Star Trek: Nemesis was supposed to lead into another Next Generation movie, had all gone to plan.
1996sStar Trek: First Contacttook $150 million worldwide, on a budget of $46 million.
On box office numbers alone, the film wouldnt have crawled its way into the black.
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But why didStar Trek: Nemesistake so little at the box office?
007 was also kicking around withDie Another Day.
It would be fair to say that the competition was tough.
Its not hard to come to the conclusion that the film simply got overlooked.
Paramount knew all this, though.
History shows, however, that this strategy didnt work.
One can only speculate how costly a one-film contract for the cast would have been.
Behind the scenes friction cant have helped while filming, either.
Its reported that the director even kept calling LeVar Burton Laverne and thought Commander LaForge was an alien.
This was something Paramount wanted and Rick Berman was intending to plug her into the film.
A much more abbreviated version of this footage was used later in the film in the end.
Worf, again, was a little more wide eyed.
If youre watching in widescreen, and you pay attention, that is.
Wil had some lines with Gates and Patrick.
Titan, Will Rikers new command.
That too suggests more meat to their interactions.
Does that, perhaps, suggest further cut dialogue at least mentioning Datas evil twin?
Packing all that into two to three hours may have been a tall order.
IsNemesisas bad as people seem to think it is?
I would say not, and its not as bad asThe Final FrontierorGenerations.
Would the film have been significantly better if Jonathan Frakes or LeVar Burton had directed?
Quite possibly, but we can never be sure.
Would it have made more money if either of those cast members directed?
Not entirely sure it could have made any less, to be honest.
A change in release date to avoid the competition would have helped it far more moneywise.
Would such an extended cut be a better film?
I personally disagree and the scenes mentioned above are part of the film to me.
However it seems there is far more footage to integrate than those few scenes.
Would an Actors Cut be better Star Trek?
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This article first appeared onDen of Geek UKin 2015.
