14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek Nemesis

The story technobabbles up a convenient reason (blah blah ion storm blah blah) the Enterprise crew can’t use the transporter to visit the planet where B-4 is found, so they go down by shuttle instead. The indigenous society is said to be composed of “isolated pockets of humanoids” and “an early industrial-age civilization.” The industrialization needed to manufacture motor vehicles and produce the fuels and lubricants necessary to run them requires an infrastructure of the sort “scattered pockets” would be unlikely to have.

What's missing from the equasion is a little thing called the Prime Directive. It’s never even alluded to. They’re risking cultural contamination on the pretext of a scavenger hunt. That Picard, Worf, and Data are aliens is bad enough, but the shuttle and dune buggy are clearly tech beyond the locals. So even though they don’t get caught, what are the locals to think they just saw?

Worse, the phaser cannon Worf employs in self-defense results in two pursuing vehicles ending in rollover crashes. So our heroes are likely causing injury or even death to the natives as part of their merry little field trip. How is that justifiable? How is any of this justifiable? This isn’t just violating the prime directive, it’s trampling it with cleats and grinding it into the dirt with their heels…or wheels.