“Jean-Luc Picard is back”: will new Picard show eclipse Discovery?

Come now. We all know THIS is the only way to make an older man hip to the prime demographic and everyone knows it.



There you go. Exclusive footage of Picard going back to the academy for some refresher courses.

 

He was wearing brown cloth. And that's just Mark Hamill's voice now.

 

To be fair Picard has quite a gravelly voice in parts of First Contact - particularly the “line must be drawn hee-yah!” scene...

 

I liked Skywalker in TLJ.

 

Yeah, the movie just ended up on Netflix, so I finally saw it. It wasn't a perfect movie, but it was so much better than The Force Awakens or Rogue One, which were just shallow cash grabs. I don't understand why it triggered so much fan rage.

 

Apparently the feeling that white guys got short shrift, or something?

Must admit that's novel; I haven't seen other instances of this sort of thing on the Internet in the recent past.

Personally, I don't think Hamill has ever done a better job as Skywalker than he did in this movie; he and Ford have both had opportunities to show thirty years of experience and insight into their returns to their SW roles and both have done great work. I could have lived without a couple of the early scenes on Wherever That Rock Was, but other than that Skywalker's story made perfect sense and I liked the writing. Rose, though, was my favorite character in the movie.

 

The *idea* that Skywalker cuts himself off from the force and gives up is compelling. I actually wouldn’t mind a similar thing with Picard. Maybe he’s had enough with the saccharine “yes, that is starfleet” mentality from the legacy of Michael Burnham. The way that Luke’s story was executed in Last Jedi left much to be desired I thought. I felt that some of the most interesting bits of the film centred on Luke and Rey on that rock.

As for TLJ overall, the film definitely had story issues, but this is neither the time nor the place I guess. Each to their own regarding Rose too.

As far as Skywalker is concerned, I have trouble believing that he would try to murder Kylo - but, like DSC, it’s canon so it is what it is - and I also struggle to believe that the character as last presented in RoTJ wouldn’t come to help Leia when Rey said she needed him. But apparently living on that rock made Luke care about his only living relative less - he did try to murder her son and all.

Maybe Picard will have done something similar which is why he’s alone in the new show?

Maybe he did something horrific whilst in command of the Enterprise E and it got Worf or Geordi killed? Or maybe he tried to get out of a situation by trying to blow up the Titan (in a parallel to the Luke/Kylo storyline) because Picard believed that the Titan and it’s crew had become a threat to the galaxy? Maybe there were Borg on board and Picard ordered Worf to fire quantum torpedoes at them repeatedly until they blew up? And that’s why Picard has a “devil may care” attitude in the new show?
Or maybe Picard had a plan to save everyone but he didn’t tell any of his officers so one of them went rogue and staged a mutiny leading Picard to sacrifice himself in a kamikaze attack on some enemy ships?

We’ll see I suppose - this whole post is entirely guesswork and what ifs.

 

Oh, Skywalker having a moment where he's willing to kill a young Jedi who he thinks is a great threat to the Galaxy? Yeah, I don't have any problem with that at all.

 

It’s just a shame that Luke learned nothing from his father’s redemption. But the message of TLJ was “kill the past” so I suppose ignoring that tiny story point from the end of ROTJ was justifiable.

Maybe they’ll do the same thing with Picard...

 

All sounds great to me! Let's keep it rolling!

 

Indeed. As long as he wasn't contemplating this with anger or hatred in his heart, I don't see how this breaks the Jedi code. Hell, given the Jedi are not supposed to form strong attachments, being able to dispassionately cut down your nephew for the greater good fits in perfectly with Star Wars canon.

Though in general, TLJ presented The Force as way, way different than in all the other Star Wars movies. Rey had plenty of rage, but she never fell to (or was even seriously tempted by) "The Dark Side." I actually would have liked it if the movie was perhaps a bit more explicit that the light side/dark side never really existed, and were just how frail human minds dealt with having nigh absolute power.

 

I felt that they didn't get Skywalker's character at all. Essentially they turned him from a hero into a tragic figure with very little redeeming value. They cherry picked the parts of the EU they liked, but picked all the wrong parts and tossed in some new characters that are okay, but not that okay.

