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Is Picard's Chateau French enough?

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Him not having a 'French accent' has never need weird at all. There must be countless French people today with perfect British accents and with advanced 24th century education there indubitably will be many more. The whole complaint is just a weird America-centrism, as no one ever complains about perfect American accents numerous non-native English speaker characters have.

Fair enough. Nobody really should complain about accents though. Plus, accents might be far different in 400 years. Actually, with the universal translator, would accents even exist?
 
It was kind of a delight to see Picard speak a little French in the pilot, even if it was a little stilted — Stewart did his best, and I’m going to pretend he was enunciating to teach the dog, per the actual dialogue.

But given how British Picard is, and how they’ve redone the house from what we already saw in “Family” and what was actually more appropriate for the region (kudos to the design team) I’m legit wondering about how much or little thought was put into the Frenchness of it all. My knowledge of French design isn’t superb so I throw it out there to others who might be more knowledgeable. Especially as we haven’t gotten any articles on the place or the props yet.

Tell you what though, when I watched The Irishman on Netflix recently and De Niro’s “Philadelphia native” character pronounced the name of the highway 4-7-6 instead of 4-76 like everyone else here does, at the very beginning of the three-hour epic, it did immediately take me out of the narrative. Details have effects.
 
This is a real house right, not CGI? I kinda assume that there aren't that many french style châteaus for them to choose from in the area they're filming... They probably didn't want to fly the whole production to France just to film couple of scenes. In 'Family' it was a matte painting, so they had greater freedom to choose the appearance.
 
But, wasn't the chateau rebuilt? Why should it look more French?

Details have an impact, but this one seems really detail oriented.
Yeah, it is has already been established that it is authentically French, but not typical to that region of France. But 'not-typical' is not same as 'impossible' and again, as people seem to be forgetting, such regional preferences might change a bit in four centuries...
 
This is a real house right, not CGI? I kinda assume that there aren't that many french style châteaus for them to choose from in the area they're filming... They probably didn't want to fly the whole production to France just to film couple of scenes. In 'Family' it was a matte painting, so they had greater freedom to choose the appearance.
California has lots of "French" style vineyards.
 
Yeah that's another thing, a whole planet with one college named after the planet .Ridiculous,so where is the University of Earth?
I must assume that 'Vulcan Science Academy' is some sort of governmental organisation for coordinating higher learning, and not one literal academy, as otherwise it indeed makes no sense. As for monocultures in general, I think Vulcans are one example where them being pretty monoculturish makes some sense. They have been unified under one guiding philosophy for two millennia, and that philosophy is one that might encourage utilitarian harmonisation. 'It is most logical for all of us to just speak Esperanto.' I'm really glad to see that they have diversified Romulans though.
 
I must assume that 'Vulcan Science Academy' is some sort of governmental organisation for coordinating higher learning, and not one literal academy, as otherwise it indeed makes no sense. As for monocultures in general, I think Vulcans are one example where them being pretty monoculturish makes some sense. They have been unified under one guiding philosophy for two millennia, and that philosophy is one that might encourage utilitarian harmonisation. 'It is most logical for all of us to just speak Esperanto.' I'm really glad to see that they have diversified Romulans though.
And adds to their alienness, but I think it was just poor world building, if there was a Federation focused Star Trek show they might reboot the Vulcans to reflect their IDIC philosophy, I hope they reboot most of the aliens to be less monocultural. TOS did a slightly better job in reflecting Vulcans as not all looking the same, with their silly bowl hair cuts.
 
That's not all. The Picard wine bottles are clearly Bordeaux-style whereas they should be Burgundy-style.

wine-bottle-shapes-1.jpg


I'm really neither surprised nor disappointed though. There are details and then there are details.

There are also budget constraints and practical, logistical considerations.

If anything, I think the bottle shape is a bigger oversight.
I still maintain that the pilot should've been about Picard making this year's wine and ended with a county prefect dryly informing him that he accidentally poured his wine into the wrong bottles.
But imagine how hilarious it will be when the first episode ends up being about Picard finally bottling his first batch of Burgundy, expecting to get all the official quality marks etc. for it...
He spends most of the episode trying to get everything in order, perfectly cushioning the crate to avoid all damage, traveling to the county seat and waiting for five hours in a line at the prefecture... only for the quality inspector taking a single cursory glance at his wine and saying "But Monsieur, these are Bordeaux bottles."

Cue a slowly zooming-in closeup of Picard's face with a look of utter, horrified embarrassment as the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme starts playing.
 
Side note:

The interior scenes of Chateau Picard are not, in fact, filmed in the actual chateau used for exterior shots, amirite?
 
But, wasn't the chateau rebuilt? Why should it look more French?

Details have an impact, but this one seems really detail oriented.
Why shouldn’t it look more French? It’s in France, on an ancient vineyard, owned by the traditional Picard family, and it certainly looks like it’s older than 30 years old since we last saw it. Sure they could have faux aged a new construction, but that’s not likely what TPTB were going for. Further, we don’t know that it burned down in GEN at all, only that Robert and Rene died in a fire that could have been anywhere.

Why discuss this detail? Because it came to mind, and that’s what this fan BB is for, and no one is forcing anyone read and participate in this thread.

What’s head-scratching about this for me isn’t even the Italian exterior, which, though annoying, it just a location they maybe had to settle for (if, again, they gave the Frenchness any thought), but the set interior. It doesn’t necessarily look French to me. And this is a TV show: everything is a choice. They could have made the interior entirely Japanese and chalked it up to Picard liking Japanese culture (he had Japanese food for dinner in his quarters one episode I remember), but that, too would be a choice we’d want to discuss.

I suppose I would have liked someone here to point out something especially French in the furniture or details that I’m just not seeing so I could stop thinking about this. For the rime being, I’m thinking that they’ll eventually do articles on the sets and props and we’ll get some insights there at least.
 
Why shouldn’t it look more French?
I can think of a number of reasons. Picard might not want the reminder of his brother, he might redecorate after leaving Starfleet because he wants something new. Maybe the decor was changed because the Romulans liked it.

Or, maybe French decor has changed in 300 years. I think there are a lot of assumptions here without exploring more character reasons.
 
He doesn't have all his employees on strike outside. Someone said the house looks Northern Italian. He doesn't have a french accent. The bottles don't meet EU regulation.

Holy crap. Picard has been lying to us for decades. He's Swiss!
Well, according to some folks, "ST: PICARD" IS producing a lot of Cheese.
 
Tell you what though, when I watched The Irishman on Netflix recently and De Niro’s “Philadelphia native” character pronounced the name of the highway 4-7-6 instead of 4-76 like everyone else here does, at the very beginning of the three-hour epic, it did immediately take me out of the narrative. Details have effects.

They can, though it depends on the person. The '476', I wouldn't even notice because I'm from a different part of the country. It likely also has no effect on people from other countries watching the shows.
 
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