Jonathan Frakes Explains Star Trek: Nemesis’ Mistakes: “Not Enough Of TNG Family”

Jonathan Frakes has a clear-eyed take on the many mistakes made by Star Trek: Nemesis, the final film starring the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Frakes, who directed the hit Star Trek: First Contact and its follow-up, Star Trek: Insurrection, didn’t helm Nemesis. Instead, Paramount brought in Stuart Baird, a Star Trek neophyte, to direct Nemesis, which was written by Academy Award-nominee John Logan from a story by Logan and Brent Spiner. Despite the creative firepower and the reunited cast of TNG, Star Trek: Nemesis was a box office bomb and missed the mark with critics and audiences.

In the Star Trek oral history, “The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years” by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, Jonathan Frakes gives his take on Star Trek: Nemesis‘ missteps. Frakes surmises there was too much emphasis on Tom Hardy’s villain, Shinzon, and not enough on the chemistry between the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Frakes, who knows TNG as well as anyone, makes some solid points on why Star Trek: Nemesis comes up so short in his quote below:

With Nemesis, it was as if the Fates stepped in. We had John Logan, who’s an A-list writer. We had what was a great company back together again. Tom Hardy was a brilliant guest star. My take on it, though, was that there was not enough of the family. It was a little too much of Shinzon and not enough of Picard and Data. The first weekend people came to see Bones, Kirk, and Spock, or Picard and Data, you know what I mean? The story of Nemesis was very much a story about the obsession of Shinzon, Tom Hardy’s character. The front end of the movie with the wedding of Riker and Troi, and which was so charming, just got cut to bits. We originally had Whoopi and Wil Wheaton and all of these Easter eggs in there, and Brent sang. It was a big deal that got cut up to nothing.

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Star Trek: Nemesis No Longer Matters After Star Trek: Picard

Nemesis’ mistakes have been corrected.

As Jonathan Frakes alluded to, there was a loftier intent for Star Trek: Nemesis that wasn’t achieved due to director Stuart Baird’s lack of knowledge about Star Trek and other factors. The end result of killing off Commander Data (Brent Spiner) and breaking apart the Star Trek: The Next Generation family didn’t overall please audiences. However, 21 years after Star Trek: Nemesis‘ failure, Star Trek: Picard season 3 has virtually erased or rendered irrelevant all of the problems created by Nemesis’ story choices and character deaths.

Data was resurrected in a new, organic body complete with full human emotions in Star Trek: Picard season 3, and this is after Star Trek: Picard season 1’s ending dealt with Data’s death by giving him a farewell with Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). The Romulans are no longer the threat they were in Star Trek: Picard‘s early 25th-century timeframe, while the USS Titan, which was the ship Captain Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) left the USS Enterprise-E to command, was the hero ship of Star Trek: Picard season 3 and later became the USS Enterprise-G. Riker and his wife, Counselor Deanna Troi’s (Marina Sirtis), marriage was also explored and reaffirmed in Star Trek: Picard season 3. Although Star Trek: Nemesis no longer truly matters, the film remains a fascinating cautionary tale.