What made Patrick Stewart so perfect as a starship captain?

[Saquist]

Keith1701 wrote:

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He was an excellant pick for the role of Capt Picard....

Well he actually saved the show from the bad HAMMING of Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis in the first two seasons.
When they mellowed out the show really took off.

[YARN]

Saquist wrote:

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Well he actually saved the show from the bad HAMMING of Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis in the first two seasons.
When they mellowed out the show really took off.

Yes, it was the really terrible acting of the supporting cast that allowed him to shine. The worse they were, the more perfect he was.

How many characters could have been recast or even eliminated without harm to the show?

Yar - well, we know the answer to that one...

Crusher? They had another Doc for awhile and the show worked.

Troi?

Riker?

Worf?

You could pretty much rewrite, remix, or eliminate any of the supporting cast and still have had a solid show.

[Saquist]

YARN wrote:

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Yes, it was the really terrible acting of the supporting cast that allowed him to shine. The worse they were, the more perfect he was.

How many characters could have been recast or even eliminated without harm to the show?

Yar - well, we know the answer to that one...

Crusher? They had another Doc for awhile and the show worked.

Troi?

Riker?

Worf?

You could pretty much rewrite, remix, or eliminate any of the supporting cast and still have had a solid show.

We would have missed Worf, he had some excelling sodes in TNG and gave use a brute force mannlyness to the show especially when he described Klingon flirting.

We SO could have done without WES.
The others weren't so much as bad but zeros....place holders. They added to show by digits but the acting was at it's best with Picard, Data. But honestly most of us didn't watch TNG for the acting but for the good and great stories.

[YARN]

Saquist wrote:

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We would have missed Worf, he had some excelling sodes in TNG and gave use a brute force mannlyness to the show especially when he described Klingon flirting.

We SO could have done without WES.
The others weren't so much as bad but zeros....place holders. They added to show by digits but the acting was at it's best with Picard, Data. But honestly most of us didn't watch TNG for the acting but for the good and great stories.

I was not in love with the idea of Data as a character - the inverse Spock character doomed to rationality but yearning for humanity. That said, Spiner did a good job with the character.

As for Worf, he was all bluster. He got P'wned quite a bit for such a tough warrior. He blurts that no Klingon would ever taken prisoner, but gets take prisoner more than once. He was character trapped between cultures - he didn't seem manly so much as socially constipated. You could count on him to have a primitive violent impulse in a situation, which basically demeaned his character, but even worse he was kind of neutered because he rarely got to act on those impulses.

[Saquist]

I don't care so much about the prisoner thing...Trek can't hold it's Romulan Ale or it's continuity. That's a hard description of Worf's character but I can't say it's unwarranted but sometimes a sterotype is desirable and appropriate. Mostly though TNG was a group effort.

[YARN]

Saquist wrote:

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I don't care so much about the prisoner thing...Trek can't hold it's Romulan Ale or it's continuity. That's a hard description of Worf's character but I can't say it's unwarranted but sometimes a sterotype is desirable and appropriate. Mostly though TNG was a group effort.

Yeah, I think Worf's problem is that he is kind of written as a stereotype, the noble savage all over again.

He is a symptom of a larger problem. In TOS the Klingons were dusky Soviets. They were cunning and brutal, but intelligent. Moreover, you got the impression that they were an example of a tyrannical culture. They were Genghis Khans and Commies in Space. They were like what we could be under a different form of government and different cultural inflections.

When you get to TNG and beyond, however, the Klingon becomes a caricature. They dress like the opening act for KISS or Motley Crue. They are increasingly brutal, but less intelligent too. They quickly devolved into a race of space pirates. What's worse is that their identity is no longer cultural but racial in TNG. That is, it is in their blood to be violent and so on. Worf talks a lot about his racial identity and how he is different, despite the time he as spent among humans, as a biological entity.

Combine this with things like Q's heightened interest in humanity's superiority (and thus the threat they potentially pose) and his profound disinterest in the Klingon race, and you get the sense that humans are implicitly racially superior to the Klingons.

I think this is one of the most objectionable aspects of post TMP Trek (and this includes the aging TOS crew and their movies too).

[BXsainttj]

Stewart's elegance and class coupled with the shakespearen background presented an auora around him that is unmatched. For a relatively short old man he dominated every scene he was required to.

[ThomQ]

I agree, thirst thing I thought when reading the topic titel was his classical / theater background, that gave the role it's extra bit of believability..

[RAMA]

Stewart had a booming voice and authoritarian air which he backs up with intelligence. I know some people thought Picard was too cranky in season one but I didn't think so.

[Joshonator]

It was the actor not the character.

Yeah i agree, and his acting in star trek immortalized him in no way the theater ever could have.

[ReadyAndWilling]

RAMA wrote:

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Stewart had a booming voice and authoritarian air which he backs up with intelligence. I know some people thought Picard was too cranky in season one but I didn't think so.

Yea, that was the first thing i noticed.

[VulcanJedi]

Saquist wrote:

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Well he actually saved the show from the bad HAMMING of Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis in the first two seasons.
When they mellowed out the show really took off.

Mr. Stewart is a class act, A+ actor and that's why he hit it out of the park. Add to his skills and craftsmanship his lean, chisled features and you have instant leader dude. No brainer. I remember him from I Clavdivs before TNG; watched it with my Dad a few years before 1987. Video tape, all 13 eps from the library. He played maximus? or something.

rum pepsi

[Hawku]

What made Patrick Stewart so perfect as a starship captain?

The accent.

[DevilEyes]

VulcanJedi wrote:

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Mr. Stewart is a class act, A+ actor and that's why he hit it out of the park. Add to his skills and craftsmanship his lean, chisled features and you have instant leader dude. No brainer. I remember him from I Clavdivs before TNG; watched it with my Dad a few years before 1987. Video tape, all 13 eps from the library. He played maximus? or something.

Sejanus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs_mMpBpDn4

[siskokid888]

Spruce Boxleitner wrote:

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being an awesome actor probably helped

This pretty much sums it up. Simply the best actor to ever be associated with the Star Trek franchise.