1) From what I read, one of the earlier ideas was for Stewart to play both Picard and Shinzon. That idea was jettisoned, and instead they destroyed Tom Hardy’s career for a decade.

2) From what I infer from what I read elsewhere, part of the B4 plot was to allow a backdoor to bring Data back in case the series went further. (Yay, Marvel-style resurrections that negate the tragic death!)

3) Yup, I caught that. I said, “Quantum don’t know from organic!” Even if they had just said that it severs all carbon bonds, destroying normative organic compounds… But hey, “quantum” sounds more cooler, right?

1) The Picard/Shinzon connection seemed pulled entirely out of thin air. Shinzon didn’t look like Picard, he didn’t act like Picard, he didn’t seem to have any of Picard’s personality quirks. Heck, he didn’t even tell anyone, “Keep these #$@! children away from me!” If Shinzon hadn’t come right out and said, “I’m a clone of Picard,” I don’t think anyone would have guessed that was what the writers intended. Thus, it’s hard to see him as “How Picard might have been.”

2) The B-4 plot was so mindblowingly stupid that I’m surprised the entire crew wasn’t court martialed for it. “Let’s see, the last time we found another android of Data’s model, it turned out to be evil and nearly fed the ship to the Crystalline Entity. So, of course, we’re going to put this android together, get it functional, download into it a bunch of classified information from Data, then take it on a crucial diplomatic mission.”

Seriously, if they’d wanted to have Lore, they should have just brought back Lore. Having him as a member of Shinzon’s crew might have produced something interesting.

3) The weapon at the beginning that “destroys all organic matter at the quantum level.” It’s never a good sign when I’m facepalming before we even get to the opening credits.