10 Terrible Decisions That Led To Star Trek Losing Key Players
2. Captain, Is There Something Wrong With Your Chair? Leonard Nimoy Doesn't Do Cameos
Star Trek Generations' script was written by Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga, who had recently penned the script for The Next Generation's finale All Good Things. Their main focus was on bringing the Next Generation cast forward. Early on, however, the connective tissue of having the Original Series crew appear was written.
Initially, the Enterprise-A was to have been seen saving the Excelsior from the Nexus, with Guinan on board to bridge the gap. This would have included the entire Original Series crew.
This was then scaled back, with just Kirk, McCoy and Spock to appear. However, the script that was written served to introduce Kirk, before having him reappear at the end of the film.
The script was sent to DeForest Kelley and Leonard Nimoy. For Kelley's part, his health was already in decline and he felt the part was too small to go through the process of acquiring health insurance for the part. Nimoy was slightly, if respectfully, more blunt.
He said 'There was a character called Spock who had a dozen or so lines you could easily assign to anyone else, which they did. I felt they needed to rethink the story and the response was 'we don't have time' So I said Bon Voyage, good luck.'
Both of their lines were given to Chekov and Scotty, which was fun, but not the same!