I think it might be self-inflicted. Patrick Stewart is big enough that he can make it so with regard to the scripts. He's the one that insisted there be a dune buggy chase scene in Nemesis, for example. And he's pushed for more action and romance in the movies. I suspect that this is another case of a good actor or writer who works best when tempered by outside control.
I don’t know that insistence is the right way to phrase it. Sir Patrick and Brent Spiner are good friends, IIRC Nemesis was written by Spiner’s old flatmate and best friend. As such the wants of the actors started creeping into the scripts, not out of insistence per se, but perhaps more out a natural affect of a close working relationship. Sometimes a healthy distance is most important between a writer’s room, and the cast.
I heard only last night about a script that is being written, but written specifically with the actor, Patrick [Stewart], to play in it. And I’ve been told to expect to receive it within a week or so.
Notably, that week was several weeks ago:
TrekMovie has confirmed with Josh Horowitz that this interview was recorded in early November as Stewart was out promoting his new memoir, Making It So.
I hope this is his swan song. Patrick Stewart is amazing, and I love Captain Picard, but he’s not Harrison Ford. The franchise will be fine without him. We don’t need to play out Too Short a Season in real life
Three seasons of PIC were already a mistake. The only good thing coming from it is the possibility of a Riker cooking/baking show (which I would totally watch).
In rewatching the original series and TNG thereafter, the consistent factor, regardless of the early special effects, was the scripts. The dialogue was always great. In ST: Picard, the dialogue is trash.
Everything about ST Picard is trash. Dialogue, script, Character behavior, 50 years of fransche history ignored, it was all written and executed by people who don’t like star Trek, cast excluded though I just don’t understand why any of the vast was on board with this turd. We’re they so desperate for money?
it’s even worse than that they write characters that are not in the world of star trek but written like they are fans of the star trek. that might work for a comedy like lower decks but it stunts growth of the franchise.
since we can’t make new stories or ask new questions. They are just stuck in a circle of reference and the bare minimum of a story / scavenger hunt to get to those references. Terry Matalas has said this himself.
But hey at least we have unedited versions of the originals unlike star wars and I hope all the actors got big paydays in their golden years.
2 seasons were a mistake and by far the worst trek seasons from any show, the third season while being massive fan service was just what I seemingly wanted as I loved every second and was a great ending to the TNG crew
I just watch the third season and pretend all of the random references to the early seasons happened in a more logical way.
I knew somebody who was running a “what could have been” Star Trek TTRPG campaign based around episodes of Voyager that could have been executed better, I think I would love to run a campaign that had plot elements from Picard’s first two seasons as a personal headcanon.
I think the difference between Stewart and Ford is that Stewart seems more to be doing it because he enjoys this character. Ford seems to be doing it in spite of his feelings.
As long as Stewart is still having fun, I’m happy with him continuing as long as he wants.
“Yes, and she’s scrabbling around to get them back on again, but even before she can get her knickers on, I’ve seen everything. Yeah. I’ve seen it all.”
I watched the first season and liked it. The fan service didn’t feel so bad. Season twos portrayal by half way through of an old enemy felt too casual to me and I tapped out. Is season 3 worth a whirl of two stopped me?
@VerseAndVermin@FartsWithAnAccent I'm among the few who didn't like S3. I could not care less for "the chosen one" thing, which is just annoying and a tired trope.
Season 3 wasn’t amazing, but it certainly wasn’t as awful as Seasons 1 and 2. The scene with the D reveal and the fighting inside the cube was pretty dope, but I’ll admit it was full fan service start to end.
Seasons 1 and 2 of Picard left me going “WTF how did this story make it out of the writer’s room with approval?” With some editing and reworking it COULD have been good…but it wasn’t.
And don’t get me started on Discovery. That show has been a Trainwreck forever.
Season 3 is literally just fan service. They reused the V’Ger sound/theme for the enemy. They brought back a character from another show in the franchise. They brought back a character who appeared in two whole episodes of TNG. Large parts of the sound design were lifted from the TNG-era series. Seriously, almost as much fan service as Lower Decks.
Honestly with the train wreck that was Seasons 1 and 2, going full fan service was about the only path forward for the last season. I liked Season 3, but it certainly was NOT original.
As for Lower Decks…brah…how is Lower Decks fan service? There are references and stuff, but its got its own vibe now going on.
To be fair, I haven’t watched the latest season of LD, but up to that point, it really was “get this reference? See? Giant Spock’s skeleton! Remember this energy being that escaped the Enterprise-D?” However, I went into LD knowing that that was what I was going to be getting, and while I won’t say it’s my favorite nu-Trek series, I do really enjoy it.
It definitely has some inside jokery going on and references to other shows, but I’d argue it’s more organically done than just calling it “fan service”. It’s also a comedy SciFi, so I feel like it has more leeway than I’d give most shows, though.
The show has progressively become it’s own thing as each season progresses, though.
The reason I think Lower Decks does a fine job with its "fan service" is that none of those "get this reference? See?" moments matter. They're just stuff that's going on in the background, where an ordinary non-Lower-Decks Star Trek show would simply put a bunch of random meaningless gizmos or whatever to fill out the scene. The story that's being told in the foreground works perfectly well if you don't "get" any of the references. Often the story is enhanced by those references, but if you watch Lower Decks without any knowledge of the previous shows (aside presumably from a general gist of how shows like Star Trek work) you can still enjoy it.
In my opinion the first Picard season is the best. It actually tries something different; a new crew and ship and rules.
