Let's Talk About Picard's Dune Buggy, One Of The Dumbest Things In All Of Star Trek
Stuart Baird's "Star Trek: Nemesis" was, it seemed, the end of the road for "Star Trek: The Next Generation." The crew of the Enterprise-D left the airwaves in 1994, leaving the franchise in the hands of high-quality but less-popular "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." The series moved to the big screen with "Star Trek: Generations," a film that many Trekkies appreciated at the time, but which has been reassessed as being generally disappointing. It was followed by the relatively well-received "Star Trek: First Contact" in 1996, a film that dumbed down a lot of Trek ideas and presented them as action shlock, as well as "Star Trek: Insurrection" in 1998, a pretty cheap, poorly written movie that remains at the top of no one's lists.
Already tired, the NextGen film franchise staggered into theaters in 2002 with "Nemesis," the final chapter for the character. In it, Troi (Marina Sirtis) and Riker (Jonathan Frakes) finally married after years of working together, and Riker was to move off the Enterprise-E onto the Titan. Additionally, Data (Brent Spiner) sacrificed his life at the film's conclusion. Picard (Patrick Stewart) faced off against a younger clone of himself named Shinzon (Tom Hardy) and found his alternate self violent and horrible. The characters, and the audicence, left the film sad and miserable and tired.
Not even adjusting for inflation, "Nemesis" remains the lowest-grossing "Star Trek" film.
It also contains maybe one of the dumbest things ever seen in a "Star Trek" movie. When investigating potential android brain patterns on a distant planet, Picard decides, without offering any practical reason, to traverse the planet's surface in the Argo, a dune buggy that, I guess, was on the Enterprise for some reason.
Why the f*** does the Enterprise have a dune buggy?
The uselessness of dune buggies
The plot of "Nemesis" begins in earnest when the Enterprise-E notices a positronic brain pattern coming from the surface of a nearby planet. It's exactly the kind of pattern found in Data's brain, implying that another duplicate of Data might be buried somewhere down there. The crew cannot beam down to investigate (there's an ion storm or some other transporter-negating plot contrivance), so Picard, Data, and Worf (Michael Dorn) fly a shuttlecraft down to the surface. They have to cover a lot of ground, as the android patterns are scattered over a vast swath of desert, almost as if a low-flying craft dumped a bunch of android pieces out of its exit hatch in a daring escape, à la the cocaine in "Cocaine Bear."
Keep in mind, the three characters have a shuttlecraft at their disposal, a craft designed for high-speed travel and maneuverability. Unlike the bulky starships seen in most of "Star Trek," shuttlecraft can enter and exit planets' atmospheres, allowing them to land and take off safely. When it comes to investigating scattered android parts, a shuttle seems handy.
But, instead, Picard drives the Argo — a dune buggy — out of the back of the shuttle. Why fly in an awesome, space-worthy craft when you can drive pathetically on the ground like a 20th-century Weekend Warrior?
The Argo is a useless vehicle. It can only seat three passengers, making it terrible for rescue. There is no storage on a dune buggy, making it a poor salvage device. It tears up the ground with its tires, making it terrible for local ecosystems. It's not enclosed, offering no shelter from the elements, and making communication between passengers difficult. Embarrassingly, it has a rear-facing mounted phaser on the back, useful only for dune buggy chases.
Be prepared, even for dune buggy chases
Naturally, because the Argo has a gun on it, Picard finds himself in one of the above-mentioned dune buggy chases. Some of the planet's locals, not ever identified by name, begin driving after the Argo in their own dune buggies, firing weapons for unknown reasons. For one humiliating scene, "Star Trek" becomes a low-rent version of "The Road Warrior."
It's a terrible and dumb action sequence, only made worse by the fact that "Star Trek" characters are driving a forthrightly moribund piece of technology. The construction of the Argo was not the hobby of a history buff like, say, Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) fixing up a 1950s truck on "Star Trek: Voyager." The Argo is an officially manufactured piece of Starfleet equipment. Starfleet, it seems, expected its officers to get into dune buggy chases often enough that a specialty vehicle was required. Eventually, Picard has to drive the Argo off of a cliff into the open bay doors of the shuttlecraft, piloted by remote to hover in front of them. It lands safely inside, and Picard, Data, and Worf can safely fly back up to the Enterprise to reassemble the salvaged android parts they found.
Frustratingly, the Argo seems to take up most of the shuttlecraft's payload section. The shuttlecraft is also called the Argo. Does the shuttle only exist to house the dune buggy?
Not only is the Argo largely useless in the world of "Star Trek," but it's horrendously out-of-character for the franchise. A character like Jean-Luc Picard, a character ordinarily stern and diplomatic, a character who likes old literature and classical music, is massively out of place behind the wheel of a recreational vehicle.
It turns out, however, that Patrick Stewart loves dune buggies. Hence, the Argo's inclusion.
Patrick Stewart loves driving
It seems that "Nemesis" producer John Logan, perhaps to appease his star, wanted to do a favor by giving Stewart a driving/action scene, no matter how inappropriate. In a behind-the-scenes documentary included on the "Nemesis" DVD, Stewart said in an interview that he really loved driving, just as a personal hobby, and was happy to have access to a vehicle like the Argo. Stewart, it seems, was so excited to drive that he didn't bother to ask why his character would want to — or even be able to — drive a dune buggy.
Stewart, of course, isn't Picard. He prefers entertainment with action and adventure. This was evident in "Next Generation" episodes like "Captain's Holiday," an episode where Picard teamed up with a hotshot criminal archeologist to plunder an ancient alien trinket from a cave. That episode was a pulp adventure story, and Stewart seemed to love playing an Indiana Jones type who gets to hold weapons and kiss ladies.
Left to his own devices, it seems, Stewart would have included more action/adventure in "Star Trek." If dune buggy chases were on his mind, perhaps we're lucky the actor wasn't in charge.
While one might think that "Argo" was a name selected from ancient mythology — it was the ship Jason sailed from Colchis in order to retrieve the Golden Fleece — it was actually the name of the real-life company that made it. Argo XTV is an American all-terrain vehicle manufacturer that provided "Nemesis" with the craft used on screen. It's one of the only instances of product placement in a "Star Trek" movie.
Overall, the Argo is one of the most embarrassing things the franchise has produced. And yes, I include Beverly's sexual candle ghost in that statement.