{"id":295489,"date":"2026-02-13T05:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T05:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295489\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T05:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T05:34:09","slug":"datas-fate-writer-tng-cast-on-star-trek-nemesis-controversial-ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295489\/","title":{"rendered":"Data&#8217;s Fate: Writer &#038; TNG Cast On Star Trek: Nemesis&#8217; Controversial Ending"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>3-time Academy Award-nominated writer John Logan agreed with Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes that Lt. Commander Data didn&#8217;t really die in <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/db\/movie\/star-trek-nemesis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Star Trek: Nemesis<\/a>. Released in 2002, Star Trek: Nemesis was written by Logan and directed by Stuart Baird, and it became the lowest-grossing Star Trek movie at the box office.<\/p>\n<p>One reason why audiences rejected Star Trek: Nemesis was the <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/star-trek-picard-data-comeback-good-android-evolution\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">death of Data<\/a> at the end. Sacrificing himself to save Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the USS Enterprise-E, the android&#8217;s demise was a rehash of Spock&#8217;s (Leonard Nimoy) death in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. However, Star Trek: Nemesis introduced B-4 (Brent Spiner), an imperfect duplicate android that Data downloaded his memories into.<\/p>\n<p>John Logan joined Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes on their podcast, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@Dropping-Names\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Dropping Names&#8230; And Other Things<\/a>, for a rollicking, must-see chat about Logan&#8217;s stellar career as the writer of films like Gladiator, The Aviator, Skyfall&#8230; and, of course, Star Trek: Nemesis. Their convo began with Logan refuting, in no uncertain terms, that Data died in Star Trek: Nemesis. Read their quotes below:<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Frakes: Now let me ask you a question that I\u2019ve answered a hundred times: Do you believe that Data died in Nemesis?<\/p>\n<p>John Logan: NO!<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Frakes: Thank you very much! That\u2019s the author right there. That\u2019s my answer.<\/p>\n<p>John Logan: NO!<\/p>\n<p>Brent Spiner: I never thought so.<\/p>\n<p>John Logan: NO!<\/p>\n<p>Brent Spiner: I wanted him to. But I didn\u2019t think it was happening, really.<\/p>\n<p>Watch John Logan on Dropping Names&#8230; And Other Things below:<\/p>\n<p>B-4 has to be the reason that John Logan is so adamant that Data didn&#8217;t really die. At the <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/star-trek-nemesis-ending-killed-tng-movies-explainer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">end of Star Trek: Nemesis<\/a>, the simplistic android began to show signs that Data&#8217;s programming was beginning to assert itself. Had Star Trek: Nemesis been a success, a fifth Star Trek: The Next Generation movie (possibly also written by Logan) likely would have restored Data in the identical body of B-4.<\/p>\n<p>However, despite the filmmakers&#8217; intentions in 2002, Star Trek canon says that Data died in Star Trek: Nemesis because there was no follow-up Star Trek: The Next Generation movie. Data&#8217;s death was cemented at the <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/star-trek-picard-season-1-ending-explained\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">end of Star Trek: Picard season 1<\/a> when Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) put the android&#8217;s &#8216;soul&#8217; to rest and said goodbye to his positronic friend.<\/p>\n<p>        <img width=\"1650\" height=\"928\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"B4 and Picard\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/b4-and-picard.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/b4-and-picard.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Data was finally, truly resurrected in Star Trek: Picard season 3, 21 years after Star Trek: Nemesis. Masterminded by showrunner Terry Matalas, Data was revealed to be remade as a human-like synthetic, complete with emotions, and the personalities of other <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/star-trek-every-brent-spiner-data-android\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">members of Data&#8217;s &#8216;family,&#8217;<\/a> like Lore and Dr. Altan Soong. Data rid himself of Lore and took full control of himself and his emotions.<\/p>\n<p>John Logan&#8217;s plan for Data, if he&#8217;d continued to write Star Trek movies, must have been to bring the android back with B-4 becoming Data. Although, Brent Spiner wanted Data to die because he felt, in part, he was aging out of playing his iconic android. Regardless, Data eventually came back with a built-in reason for why he aged in Star Trek: Picard season 3.<\/p>\n<p>However, Star Trek: Nemesis ended up being the death knell for Star Trek: The Next Generation&#8217;s movie franchise, so audiences will never see what would have happened next if Nemesis&#8217; follow-up resurrected Data in the body of B-4.<\/p>\n<p>        <img width=\"960\" height=\"1440\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Star Trek_ Nemesis - Poster\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/star-trek_-nemesis-poster.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/star-trek_-nemesis-poster.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                                            Release Date<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDecember 13, 2002<\/p>\n<p>                                            Director<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStuart Baird<\/p>\n<p>                                            Writers<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGene Roddenberry, John Logan, Rick Berman, <a data-id=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/tag\/person\/brent-spiner\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Brent Spiner<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"3-time Academy Award-nominated writer John Logan agreed with Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes that Lt. Commander Data didn&#8217;t&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":{"0":"post-295489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}