M
marlboro
Guest
Praise be to Nero’s Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody’s shouting
“Which Side Are You On?”
Spoilers New Picard TV Series and Litverse Continuity (may contain TV show spoilers)
- Thread starter chrinFinity
- Start date
Praise be to Nero’s Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody’s shouting
“Which Side Are You On?”
Maybe there's something off about the Nexus...or alternatively there is something off with the movie, Generations. People have complained that Edith Keeler should have been part of Kirk's fantasy, and then the writers came up with a new character the audience didn't know or have a strong feeling for. Would Generations have been a little better for anticipating that as something the audience would have wanted or preferred instead of a new character we never knew about and never even saw (in the movie, or ever)? I think it might have been. What if the writers did the same with Picard, and put Beverly there as part of his dream world? The writers advanced the story of Data beyond the television series, and they had a character arc for Picard in the movie, but they could have advanced Picard and Beverly's story beyond what the show was willing to do. It's almost as if the writers were still holding back, were still in the television writing mode. They could have made the movie worthwhile for Patrick Steward and Gates McFadden to explore the possibility of changing their characters.
I think the arguments for and against the Picard/Beverly relationship have been interesting to read; there seem to be good points on both sides. I'm glad that shows these days actually move relationships forward, and actually develop, become stronger or weaker, and end or are solidified.
For some people I think that might play into it. We have a vision of Picard from TNG and in some ways we expect him to be the same whenever we see him. For some people Picard not being interested in having a family of his own is the standard. Not everyone, some are ok with him having a family but just not with Crusher.
I wouldn't necessarily say you are in the minority. It seems some are ok with it, I'm almost happy with it because it resolves a lot of loose ends from the series. There are some like yourself you don't mind Picard having a family but are lukewarm to the idea of Picard and Crusher being together, and maybe would prefer it to be someone else. And there are some like you find further up the thread who would rather Picard be a bachelor and not have any family. There's a lot less angst I find with Troi and Riker. I think part of that is we saw then rekindle their relationship on screen in Insurrection then marry in Nemesis. We never saw that on screen for Picard and Crusher.
That's an interesting point. I think we forgot that it was Crusher who chose to stay on the Enterprise and with Picard, not the other way around. Her leaving for Starfleet Medical made him realize just how much she meant to him, but he was resigned to her leaving. And sometimes love is letting go. He didn't want to lose her, but he didn't want to stand in her way. And when she was leaving is when she too realized she had feelings for him. But it was SHE who chose him over her career advancement. That's an important distinction and probably shows how natural their love was for one another. He was willing to let her go....and she was willing to give up career advancement.
Except that "the audience" consisted of a lot more than just Trek fans. The vast majority of any feature film's audience is going to be casual viewers -- people who aren't there because they're loyal to the show, but just because they wanted to go out to the movies that night or because they're fans of the famous guest star or because they got dragged there by their date or their kids or whatever. The makers of a feature film need to write it with those casual viewers in mind, to make it work as a self-contained story rather than being heavily dependent on series continuity.
True, The Wrath of Khan and First Contact succeeded at doing sequels to series episodes, but in those cases the returning character/species was the primary villain of the film, and there was time taken early on to provide exposition for new or casual viewers. It would've been more difficult to do that with Kirk and his ideal romance. Kirk was a supporting character, only on screen for a relatively short time. How would you explain to the casual viewers why a 23rd-century starship captain's ideal woman is a Depression-era social worker? What with the time-bending nature of the Nexus, that would've just been confusing.
Also, Harlan Ellison would probably have sued them, unless they paid him royalties. I could've just led with that.
That's true. If they hadn't been so rushed in putting the film together, they might've been able to strike that balance and move Picard/Crusher forward. Maybe have Beverly, rather than Deanna, be the one commiserating with Picard after he learns of his relatives' death, and that act of comfort leads to something more that he resists giving into, but his Nexus experience makes him realize he's ready to embrace his feelings for her.
