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Posts: 37,076
Re: Star Trek: Picard
The most important thing is to tell a good story, not see how many old faces they can bring back for a cameo. That’s why Stewart has refused all offers up til now, and why he said yes to this one ... clearly it is an interesting new story, not a reunion tour.
Having said that, Picard and Guinan’s relationship was nowhere near properly explored in TNG. Their out-of-time meeting in Time’s Arrow barely scratches the surface, considering how Picard said their relationship went “beyond friendship”. There has to be more to it, and seeing as Stewart has been allowed a hand on the rudder here, I’m betting he wants Whoopie Goldberg back so it can be done properly.
It is 100% perfect and I am not saying that because I am a fanboy. I wasn't going to moan but all day I have been preparing myself for disappointment because I thought I had set my expectations too high. It seems like I have been moaning non stop recently about new series and movies saying there is something missing, weak characters and story, ruins my realism factor etc and they just don't feel right. This felt amazing. They hit the ground running from the start and I had to hold back the tears right off the bat in the opening scene. They have struck the perfect balance between nostalgia, my realism factor and moving on with a new story and new characters. There are so many beautiful nods to the past and this is what my realism factor is all about it; making you believe the character and the world he now lives in is the same and a continuation of what you know to be.
I thought it was absolutely fantastic and if they had dropped the whole season today I would have gladly stayed up all night to watch it and not gone to work tomorrow. If they can get this right what is Discovery's excuse and all the other series? It is all about TLC, I don't know whether you noticed but Patrick Steward is an executive producer for the series. I also like the fact that we have a proper title sequence with a proper theme tune. Depending how the story line develops it would be nice if they change it to something more spacey for season 2.
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Posts: 37,076
Re: Star Trek: Picard
Discovery’s problem is that firstly, it continued the obsession with prequels, where you’re on a hiding to nothing. Writing in a shared universe is difficult enough, writing new stories behind established continuity is frightfully difficult, especially when there’s a highly engaged fan base to pick up your mistakes. And secondly they originally gave the gig to people who neither knew nor cared much about the spirit of Star Trek. I think season 2 was much, much better, and they have worked really hard to try to give convincing in-universe explanations for stuff that really didn’t fit, but ultimately they effectively threw their hands up, declared the job too hard and contrived to send them so far into the future that they couldn’t do any further damage to the continuity no matter what.
Picard’s major advantage is that Stewart has the whip hand. In order to get him back, they had no choice but to do it properly. There simply wasn’t any room for someone determined to show off their own vision of the future while junking everything we’ve come to love. Patrick Stewart only agreed to do this because he saw that the proposal was coming from people who understood the most famous character he’s ever played, understood what might happen next, and were prepared to allow Stewart to input into the development.