On Thursday one of the more fun panels at the Star Trek Las Vegas convention was with much of the cast of Star Trek: Voyager. On hand were Robert Beltran, Ethan Phillips, Garrett Wang, Tim Russ and Jeri Ryan. And it was Ryan who made a bit of news, clarifying a bit of news that arose from Star Trek Las Vegas 2017. We also have more photo highlights from Thursday at STLV 2018.
Voyager stars at STLV 2018
Seven of Nine was not set to replace Troi in Nemesis
A year ago from Star Trek Las Vegas 2017, TrekMovie reported on a comment made by Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Marina Sirtis regarding her salary negotiations with Paramount for the 2002 TNG film Star Trek: Nemesis. At last year’s con the TNG actress asserted that Paramount played hardball, including threatening to fire her from the film and replace her character Troi with Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine, from Star Trek: Voyager.
In years past Jeri Ryan had already discussed how she had turned down an offer to be in Nemesis to replace an unnamed character, so Sirtis’ comment seemed to put the pieces together. However, it apparently does not. Yesterday at Star Trek Las Vegas 2018, Ryan was asked about the Nemesis offer and Sirtis’ comment from 2017, and the actress said:
That was never mentioned to me. They did offer a role in Nemesis, to replace a different character. It was not Marina. I’m not mentioning it, because it was ridiculous. There was absolutely no reason to replace this character with Seven of Nine, so obviously we didn’t do it. So, it was not Marina, for the record.
Ryan acknowledges that while she was never told about replacing Sirits, she doesn’t rule out that she was used by Paramount as a form of leverage, noting:
They may have used that as a negotiating tactic, against her. Which is not real nice, but that’s not actually who they wanted to replace.
So, this resets the mystery of what character in Nemesis would have been replaced by Ryan’s Seven of Nine. One possibility could be Seven replacing Kate Mulgrew’s Admiral Janeway, who appeared in Nemesis in a brief cameo. It is understandable to see how Ryan would have been reluctant to replace her Voyager co-star. However, how she has described the offer in the past, makes it seem like Seven of Nine would have had a more significant role in the film, had she accepted.
Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager and Kate Mulgrew as Adm. Janeway in Star Trek: Nemesis
Wang thinks Voyager movie should have replaced Nemesis
Speaking of Nemesis, which has been critiqued by both fans and the the TNG actors themselves, Garrett Wang had a solution for an alternative. He thinks instead of releasing Nemesis in 2002, Paramount should have wrapped up the story of Star Trek: Voyager on the big screen, following its 2001 series finale. Here is Wang’s suggestion:
I think Voyager’s “Endgame,” the final episode, the first hour was amazing. The second hour tied things up too quickly, right? They should have aired the first hour on your television screen and on the end say “To be continued in a theater near you” and and film a Voyager two and a half hour movie, got rid of the Nemesis script. Because, let’s face it, if your TNG feature film script is not as good as certain TNG TV episodes, don’t film it. Sorry.
Garrett Wang offers a suggestion for a Voyager movie at STLV 2018
More photos from Star Trek Las Vegas Thursday
In case you missed it, we have already done a report on Jason Isaacs’ panel from Thursday at STLV. Here are some more images from some of the other celebrity panels on Thursday.
Star Trek: Voyager
Tim Russ and Robert Beltran
Jeri Ryan and Garrett Wang
Star Trek Enterprise – Part 1
John Billingsley, Linda Park and Dominic Keating, with Creation Entertainment’s Adam Malin moderating
John Billingsley, Linda Park and Dominic Keating
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Ferengi Family
Aron Eisenberg, Chase Masterson and Max Grodénchik
Chase Masterson as Leeta
Aron Eisenberg as Nog
Max Grodénchik as Rom
Guest stars of Star Trek: The Next Generation
Daniel Davis, Jonathan del Arco, Tim DeZarn, Jennifer Nash, Carel Struycken, Beth Toussaint and Patti Yasutake
Daniel Davis, Jonathan del Arco, and Tim DeZarn
Jennifer Nash, Carel Struycken, Beth Toussaint and Patti Yasutake
Guest stars of the Star Trek universe
Jessica Bova, Vanessa Bova, Douglas Tait, and Musetta Vander, with moderator Ian Spelling
Douglas Tait, and Musetta Vander
Jessica and Vanessa Bova
More STLV 2018
Stay tuned for more daily coverage here at TrekMovie.com. Also be sure to follow along with our social media reporting from STLV on Twitter and Instagram. CLICK HERE to see all of our STLV coverage.
