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Revisiting the Trek movie that brought the franchise screeching to a halt.
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00:00Well, my friends, the time has come. It was something we put off for as long as we possibly
00:04could, but no, no, no, no. Nemesis is here. Listen, I will defend some parts of this film.
00:11There are very interesting stories behind the scenes, and it's entirely unfair what happened
00:15to Tom Hardy after the release of this film, and it wasn't his fault. He didn't write it.
00:19For, however, the very legitimate problems that there are with Star Trek Nemesis,
00:23think of the positives. We have those beautiful new scimitar designs,
00:26and, of course, the Warbird designs, even though I do miss Andrew Probert's Warbird a lot.
00:31But anyway, we have that beautiful score from Jerry Goldsmith, which would, of course,
00:36unfortunately be his final act for Star Trek before he passed away. There are wonderful scenes,
00:42including the wedding. There's the return of Wesley Crusher, even if it's a blink and you'll miss
00:46it cameo. There's, of course, there's Guinan. There is so much. So what the hell went wrong?
00:52I'm Sean Ferrer for Trek Culture, and here are 20 things you didn't know about Star Trek Nemesis,
00:58part 1. Number 20. Patrick Stewart originally played both Picard and Shinzon.
01:04Though Tom Hardy, of course, ended up playing the part of the villainous Reman leader and Picard
01:08clone Praetor Shinzon, the very first version of the script actually had Shinzon being portrayed
01:13by Patrick Stewart as a more direct older clone of Picard. There sadly aren't any further details
01:18available online about how this would have changed the story, though it's fair to assume that Nemesis
01:23would have climaxed with Patrick Stewart effectively battling himself. Ultimately,
01:26the potential for goofiness would have been extremely high had they gone this route,
01:30so bringing in a young actor to portray a younger clone was probably the right call. However,
01:34a few years ago, a curious fan cleverly deep-faked Stewart into the role of Shinzon to give
01:39fans a speculative glimpse of how it could have turned out.
01:42Number 19. Brent Spiner wanted Data to die for one specific reason.
01:47Data actor Brent Spiner actually helped write Data's arc for the movie, in turn earning the
01:51single writing credit of his entire career to date. Though John Logan is credited as Nemesis's
01:56sole screenwriter, Spiner received a story buy credit. Spiner had been lobbying for many years,
02:01at least since the days of First Contact, for Data to be killed off, and so conceived a storyline for
02:06Nemesis where he would sacrifice himself to save Picard and blow up Shinzon's scimitar.
02:11Spiner's reasoning for wanting Data to die was simply as he felt he had aged too much,
02:15and that it made no sense for Data to be so noticeably advanced in years, being an android
02:19and all. And so, Data died in Nemesis, albeit with the door being left ajar for him to return
02:23through his android brother B4. In the end, much of Star Trek Picard's first season was ultimately
02:28concerned with tying off Data's arc seemingly once and for all.
02:32Number 18. Numerous legacy characters almost had cameos.
02:36Nemesis memorably features a fleeting cameo from Voyager's Captain Janeway,
02:40as Vice Admiral Janeway, who briefly interacts with Picard in a video call, but several other
02:45peripheral Star Trek characters were intended to make cameo appearances in varying capacities.
02:49Most prominently, Seven of Nine was written a role in the film, and according to Jerry Ryan
02:53herself it was intended to be a substantial supporting part rather than a quick wink wink cameo.
02:58Ryan turned it down though because she wanted to take a break from her busy schedule working on
03:02Boston Public, and also felt that the part never rose above being pure fanservice. She also turned
03:07down an offer to cameo at Riker and Troi's wedding because she again felt it didn't make any sense for
03:12Seven to be there. Elsewhere, Ashley Judd's Starfleet Ensign Robin Leffler, a minor character who had
03:17appeared in two episodes of The Next Generation's fifth season, was written into an early draft,
03:21but it never panned out. And, finally, Denise Crosby lobbied producer Rick Berman to bring Tasha
03:26Yar's half-Romulan daughter Selah back into the fold somehow, but the writers never found a way to work her into the movie.
03:32Number 17. Director Stuart Baird clashed with the cast.
03:36It's been frequently reported that many cast members ended up clashing with director Stuart Baird,
03:40who wasn't particularly familiar with Star Trek before shooting started, yet producer Rick Berman
03:45felt he would bring a fresh energy to the flagging franchise. LeVar Burton and Marina Sirtis have
03:49since spoken disparagingly of Baird, Burton claiming that Baird often referred to him as Laverne on set,
03:54and Sirtis calling him an idiot. There were also reports that Baird was clueless enough about Trek
03:59that he thought Geordie was an alien. Bloody hell. Though Jonathan Frakes was more diplomatic,
04:03he did speak about how he would have directed the film differently, namely shifting the focus
04:07away from Shinzon and more towards the TNG cast. On the film's Blu-ray commentary, it's abundantly
04:12clear that Baird wasn't exactly happy with how the movie came out either, namely the enormous
04:17creative restrictions placed upon him throughout the process. Such is the nature of working on a
04:21gargantuan movie. Number 16. Wesley Crusher originally had a speaking role. One of the
04:26odder things about Nemesis is the blink and you'll miss it cameo from Wesley Crusher, which can be
04:31seen momentarily at Riker and Troy's wedding, yet he strangely doesn't say a word. This is because
04:35most of Wesley's role was cut during editing. On the movie's DVD, there's a brief scene at the
04:39wedding after Picard's toast where he speaks with Wesley, who's preparing to run the engineering night
04:43shift on the USS Titan, serving alongside Riker and Troy. It's a small moment, but like so many other
04:49deleted scenes in Nemesis, added welcome shade and character to a film that was so thoroughly
04:53lacking in it. Fans would have loved to have seen Wesley chatting with Picard again after years apart,
04:58but alas, Baird made the bizarre decision to leave this short exchange on the cutting room floor.
