that here in Stuart Baird was a director who knew little of the Star Trek universe, pandering to the main stars prima donna style requirements within the script to keep a happy ship (dune buggy racing anyone? Data singing? Um, no thanks). Also, what’s evident here is that for the final voyage of TNG cast, there is a distinct lack of that “family” feel which one has come to love and expect from the Trek universe. Perhaps this darker style of Star Trek just doesn’t work? Maybe that’s why I don’t like Abrams’ version too? I digress.
Thankfully, Bob has certainly taken the full blooded fanediting approach here. A massive 32 minutes of footage is ruthlessly cut, leaving us with a fast-paced 82 minutes (about 76 if you take out the incredibly long end-credits) of treachery, deceit, adventure and a chance to see in Shinzon a darker flip-side of our beloved Captain Jean-Luc Picard. The decision to remove the horrible B4 concept is this edit’s most obvious saving grace and it’s executed with some skill. Some reviews have pointed towards the awkward way in which a flashback is inserted to explain the “beaming device” which Data places on Picard, but I take my hat off to Bob here, as he pulls it off perfectly. I’ve seen Bob try and use some flashback-style techniques before, but this is by far his most natural and best attempt.
Of course, trimming Nemesis down to this extent does result in it feeling like a feature-length TV episode and I actually would have liked Bob to have applied the same TV-style fade outs and title sequence which he used so well on his classic Trek edits.
Unfortunately, as impressive and enjoyable as Through A Glass Darkly is, it’s still unable to completely rescue the film. The trimmed wedding scene is still horribly scripted and acted with about as much warmth and sincerity as a wet space blanket. Baird’s direction remains flat (surprising when you consider his overall solid filmography as an editor) and the uninspired performances from nearly all the cast make you wonder if First Contact was but a dream.
Still, some of the scenes between Shinzon and Picard hint at what could have been and the ever reliable Jerry Goldsmith was still able to shine with another impressive music score. The use of the original ending is also a definite improvement, despite the obvious drop in quality, and gives some hope of further adventures with Picard and a new number one.
Audio – would get a solid 9/10. Only when the Enterprise was banking away (the second time) to go into warp did it feel as if the sound was a little out of synch.
Picture quality – 10/10. As good as the original DVD from what I could tell.
Editing – 9/10. Nearly perfect for me, but I’m sure Bob used the same shot of the Enterprise going into warp twice? If I’m wrong, I apologise!
Overall – An excellent attempt to rescue a pretty poor movie, Through A Glass Darkly sees BionicBob at the top of his game. I personally think it’s a difficult challenge to make cuts of some 30 minutes and still manage to have a movie which manages to hold together in its storytelling – but Bob manages it here very well. So, whereas the original movie I would give 5/10, Through a Glass Darkly would receive 7/10. As an overall score for the way in which this was fanedited however, I would give this 9/10.
If this is the final Trek edit for BionicBob, he’s gone out in more style and honor than the TNG cast did on the final day of shooting of Nemesis. :)
BionicBob, probably the most prolific faneditor out there at the moment, brings us his first and maybe only edit on The Next Generation Star Trek franchise in the form of possibly the worst Star Trek film of all, Nemesis. Okay, that dubious honor might actually go to JJ Abrams’ over-rated reboot, but hey, before I start a war let’s get onto Bob’s Through a Glass Darkly ;)
It’s difficult to know where to start with the problems which plague Nemesis. I think Bob actually puts it very well in his “About this Edit” feature, in that here in Stuart Baird was a director who knew little of the Star Trek universe, pandering to the main stars prima donna style requirements within the script to keep a happy ship (dune buggy racing anyone? Data singing? Um, no thanks). Also, what’s evident here is that for the final voyage of TNG cast, there is a distinct lack of that “family” feel which one has come to love and expect from the Trek universe. Perhaps this darker style of Star Trek just doesn’t work? Maybe that’s why I don’t like Abrams’ version too? I digress.
Thankfully, Bob has certainly taken the full blooded fanediting approach here. A massive 32 minutes of footage is ruthlessly cut, leaving us with a fast-paced 82 minutes (about 76 if you take out the incredibly long end-credits) of treachery, deceit, adventure and a chance to see in Shinzon a darker flip-side of our beloved Captain Jean-Luc Picard. The decision to remove the horrible B4 concept is this edit’s most obvious saving grace and it’s executed with some skill. Some reviews have pointed towards the awkward way in which a flashback is inserted to explain the “beaming device” which Data places on Picard, but I take my hat off to Bob here, as he pulls it off perfectly. I’ve seen Bob try and use some flashback-style techniques before, but this is by far his most natural and best attempt.