The new trilogy has been about destroying everything built up in the original.

Three friends have adventures: three friends become cold and distant to one another.

Han goes from being a smuggler to being a hero: Han goes back to being a smuggler, only not as good at it, anymore.

There is hope for the future: No there isn't. Also Han's son killed his dad.

Luke is willing to sacrifice his very soul and put the fate of the galaxy on the line for his friends: Luke abandons them after he freaked out about his nephew, nearly murdering him for thought-crime, because Luke can no longer see the good in anyone.

Luke was able to see the good, even in the worst of individuals: See above. Also Luke is a book-burning hate filled whale-milk addict who doesn't even train the one person who can do the job he was supposed to do, very well.

Leia was the only bright spot in this, and with Fisher dead, well.. maybe they won't be able to entirely wreck her character.

It's not a bad movie. It's a good movie in the same way Godfather III is a good movie. They're both good movies. They're just terrible sequels. It was a franchise killer for me.

 

In theory it all sounds fine, yes.

But does mining the past for nostalgia value mean that Star Trek is creatively bankrupt? Or just a reflection of the wider trends in television currently (reboots, remakes, reimaginings, etc)

 

I agree that it was incredibly lazy to require everything to go to shit again so that the original trilogy arc could essentially run a second time. But J.J. already set that table in The Force Awakens, which is where most of what you're complaining about came from. Admittedly if everything was just hunky-dory, there would be no new epic story worthy of a trilogy of movies. And the prequel trilogy was so terrible at doing something "different" I can understand why they decided to play it safe, at least on the macro level.

Still, all things considered, I give TLJ credit because it's at least about something deeper than "the good guys defeat the bad guys, yay!" I'm not 10, and I don't want simplistic morality plays in my fiction. I liked that the central theme this time was instead the question of why do we continue fighting if even the victories involve sacrifices so heavy we end up worse and worse off.

 

Prequel Trilogy: Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Yoda are friends who go on Jedi adventures together.
Original Trilogy: Obi-Wan and Yoda live as hermits on backwater planets, Anakin is about as evil as they come, and (thanks to Anakin) all the other Jedi are dead. Chancellor Palpatine is now a cackling villain. Also, Anakin kills Obi-Wan and Yoda dies because he's too tired.

The OT may be better movies, but if they'd been made in order, I don't think people would have liked the direction the series takes after Revenge of the Sith.

 

I actually see nothing wrong with fleshing out backstory. For me...THATS actually unique given the 750+ hours of individual Star Trek episodes and movies we have. I'm actually just tired of the formula, so the fact that they are driving with a different focus now (re-visiting established lore) for ME is a refreshing change.

Some call it pandering, nostalgia-capitalizing fanwank. I call it a new direction that I'm pleased with. Another ship/space station with yet another crew (Orville) would be nice, but nothing I'd care about with any passion at this point. I like having some tie to / expansion upon an era I care about that hasn't been nearly as fleshed out as some pretend (3 seasons and 6 movies vs 21 seasons and 4 movies).

 

Lucas knew the kind of story people wanted.
A few days ago I re-watched the movie Fox thought was going to be their sci fi blockbuster of 1977. Damnation Alley is a strange badly made pile of giant scorpion droppings with no redeeming value and up until the bizarre tacked on ending, no hope. The first Star wars movie is called A New Hope. you expect up's and downs, of course. Everyone enjoys a tragedy on some level. But there has to be something gained from it. There was a lot gained from Empire Strikes Back. What was gained from Revenge of the Sith? It wasn't as bad as Attack of the Clowns. But even it is much better as it at least fleshes out an interesting time period, a kind of corrupt civilization that was going to be swept away one way or another, either from within or from without.

Last Jedi is just having your metaphorical head held in a toilet while Jonson drones on about iconoclasm.

 

The message of TLJ was not 'Kill the past', that was what Kylo thought.

The message was to not get bogged down in the past and to keep moving forward. The past can empower and inspire, but you shouldn't live there.

 

I disagree completely.

Lmao no it wasn't.