Picard's grief in Generations

[JarodRussell]

When Picard cried over the death of his relatives, something striked (stroke?) me as pretty unusual (in contrast to my own experience at least): he doesn't cry for himself. He cries for the dead and is sad for them, because they are going to miss so much.

Everyone I know grieves mostly for himself, myself included. I learned that grief is rather egoistic. When someone you love dies, then you are sad because YOU can't be together with your loved one anymore. You are not sad because your loved one can't be together with you.

My sister died a year ago. And when I saw that scene again, it made me reflect on myself, and that my sorrow was only about me. I cried because I couldn't enjoy her presence anymore, because I couldn't do that three month trip around the world with her. That she couldn't enjoy anyone's presence anymore, that she wouldn't see the world, that was none of my concerns.

So is that scene an example of Roddenberry's 24th century humans, or am I just a horrible person? But I don't really think so, because... you all know the phrase: "We are sorry about your loss." when in fact, it isn't your loss that people should feel really sorry for. You are alive, the other one isn't. She lost so much more than you.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

When Picard cried over the death of his relatives, something striked (stroke?)

struck

me as pretty unusual (in contrast to my own experience at least): he doesn't cry for himself. He cries for the dead and is sad for them, because they are going to miss so much.

Everyone I know grieves mostly for himself, myself included. I learned that grief is rather egoistic. When someone you love dies, then you are sad because YOU can't be together with your loved one anymore. You are not sad because your loved one can't be together with you.

My sister died a year ago. And when I saw that scene again, it made me reflect on myself, and that my sorrow was only about me. I cried because I couldn't enjoy her presence anymore, because I couldn't do that three month trip around the world with her. That she couldn't enjoy anyone's presence anymore, that she wouldn't see the world, that was none of my concerns.

So is that scene an example of Roddenberry's 24th century humans, or am I just a horrible person? But I don't really think so, because... you all know the phrase: "We are sorry about your loss." when in fact, it isn't your loss that people should feel really sorry for. You are alive, the other one isn't. She lost so much more than you.

I can't speak for anyone else, but what I remember of my grief for my mom, was sorrow for her, not for myself. No, I'm not saying you're a horrible person--it's fine to be sad that someone won't be part of your life any more--but I don't believe that Picard's grief for his relatives was too unusual.

 

[Pauln6]

I think the fact that it was the death of a child also makes a difference. I thought the scene was very affecting, although I was rather unconvinced by his fantasy later on in the movie.

Hey and I would also have preferred Gillian to be the woman on the hill

 

[LOKAI of CHERON]

The words we use to express grief are often wholly inadequate to convey the true sense of sorrow and deep loss we experience at these difficult times. I'm sure what you say is right, but perhaps it's more a mixture of both personal and empathetic loss we actually feel.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

I grieved selfishly for a long while after my grandmother, who raised me, died in 2005. I was 18 and she was the only caregiver I'd ever known, and I was suddenly entirely on my own. The notion smacked me upside the head and all I could think about for weeks was how unfair it was.

Then, little by little, it became all the more apparent that I needed to get over that angle. My grandmother was gone, and she was only sixty at that. I'd cried for her when she passed, but since then it was about me, and so when I realized this, I cried for hours straight... for her again.

Afterward I felt a lot better. It's been five years and I still miss her, but when I think about how she's gone, I think about the fact that she could have been around first, and that I miss her second.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

The words we use to express grief are often wholly inadequate to convey the true sense of sorrow and deep loss we experience at these difficult times. I'm sure what you say is right, but perhaps it's more a mixture of both personal and empathetic loss we actually feel.

That too.

 

[The_Baroness]

Hmm...I dunno. When I've lost someone in the past it's been as a result of a long illness or similar, so I haven't felt so sad for them, as now, they're finally free of suffering.

If I'd suddenly lost someone as a result of a freak accident I imagine I'd feel different, but have no basis for this.

 

[Too Much Fun]

It's a nice thought that Picard was grieving selflessly, but doesn't the movie make a point of suggesting the opposite? I've been thinking recently about why the movie killed off his only living relatives. Initially I thought it was rather pointless (mostly just to force some poignancy into the story), but then I figured it was meant to tie into that Nexus stuff later.