Ryan replacing Mulgrew would have made sense and it would make sense why Ryan does not want to talk about it. The two VOY stars have been public about the bad relationship they had back in the day.
Actually, I don’t think that makes sense at all. This was an Admiral dishing out an assignment. You really think Seven of Nine would have climbed the ladder like that? I think not.
Going with Voyager instead of Nemesis wouldn’t have changed anything in terms of box office.
Except, that it might have been worse.
Yea, you gotta love a bit member of the Voyager team, a show which consistently only achieved about half the viewership of TNG, making such a silly statement as that.
A DS9 movie…maybe? But certainly not a Voyager movie. LOL
DS9 got worse ratings than VOY.
Nope. DS9’s ratings ranged from 14.0 to 4.2 in Nielsen ratings, while Voyagers ranged from 9.3 to 3.0. DS9’s average Nielsen rating during it’s 7 year run was about a 6.8, while Voyagers was about a 5.0.
Voyager could have done a really great movie as long as its written well and a great story, just look at ‘star trek 2009’ or one shot star wars films ‘rouge one’ and ‘solo’
Ryan could be talking about Spiner/Data, because he and Stewart of course were down to the wire with their negotiations, right? I’m sure everyone was there. Would make sense with history (not saying it makes sense logically at all), but think about the dynamic of Picard having to work alongside a Borg. There was a whole different opportunity for dramatic tension there, of course.
Actually that could make sense. And Spiner wanted to stop playing Data since First Contact by that point. It would’ve been interesting to go from Data to Seven since she came off like an Android already lol.
Yep. Replacing Spiner makes much more sense. Like for like.
Spiner was one of the producers, wasn’t he?
He also brought John Logan in (a friend, I guess), so Spiner is probably more to blame than anyone except the director for NEM, just on that basis.
Well, now we could see Picard still encounter Seven again someday, based on today’s news! ;-) But yes, Spiner had “demands” I think to be heavily involved, creatively…but perhaps Paramount were also beginning to find him “difficult”? All water under the bridge…
If I recall correctly, Spiner really felt Data should “die”. And I think he was correct. Seems to me that leaving the clone behind with his memories was a “just in case” conceit.
But bringing in Logan did not hurt the film. The only questionable plot point was the Data duplicate (since we’ve seen it before) but this time it was actually handled pretty well.
Seriously? Everything I’ve read says that Spiner didn’t say that he’d aged out of the role until a couple years AFTER Nemesis.
I still have a hard time taking Garrett Wang seriously. He played a bit character, yet has no problem putting daggers in production crew/fellow actors backs as if he was a major enough player in the franchise to be able to get away that; and there were also documented issues of him being late to work and being somewhat of a malcontent.
Someone please give me a good reason as to why we should we believe anything he says? Or even care?
It’s a panel, at a convention. They could be up there talking about the finer points of cannibalism, and the fans would cheer. No one really cares what they are actually saying, just that they are there…..
@Phil
Yes, good point! :-)
Bit player, not quite. Voyager had a number of Wangisodes wherein Kim was the featured character (several involving doomed romances). Braga also singles out the episode Timeless, in which Wang was a lead. Of that cast, Beltran has said the nastiest stuff about the producers. Wang’s past comments about Mulgrew v Ryan have been corroborated elsewhere.
I like that Wang says what is on his mind. It’s fun lol! I don’t agree with him though a Voyager movie would’ve been a better idea but I guess in hindsight ANYTHING would’ve been a better idea over Nemesis. ;)
All of those other staff you mentioned seemed to make it to work on time without any issues.
Garrett was main cast, opening credits all 7 seasons, not a bit player.
That aside, back then I wanted something big, bringing in DS9 (return of Sisko and all), and Voyager. Maybe the Dominion broke the treaty or something. Keep Janeway as Admiral mission giver, have Chakotay in command of Voyager, keep Riker out till 30 minutes in to save one ship or other with Titan. Replace B4 with Lore, who is orchestrating the whole thing, keep Data’s sacrifice, and end the movie with Seven ressurecting him in a (cloned) human body controlled by a positronic brain via Borg tech. ;) Ok thats utter fan wank and we all know it, but it was fun to write. Lol
If Garrett Wang was a primary cast member on Voyager, then if my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a wagon.
Sorry, but no one I know would classify Wang as being a primary cast member of Voyager. I’l admit that he’s a bit above a bit character, but he’s not a primary star on the show.
Dude only primary cast members get opening credits spots, thats just how it is. DeForrest Kelley didn’t even get that until season 2 IIRC. What you consider him is irrelevant, he was main cast.
He wasn’t one of the primary cast stars of the show who received most of the on-screen time on the show…period
However, if you want to define some different term called “main cast” which you define as everybody who’s in the opening credits and say that is meaningful in some way to you, by all means, have at it. That does not change in any way his relatively minor supporting role on the series, and your comparison of his role to Kelley’s role in TOS almost caused me to choke on my coke here you got me laughing so hard. :-)
How would he not be the primary cast if he was in the credits though? Isn’t that what makes up the main cast?
People consider characters like Sulu, Uhura, Scotty, etc as the primary cast on TOS and they weren’t even in the credits and most got waaaaaaay less development than Kim got. Sulu has been around for 50 years and I doubt anyone could list half of that character’s background as Kim’s.
I certainly don’t consider Takei and Nichols as “primary cast members” in TOS. No, not at all. Same for Koenig. They were all fine “supporting” cast members and there is absolutely no shame in that.
TOS primary cast members were Shatner, Nimoy and Kelly, with Doohan being open for debate.
I don’t really care what the credits say. When I watch a TV series over time, it becomes evident to me and most viewers who the primary, driving characters are. It’s not all that complicated to notice who is essential and who is supporting.
I don’t get all the fuss with this weird insistence that Kim was supposedly a major character in Voyager? That just doesn’t pass the bull-crap filter. He obviously was a supporting character.
Ok but this sounds more subjective than objective. As far as the production was concerned he was treated like a main cast member. He was in practically every episode, had tons of character development (but could’ve gotten more), his own arc and had relationships with other important characters like Paris and Seven.
And I guess the insistence comes from the fact that you DON’T lol. To me if they are in the credits, they are a main cast member. Now it doesn’t mean they will always get more stories or development (ask Robert Beltran about that lol) but they are all considered main cast members to most people.
But if you don’t personally consider him one, fine, but you’re trying to convince others they should see your POV on it. And doing it alone which should tell you something.
There is also the fact that the 100th episode of Voyager, an important milestone, one hailed by series that reach it with special event episodes, was entirely focused on Harry Kim.
I am speaking stricktly in terms of how SAG, the studios, and contracts, define main cast. Main cast is named in the opening credits, thats the rules, episode guest stars are shown after the credits. Series supporting characters, like the Vulcan engineer under B’lanna, get end of episode credits. Thats the rules for these productions, oinions don’t enter into it.
That’s fine for that definition. I am speaking in terms of what most of us would agree wee see on-screen in terms of who are the primary, driving characters that get most of the air time week-in and week-out, contrasting to those supporting cast who typically have small weekly roles, but get a couple eps per year with an increased role.
Yet as you can clearly see from this thread “most” of us do not agree with you.
I am comfortable that any random person put in front of a TV to watch Voyager, and quizzed afterwards to name the primary major characters who are driving the show, would not have Kim on their list. Apparently you think such a person would say Kim is a major character, which shows me that you not being objective, and that’s fine.
The fact that a couple people on a Trek website who obviously liked Kim and Voyager aren’t real happy with my POV here is expected and completely understandable.
By that silly definition the primary cast members would have only been Jeri Ryan and Robert Picardo for the last half of the series. They had the most screen time and storylines.
@Brian
You can play that game of making an extreme case of my position so that you get to call it “silly”, but I will note that you did not claim that Wang got a lot of screen time in your “last half of the series” example. Which is my primary point — he was never a major character that drove the series…FACT
I really like Harry Kim. It’s funny he never became more than an Ensign after seven years lol. That gotta hurt!
I do remember Patrick Stewart said there was an idea to include DS9 and Voyager if they made another movie. I don’t know about all the casts but I heard at least the Captains. Obviously it never got very far especially after Nemesis bombed but its a reminder Star Trek has been doing shared universes decades before they became all the rage on TV and movies.
A bit character? He was a series regular on a series that ran for seven seasons.
Wow, seeing all those former guest stars is really quite fascinating. Of course – besides Jonathan Del Arco, Beth Touissant and (obviously) Carel Struycken and Patti Yasutake – I didn’t recognise most of their names but it was fun looking them up!
Beth Toussaint, who played Tasha Yar’s sister, is ageless. I remember her also as a recurring character on Dallas back in the late 80s. In real life she is married to the guy who played Senator Lipton, Angela’s husband, from The Office. So, she has connections to 3 of my favorite shows!
I would love to see her reprise the role for Star Trek Online and meet her niece Sela.
With all due respect, Mr. Wang… Nemesis was a pretty darn good sendoff. Low box office does not = bad. Just as high box office does not = good.
Nemesis a good send off? Bless your heart.
@SpectrePrime
Exactly. Sometimes I can’t believe what I read on this site. :-)
Absolutely. Some characters moved on. Data grew as much as he was going to came to a heroic end. It had a fantastic 3rd act. The Mirrored parallel for both Picard and Data was well done. Was it a perfect film? Not at all. There were a few flaws. But even Wrath of Khan had flaws.
I really think the main issue with people thinking it was a bad film really stems from fans who preferred TNG to TOS and were annoyed that TUC was the superior sendoff.
A nice sendoff was Star Trek VI. Nemesis was fun but maybe not the best way to wrap up TNG.
Felt just right to me. Not sure how better to wrap up TNG than with the “death” of Data and Riker FIANLLY moving on to his own command. Combined with a little personal growth from both Picard and Data.
Nemesis was not pretty darn good in my opinion. Mediocre at best. The absolute stupidity of the Romulan Empire for the plot to work is just mind-numbing. Making Shinzon a Picard clone wasn’t necessary at all, and really was a ‘say what?’ moment. Killing Data was just plain nonsense. He’s an android, they can hire any actor they want to play him if Spiner thought he was too old to continue, just have Data build himself a new face. The rest of the cast had very little to do.
Reportedly, Stewart and Spiner were given major story input in order to sign them for the movie. Once he saw that input, Berman really should have said, “thanks, but no thanks” and gone on to the make the Earth/Romulan War movie with an all-new cast that he was interested in doing. That really couldn’t have been worse.
I think the director was not really giving it his all for Nemesis. He didn’t have the passion for the material. Also I always thought that Nemesis would have been much better if they went with their original idea of having Patrick Stewart play both the hero and Shinzon instead of a younger Picard with Tom Hardy.
The director became infamous because he knew nothing about Star Trek. Its not a first, Nick Meyer and JJ Abrams came to the franchise green but I think in his case he had an arrogant attitude he didn’t have to know tmuch about it and wanted to do things his own way which upsetted a lot of the cast in the process.
I think Nemesis just had a lot of problems with both script and direction. Most of the bad films it mostly came down to the writing (and the case of TFF the special effects as well) but in this case the direction was worse than the writing IMO. It just felt really off to me. It’s still sadly my worse film in the franchise even including the Kelvin films.
Stuart Baird is a legendary editor but he failed as a director. Us Marshals is an okay watch it for free on cable movie, but a terrible sequel to the fugitive. But Nemesis is awful, it is no wonder he directed no more than 3 films.
A two and a half hour Voyager movie? Sorry, but no.
ABSOLUTELY, NO!
I like how it can’t just be two hours like most Trek films but two and a HALF hours lol. That was going to be one epic ending.
I just don’t see the box office draw of anyone in that cast. Personally, I think the TNG movies really only worked because of Stewart and, maybe, Spiner.
The TNG show itself mainly worked because of Stewart. So it would follow that he would raise the level of the films, too. But even he couldn’t save Insurrection.
Jennifer Nash is doing Star Wars cosplay. Cheeky.
Maybe Seven of Nine should have replaced Worf?
Worf was Klingon Ambassador for the Federation and it didn’t make sense that he was on the Enterprise in Nemesis
I got a bit of a kick when Worf started to explain why he was there but the scene faded that out of something else. Kinda like saying, it doesn’t really matter why Worf is there. He’s just there because he was in the TNG cast. Let’s move on…
:)
Okay, I’m a bit mortified to admit that I thought Carel Struycken had passed on. I am delighted to be mistaken. “Thank you for the drinks!”
Guess you didn’t watch the new TWIN PEAKS? have no idea who nash is, though.
I was wondering too, so looked her up. She played Picard’s wife in “The Inner Light”.
Why is Jennifer Nash dressed up like Gandalf?
One thing I have always hated and don’t understand about American movie making. Of course I understand, I just hate the why and hate that movie watcher put up with it.
We always end up with movie makers so focused on building a movie around the actors, rather than focusing on what makes great movies…writers, directors and cinematography.
I remember in the early 70’s, as a young teen, going to the theater with my older brother to watch B movies that no one had heard anything about before opening day, but they often turned out to be much better that the big production films.
Want a great Star Trek movie? Focus on the script, director and a great cinematographer. Doesn’t really matter what the story is about. It could be about 12 jurors in a small room deciding a case for two hours.
It could still end up a movie for all times.
“One thing I have always hated and don’t understand about American movie making. Of course I understand, I just hate the why and hate that movie watcher put up with it.”
Wow! Really?
One could readily postulate that all of this hate you have — you use the word “hate” three times here — clouds your judgement of American movie-making in general? In your own words here, you confirm you have broad generalizations about American movie making, and have preconceived notions about hating both the movies and the audience for the movies.
No offense meant, but you don’t exactly sound like the kind of person I would trust to have an objective view on movies in general. In your own words here, you sound very angry and subjective.
TM, not complaining but I wish you put who some of the guest star’s character names they actually played on the show. With the exception of one or two I have no clue who these people are lol, especially if they were only in one episode from 20 years ago.
Wow Linda Park is still a cutie! :)
About a third of the way through the fourth season on a Voyager rewatch. That series is way underrated.
Yeah Voyager has its dogs for sure but its still a good show. It just didn’t deliver on its premise the way it should have. BUt I think that was just due to how TV was back then. If it was made today it be done exactly how DIS is made. Just a very different time now.
That it is. In most ways, I think that’s a good thing; the average television series is way better today than twenty years ago, probably. Which, in my mind, means Discovery has no excuse for not being one of the best shows currently in production; it’s not even half as good as The Expanse, for example.
As for Voyager, I don’t know how I feel about the not-delivering-on-their-premise thing. I can’t remember enough about how the final four seasons go to say. But I think the first three seasons deliver on it quite nicely, for the most part. Better than I’d remembered, if anything.
I just finished up season 1 of Westworld. I enjoyed it and felt it was good. Not earth shattering in any way, but interesting. After catching that final 90 minute episode, I was thinking “this is the sort of thing that Discovery SHOULD have been like”. They had a major star who was only on for the one season. They started slow but got more interesting as the show progressed. They had a couple of fairly big reveals at the end. And it made me WANT to see season 2. Why could the Discovery people NOT do something like that?
I’m thinking the same as I’m nearing the end of season 4 on my re-watch as well. It’s really not bad. The one thing I would say is that I think they needed to play up the distance from home a whole lot more. Otherwise, most of the episodes were in the “Not too bad” category. I think TNG may have had more dog episodes that Voyager had. Maybe I ought to give TNG another chance. Like Voyager, I only watched the show the one time it was on. Have only seen a handful of episodes more than once.
Seems kind of obvious that Seven might have been considered to fill the void left by Data at the end of the film. Evidently they settled on the B-4 character instead, but it isn’t hard to see how Seven could have substituted, with a few tweaks to the storyline.
I’m with Nemeis never happening. It was a poorly written script and directed by someone who knew nothing of Star Trek. I’d have loved to see a different TNG Movie that would pass the torch to Voyager for a little while since let’s face it DS9 split everyone up at the end.
It was absolutely a rumor during Nemesis pre-pro that Janeway’s cameo was meant to be a Seven of Nine appearance. I assumed that she would have briefed the crew in person and tagged along, but in the end they just settled on a Janeway appearance.
As for a Voyager movie, there’s no way that would have done even as well as Nemesis – too small an audience. UPN TV movie or mini series, sure. $40 million+ movie? No.
You couldn’t catch me dead at one of these panels talking abou the past.
You’d be more interesting alive.
@David — I’m not so sure … I’m getting visions of WEEKEND AT ORCI’S