Leonard Nimoy Hated Star Trek Generations More Than Fans Think
For fans of the classic "Star Trek" movies, 1994's "Star Trek: Generations" marked the end of an era in that most of the actors from the original series appeared in the big-screen adventure to pass the torch to the cast members of "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
Unfortunately, original cast members Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy) turned down "Star Trek: Generations." Nimoy's absence was a double blow to the production since he also refused the chance to direct the film.
Nimoy, of course, had experience directing "Star Trek" on the big screen since he was at the helm of 1984's "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" and 1986's "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home." According to Mark A. Altman's and Edward Gross' 2016 book "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J.J. Abrams," Nimoy was already starting to see cracks in the franchise in 1989's "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" — directed by Captain Kirk actor William Shatner — and "Generations" wasn't any better.
"Bill's picture, 'Star Trek V,' had its own built-in problems — or at least the story did — which he was never going to be able to surmount," Nimoy said in the book. "Bill's picture was kind of a ride and it just sort of petered out. It had no way of resolving successfully. But 'Generations' bothered me. [I thought], 'My God, what are they doing? Why that scene? What's that scene about? Where are they going with this?' That was the reason I wasn't involved in making it, though it was offered to me to direct."
Nimoy was denied the chance to rework the Generations script
Perhaps the biggest reason Leonard Nimoy refused "Star Trek: Generations" was that he could not get Paramount Pictures to agree to get a rewrite of the script. According to "Generations" producer Rick Berman, who started his work on the "Star Trek" franchise with the project, Nimoy was unhappy with the film's script from the get-go. Recalling his work on the film, Berman said Paramount head Sherry Lansing told him to get Nimoy to direct the film. However, any bid for further work on the existing script was a non-starter.
"It had gone through a lot of rewrites and the studio loved it and they basically felt it was a shooting script," Berman said in "The Fifty-Year Mission." "When Leonard read it, he said, 'This needs a page-one rewrite.' I told him that that was not the way we were planning to do this and that's not the way it was scheduled, and we parted ways." The film was eventually directed by David Carson, whose work included four episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
Berman admitted that, in retrospect, he wished he had done things differently and Nimoy should have had a chance to do something with the script. "I was not experienced enough to actually know that," the producer said. "If he had suggested that he wanted to work on the script it would have been one thing, but he kind of had a page-one rewrite sort of attitude."
Although he didn't get to direct "Generations" or tweak its script, Nimoy had a chance to pass Spock's torch to fellow actor Zachary Quinto in director J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" reboot in 2009.