I think the idea was that the Nexus tempts you by fulfilling your deepest fantasy/heart's fondest desire and the writers wanted to hammer us over the head with the suggestion that what Picard wants most is a family, now especially since the closest he has to that (nephew, brother, and sister-in-law) are gone. This means the point becomes that Picard is grieving because he's lost his surrogate family and knows he'll never be able to have any family, surrogate or created from his own marriage.

Ultimately, I thought it was a waste. It might have made a nice set-up for Picard starting his own family (perhaps with Bev?) in this movie or a later one, but since the Nexus thing ended up being lame, and this never happened, the deaths didn't accomplish much. I wish the whole TNG series of movies had progressed the characters more, like the original series movies did with their characters realistically dealing with aging. The only progress the TNG movies made was getting Troi and Riker to finally settle down, but they did that through some silly plot contrivance, instead of naturally. I suppose you could argue "Star Trek: First Contact" advanced Data a bit by having him be temped by the human desire for flesh (as Spiner once said in an interview), but that was for all of less than a second, so it's a bit of a stretch.

 

[JohnChod]

It really depends on the situation. For a child, or someone who still had much of life before them, the grief can be for that person as well as for one's self.

Nonetheless, I think that Picard's statements were a bit of a lie. Although he probably did feel for what his nephew would never know, the grief was most certainly centered on himself. But the leader, the captain of the ship, could not betray his own emotional weakness. He had to make it out to be the grief felt for those who were gone - as many individuals do who try to convey an image of strength at a difficult time. I think his eventual tears betray the truth.

 

[Kaziarl]

I think it depends on a lot of things. When my mom passed away I was sad for her because she was, in my opinion, to young. This was the month before she would have turned 42. I was also sad for my daughter, who never got the chance to meet her grandmother. And as well as myself because, while I was fairly confident in myself then I still felt there was so much more I could have learned from her. So I think grief can take on many forms.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Hey and I would also have preferred Gillian to be the woman on the hill

At the risk of derailing the thread, really? I've heard folks say that Edith Keeler would have been more effective and poignant (and I agree), but I have trouble seeing Kirk picking Gillian over every other woman in his life.

 

[JarodRussell]

Hey and I would also have preferred Gillian to be the woman on the hill

At the risk of derailing the thread, really? I've heard folks say that Edith Keeler would have been more effective and poignant (and I agree), but I have trouble seeing Kirk picking Gillian over every other woman in his life.

But Edith Keeler couldn't have been on that hill on that day.


Thanks for the answers!

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

I think Carol Marcus would have made the most sense. Edith Keeler would have been interesting, but the Nexus sequence would have needed a major rewrite. Of course, many fans would not have opposed a major rewrite of that, but...

 

[kkozoriz1]

Seeing as he only said Antonia, just changing ti to Edith and adjusting the hair & wardrobe a bit would have worked out just fine. For those who didn't know who Edith was it wouldn't have changed a thing. For the fans it would have been a nice moment.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

People who are grieving have every right to be sad over what they have lost. No one should be expected to be objective in situations like this. When you're overrun with sadness, it's entirely natural to think of what you have lost. We're only human. If we care about what we're feeling, it doesn't mean we DON'T care about what those who have died have lost.

It's not selfish for Picard to be concerned for his own feelings; Robert and Rene lost their lives, true, but in a sense, their pain was over. His was just beginning.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

Seeing as he only said Antonia, just changing ti to Edith and adjusting the hair & wardrobe a bit would have worked out just fine. For those who didn't know who Edith was it wouldn't have changed a thing. For the fans it would have been a nice moment.

With all due apologies for furthering a thread derailment... the dialogue indicated that Kirk thought he was reliving the past, nine years earlier, although with the chance to change it by proposing to his girlfriend. So I don't see how replacing "Antonia" with "Edith" would have worked unless we are supposed to believe that Kirk was dating Edith Keeler in the 23rd Century nine years before "Generations" despite the fact that we all know she died in the early 20th Century so that WW2 could properly take place.

 

[Trek Survivor]

I recall Data's words from "Skin Of Evil", from memory, so forgive if it's not exact:

DATA: Sir, the purpose of this gathering illudes me.
PICARD: How so?
DATA: My thoughts are not for Tasha...but for myself. I keep feeling how lonely and empty life around here will be without her. Did I miss the point, sir?
PICARD: (smiles) No, Mr. Data. You got it.