That's what bugs me, though -- the way some people look at a character who grows and changes over the years of a series and somehow just smoosh it all together in their minds and assume the character was fixed and unchanging the whole time. That doesn't make any sense to me. The Picard of "All Good Things..." was much more open and ready for personal intimacy than the Picard of "Encounter at Farpoint." That was the whole point of that final scene of Picard joining the regular poker game for the first time. Anyone who goes through the whole series and thinks that post-2371 Picard is exactly as icy and reserved as 2364 Picard has had a wasted experience, because they've missed his entire character arc. It's astonishing to me that anyone could overlook something so central to the show.
Honestly, when you put it that way, it feels rather dated -- the woman giving up her career for family while the man gets both. I mean, there's nothing wrong with valuing family, but it shouldn't always be the woman that sacrifices career for it.
Yeah, even if someone got the idea to do that someone probably would have pointed that out. And you could probably argue all those years later he may have finally moved on. I mean, there was Rayna also from "Requiem for Methuselah" you could also argue for (well, I guess Spock removed that from his memory so maybe not). But Kirk has a bit of a history and Antonia was just the latest love, probably proving his first true love really always was his duty and his ship.
It depends on how it's handled. I think in the novels they struck the right balance. Picard didn't make her make that choice which is an important distinction. She exercised full control of her future and she freely chose to stay with Picard. It wasn't an artificial choice. She was fully in control. And she didn't really give up her career per se. In some ways she's still advancing her career in other ways.
Also, did Picard even share his feelings with her before she was leaving for Starfleet Medical? If I remember correctly he did not tell her anything until she decided to stay. I have to admit I liked the narrative there, where he was waiting for his new CMO and couldn't look at the 'new CMO' at first because he realized that would make Beverly's departure real. It wasn't until he heard her voice that he was able to turn around.
But that would make it even more her choice because he didn't give her the old 'I have feelings for you, but I want you to do what you feel is right'. She would have stayed not knowing if he felt the same, making the choice absolutely freely on her own.
Perhaps some (not all) feminists wouldn't like the choice she made if it were the real world. But they should because a woman is free to make the choice they feel is right for them. And she was not pressured into this decision. She made it freely and in her case she decided on the thing that would make her happy.
But that would make it even more her choice because he didn't give her the old 'I have feelings for you, but I want you to do what you feel is right'. She would have stayed not knowing if he felt the same, making the choice absolutely freely on her own.
Perhaps some (not all) feminists wouldn't like the choice she made if it were the real world. But they should because a woman is free to make the choice they feel is right for them. And she was not pressured into this decision. She made it freely and in her case she decided on the thing that would make her happy.
I've never believed that Spock literally made Kirk forget Rayna -- I figured he just eased the pain, like how some experimental PTSD treatments interfere with the long-term recall of the trauma of an event, rather than the facts of the event. So people remember that it happened, but don't remember the unbearable pain it caused them.
Anyway, I think Miramanee would count before Rayna. He was married to Miramanee for two months and conceived a child with her. But probably, since we're talking about the Trek movies here, the best character to bring back would've been Carol Marcus. Casual viewers of a Trek movie are probably more likely to have seen other Trek movies than the TV series, since it's the same medium and since there's less there to keep track of. So if they had wanted to bring back an old flame that wouldn't require too much explanation for movie audiences, Carol would've been the way to go.
Yeah, in Kirk's case there are probably numerous examples. I think that all cycles back to his first true love really being his duty and his ship. It's one thing I think the writers of Generations nailed about Kirk. He may have all these desires of a perfect life like anyone does at one time or another. But it always comes back to duty. It's what ultimately convinces him to leave paradise behind (well, and maybe he wanted to get a look at the new Enterprise
, though unfortunately for him the Enterprise wasn't in the greatest of shape at that point, well that and he died).But yeah, you're probably right about Rayna too, that he eased the emotional burden. He would likely need to remember the mission so he couldn't forget everything. Probably just the love he had for Rayna and the pain from her death was erased or eased in his memory.
I wondered about that myself. I guess the half that survives is the canon material and the half that doesn't is the book-original material?
Although, let's get real, the effects of the snap are probably going to be undone in Avengers: Endgame, so the metaphor fails on that level.
M
marlboro
Guest
"New Picard series is a Kevin Uxbridge Hissy Fit to Treklit" would have been more apropos, I think.
