Amazon : Star Trek: Picard

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Chris

Are we surrounded by naughty war3z-monkeys or just VPN users?

It's now up early on Prime Video UK!

Darn, I need to get to bed now

[pip08456]

Exec producer Alex Kurtzman on Sir Pat.

Patrick needed to make sure that we were coming from the right place and that we wanted to protect what Next Gen means to so many people, and what his character, specifically, means to so many people. And that was really about several conversations back and forth, exploring his instincts, our instincts. Ultimately our job is to make him feel comfortable and safe and to protect the show and shield it from anything that would break it in the wrong way.

He was there [in the writers’ room] for two weeks at the beginning of the experience, sitting with the writers. Everybody was talking together about what they wanted this show to be, and that’s very special. Patrick will send us beautifully written emails about what he feels about Picard and where he feels Picard has been. That’s so inspirational.

[General Maximus]

Originally Posted by Chris

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.

And that's the difference, having people who care. However you want to describe it and what has happened to this series, this is what Star Wars needed. It had it for the prequel trilogy and was missing in the sequels.

There’s such a thing as caring too much - a trade dispute might have been a thoroughly plausible way of fomenting the trouble necessary to make Palpatine emperor, but as the plot of a Star Wars film? Not so much.

Jar-Jar Binks was "caring"?

---------- Post added at 11:03 ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 ----------

Anyhoo, that first episode was excellent - not what I was expecting, but it worked for me.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Chris

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.

Personally, while I've enjoyed both Discovery and Enterprise, I don't generally like prequel sci-fi series. I think they have the problem that it can be harder to fit them in with an established canon (e.g. while I like Spock on Discovery, I feel that in real life, it would be odd if he (or his parents) never mentioned his step sister to anyone else, at least Kirk or McCoy (both of whom, despite barbed comments from the latter, are shown to be his friends).

The second problem with a sci fi prequel is special effects. Thanks to Star Trek TOS being made 50 years ago, we have a situation where the special effects in both Discovery and Enterprise are considerably better than those in TOS (and TNG). Even the sets and props look more believable than the original Trek. The way the whole look is improved in the prequel shows gives (to me) the impression that Star Fleet's technology moved backwards after these two prequel shows.

They did make changes in the final season of Enterprise to bring it more into line with the designs of the 60s, but this just shows Discovery up.

I'd prefer they went with more sequel series, which, despite the statements to the contrary, I feel they have with Picard.

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.

Having watched the first episode, I feel it actually follows up TNG well. Of course, it looks better (not that TNG ever looked bad), but it's set years after TNG. Of course the technology has improved. I don't want to go into details, because some may not have watched it, but having seen the first episode, I feel that it is consistent with how I would imagine life for Picard would be if the things that the show says happened after TNG happened. I haven't put spoiler tags because I am not referring to one specific event, and I feel that even if people haven't seen the show, they may click the Spoiler tag.

I haven’t seen it ... family viewing appointment is this evening

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by Chris

I haven’t seen it ... family viewing appointment is this evening

I think you'll enjoy it Chris.

[Pierre]

First episode was great. Like putting on a pair of slippers that are comfortable, that are familiar but also brand new.

Production values much better than Discovery, IMO, and if you are a TNG fan, lots of names and nods.

Pity you can’t binge it.

[General Maximus]

I whole heartedly agree with every single word

[denphone]

Two words and they are absolutely superb..

Absolute magic. If they pitched it to Stewart even half as well as they made that episode, it’s no wonder he said yes.

[SnoopZ]

Just watched it and it is bloody awesome and it has left me needing more!!! I wish they would put the whole season up at once.

[Pierre]

Spoiler: 

strange how she referred to B4 as an inferior copy and not a prototype?