Starship Exeter vs. Star Trek: Nemesis

Fans of the decreasingly popular "Star Trek" series recently had their choice of two new releases. Paramount offers Star Trek: Nemesis, a $70 million film written by Gladiator screenwriter John Logan. It's about an evil, goth copy of Captain Picard who just wants his progenitor's blood.

Then there's Starship Exeter: The Savage Empire. A labor of love made in St. Paul, Minn., it's written and produced by brothers Jim and Joshua Johnson — who also play the lead roles. They sewed the costumes themselves, built the props in a Minneapolis warehouse, cast their friends, and took seven years to complete the hour-long episode, which painstakingly recreates the look of a ship in Captain Kirk's fleet in the original 1960s "Star Trek" TV show.

Which should you see? That depends on several key factors.

Price. When it comes to home video, Nemesis could cost the renter upwards of $4. "Savage Empire" is free, distributed in 45 megabyte chunks. Advantage: Starship Exeter.

Sex. Except for a few comely command chair poses by Holly Guess — the only girl the brothers could persuade to show up in an amateur "Star Trek" movie — Starship Exeter is totally lacking in the kind of eroticism that, say, Salon.com's Charles Taylor could go for.

Nemesis wins out in this department, but it's not pretty. You will be reminded of imagining your high school teachers making love when Troi (Marina Sirtis) and Riker (Clockstoppers director Jonathan Frakes) plunge into B-actor wedding night bliss.

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This isn't upsetting enough for scribe Logan, who also throws in a "mind rape" scene making this the most degrading role for Sirtis since she and Faye Dunaway whipped each other's clothes off in Cannon Films's (link not safe for work) The Wicked Lady. Advantage: Star Trek: Nemesis.

Adventure. Starship Exeter's Federation commando action wins for depicting a group of people in a believable and coherent suspense situation.

While in space, an enemy battleship closes in on the USS Exeter, Captain Garrovick and his blue-skinned sidekick must escape from an underground cell and fight it out with Klingons in a wooded setting shot on the banks of the Mississippi. Stop, children, what's that sound? It's Andorians lurking in the woods. Security guards die with "bonka-bong" sound effects from the original series, and we feel the pain of the captain losing another red shirt.

You actually get the feeling someone is in danger.

In the climactic moments of Nemesis, Picard impales his clone "son" with a stake, in someone's idea of clever Freudian imagery. The goth wiggles around unpleasantly on the shish kebab, acts sexual in a way that's supposed to be scary and dies. A 3D screensaver menaces Earth. Data whisks Picard back to the Enterprise using a magic lapel pin, which is appropriate considering how much the Romulans look like guys from the Westlake Elks Lodge. Data shoots the screensaver and it blows up. What a surprise! Advantage: Starship Exeter.

Tormented goth attitude. You don't normally associate this with "Star Trek," but today's movie audiences demand heapings of it. Don't they? Well, that's what the producers at Paramount thought when they ripped off the font from "Quake" for the opening credits and tinted everything dark green. Starship Exeter just doesn't deliver on this one. Advantage: Star Trek: Nemesis.

Strange new worlds. The magenta halls with strangely shaped doorways in Starship Exeter satisfyingly re-create the groovy sets of the old show, right down to the alien hieroglyphics. Nemesis has a short visit to a planet of dune buggies (see below). Advantage: Starship Exeter.

New life and new civilizations. The brothers Johnson were reputedly disappointed that, due to a falling out with one of their friends, the nine-foot lizard effect turned out less than convincing. On the other hand, the CG opening of Star Trek: Nemesis opens with a long-awaited visit to the Romulan homeworld, and we learn it looks like — a screenshot from Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002. And these guys had a budget. Advantage: Starship Exeter.

Boldly going where SUV commercials have gone before. You know, when Patrick Stewart turns on the Royal Shakespeare Co. charm, he just doesn't switch it off. This inherent classiness has always clashed with the adolescence of his movie roles. If he isn't acting like Ahab for no clear reason, he's carrying on about how he never got to start a family because he's in space. (Well, if they hadn't axed Wil….)

In last month's The New Republic, journalist Keith Bradsher describes the psychology of the typical SUV driver. It's also an apt description of Captain Picard in Nemesis. "They tend to be people who are insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors."

In this movie Picard cares so little about his neighbors he doesn't even consult the Prime Directive, the Star Trek rule of thumb for preserving primitive cultures, before rampaging around in his space SUV, grinning at himself. It seems Picard has reserved this dune buggy strictly for visiting those planets where a bunch of aliens, themselves in dune buggies, are likely to come roaring over the hills. The result is not so much Star Trek as it is Megaforce, the forgotten 1982 movie about Barry Bostwick wearing tights and fighting Communism with a team of flying motorcyclers.

Picard, who differs from his predecessor Kirk in his lack of real friendships with any other member of the crew, truly is pleased with himself. He's unable to stop congratulating himself on "what it means to be human." Has he ever stopped to think about what it means to be Romulan? Or whether his dune buggy's fuel use is contributing to the dilithium crystal shortage and fanning the flames of galactic terrorism? Didn't think so.

Starship Exeter, while charming, has no off-road vehicles. Advantage: Star Trek: Nemesis.

The winner: Starship Exeter, a movie by people who care. Were "Star Trek" usurper Rick Berman to be airdropped in Minnesota and forced to make a "Trek" feature on this kind of shoestring, it wouldn't have turned out this well. It might have featured more motorcycles, though.