Star Trek: Insurrection was meant to have more romance between Captain Picard and Anij, but a pair of kisses was cut from the film.

Star Trek: Insurrection originally had more romance between Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Anij (Donna Murphy), but two scenes of them kissing were cut from the film. In the third Star Trek: The Next Generation film, Anij was an extremely long-lived member of the Ba’ku people who benefitted from the rejuvenating effects of a region of space called the Briar Patch. Captain Picard and the USS Enterprise-E defended the Ba’ku from a sinister alliance between Starfleet and the Son’a, who wanted to forcibly relocate the Ba’ku to control the Briar Patch.

In the Star Trek oral history, The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, producer Rick Berman explains the rationale for cutting Picard and Anij’s kisses from Star Trek: Insurrection, while stars Patrick Stewart and Donna Murphy share their frustrations with the decision. Read Berman’s quote below:

Rick Berman: There was a little romance cut out of the final film: a couple of kisses. And there were some heated debates as to whether the kisses were in the right place. Those who were against the kisses were against them primarily because the first one was during an altered reality sequence where the water slows down and the hummingbird slows down. There were those among us who believed that we were right in the middle of this exodus, there was a lot of action going on, and for those two characters to start making out seemed to not necessarily be appropriate at that moment. The second kiss took place at the very end of the movie right when Picard says, “I’ve got 318 days of shore leave coming,” but without the first kiss, the second kiss seemed very odd and out of place. There were a lot of discussions with the studio people and the final decision ended up being to take them out. It would not have made all that much of a difference one way or the other, and I don’t think that the kisses would have done any damage to the story. Nor do I think their absence was all that missed.

Patrick Stewart discusses how not only were Captain Picard’s kisses cut out of Star Trek: Insurrection, but a kiss was also excised from the previous film, Star Trek: First Contact. Read his quote below:

Patrick Stewart: In First Contact there had been the character of Lily played by Alfre Woodard, whom I also kissed and which also got cut out of the movie. There must be something they don’t like about my kissing. It’s the oddest thing. With the kiss with Alfre, it was on the cheek, but they took it out. So when it came to Donna and something a little more intense … it’s gone and it’s very irritating.

Donna Murphy discusses how Picard and Anij’s romance in Star Trek: Insurrection now plays differently without their kisses because she and Patrick Stewart performed together with more “intimacy.” Read her quote below:

Donna Murphy: There was a whole sequence, a portion of which is still in the film, where I’m leading Picard through this altered reality, stepping inside a moment and kind of suspending time. It was more kind of a sensual exploration, a heightened sensory response to different ways of touching each other, and that led into this kiss. When I saw that that was cut, I thought that it may have been to give a greater payoff to a kiss that was at the end of the movie. And when I saw that that was cut, I was surprised. I initially had a negative response to that, because you shape performance thinking that there are certain pieces of the puzzle that are a given, and if you take those pieces out you might have chosen to shape the performance differently if you knew that those pieces were not going to be there. Patrick and I played that relationship as if there was an intimacy that had taken place at a certain point. I was told it was a studio decision that the kisses were not necessary.

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While the events of Star Trek: Picard season 3 complicated the matter, it would have made sense for Picard to seek help from his Insurrection friends.

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Picard and Anij got a shout-out in season 3

Captain Picard’s romance with Anij in Star Trek: Insurrection got a shout-out from Captain Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick), who alluded to it in Star Trek: Picard season 3. Although not bluntly stated, it implied that Jean-Luc made good on his promise to use up some of his shore leave and spend time with Anij again on Ba’ku. However, their relationship clearly didn’t last, which is par for the course with Jean-Luc Picard’s romances.

Star Trek: Picard season 2 was expressly designed to answer the question of why Jean-Luc Picard avoided long-lasting intimate relationships, which was tied to Picard’s deeply held trauma from the suicide of his mother during his childhood. Jean-Luc began a romance with Laris (Orla Brady), but the return of Dr. Beverly Crusher and Jean-Luc’s discovery that they have a son, Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), shifted Picard’s priorities towards his newfound family. However, like Star Trek: Insurrection, Jean-Luc and Beverly also didn’t share a kiss in Star Trek: Picard season 3.