Favourite Captain
- Thread starter Terok Nor
- Start date
Favorite? Sisco followed by Piccard then Kirk.
But the question of "who is the best Captain?" As in who would be the best to serve under?
Sisco strikes me as the all around best leader. He does what needs to be done. And you probably have the best chance of coming home alive with him.
Piccard is a close runner up for this one. If you are a science type without such a hardcore survival streak Piccard is your better choice.
Kirk... Let's just say there is a reason "Red Shirt" has entered the popular culture. And even with that he's middle of the pack. If you find yourself on Kirks ship at all costs Steal a Blue shirt and find a pair of fake ears. He will then move heaven and hell to keep you alive or bring you back from the dead. Otherwise you are dog food.
Archer. Remember those Chimps that NASA used to send up? They stopped doing that when they found someone less valuable and more expendable. And he's now your commanding officer. The good news is there is probably a 50/50 chance that his shear bumbling incompetence will get him killed before it gets you killed. Like right before, so you will at least have the pleasure of seeing him dead before the alien slime monster devours you.
And then there's Janeway. You're on a 7 year voyage of the damned with Hannibal Lechter... And she's just hired a new cook! Manipulative, cruel, psychotic, randomly violent, frequently carving a trail of blood and tears across the Delta Quadrant. You can be killed for failing to bring her coffee. Just look on the face of Harry Kim. That is the face of a damned soul.
But the question of "who is the best Captain?" As in who would be the best to serve under?
Sisco strikes me as the all around best leader. He does what needs to be done. And you probably have the best chance of coming home alive with him.
Piccard is a close runner up for this one. If you are a science type without such a hardcore survival streak Piccard is your better choice.
Kirk... Let's just say there is a reason "Red Shirt" has entered the popular culture. And even with that he's middle of the pack. If you find yourself on Kirks ship at all costs Steal a Blue shirt and find a pair of fake ears. He will then move heaven and hell to keep you alive or bring you back from the dead. Otherwise you are dog food.
Archer. Remember those Chimps that NASA used to send up? They stopped doing that when they found someone less valuable and more expendable. And he's now your commanding officer. The good news is there is probably a 50/50 chance that his shear bumbling incompetence will get him killed before it gets you killed. Like right before, so you will at least have the pleasure of seeing him dead before the alien slime monster devours you.
And then there's Janeway. You're on a 7 year voyage of the damned with Hannibal Lechter... And she's just hired a new cook! Manipulative, cruel, psychotic, randomly violent, frequently carving a trail of blood and tears across the Delta Quadrant. You can be killed for failing to bring her coffee. Just look on the face of Harry Kim. That is the face of a damned soul.
James T....... Kirk
Sisko. An interesting choice for me, as it's the series I've watched the least. However, being the leader right in the middle of an existential crisis for the Federation and emerging unbowed, while portraying a character whose use of his humanity, in all its facets, is what I think I find most impressive about him. He's captain material, but unfiltered by endless probity, scrupulous adherence to the regs, or thoughtless recklessness. Plus the fact that he whipped Q's ass gives him mucho points!!!!
I've selected Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Sir Patrick Stewart set the standard that other STAR TREK leads had to match. When I hear his reading of "Space ... The Final Frontier," it completely buries those of William Shatner and the late Leonard Nimoy. Stewart makes it sound like Shakespeare, himself, put pen to paper for that famous introduction, with his own hand.
Patrick's attitude was consistently one of TNG being the "continuing" adventures of STAR TREK, rather than a soft reboot, or dramatic departure from what came before. I believe his sincerity. And despite having started out as the oldest actor to play a starship captain, he was always in top form physically, mentally. And his character's journey was quite astonishingly different. Not unlike Bilbo Baggins, Jean-Luc's was an unexpected journey ...
While I didn't agree with your choice, I applaud the characteristic eloquence with which you presented the rationale that drives your thinking on the matter. Whether in a fairly brief remark or rather longer form, you are equally adept at being both an effective advocate for your points, as well as making your effecting stylistic sense seem so easily, yet tellingly rendered.. Finally, as always, your use of graphics, does so much to emphasize and burnish the impact of the words you so gracefully offer.
Bravo again, sir!!!!
Bravo again, sir!!!!
Thank you, Drone. Most kind of you, sir.
Love him!
Just to be contrary, Dukat. He commanded the show's namesake for six episodes.
If we're just talking Trek captains who have had their own series? Archer, definitely.
But if I may extrapolate a bit: Maxwell Forrest.
Of course he must have been a captain at some point, because he was an Admiral when we met him. And since Vaughn Armstrong is my favorite actor of all time, well...you do the math.