05:04Number 15. Riker's back hair was removed with CGI.
05:08CGI sure is capable of incredible things, eh? Well, it played a major role in one of Nemesis's most
05:13infamous and oft ridiculed scenes, the sex scene between Riker and Troy, which is interrupted by
05:19the extremely egregious and inappropriate scene of Shinzon's attempted mental rape of Troy.
05:25Because much of the scene focuses on Riker's back, the filmmakers asked Jonathan Frakes to
05:30shave his back for a more aesthetically pleasing visual, but he refused, and so it fell to VFX
05:34company to do the work instead, giving Riker's back a digital shave, and to be fair, you'd never
05:39even know it, even though it's tough to believe that somebody actually cared this much about Riker
05:44having a tufty back. Number 14. Marina Sirtis almost didn't return.
05:49As much as she's an integral member of the TNG crew, Deanna Troy almost ended up being conspicuously
05:54absent throughout Nemesis due to negotiations breaking down between Marina Sirtis and Paramount.
05:59As it often does, the crux of the issue came down to money, with Sirtis feeling insulted by the
06:03apparent lowball offer given to her. In interviews, Sirtis has spoken extensively about feeling
06:08undervalued compared to her male Cold Stars in particular, and claims that Paramount threatened to put
06:137 of 9 in the movie in her place if a salary agreement couldn't be reached. Sirtis plethoraly
06:18retorted to the studio, Jerry Ryan won't do it for that money, that's for sure. Thankfully,
06:22the matter was eventually resolved, and though Sirtis was ultimately one of the cast's more vocal
06:27critics of Nemesis, or to be exact, of director Baird, she maintains that she was happy with Troy's
06:32role in the film. Number 13. The Enterprise ramming into the Scimitar was a, mostly, practical effect.
06:39Though the previous few Next Generation movies began progressively phasing out practical effects,
06:45and had deferred to almost entirely digital shots of the Enterprise in action, a practical Enterprise
06:50effect was employed in Nemesis for one sequence. When the Enterprise rams the Scimitar on Picard's
06:55order during the final battle, a practical 17-foot Enterprise saucer was built and collided into a
07:01model of the Scimitar. The film's production crew shot the effect in slow motion at 360 frames per
07:06second to imply a greater sense of heft to the miniatures, and also hung the models upside
07:11down so the resulting debris from the clash would fall up as it would in zero gravity. VFX company
07:16Digital Domain then added explosions and other ambient elements to the scene, ensuring the
07:22end result is a winning marriage of practical and digital effects wizardry. Number 12. An estimated
07:2850 minutes of material was cut. On Nemesis' DVD, Rick Berman claims that roughly 50 minutes of material
07:34was cut from the theatrical release in order to achieve a more commercial 117 minute runtime.
07:39Though 17 minutes of cut material appears on the DVD, that leaves over half an hour of footage
07:45unaccounted for. Most of the cut material was apparently character-centric scenes that fleshed
07:49out the relationships of the Enterprise's crew, which were cut to keep the emphasis on the battle
07:53between the Enterprise and the Scimitar. This includes a far longer wedding sequence in which Picard and
07:58Data have a lengthy heart-to-heart, a more involved subplot about Shinzon's obsession with Troy, more
08:03scenes with Data and B4, bigger parts for Worf and Dr. Crusher, and a more prolonged epilogue. It's
08:09infuriating that so much of this material remains locked away because much of it sounds like it would
08:13have added considerable weight and nuance to a fundamentally threadbare film. Number 11. Jude Law
08:20was considered for Shinzon. In the summer of 2001, a few months before shooting was set to begin,
08:26rumors did the rounds online that Jude Law had been cast in the role of Shinzon, and though this of
08:31course turned out to be untrue, he was indeed in contention for the part. Originally, the plan was
08:36to find a name actor who resembled a younger Patrick Stewart to portray Shinzon, and Rick Berman settled
08:41on Law. However, director Baird argued that Shinzon should be portrayed by a basically unknown actor,
08:47eventually leading to Tom Hardy being cast in the part following an extensive and, by Hardy's word,
08:52appalling audition process. While it's easy to imagine Law pulling off the required menace,
08:57it was probably better to go for a less established actor in the role. And that's everything for the
09:01first part of our list, so please come back for the second part. Remember, you can catch us on
09:05Twitter at TrekCulture, you can catch myself at Sean Ferrick on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.
09:10Until I'm talking to you again, you look after yourselves, you live long and prosper,
09:13and I'll see you back here for part two. Thanks!
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