The iconic Star Trek franchise is one of the most popular franchises in the sci-fi genre, especially the reboot trilogy from 2009 to 2016. Having plotlines dripping with sheer brilliance to the core, these three movies have been critically commended as well. But as successful as all of them were, the director of two films of those three believes they really mishandled one villain.
This director is filmmaker J.J. Abrams, who helmed the initial two installments of the film series. And, surprisingly enough, the villain whom he feels the franchise really mishandled isn’t Benedict Cumberbatch’s villain, who appears in Star Trek Into Darkness. Instead, this villain is the one from the first reboot film from 2009: Eric Bana’s revenge-bent Romulan, Nero.
Star Trek Director Feels the Saga Mishandled Eric Bana’s Nero
The first film from the reboot trilogy was 2009’s Star Trek, which featured Bana as a bitter and wrathful villain named Nero. This villain has personal beef to pick with Spock because Spock’s failed mission resulted in Romulus getting destroyed. However, the director feels that this character was pretty much mishandled, just like Benedict Cumberbatch‘s Khan Noorein Singh.
This comes after filmmaker J.J. Abrams, who tamed the film, himself admitted to the same in the book The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams. According to him, although Bana was truly one of the most excellent castings of them all, he wasn’t given a lot to work with.
In the book, he originally praised the casting of the movie, saying (via /Film):
Our first ‘Star Trek’ movie was, if anything, an exercise in perfection of casting. April Webster and Alyssa Weisberg helped us find the absolutely perfect actors. I’m proud of its telling and humor, but of course only see what’s wrong with it.
However, when it comes to the Hulk actor‘s role in the movie in particular, Abrams seems to have many regrets. As per what he said in the book:
Among other things, I wish we had given Bana a bit more to do other than be full of rage, given that he is such a fine actor.
Well, that, for sure was one of the major setbacks of the film despite having Bana as the villain, especially since a lot of the dialogue for his Romulan antagonist in the Chris Pine-starrer was along the lines of old cliche stuff like “I want Spock dead now!” and so on.
But while Abrams has considerable regrets about the way Bana was treated in the film, the actor doesn’t seem to feel the same way.
Meanwhile, Eric Bana Seemingly Enjoyed Playing Nero
While one of the filmmaker’s greatest regrets is not providing enough depth to Eric Bana‘s character, the actor, on the other hand, seems to have enjoyed it to great lengths to have played his vengeful Romulan. This comes after the actor openly confessed to falling “in love with the script in the first 10 to 15 pages,” as well as knowing that “it was going to be a cracker.”
As he shared during his interview with The New Indian Express:
[Nero] is not the deepest and darkest character. He’s complex enough, but not so complex that I didn’t think kids would enjoy it. There’s enough there for me to inject a bit of humor into him.
Well, be it with or without much depth, either way, the movie managed to become an incredible success with a stunning 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes and $385.68 million worldwide gross on a $150 million budget (as per Box Office Mojo), so we might as well let these matters rest in history.
You can watch Star Trek (2009) on Prime Video.
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