Oh and I even count the mirror universe Forrest in this, as well. Both Forrests should be counted, they are both equally awesome!
But if I may extrapolate a bit: Maxwell Forrest.
Of course he must have been a captain at some point, because he was an Admiral when we met him. And since Vaughn Armstrong is my favorite actor of all time, well...you do the math.
Oh and I even count the mirror universe Forrest in this, as well. Both Forrests should be counted, they are both equally awesome!
If we're just talking Trek captains who have had their own series? Archer, definitely.
But if I may extrapolate a bit: Maxwell Forrest.
Of course he must have been a captain at some point, because he was an Admiral when we met him. And since Vaughn Armstrong is my favorite actor of all time, well...you do the math.
Oh and I even count the mirror universe Forrest in this, as well. Both Forrests should be counted, they are both equally awesome!
I had no idea who this character is until I googled it. I barely remember him. The actor was great as the Romulan in Voyager's Eye Of The Needle and one of the Klingons in TNG's Heart Of Glory though
I am casting my vote for Picard, but I ought to hedge a bit. I don't really consider any of the Star Trek movies after 6 in making thst judgment. I think Picard is the most intelligent of the Captains; he's a scientist and a diplomat; but he's also a philosopher. So was Kirk, and he'd be my number two, but I always had the sense that Picard ran the tightest ship and that he embodied the highest ideals of starfleet with the greatest perfection, a perfection in practice exceeding even Starfleet itself. As absurd as it may seem, I have actually considered this question. Kirk would almost certainly kick Picard's ass in a fist fight, heck he might even beat him in a starship fight, but Picard tended to solve problems without punching alien species in the face. He represented the intellectual strength of the Federation ideally.
As I see it, Kirk represents a kind of vision of Utopia from the standpoint of the USA in 1960. He has values, strong values; in fact, he's doctrinaire to the point of inflexibility, and when he encounters a problem, his solution is always to punch it out of existence. Admittedly, he's successful, 9 times out of 10, it works, but I see Kirk, and this is something my wife has said (a pro-American Arab); she sees Kirk as an American, and I think she has a point. Kirk's intelligent, maybe even brilliant; he beats Spock at Chess, but his solution to problems is usually violence. I think, as a meta-thing, Kirk is awesome, but I don't see how anybody could watch Star Trek: TOS, and Star Trek: TNG, and think Kirk's better. Picard is probably less entertaining at times, but if you think about the ideas, I'd say he nails it pretty consistently. I mean, if the ideal is just kicking ass and being attractive, there were probably other Captains better than Kirk and more effective in those domains, but if you think about questions, the moral questions that Star Trek raises, and how they should be resolved in the best of all possible human societies, I think Picard's a better moral exemplar. Kirk's solution, 9 times out of 10, is to beat someone to a pulp, and that's pretty much a quintessentially American approach.
I still think Kirk is better. When Star Trek was about exploring and taming the frontier, and not policing the Galaxy and engaging in diplomacy, Kirk was precisely the kind of frontiersman and leader needed. Kirk was strongly based on Horatio Hornblower, a fictional character who was British...not American. Picard was loosely inspired by Jacques Cousteau, an ocean explorer from France.
I think Kirk's characteristics are more based upon the types of stories and themes being explored in TOS than on stereotypical American characteristics: exploration, danger, discovery, passion, adventure and conflict.
Picard's characteristics are based more on the themes and stories TNG was trying to tell: diplomacy, politics, Federation doctrine / policy, neutrality, thoughtfulness, humanism etc.
Bottom line for me: Each are perfect in their own era, but I'd much rather have Kirk in Picard's era than Picard in Kirk's era, and to me that seals the deal.
MEMORY ALPHA would like to have a word with you...
"The character of Jean-Luc Picard was named after Dr. Jean-Felix Piccard, a Swiss scientist, high-altitude balloonist, and member of a family of noted explorers."
Jean-Felix Piccard was the uncle of Jacques Piccard, who together with Don Walsh were the first humans to reach the Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the world's oceans in 1960.
Send them my way. I'd love to have a delightful discussion...
“Kirk came out of an earlier time in my life when I was pretending to be part of my macho southern background, and [the character] reflects some of that,” Gene Roddenberry would later tell an interviewer. “Macho feelings about women, and so on. But in twenty-five years, my feelings have changed enormously about those things and I think Picard represents that. He’s more mature.”
The back story for Picard—given a French heritage in homage to the many Gallic explorers, including Jacques Cousteau—was set down in the very beginning and mentioned a twenty-two-year stint as mission commander of the USS Stargazer. - The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion
Additionally, the Captain's Yacht in INS and a shuttlecraft in the TNG series were named "Cousteau" as a nod to this.
