Star Trek: Nemesis is a movie so bad even the cast hated what it became.
Star Trek: The Next Generation was supposed to have a glorious ending. The series finale of the show is regarded as one of the best episodes ever. The film’s continuation of the series was supposed to be as epic as the show, and sometimes it was. While Star Trek Generations is disjointed at points, it features William Shatner and Patrick Stewart together. That’s pretty awesome.
First Contact isn’t just a classic Trek film, it’s just a classic film. Insurrection was a bit rough but had a solid idea in place. But Nemesis? Yikes. Nemesis was just bad and no one involved liked it apparently.
The film famously starred Tom Hardy as a young, cloned, Jean-Luc Picard. It was such a rough experience, it almost made Hardy quit acting. The film had so many issues with it, with rewrites, talent dropping out and so many rewrites that apparently the actual core cast was just happy to be done with it, despite the disappointment.
Speaking to the New York Times (via Trek Movie), Patrick Stewart revealed that he was expecting Nemesis to be the final time he ever played Jean-Luc Picard. So did his castmate Brent Spiner, known for his portrayal of the android Data, who was part of the interview.
The belief that the film would be the end of their run with the franchise was why Spiner agreed to have Data killed off. It was supposed to be a monumental moment and the film was supposed to be more around the moment.
"Oh, yes, but with disappointment. [To Spiner:] Brent, there had been a lot of conversation about you and John Logan [who co-wrote “Nemesis”] writing a new film script, and that appealed to me enormously. But of course that was dumped along with everything else. And I felt frustration and disappointment about that because what we went out with wasn’t good, I don’t think."
The original script for Star Trek: Nemesis was dumped for something completely different
Spiner revealed that not only did Nemesis didn’t work as a script, but they felt the film would wrap up their time with the franchise;
"There are things about “Nemesis” that didn’t work. I think we went into it with the feeling that it was probably going to be our last film, which was why we let Data’s demise happen. We thought a great dramatic conclusion to one of the characters would be a fitting end to the series."
With rumors that several core characters could be meeting their end in Picard, including Picard himself, it looks like showrunner Terry Matalas is going to do what Nemesis couldn’t do; send the crew off in style.
We have no idea how the final season of Picard is going to end, but we’re hoping that it can’t be as badly executed as Nemesis.