Star Trek Nemesis doesn’t suck as a Dracula movie
By Mike Poteet
The vampire mentally attacks women, some of whom fight back.
Our own Rachel Carrington has pointed out how difficult the scene in which Praetor Shinzon, aided by his Viceroy, mentally rapes Counselor Troi is to watch. Rachel called the scene “completely unnecessary.” I’d agree we didn’t need one more psychic violation of Troi in Star Trek canon. But this distasteful and disturbing scene is perfectly positioned and necessary if we’re looking at Nemesis as a riff on Dracula.
As Franich noted for EW, Troi is “taking the place of Mina” Harker in Dracula, one of the two women in the novel whom the Count seduces/hypnotizes/violates through a “barely-defined” mental link. The other is Lucy Westenra. Poor Lucy does not survive her encounters with Dracula. Mina does, and her mental connection to the Count eventually helps vampire hunter Van Helsing, her husband Johnathan Harker, and the rest of the novel’s heroes hunt Dracula down.
The way Nemesis “pick[s] up on the triumphant part of the Mina Harker plotline” is one of the few points for which Franich praises the film. Troi turns her unwanted psychic connection to Shinzon and the Viceroy against them, using it to target the Enterprise’s photon torpedoes and delivering a crippling blow to their ship.