Star Trek: The Original Movie Had The First Version of Riker & Troi
Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) are the most successful and popular romantic pairing in Star Trek, but the concept of the star-crossed lovers was recycled from Star Trek: The Motion Picture's Will Decker (Stephen Collins) and Ilia (Persis Khambatta). Of course, Riker and Troi had the opportunity to develop their romance over the course of seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, four TNG movies, and Star Trek: Picard. Sadly for Ilia and Decker (but fortunately for Riker and Troi), the original Star Trek couple was written out of the franchise after their lone appearance.
Click the button below to start this article in quick view. Start nowDecker and Ilia were created as new characters for Star Trek: Phase II, which was intended to be a sequel to Star Trek: The Original Series in the 1970s that eventually morphed into the first Star Trek feature film directed by Robert Wise in 1979. The basic idea for Decker and Ilia will immediately sound familiar to TNG fans: As a young Starfleet Officer, Will Decker was stationed on the planet Delta IV, where he fell in love with Ilia, a beautiful Deltan who had extra-sensory abilities. But the ambitious, career-oriented Decker left Delta IV and Ilia without saying goodbye. Years later, in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Decker and Ilia found themselves reunited on the U.S.S. Enterprise when it was launched to intercept the mysterious space entity called V'Ger. By then, Decker was Captain of the Enterprise, but he was temporarily reassigned to First Officer by Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner), who took command of the starship, while Ilia came aboard as the ship's navigator.
During the film, Ilia was killed by a probe sent by V'Ger and replaced with a synthetic version that had her memories so that the entity could communicate with the Enterprise's crew. By the end of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Decker and Ilia 'merged' themselves with V'Ger so it could achieve a higher level of consciousness; all three then vanished from the galaxy and were never seen again in Star Trek canon. Kirk had Decker and Ilia officially listed as "missing" in Starfleet's records. In real life, Decker and Ilia weren't properly developed as characters and, while shooting the film, Star Trek's producers decided to write them out of the franchise. Indeed, the doomed couple failed to connect with audiences who saw the finished film. However, Star Trek's creator Gene Roddenberry held onto the basic idea of Decker and Ilia and used it again when creating Will Riker and Deanna Troi for Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Will Riker strongly resembled Will Decker in TNG's first season: He joined Captain Jean-Luc Picard's (Patrick Stewart) U.S.S. Enterprise-D as First Officer in TNG's premiere, "Encounter at Farpoint," only to discover his ex-lover (his "Imzadi" i.e. "beloved"), Deanna Troi, was stationed aboard as ship's counselor (reversing Decker and Ilia's meeting aboard Kirk's Enterprise). In their mutual past, the young Riker was stationed on Troi's homeworld of Betazed and he, too, left her behind to pursue his Starfleet ambitions without saying goodbye. Like Ilia, Troi had empathic abilities that benefited the Enterprise-D and E on multiple occasions. Troi's sexual attractiveness (and tension) was tweaked from Ilia's, however; whereas the Deltans took an oath of celibacy when they joined Starfleet, as a Betazed, Troi had no such limitations. Betazoids weddings were even traditionally conducted completely in the nude.
Unlike Decker and Ilia, Riker and Troi are incredibly popular with Trekkers, and the couple received a happy ending. Will and Deanna mutually agreed not to resume their romance during their TNG years, but they gave in to their feelings in the third TNG movie, Star Trek Insurrection. In the final TNG movie,Star Trek: Nemesis, Riker and Troi finally married after 15 years together aboard the Enterprise-D and E, and Deanna joined Will in his new post as Captain of the U.S.S. Titan. Star Trek: Picard picked up Riker and Troi's story 20 years later, revealing that the happy couple is semi-retired from Starfleet and living on the planet Nepenthe with their daughter Kestra (Lulu Wilson), although they suffered the tragic loss of their son Thad. So, even though they were technically a do-over, Riker and Troi completely fulfilled the Star Trek potential Decker and Ilia could only dream of.
Source: screenrant.com