I know I’ve given Wesley Crusher a good amount of grief here at the lair. Most Trekkies have. He wasn’t quite the popular character that I think Gene Roddenberry assumed he would be. Rather than resonating with fans as the “Everyman” (or rather “Everygeek”) who represented them on the bridge of the NCC-1701-D, he instead became the recipient of nerd ire and disdain (not to mention the focus of admittedly over-the-top online hate groups such as “alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die”). All the poor kid wanted was to fit in and find some father figures, and instead his legacy became summed up in the instantly famous, “quick-print-this-on-a-T-shirt” line, “Shut Up, Wesley!”

But no matter how horribly awkward and geekalicious Wesley Crusher was, his mother loved him. Even when he chose to stay on the Enterprise during her tenure back on earth as head of Starfleet Medical, or later when he chose to leave her behind to join his intergalactic life partner, The Traveler, on a super-duper magical mystery tour of the universe, she always loved him, worried about him, and hoped that he’d packed enough clean skivvies for his journey.

So, of course, the writers decided to give Beverly her one wish at the end of the TNG crew’s cinematic journeys: They brought her boy home. That’s right, Wesley Crusher appears in the final TNG movie, Nemesis. Didn’t see him? That’s because practically every evidence of his appearance was cut from the final movie. If you make sure not to blink throughout the entire wedding reception scene, you might catch a glimpse of him though. I swear he’s there.

Or you can just geek squee over the following photo taken from one of the cut scenes, of Wesley, Beverly, and Jean-Luc sharing a moment. All in their adorable dress whites, all smiling (and all probably just a little bit tipsy on synthehol). It’s a great photo, isn’t it? Makes me wish that they’d left those scenes in the movie (it’s not like they could have in any way made the movie worse than it was).

Oh, and for the record, the cut scenes established that Wesley had returned from his time with The Traveler, gone back to the Academy and finally became a full-fledged Starfleet officer, and was heading for his new assignment as Assistant Chief Engineer for the U.S.S. Titan, with his new captain, William T. Riker. AW! You can see the original post that Wil Wheaton made regarding this photo on his awesome blog.

One more plug: Wheaton’s book Just a Geek is awesome in many ways, but probably my favorite part of the book is what he writes about “returning home” to film his scenes for Nemesis. If you haven’t read this book yet, I highly recommend it!