10 Dumbest Things In Star Trek (2009)

Eric Bana’s performance as nutball Nero transcends the paper-thin character seen on screen. One can rationalize any idiocy of Nero’s on the fact he’s not operating on all thrusters on account of his grief. Indeed, unused bits from the shooting script make plain this is the case, but not enough of this is in the finished film for it to land.

Even accepting that Nero is determined to nuke the Federation for failing to save his home planet and family in the fuuuuuture, being that he’s now in the past before this tragedy he really ought to make a beeline for home and use Prime Spock’s Red Matter to prevent the supernova that threatens Romulus… because why even take the risk that his ship might be stopped or damaged whilst imploding Federation planets? There’d be plenty of time for vaguely motivated genocide afterward.

What’s especially stupid is that he spares the Enterprise so young Spock can watch Vulcan die, but he could just as well have insisted Spock come over with Pike and let him watch the planet’s destruction from there…or just jump him on Delta Vega with Spock Prime and let them deal with that on top of their misery. Either way, he should have nuked the Enterprise, as it’s the only thing that could warn Starfleet about him.

But, nah, not only is Nero nuts, but he’s dumb as a box of rocks.