Sweet Jeebus...
Is it really a good idea to start a new series starring an 80 year old actor?
I think this could actually work.
Say he never planned to leave the Captain’s chair, as Kirk advised. Refused promotion until he was either injured or something happened that makes Starfleet force him to retire. Years later he’s an exo-archaeologist, nabbing artifacts from the nuetral zone and what not. He’s basically Indiana Jones in space. He’s living the life he did as Galen when he was undercover in The Gambit, but not a lowlife smuggler.
Then he stumbles onto some big plot (like Nazis trying to find the Ark) and reports it to Starfleet. They send in the Enterprise F to investigate, he goes along as an advisor. Something bad goes down, the Captain is killed, and Picard has to take command, unofficially at first, but then gets reinstated along the way.
They send in the Enterprise F to investigate
This sounds like a holodeck fantasy featuring Dixon Hill.I think this could actually work.
Say he never planned to leave the Captain’s chair, as Kirk advised. Refused promotion until he was either injured or something happened that makes Starfleet force him to retire. Years later he’s an exo-archaeologist, nabbing artifacts from the nuetral zone and what not. He’s basically Indiana Jones in space. He’s living the life he did as Galen when he was undercover in The Gambit, but not a lowlife smuggler.
Then he stumbles onto some big plot (like Nazis trying to find the Ark) and reports it to Starfleet. They send in the Enterprise F to investigate, he goes along as an advisor. Something bad goes down, the Captain is killed, and Picard has to take command, unofficially at first, but then gets reinstated along the way.
Sweet Jeebus...
Ah, good, my work here is done. :lolCANNOT UNSEE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCKQp1sGVRQ
I love Patrick Stewart and I have a lot of respect for TNG and the character of Picard. But we've seen this pattern before where they get the most respected actors of a franchise and all kinds of people associated with the production of an original series or film series on board to draw fans in, only to ultimately ruin said character by changing what people love about them and ultimately try to manipulate audiences into liking new, less developed/ interesting characters. I don't and will not fault Stewart for this and I mean to stress that point because like Mark Hamill they both have a burning passion for their characters, but the studio heads will prevail and get what they want regardless of these talented actor's wishes.
I know I must sound like a jaded old man, but it's just the trend in Hollywood these days because they are so desperate to find story content that they are willing to risk entire franchises rather than risk trying smaller stories that go in new directions, if only for the sake of "playing it safe." When in reality they are actually playing with fire.
I hate to say it Picard and TNG fans, but this is the beginning of the end. Once they change Picard it will be VERY hard to see him in the light you did before. If you think TLJ threads were bad, just wait. Just wait.
More I think about it, the more I'd be happy with an "it was all a dream" cosmic reset just this once. Everything after Picard went into the Nexus has been his Nexus fantasy, including getting out. Enterprise-D implausibly taken out by Klingons, him getting a new badass warship, fighting off a Borg invasion, getting to meet Zefram Cochrane, touch the Phoenix, witness First Contact, discover and stop a Starfleet conspiracy, get the girl, go on a Mad Max dune buggy desert chase, defeat a psychotic clone of himself, and just generally be an action hero...? Tell me that doesn't smack of midlife crisis, 24th-century style.
You know those "glitch in the Matrix" tells they have in stories like that or Inception or whatever, ways to let the audience know this or that bit is part of the illusory world. For me, it was Picard tossing aside the priceless Kurlan naiskos his archaeology mentor had given him in favor of his family scrapbook, while rummaging through the wreckage of the Enterprise. As with Kirk jumping the creek, the emotion was missing because he subconsciously knew it wasn't real -- but in Picard's case, he missed the tell.
That's my story and I'm stickin' with it.
That is a story that I can get behind. A few others have had the idea that Picard never the Nexus but not a well versed as this. :thumbsup
I'd rather he had dreamed the JJVerse.
I lost interest when his statement contained a political vibe with is "comforting and reforming light he might shine on these often very dark times" comment
I lost interest when his statement contained a political vibe