If I asked you what your favourite Star Trek: TNG movie was, I bet you any money it wouldn’t be Nemesis. Well, expert on the subject, Jonathan Frakes, has recently spoken out about why it sucked so bad.
In oral history book The Fifty-Year Mission, our Frakesy – who you probably know played Riker, and directed some of the TNG and later, Picard, episodes – was asked what his thoughts on the subject were.
Which is cute and all, but let’s be honest, we know the real reason for the failure of Nemesis is that Picard was still in the Nexus and going quite doo-lally at this stage in his Nexus fantasy. I mean, as if he ever looked like Tom Hardy. Get real.
Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s see what Frakesy actually had to say:
With ‘Nemesis’ it was as if the Fates stepped in. We had John Logan, who’s an A-list writer. We had what was a great company back together again. Tom Hardy was a brilliant guest star. My take on it, though, was that there was not enough of the family. It was a little too much of Shinzon and not enough of Picard and Data. The first weekend people came to see Bones, Kirk, and Spock, or Picard and Data, you know what I mean? The story of ‘Nemesis’ was very much a story about the obsession of Shinzon, Tom Hardy’s character. The front end of the movie with the wedding of Riker and Troi, and which was so charming, just got cut to bits. We originally had [returning actors] Whoopi [Goldberg] and Wil Wheaton and all of these Easter eggs in there, and Brent [Spiner] sang. It was a big deal that got cut up to nothing.
The movie did have at least some of the makings of… well, a perfectly acceptable movie. And if Frakes had been given the reigns instead of Stuart Baird (U.S. Marshall, Executive Decision) then maybe this whole thing would have turned out differently, and we’d have had that final Star Trek: TNG movie.
Side note: And if we’d had that final Star Trek: TNG movie, then maybe things would have turned out differently, we wouldn’t have gotten Dark Timeline Picard and I wouldn’t have to reason this whole thing away by citing Picard’s Nexus Fantasy and writing off everything after Generations, DESPITE the fact that First Contact was actually bangin’.
Anyway, back to what Frakes was saying:
It didn’t help that Stuart Baird was trying to reinvent the wheel, but I don’t think you can blame the director for Nemesis’ fate. At the same time, I remember calling him and saying, ‘If there’s anything I can do to help you, I’ve been around these people for all these years.’ And I think in the same phone call I said, ‘We’re really here to help. You’ll find that we’re a very strong team and we know how to do this and we’re really happy to help make the best movie you can.’ And he didn’t pick up either of those offers. In retrospect, it seems like arrogance. Why wouldn’t you accept that kind of offer?
That all makes sense to me. However, I do feel that The Next Generation actress Marina Sirtis, known as Counsellor Deanna Troi in the franchise, summed it up pretty well in just five words: “The director was an idiot.”
And, y’know what? It doesn’t sound like she’s wrong. Baird may have later redeemed himself with Casino Royale, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that he ruined the whole Star Trek: TNG franchise and killed Data (anyone who brings up Picard here, please refer back to Picard’s Nexus Fantasy).
Well, that’s all from me. Until next time, on ‘Wow, this writer has a real problem with Star Trek cannon‘…
Source: GeekTyrant
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