Stargazer - Picard's hair

[The Wormhole]

I didn't like the picture of Tom Hardy as Picard at the academy in Nemesis. I understand Shinzon wanting to shave his head to look like Picard, but I don't believe Picard spent his academy years without hair.

Why is it so hard to believe he had his head shaved at the time the picture was taken, then later re-grew his hair. There could be any number of explanations why he was bald in that picture, intiation prank, lost a bet, maybe people still shave their heads for charity (cure for advanced space cancer or something). There are worse continuity problems in Trek than bald Cadet Picard.

Sorry if this seems like I'm flying in your face about it. There's currently a discussion in the GTD forum mention bald Cadet Picard as one of Trek's most glaring mistakes, and I don't get why something which has such a logical rationalization is setting everyone off in such a way.

 

[Dr. Crusher]

My first experience of Picard with hair was the TNG episode, "Violations." I think after that, I just "took it from there," if you understand what I mean. When I think of Picard much earlier on in his career, I use the "Violations" hair line as a reference point. Earlier would therefore equal more, and thicker, hair.

I think the whole bald Shinzon issue had everything to do with the admitted lack of knowledge of the TNG TV series on the part of the director (and perhaps others who worked on it). What I didn't like was the moment when Picard and Dr. Crusher are looking at a picture of Picard at the Academy, and he looked exactly like Shinzon. C'mon--we all know he had hair at some point!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

IMHO, it is a complete non-issue about the "bald Cadet Picard" picture. It probably went like this: Since present day Picard is of course bald, Shinzon must be bald just to match his look. So when Tom Hardy played the real Picard in the past photo, they made him bald, otherwise having Hardy with hair wouldn't look enough like Picard. Nobody expects to see Picard with hair, one TNG flashback notwithstanding.

if cosmetic surgery is so advanced they can get rid of scars and deformities, who would want to keep scars?

Ask Martok.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

Klingons are different and have a different form of vanity. I fully believe Klingons keep scars to remember glorious battles and and hope someone will ask how they earned scars.

Of course I would think Martok would want a synthetic eye since that blind spot could be deadly in combat.

 

[Christopher]

What I didn't like was the moment when Picard and Dr. Crusher are looking at a picture of Picard at the Academy, and he looked exactly like Shinzon. C'mon--we all know he had hair at some point!

Like I said, it's cinematic shorthand. Filmic storytelling has to be very concise and efficient, and doesn't have time to accommodate a lot of nuance. They needed to convey in a very quick, visual way that the person in that picture was the younger Picard and was a match for Shinzon, and the simplest way to do that was to give him the same appearance as Shinzon. Whether Picard had hair at the Academy was not relevant to the specific story point being made, so it was cast aside for the sake of efficiency. The shot got the point across, so it did what it was supposed to do.

Sometimes you just have to recognize that these aren't documentaries, that liberties are taken and things are presented metaphorically for the sake of the story.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Of course I would think Martok would want a synthetic eye since that blind spot could be deadly in combat.

He probably reasoned that if he's not a good enough warrior that he could overcome that condition on his own, that it would be a dishonorable act to try and have a fake eye to do it for him.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

What I didn't like was the moment when Picard and Dr. Crusher are looking at a picture of Picard at the Academy, and he looked exactly like Shinzon. C'mon--we all know he had hair at some point!

Like I said, it's cinematic shorthand. Filmic storytelling has to be very concise and efficient, and doesn't have time to accommodate a lot of nuance. They needed to convey in a very quick, visual way that the person in that picture was the younger Picard and was a match for Shinzon, and the simplest way to do that was to give him the same appearance as Shinzon. Whether Picard had hair at the Academy was not relevant to the specific story point being made, so it was cast aside for the sake of efficiency. The shot got the point across, so it did what it was supposed to do.

Sometimes you just have to recognize that these aren't documentaries, that liberties are taken and things are presented metaphorically for the sake of the story.

I don't think that showing Tom Hardy with some hair in the picture would have been difficult for the audience to comprehend it was the same person.

But then there were several things in Nemesis that would have confused or gone unappreciated by the audience if they weren't familiar with TNG.

I was amazed at how terrible that movie was. And it was an EVEN numbered trek film!

 

[captcalhoun]

my fan-fic main character gets a scar courtesy of the Borg in the Destiny Invasion and whilst he gets a replacement eye, he keeps the scar either side of the socket as a reminder of the friends he lost.

 

[Stevil2001]

I think it's easy to imagine, too, that when Picard is flipping through his Academy photos on facebook, he stops at the one where he shaved his head for the swim team because that's the one that reminds him the most of Shinzon.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

So we should be thankful Tom Hardy was in a cadet uniform instead of a speedo?

 

[Sci]

So we should be thankful Tom Hardy was in a cadet uniform instead of a speedo?

Thankful? I know of more than a few people who would feel disappointed.

 

[Stephen!]

Alternately -- by the 24th Century, perhaps there's a cure for baldness

Maybe it's simply just a case of stimulating the hair follicles, as the Doctor did with Seven of Nine.