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While it is often accepted that Star Trek is best suited for the TV medium, it took Star Trek: Nemesis to officially put the idea of movies to bed until the 2009 reboot. Starring the TNG cast including Sir Patrick Stewart and a young Tom Hardy, the film received negative responses, but Stewart believed it did one thing better than its predecessor.
Jonathan Frakes, best known for playing William Riker in TNG, stepped into directing with the film Star Trek: First Contact, which was a surprising hit. Frakes hoped to continue his streak with Insurrection but seemed to fumble along the way. Despite Nemesis’ failure, Stewart credited it with improving on one thing.
Sir Patrick Stewart praised Star Trek: Nemesis for improving on Insurrection
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One of the primary issues Sir Patrick Stewart had with the first film with the TNG cast i.e. Star Trek: Generations was that the film looked too much like an extended episode of the series. This was quickly sorted in the sequel First Contact, which was the directorial debut of Jonathan Frakes and he absolutely nailed his part of the job.
However, the sequel Star Trek: Insurrection headed back to similar territory. Many criticized it for its slow pace and dialogue-heavy scenes, which might have worked for episodic TV, but for a film on a blockbuster scale, it was too slow. The film was also a moderate success at the box office, earning $117 million (via The Numbers).
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Sir Patrick Stewart also agreed with some of the issues with Insurrection. While promoting the sequel Nemesis (which had problems of its own), Stewart said (via IGN),
We did a lot of talking in the last film. A lot of talking, and hinting at the romantic relationship, which is not in this film, well at least not that we mentioned anyway. We talked about a lot of things from the moment and that I was introduced to [screenwriter] John Logan…I knew him as I’d encountered some of John’s work on the screen.
Stewart also mentioned that he was not as involved in the development of Nemesis as he was with the preceding films.
Patrick Stewart was not directly involved in Star Trek: Nemesis
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For better or for worse, Star Trek: Nemesis sort of put a pause on the slew of Trek content that was being produced. The film was released four years after Insurrection, which was quite a long time compared to the previous two-year gaps. The show Star Trek: Enterprise was also canceled at the time, leaving the future of the franchise in limbo.
Compared to Insurrection, however, the film was lighter in tone and was hoping to be more of an action flick than its predecessor, which had a lot of talking and babbling. Stewart credited Brent Spiner and writer John Logan for all the humor in the film. He also said he was relatively less involved in the development of the film. He said,
Unlike the last two movies, I have no official responsibility for this movie, except for my performance. And although Rick Berman and Brent, and John Logan talked to me about the development of the script from the very beginning, I was not formally part of the development process.
The actor was reportedly working on a play while the film was being developed and hence, had little involvement as opposed to the previous ones.
Star Trek: Nemesis is available to stream on Paramount+.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire