By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
The fact that Wil Wheaton is gone Star Trek: The Next Generation has often confused fans. While it was certainly boring to play the character of a kid genius and get shit from fans, the fact is that most child stars don’t give up regular paychecks, especially for gigs that make it well-known names. Why, then, did a talented young actor leave the series that made him famous? It turns out that Wil Wheaton decided to leave this Star Trek spin-off after an anonymous producer lied to him about Wesley’s involvement in “The Ensigns of Command.”
Wil Wheaton leaves Star Trek
The story of Wil Wheaton’s departure Star Trek: The Next Generation can be found in The Fifty Year Mission: The Next 25 Yearsthe book by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman that is a must-read for fans of the franchise’s golden era. In this text, the actor talks about how he was chosen for the film Valmont and had to negotiate filming schedules. The film was going to be shot in Paris during TNG’s production hiatus after season 2, but production of the film was going to carry over into production of TNG’s third season.
However, Wil Wheaton I didn’t think this would be a problem because “The Ensigns of Command” was the first episode produced for season 3 of this Star Trek spin-off and Wesley Crusher didn’t play a very significant role in it. Therefore, he assumed it would be quite easy to exclude him from the minor scenes he might have been written into. He maintained this assumption until his agent was contacted by a Star Trek producer.
“One of the producers told my agent that they couldn’t cut me from this episode,” he said, “because it was a Wesley-focused episode and I couldn’t go to work. [in a movie]. He called my house and said, “It’s a Wesley episode, and I’m writing a scene with you and Gates that’s going to advance your mother-son relationship, and it’s really important to the show. ”
It sounded good, but according to Wheaton, the producer “just lied to me… a few days before we started production on this season of New generationThis producer completely cut me out of the script, and it appalled me. The message was very clear – you own us – and it was an attempt to sabotage my career.
The end of Wesley Crusher
Looking back, Wil Wheaton remembers this incident as the incident that motivated him to leave. Star Trek: The next generation. However, there may be more to this story than first meets the eye… while the actor recalls being completely written out of “Ensigns of Command”, Wesley appears in a handful of scenes. It’s possible that Wheaton is referring to a meatier role cut down to size, which would be entirely consistent with this episode receiving numerous rewrites (so much so that writer Melinda Snodgrass almost removed her name from the credits ).
The other interesting thing is that Wil Wheaton remembers this Star Trek producer lying to him as some sort of power move. Although this is entirely possible (the internal politics of the first TNG would have been very toxic), it also seems possible that the anonymous producer the actor spoke to mixed up the episodes. The Wesley-centric episode that advanced his relationship with his mother was “Evolution”, which served as the first episode of the third season despite “The Ensigns of Command” being produced first, so there may have been a real confusion regarding production.
Even if it was an honest mistake, we can understand Wil Wheaton’s annoyance with the producers of Star Trek. Intentionally or not, a producer blocked the actor from starring in a steamy Miloš Forman film that could have transformed his career. Plus, he would have starred alongside Hollywood heavyweights like Colin Firth and Annette Bening, and we somehow suspect they would have shouted “shut up, Wesley” far less than the fan medium of Star Trek, making the film even more appealing to the talented actor. stuck playing sci-fi’s most annoying child genius.
