20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Trek: Nemesis
Revisiting the Trek movie that brought the franchise screeching to a halt.
It's not controversial to say that Star Trek: Nemesis is just about nobody's favourite Trek film.
Released in 2002, the fourth and final big-screen outing starring the cast of The Next Generation was a critical and commercial disappointment to the extent that it put the cinematic franchise on ice for over five years.
It's certainly not as bad as Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, at least. Nemesis is an interesting but highly flawed swan song for the TNG gang, one backed by an ultra-talented cast and crew but ultimately mangled by a rickety production which led to some less-than-inspired creative decisions behind the scenes.
And so, while it's far from a great or even particularly good Trek movie, the many stories and anecdotes of its creation are nevertheless fascinating.
The classic Trek characters who almost made cameos, the original plan for the whole Shinzon debacle, the on-set sparring with director Stuart Baird, and everything in-between.
These 20 must-know factoids certainly make it clear how Nemesis turned out the way it did, while also hinting at a vastly superior movie that sadly never came to be...
20. Patrick Stewart Originally Played Both Picard & Shinzon
Though Tom Hardy of course ended up playing the part of villainous Reman leader and Picard clone Praetor Shinzon, the very first version of the script actually had Shinzon also being portrayed by Patrick Stewart as a more direct, older clone of Picard.
There sadly aren't any further details available online about how this would've changed the story, though it's fair to assume that Nemesis would've climaxed with Patrick Stewart effectively battling himself.
Ultimately the potential for goofiness would've been extremely high had they gone this route, so bringing in a young actor to portray a younger clone was probably the right call.
However, a few years ago a curious fan cleverly deep-faked Stewart into the role of Shinzon to give fans a speculative glimpse at how it could've turned out: