IF..
- You are a fan of Jen Luc Picard
- You are a fan of Sir Patrick Stewart
- You actually, in fact, ARE Sir Patrick Stewart
- You are Jean Luc Picard, reading this, from the FUTURE!
Then PICARD is clearly for you!
The latest trailer looks impressive. Great effects. Great visuals. Cinema scale gloss on an accessibly televisual platform. Plenty of Easter eggs for fans of the original shows : Star Trek, Next Generation, Voyager, DS9 et al.
There are arguably some aesthetic touches that evoke Enterprise and Discovery? PLENTY of #EXCITING ACTION! A real sense of conflict, drama, mystery and a self contained story that nonetheless ties to wider series’ mythology. I get it. Trek cannot any longer be a bouncily optimistic thought for day philosophical discussion group dramatised as sci-fi adventure. The brand can and indeed must evolve to integrate the sophisticated warmth through the cold and clinical reality of our visual age. No probs.
And it also fits a most encouraging current template of keeping actors and stars VITAL, throughout life. No more relegation to a cameo on a sofa or a deathbed reconciliation. We have a near 80 year old man here front and centre of the action. I love that. Jane Fonda started all this, of course: 80 + and still FIT in all the right senses, defining Netflix and starring in movies in between. Patrick Stewart is just playing catch up for the boys here, looking better than he has done in ages.
Bodes well for when, or now rather IF, we ever see Harrison Ford turn up and play Indiana Jones again..
And why stop there? Let’s ponder the potential! LIMITLESS one off, two off, full series, else-world spin offs, await!
- Daniel Craig can stay on as Bond by playing ‘M’ (new poster out now, btw).
- Pacino in Godfather 4, making a final intervention to save Andy Garcia’s doomed Don?
- Clooney returns as an older Dr Doug Ross?
- Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck..stepping in sometime as occasionally returning Jack Ryans?
- Rambo 6: redeeming Rambo 5!
- Die Hard: With a Pension?
And so on. Forward looking, constructive nostalgia. Not so much trying to relive the past as harness its imagery to help us all live more presently and steward (stewart?!) our successors into the future.
All via the shared fun of a jolly good yarn with admirable characters who excel in their craft at any age, played by actors who do exactly the same thing. Always facing forward!
The possibilities now are truly endless. And not because of tech or platform changes / format opening though yes that helps. No. It’s because we are possibly, just maybe, living longer and now learning to value and nurture our ongoing potential as a species.
THAT is very Star Trek: elder humanity are to be looked to in fighting tomorrow’s battles, not relegated to a walk-in-cameo for younger pretenders.
Having said all that. What if you DON’T see that wider philosophical picture? What if you just like Trek to BE that philosophy, explicitly and immediately?
And what if, for all its cameos from Data or Riker et al..you genuinely want and miss a team, community dynamic rather than a singular focus on ONE leading man? Bill Shatner never got anything like this for Captain JAMES T KIRK! (don’t get me started on Generations: I leave that to THIS guy!).
..Then this new show might NOT be for you. Coz it is VERY ‘into’ Jean Luc Picard and, by extension, Patrick Stewart. So if you are NOT a fan of love letters to one character/ actor, in a format arguable NOT suited to that sort of thing? I’d probably brace myself f