14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek Nemesis

5. Once More Into The Briar Patch

Star Trek Nemesis Enterprise E Poster Scimitar
Paramount Pictures

Okay, sure, admittedly the "Briar Patch" per se was in the previous movie. But here we have yet another mandatory space anomaly (a nebula by any other name smells just as cliché). This one’s a glowing green cloud thingus called the Bassen Rift, through which all long-range comms don’t work… but short-range comms are fine so all the local ships can yap with one another.

And, get this, the Enterprise — with the crew’s knowledge that Shinzon’s undetectable ship is likely right on their arse — flies directly into the damned thing. Did no one look for hazards en route? Even Data doesn’t think to caution against this, only realizing the danger at the moment they first have a comm flicker.

Why would the Starfleet ships assemble to support the Enterprise on the far side of this thing and just sit there as shown on the chart? Why wouldn’t they aim for a position where they could see beyond it, and have the Enterprise bear towards the same spot, so there’d be no chance of comm signal disruption? And why is it only when they enter the damned thing does this vulnerability conveniently come up?

 
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Maurice is one of the founders of FACT TREK (www.facttrek.com), a project dedicated to untangling 50+ years of mythology about the original Star Trek and its place in TV history. He's also a screenwriter, writer, and videogame industry vet with scars to show for it. In that latter capacity he game designer/writer on the Sega Genesis/SNES "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — Crossroads of Time" game, as well as Dreamcast "Ecco the Dolphin, Defender of the Future" where Tom Baker performed words he wrote.