Of course, trimming Nemesis down to this extent does result in it feeling like a feature-length TV episode and I actually would have liked Bob to have applied the same TV-style fade outs and title sequence which he used so well on his classic Trek edits.
Unfortunately, as impressive and enjoyable as Through A Glass Darkly is, it’s still unable to completely rescue the film. The trimmed wedding scene is still horribly scripted and acted with about as much warmth and sincerity as a wet space blanket. Baird’s direction remains flat (surprising when you consider his overall solid filmography as an editor) and the uninspired performances from nearly all the cast make you wonder if First Contact was but a dream.
Still, some of the scenes between Shinzon and Picard hint at what could have been and the ever reliable Jerry Goldsmith was still able to shine with another impressive music score. The use of the original ending is also a definite improvement, despite the obvious drop in quality, and gives some hope of further adventures with Picard and a new number one.
Audio – would get a solid 9/10. Only when the Enterprise was banking away (the second time) to go into warp did it feel as if the sound was a little out of synch.
Picture quality – 10/10. As good as the original DVD from what I could tell.
Editing – 9/10. Nearly perfect for me, but I’m sure Bob used the same shot of the Enterprise going into warp twice? If I’m wrong, I apologise!
Overall – An excellent attempt to rescue a pretty poor movie, Through A Glass Darkly sees BionicBob at the top of his game. I personally think it’s a difficult challenge to make cuts of some 30 minutes and still manage to have a movie which manages to hold together in its storytelling – but Bob manages it here very well. So, whereas the original movie I would give 5/10, Through a Glass Darkly would receive 7/10. As an overall score for the way in which this was fanedited however, I would give this 9/10.
If this is the final Trek edit for BionicBob, he’s gone out in more style and honor than the TNG cast did on the final day of shooting of Nemesis. :)
L
(Updated: September 15, 2012)
Enjoyment
10.0
Review by DwightFry78 — April 17, 2012 @ 10:01 pm
This might very well be BionicBob’s best achievement so far: taking Nemesis, arguably the very worst of all Star Trek movies, and making it much more enjoyable than I ever expected it to be. Don’t take me wrong, it’s not a great movie now, that wouldn’t be possible given the generic and tired source material, but it’s now worth the Star Trek name and no longer an emmbarrassment to watch. Just removing the worst offenders (mind rape, dune buggy, B4, stupid humor) works wonders for it.
It has been argued among other users whether including a certain flashback near the end was needed or worked well. To me, it’s indispensable, because without it Data’s sacrifice makes no sense: we of course realize what the portable beaming device is when we see it work, but if we don’t know that it can only beam one person up, and that it’s a prototype so Data couldn’t have carried one for himself, the scene would become incomprehensible and Data would seem to be suicidal or have a death wish, and his sacrifice would seen random, meaningless, and easily avoidable. Of course, we have seen the theatrical version so we can mentally fill the gaps, but the narrative of a fanedit should stand on its own. And Bob’s version does. Who cares if the flashback is to something we did not see before. We know those people have had many adventures together.
Technically speaking, this is Bob’s more well-rounded edit to this day. No bad cuts, awkward fades or interlacing, except for the end credits, which do become a bit uncomfortable to read because of ghosting. There’s one flash frame of a starfield right at the beginning before the credits, but it’s nearly unnoticeable. Despite having a pretty good eye for these things myself, I didn’t notice it until another reviewer pointed it out.
I’m giving this a 10/10. Not because it’s now a perfect, flawless movie, which it never will be, but because there’s not much, if anything, I would have done differently. Bravo!
This might very well be BionicBob’s best achievement so far: taking Nemesis, arguably the very worst of all Star Trek movies, and making it much more enjoyable than I ever expected it to be. Don’t take me wrong, it’s not a great movie now, that wouldn’t be possible given the generic and tired source material, but it’s now worth the Star Trek name and no longer an emmbarrassment to watch. Just removing the worst offenders (mind rape, dune buggy, B4, stupid humor) works wonders for it.
