Star Trek: 10 Secrets Of The Romulan Warbird You Need To Know

Despite its compelling and formidable design as an adversary starship, the D'deridex-class warbird remained firmly on television and never made the jump with the Enterprise-D and The Next Generation crew to the big screen. However, early drafts of the script for Star Trek Generations by writers Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore did contain the theatrical debut of the Romulan warbird.

According to Ronald Moore on the Star Trek Generations audio commentary track, the transition from the 23rd century opening sequence to the 24th century would've taken place at the Amargosa Observatory and included a Romulan warbird:

What we had in the initial drafts for the transition... you would cut into a small Federation outpost [the Amargosa Observatory] and there were these two guys who were low-level Starfleet nobodies stuck out in the middle of nowhere. They're wasting time staring at viewscreens. They were Beavis and Butthead and they were just talking and doing nothing. And all of a sudden the Romulans attack, a warbird comes and decloaks and Romulans come aboard and they're shooting everyone and these guys... are about to get blown away and then the Starship Enterprise under Picard comes to the rescue and saves the day. And that was the opening of The Next Generation section, a big exciting set piece.

Upon reading a draft of the script containing the big screen battle sequence, Star Trek: Voyager executive producer Jeri Taylor noted that an action set piece was not a unique or particularly interesting way to open that section of the movie.

Taylor suggested the 24th century instead open on the image of Picard, in Ten Forward, pushing an egg with his nose. Neither Taylor nor Braga or Moore knew exactly what that meant, but the writers agreed it was a more interesting image than a Romulan warbird.

Ultimately the script was rewritten and an "offtbeat" direction was chosen, instead introducing the TNG cast in the holodeck, leaving only the bodies of two dead Romulans on the station as the last vestiges of the battle sequence.