I think inevitably you not only grieve for the person, but also for yourself and your loss of that person (not necessarily in that order). It doesn't make you a bad person for thinking of how loss will affect you. As humans, we are coloured and our feelings informed by our own perceptions of the world.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Seeing as he only said Antonia, just changing ti to Edith and adjusting the hair & wardrobe a bit would have worked out just fine. For those who didn't know who Edith was it wouldn't have changed a thing. For the fans it would have been a nice moment.

With all due apologies for furthering a thread derailment... the dialogue indicated that Kirk thought he was reliving the past, nine years earlier, although with the chance to change it by proposing to his girlfriend. So I don't see how replacing "Antonia" with "Edith" would have worked unless we are supposed to believe that Kirk was dating Edith Keeler in the 23rd Century nine years before "Generations" despite the fact that we all know she died in the early 20th Century so that WW2 could properly take place.

I'd have to double check the dialog but seeing that Picard had a family when he first entered the Nexus I doubt that it was an exact recreation of any particular time.

 

[JarodRussell]

Seeing as he only said Antonia, just changing ti to Edith and adjusting the hair & wardrobe a bit would have worked out just fine. For those who didn't know who Edith was it wouldn't have changed a thing. For the fans it would have been a nice moment.

But she couldn't be riding a horse in 23rd century Iowa, or did I miss something?


Inside the Nexus, Picard was first seeing his dream future, and Kirk was seeing his real past.


Here's an interesting thing about Roddenberry's views on 24th century grief. It's from Michael Piller's "Fade In":

The answer can be found in Roddenberry’s Box.
I happen to like the box. A lot of writers don’t. In fact, I think it’s fair to say, most writers who have worked on Star Trek over the years would like to throw the box away. It may surprise you to learn that when I took over as head writer, the entire writing staff of Star Trek: The Next Generation was so frustrated and angry with Gene Roddenberry they were counting the days before their contracts expired (and indeed every one of them left at season’s end.) He wouldn’t let them out of the box and they were suffocating.
My first time in Roddenberry’s Box was during the very first episode I worked on as head writer. We were already in production of season three, four shows were finished, twenty-two still to do. There were no scripts and no stories to shoot the following week. Desperate, I bought a spec script that had been sent in from an amateur writer named Ron Moore who was about to enlist in the U.S. Navy. It was a rough teleplay called “The Bonding” and would require a lot of reworking but I liked the idea. A female Starfleet officer is killed in an accident and her child, overcome with grief, bonds with a holographic recreation of his mother rather than accept her death.
I sent a short description of the story to Rick and Gene. Minutes later, I was called to an urgent meeting in Gene’s office. “This doesn’t work” he said. “In the Twenty-Fourth Century, no one grieves. Death is accepted as part of life.”
As I shared the dilemma with the other staff writers, they took a bit of pleasure from my loss of virginity, all of them having already been badly bruised by rejections from Gene. Roddenberry was adamant that Twenty-Fourth Century man would evolve past the petty emotional turmoil that gets in the way of our happiness today. Well, as any writer will tell you, ‘emotional turmoil’, petty and otherwise, is at the core of any good drama. It creates conflict between characters. But Gene didn’t want conflict between our characters. “All the problems of mankind have been solved,” he said. “Earth is a paradise.”
Now, go write drama.
His demands seemed impossible at first glance. Even self-destructive. And yet, I couldn’t escape one huge reality. Star Trek worked. Or it had for thirty years. Gene must be doing something right.
I accepted it as a challenge. Okay, I told the writers, I’m here to execute Roddenberry’s vision of the future, not mine. Let’s stop fighting what we can’t change. These are his rules. How do we do this story without breaking those
rules? A day later, I asked for another meeting with Gene and Rick. And here’s how I re-pitched the story: “When the boy’s mother dies, he doesn’t grieve. He acts like he’s been taught to act -- to accept death as a part of life. He buries whatever pain he may be feeling under this Twenty-Fourth Century layer of advanced civilization. The alien race responsible for the accidental death of his mother tries to correct their error by providing a replacement version of her. The boy wants to believe his mother isn’t dead, but our Captain knows she isn’t real and must convince the boy to reject the illusion. In order to do so, the boy must cut through everything he’s been taught about death and get to his true emotions. He must learn to grieve.”
The new approach respected Roddenberry’s rules and by doing so, became a more complex story. He gave his blessing. And I began to learn how Roddenberry’s Box forced us as writers to come up with new and interesting ways to tell stories instead of falling back into easier, familiar devices.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Kirk's dead dog was there. It was a fantasy for both of them.