It has been argued among other users whether including a certain flashback near the end was needed or worked well. To me, it’s indispensable, because without it Data’s sacrifice makes no sense: we of course realize what the portable beaming device is when we see it work, but if we don’t know that it can only beam one person up, and that it’s a prototype so Data couldn’t have carried one for himself, the scene would become incomprehensible and Data would seem to be suicidal or have a death wish, and his sacrifice would seen random, meaningless, and easily avoidable. Of course, we have seen the theatrical version so we can mentally fill the gaps, but the narrative of a fanedit should stand on its own. And Bob’s version does. Who cares if the flashback is to something we did not see before. We know those people have had many adventures together.
Technically speaking, this is Bob’s more well-rounded edit to this day. No bad cuts, awkward fades or interlacing, except for the end credits, which do become a bit uncomfortable to read because of ghosting. There’s one flash frame of a starfield right at the beginning before the credits, but it’s nearly unnoticeable. Despite having a pretty good eye for these things myself, I didn’t notice it until another reviewer pointed it out.
I’m giving this a 10/10. Not because it’s now a perfect, flawless movie, which it never will be, but because there’s not much, if anything, I would have done differently. Bravo!
D
(Updated: September 15, 2012)
Enjoyment
7.0
Review by DriggyDriggs — April 9, 2012 @ 3:17 am
Just watched this last night. Nemesis was also a disappointment to me in theaters. I was hoping for a special edition dvd, but instead what we got was the same theatrical version with poor quality deleted scenes in the special features. There was a time when I attempted a workprint of Nemesis myself, but I abandoned the project when I realized the deleted scenes were in such bad shape it would never be put up on the website. When I saw that BionicBob was attempting a version with B-4 completely gone, I was wondering how he would pull it off. On to the edit:
The good stuff:
- The wedding scene is trimmed. Thank God. Everything after Picard’s speech was dreadful. I’m glad it was all gone.
- The young bald Picard photo is not shown.
- No mind rape. It was done better in the TNG episode “Violations.” They basically ripped it off here and did it worse with a character that had no motivation to do it anyway. Glad it’s gone here.
- No B-4. B-4′s antics are just annoying. I’m glad he’s gone. Although I wish they had found a way to bring Lore back for this story so there was an actual parallel between Data and Picard. That would have required the director to actually be familiar with Star Trek, though. B-4 being gone makes the film much tighter, and actually gets rid of some other annoying things, like the federation “dune buggy.” However, removing B-4 does leave one serious narrative issue, which I’ll get into later.
The Not So Good Stuff:
-Some of the musical cues didn’t really mesh well due to scene deletions in the first 30 minutes.
-A minor plot hole was created because of a scene bring deleted. It is established at the wedding reception that Riker is leaving for his own command, but then he goes on a mission on the Enterprise right after his wedding. Why is he there? In the original film, they are giving him a ride, but they get diverted to Romulus. Maybe reinsert the scene where Picard tells him “the Opal Sea will have to wait” right after they are diverted to Romulus?
-Couple of continuity errors: Enterprise shown at warp a couple of times (one time out the window during the briefing scene) and then shown going to warp right after.
-The Viceroy is never established as having telepathic abilities in this edit, so Troi finding the ship through him and him feeling her presence seemed a bit contrived.
-Without the transport device having been introduced earlier during Picard’s capture, it’s appearance and explanation via flashback also seemed contrived. Unfortunately, without B-4, it would be hard to do Picard’s rescue from the Scimitar.
The faster pace gives this edit a lot of action, and I actually enjoyed quite a few of the edits. However, because of the narrative issues that I mentioned, my rating was lowered a bit.
Final Score: 7 out of 10
Just watched this last night. Nemesis was also a disappointment to me in theaters. I was hoping for a special edition dvd, but instead what we got was the same theatrical version with poor quality deleted scenes in the special features. There was a time when I attempted a workprint of Nemesis myself, but I abandoned the project when I realized the deleted scenes were in such bad shape it would never be put up on the website. When I saw that BionicBob was attempting a version with B-4 completely gone, I was wondering how he would pull it off. On to the edit:
The good stuff:
- The wedding scene is trimmed. Thank God. Everything after Picard’s speech was dreadful. I’m glad it was all gone.
- The young bald Picard photo is not shown.
- No mind rape. It was done better in the TNG episode “Violations.” They basically ripped it off here and did it worse with a character that had no motivation to do it anyway. Glad it’s gone here.