Or, if he were honest, he could have just titled his thread "Schadenfreude."
Or, if he were honest, he could have just titled his thread "Schadenfreude."
FWIW, the former Star Wars Expanded Universe managed to create Mara Jade "out of nowhere" as a character with her own individual concerns and identity as well as one whose development over time earned her a place in the minds of readers worthy of starting a family with the iconic Luke Skywalker.
Surely, Skywalker is a character with at least as high a bar as Picard for the audience to accept the introduction of a long-term partner, and that seems like the most analogous precedent which avoids the pitfalls of the much more stereotypical "hurt/comfort" scenario described upthread that could've hypothetically happened in Generations between Crusher and Picard.
I don't think that really works as an analogy, because the cinematic adventures of Luke Skywalker amounted to only about 6 hours of content at the time, and the only major female character in those adventures turned out to be his sister. So they had to invent a new character if they wanted a love interest for him. TNG, by contrast, had over 130 hours of content, with Beverly Crusher as an integral but often underutilized part of its cast throughout. And again, she had her own arc and motivations as a character that made it sensible that she would want to be with Picard. Don't ignore her side of the equation.
I always forget about the rights issues around City on the Edge.
I should remember this stuff without the reminder...but thank you for the reminder. If it was possible, I could imagine that they could just use the name Edith in exchange for Antonia, without going into backstory. And just like Antonia, they never show the character on-screen. Edith as an Easter Egg, rather than the complete unknown of Antonia. There are other alternative characters that can replace the name in the script, too.
Generations seemed to me like it struggled with the user-friendliness for general audiences in other regards, by my impressions.
That would have been an interesting alternative approach, I think I would like to have seen them take a chance with that.
Carol is a good alternative, and would be familiar to people who only bothered with the Star Trek movies. I feel bad for Antonia, but there's that nagging sense that she should have been someone else...
The way I took it was that the Nexus took him back to that specific point in his life, and Antonia was who he was with then. So it wasn't so much that she was his fantasy woman, it's just that she was who he was with at the point his life in which he was most content.
I just checked out the Antoia page on Memory Alpha, and it says that they considered making her Carol Marcus, but ended up changing their minds.
I just checked out the Antoia page on Memory Alpha, and it says that they considered making her Carol Marcus, but ended up changing their minds.
It looks like we might not be able to get a Novelverse version of the aftermath of Hobus.
Alex Kurtzman has said that Picard's situation in the new show will be a result of the destruction of Romulus.
I wonder what this will mean for the Typhon Pact?
Alex Kurtzman has said that Picard's situation in the new show will be a result of the destruction of Romulus.
I wonder what this will mean for the Typhon Pact?
I don't think that would work, because the story requires at least some exposition to the audience of who this woman is and why he cares for her, so that it's not entirely abstract. She has to be more than a name and a wink to the audience; even if we don't see her, we need to know what she and Kirk have shared. Besides, the Nexus was about bringing people back to their most cherished memories, so that would've put Kirk in a 1930s setting and we're back to confusing the casual viewer.
Again, that's not how the Nexus works. As I said, it let him relive his best memories, so his own mind chose what points in his life he experienced. (The novelization showed him experiencing alternate, happier versions of his times with Edith, Carol, etc.)
Indeed, maybe the reason he saw Antonia -- aside from her being far more recent in his life than most of the others -- is that she was his least tragic relationship, the one that had the least pain and grief tied up with the pleasure. All his greatest TOS love interests died, and his and Carol's son died. He may have broken up with Antonia, but at least there wasn't a death involved, so that's pretty much his least tragic major romance.
Once we have an onscreen version of the aftermath of the supernova, then the books can flesh it out in a manner consistent with the show. Whether that can be consistent with the current novel continuity is another matter, though.
When I saw the thread title, I honestly thought it was a reference to the two distinct ways time passes in Madeleine L'Engle's works. But no, there's no "Thanos" there; just "Chronos" and "Kairos."
Oops. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
<Emily Litella>Oh. That's very different. Nevermind.</Emily Litella>
Oops. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
<Emily Litella>Oh. That's very different. Nevermind.</Emily Litella>
