Star Trek: Picard

[Swedish chef]

Staying away from any spoilers I only wish to say that this was an really enjoyable premier, looking forward to the next episode.

[Ronpur50]

Staying away from any spoilers I only wish to say that this was an really enjoyable premier, looking forward to the next episode.

I totally agree.  I have never been so excited for a Star Trek series and the next episode in a long time.  It looks to be a great adventure! And a new mystery for Picard to solve.

[Hauerg]

Spoilerfree:

👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

Just watched on amazon here in 🇦🇹.

[Lars-J]

I dunno...

If you are desperate to itch that TNG nostalgia, yeah, it will satisfy you ... for a while.

But the producers seem hell bent on remaking Blade Runner or nuBSG in a Star Trek setting instead of actually doing something interesting with Picard.

I actually did like all the Picard parts in the beginning, but as soon as we switched to the other character and the poorly shot fight scenes started with cheap costumes for the bad guys, my hopes got dashed. (yeah, the bad henchmen look like low budget early 90's sci-fi)

I'll keep watching, but I'm not optimistic.

-----

EDIT: Oh and the ship design is very uninspired... All ships are thin like folded paper origami.

[Thorny]

The "synths gone rogue" storyline is reminiscent of Blade Runner and nuBSG, I agree. But remember nuBSG was the product of Ronald D. Moore, who cut his teeth on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Cylons of nuBSG actually seem more like evil versions of Data than they do the original Cylons.

I think this storyline actually makes quite a bit of sense, regarding where the Federation would be 20 years later.
 
Much of Star Trek: Picard seems to be a follow-on to the Data story, rather than just "what is Picard up to these days?". There are direct references to the well-regarded episode "The Measure of a Man", when Dr. