The iconic Star Trek The franchise is one of the most popular franchises in the science fiction genre, especially the reboot trilogy from 2009 to 2016. These three films have storylines that are bursting with pure brilliance and have also been praised by critics. But as successful as they all were, the director of two of these three films believes they really handled a villain wrong.
That director is filmmaker JJ Abrams, who directed the first two installments in the film series. And surprisingly, the villain he thinks the franchise really messed up is not Benedict Cumberbatch’s villain who appeared in Star Trek Into DarknessInstead, this villain is the same villain from the first reboot film in 2009: Eric Bana’s vengeful Romulan Nero.
Star Trek Director thinks the saga messed up Eric Bana’s role as Nero
The first film of the reboot trilogy was in 2009 Star Trekin which Bana plays a bitter and angry villain named Nero. This villain has a personal problem with Spock, as Spock’s failed mission led to the destruction of Romulus. However, the director feels that this character was treated quite poorly, just like Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan Noorein Singh.
This happened after filmmaker JJ Abrams, who tamed the film, himself admitted the same thing in the book The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From the Next Generation to JJ AbramsAccording to him, Bana was indeed one of the best castings ever, but he did not have many options available.
In the book, he originally praised the film’s cast, saying (via /Film):
Our first Star Trek film was, if anything, an exercise in perfect casting. April Webster and Alyssa Weisberg helped us find the absolute perfect actors. I’m proud of the way it’s told and the humor in it, but of course I can only see what’s wrong with it.
However, when it comes to the Hulk Abrams seems to have many regrets about the actor’s role in the film. As he said in the book:
One of the things I wish we had given Bana, since he’s such a good actor, something more to do than just explode with anger.
Well, that was certainly one of the biggest setbacks of the film, even though Bana was the villain, especially since many of the dialogues of his Romulan antagonist in the film starring Chris Pine were old cliches like “I want Spock dead immediately!” and so forth.
But while Abrams deeply regrets the way Bana was treated in the film, the actor seems to disagree.
Meanwhile, Eric Bana seemed to enjoy playing Nero
While one of the filmmaker’s biggest regrets is that he didn’t give the character of Eric Bana enough depth, the actor seems to have enjoyed playing his vengeful Romulan. This came after the actor openly admitted that he “I fell in love with the script within the first 10 to 15 pages,” and also to know that “It would be a blast.”
In his interview with The New Indian Express he said:
(Nero) is not the deepest and darkest character. He’s complex enough, but not so complex that I didn’t think kids would like him. He’s got enough character to give him a bit of humor.
Well, whether it had much depth or not, either way, the film was an incredible success with a staggering 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and a worldwide box office gross of $385.68 million against a $150 million budget (according to Box Office Mojo), so we might as well put those matters in the past.
You can watch Star Trek (2009) on Prime Video.