- No B-4. B-4′s antics are just annoying. I’m glad he’s gone. Although I wish they had found a way to bring Lore back for this story so there was an actual parallel between Data and Picard. That would have required the director to actually be familiar with Star Trek, though. B-4 being gone makes the film much tighter, and actually gets rid of some other annoying things, like the federation “dune buggy.” However, removing B-4 does leave one serious narrative issue, which I’ll get into later.
The Not So Good Stuff:
-Some of the musical cues didn’t really mesh well due to scene deletions in the first 30 minutes.
-A minor plot hole was created because of a scene bring deleted. It is established at the wedding reception that Riker is leaving for his own command, but then he goes on a mission on the Enterprise right after his wedding. Why is he there? In the original film, they are giving him a ride, but they get diverted to Romulus. Maybe reinsert the scene where Picard tells him “the Opal Sea will have to wait” right after they are diverted to Romulus?
-Couple of continuity errors: Enterprise shown at warp a couple of times (one time out the window during the briefing scene) and then shown going to warp right after.
-The Viceroy is never established as having telepathic abilities in this edit, so Troi finding the ship through him and him feeling her presence seemed a bit contrived.
-Without the transport device having been introduced earlier during Picard’s capture, it’s appearance and explanation via flashback also seemed contrived. Unfortunately, without B-4, it would be hard to do Picard’s rescue from the Scimitar.
The faster pace gives this edit a lot of action, and I actually enjoyed quite a few of the edits. However, because of the narrative issues that I mentioned, my rating was lowered a bit.
Final Score: 7 out of 10
D
(Updated: September 15, 2012)
Enjoyment
8.0
Review by Captain Khajiit — April 5, 2012 @ 7:17 pm
Nemesis was a disappointment to me in the cinema. As concepts, I disliked both Shinzon and the Remans. The directing was poor, and I did not appreciate the humor. B4 was the nail in the coffin.
Nemesis will never be a good film, but Bionicbob has removed the worst elements and made watching it bearable, in much the same way as Uncanny Antman did for Terminator 3 in his edit. The result is a well-made edit that should appeal to both Star Trek fans and casual viewers.
Video quality was reasonably high, and the audio did not fluctuate as much in volume as previous Bionicbob edits (thought I did watch it with my media player set on “night mode”). The menu was stylish, and there were some interesting trailers for upcoming Bionicbob edits.
8/10 I highly recommend this edit.
Nemesis was a disappointment to me in the cinema. As concepts, I disliked both Shinzon and the Remans. The directing was poor, and I did not appreciate the humor. B4 was the nail in the coffin.
Nemesis will never be a good film, but Bionicbob has removed the worst elements and made watching it bearable, in much the same way as Uncanny Antman did for Terminator 3 in his edit. The result is a well-made edit that should appeal to both Star Trek fans and casual viewers.
Video quality was reasonably high, and the audio did not fluctuate as much in volume as previous Bionicbob edits (thought I did watch it with my media player set on “night mode”). The menu was stylish, and there were some interesting trailers for upcoming Bionicbob edits.
8/10 I highly recommend this edit.
C
(Updated: July 13, 2013)
Overall rating
8.6
Audio/Video Quality
9.0
Audio Editing
9.0
Visual Editing
9.0
Narrative
8.0
Enjoyment
8.0
Review by Vultural — April 2, 2012 @ 10:19 pm
This is a great improvement over the original.
I pulled up my copy of Nemesis beforehand and could barely sit through it. The pacing was deadly, and the narrative was cluttered.
Bionic Bob trimmed out the fat, and this movie goes!
The audio seemed fine to my ears. The video edits were smooth. The only “clinker” was the added bit at the end, though it was fun, nevertheless.
I am not a fan of STNG (prefer Voyager), but BB’s version of Nemesis is a winner, and I can recommend it to fans who tired of the series long ago.
8/10
This is a great improvement over the original.
I pulled up my copy of Nemesis beforehand and could barely sit through it. The pacing was deadly, and the narrative was cluttered.
Bionic Bob trimmed out the fat, and this movie goes!
The audio seemed fine to my ears. The video edits were smooth. The only “clinker” was the added bit at the end, though it was fun, nevertheless.
I am not a fan of STNG (prefer Voyager), but BB’s version of Nemesis is a winner, and I can recommend it to fans who tired of the series long ago.
8/10
User Review
Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
DVD
V