Season 2 is in that patronizing and lecturing tone that feels extra misplaced for anyone outside the United States.
Season 3 is complete creative sellout and I hate it. It was sort of nice to see them all again, but that’s pretty much it. Nostalgia bait everywhere, with a weird hamfisted plot. Barely a single original idea in that series, just a theme park ride to check all the boxes… look at the old crew on the bridge! Even data is back after we just let him die in season 1! Look at the E N T E R P R I S E, and we are fighting the borg PLUS the changelings!
Season 3 worked because of the ensemble cast, though. The first two where it was “Picard and Friends” felt weird, and not like what anyone really wanted, and if this is another “Just Picard” thing it’s likely to end up the same.
I agree. Picard Season 3 felt like it should have been the final TNG movie, but I’m actually glad it was episodic since it gave better pacing for gathering the cast together.
It was a lot of fam service, but in a good way imo
Oh man, I’d repressed the memory that Q was in s2 of Picard! I kind of liked the first season but the follow-ups were nostalgia dumpster fires. Literally what Sir PatStew said he didn’t want to make going into the show.
I prefer to think that Picard is just still stuck in the Nexus and everything that has happened to him since has been a result of magic Nexus fever dreams.
Movie Picard and PIC Picard acted nothing like TNG Picard to the point where they were seemingly completely different people. Movie Picard wanted to make the Borg pay for what they did and literally beat in dead Borg with his fists and snapped the Borg queen’s spine in two with his bare hands while TNG Picard knew things weren’t that cut and dry and even had an opportunity to potentially genocide the works of them and didn’t because ethics and shit. Movie Picard would have drove Hugh up to their doorstep infected with the fractal virus the first chance he had.
PIC Picard… is literally an android I guess? But still old? They kind of ignored that later. So, literally he isn’t the same Picard as TNG Picard.
I… Don’t hate this. He meets Kirk too, which could be captain wish fulfillment. After his nephew is killed in such a stupid way he just exits reality and never returns.
First Contact, like you said, is revenge on the Borg and saving Earth.
Insurrection is then him inventing the perfect woman to save and finding the fountain of youth.
Nemesis he fights an evil, young version of himself, which has gotta be worth a few years of therapy.
i will always love a new picard movie since i have memories of watching tng with my dad and i loved picard but i still want them to make star trek legacy
He’ll die before it happens. Don’t think people realise quite how old the guy is. I love him to bits but it’s like David Attenborough, just let the man rest, he’s given us enough.
S03 was the movie we never got, they just need to leave this one alone. It’s most likely being talked about because Picard S03 got the best ratings of all the new Trek shows. But it was already quite a perfect ending. We don’t need another Picard movie, Trek needs to continue on the small screen with #StarTrekLegacy.
I think this is great and anything I can see Patrick Stewart in, I will. I don’t share the opinion that Picard series was bad. I don’t see Picard as a one-dimensional must always be the same character. People change over time. And Picard has also changed. Like it or not.
If this thread is anything to go by, me and my other half were the only people on the planet that actually enjoyed Picard S1 and 2, and didn’t like S3 as much.
In that spirit, if a film is made I look forward to enjoying it even if I’m the only one.
I'll raise my hand and say that I actually enjoyed all three seasons. I felt like 1 and 2 had a sense of melancholy at times, but that was welcome. Kind of felt right at that time in my life.
3 I really liked for the interpersonal relationships, and that sense of wonder in space.
Well, 1 and 2 both dealt with deep themes of grief and generational trauma … I appreciated that they tried to write a story with a deep meaning to it, even if it didn’t 100% work it was better than a lot of the recent things I’ve watched
I was a kid when I first watched TNG reruns, and things seemed safe and optimistic to me. It was also the nature of television to almost reset characters from episode to episode, no matter how difficult or traumatic the previous episode was. (An exception would be the episode where Picard mends fences with his brother and begins facing the trauma of having been assimilated.)
But Season 1 Picard took a different approach, and showed Picard dealing with past disillusionment (the loss of his career which was his purpose, et .) in a more long term manner. It wasn’t just gone. And to me, it made sense in the context of my own life. As I aged, I didn’t recover from past hurts quite as quickly either. But we work through it and grow, at any age, and I think that’s what Picard as a character did as well.
He’s a different person at that age, definitely more careful, and he's aware that he doesn’t have all his former health, abilities or status - and that’s ok! He saves people, reconnects (and makes up) with old friends, and has a long-term relationship (maybe?). He’s doing pretty well!
Plus, he reminded Starfleet and the Federation a little of ideals.
All that, I found very hopeful and more effective as if neither Starfleet nor Picard had ever met failure.
Don’t be sorry for your reply being long, it was clearly well thought out and considered. I agree on all the points you’ve made … perhaps the majority of people here didn’t like Picard 1 & 2 because it wasn’t repeating the type of story telling that Star Trek has typically given, but was a whole new thing. People, generally, don’t like change and I think in the current world there’s comfort to be had in the “monster of the week” style 90s shows.
Yes, I think so, too. Familiarity is comforting, and I also feel that episodic storytelling is comforting, because it’s reminiscent of my childhood, and because it introduces new, interesting concepts but sticks with a familiar structure. I just get value out of the other type of stories as well.
I am curious what they’ll do for a Picard movie - or a show of Seven and crew.
The thing I liked with 1 and 2 was that they both tried to tackle big ideas of past trauma, even if it didn’t come out well the big thinking was in there while a lot of recent things I’ve watched has felt skin deep at best