Deepfake Shows What Patrick Stewart Might Have Looked Like as Shinzon in Star Trek: Nemesis
Deepfake of Sir Patrick Stewart as Shinzon in Star Trek: Nemesis
A new deepfake video featuring Sir Patrick Stewart has surfaced, imagining what Star Trek: Nemesis would have been like had he played both himself and the villain Shinzon. In the film, Romulans use Jean-Luc Picard’s DNA to create Shinzon, a clone, with the intention of using him as a spy. Instead, Shinzon leads a group of Remans to overthrow the Romulan Senate, and begins a plot to attack Earth and the Federation.
A piece from Screen Rant this week highlights a video from YouTube channel Deep Homage, which depicts the scene from Nemesis where Picard meets his younger clone. In the film, Shinzon is played by Tom Hardy, but in the deepfake video, Hardy’s face is replaced by Stewart’s. The result is eerie, and not quite accurate, but kind of a fun demonstration of the technology. Screen Rant argues that the scene is “more effective”.
The three-minute video is worth a watch, especially as a refresher, since the events of Nemesis are likely to resurface at some point in Star Trek: Picard. Nemesis was Picard’s last on-screen appearance, and of course, it was in that film that Data gave his life to save his captain’s. You can view the deepfake video for yourself on YouTube now, and Star Trek: Nemesis is available to stream on multiple platforms as well.
This article was written for the podcast Daily Star Trek News.
Alison Pitt is the writer, producer, and host of Daily Star Trek News, on the Roddenberry Podcast Network. A veteran Star Trek podcaster, she started her career on the weekly show Priority One: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast in 2015. She has appeared on panels at Star Trek Las Vegas, WonderCon, and San Diego Comic Con.
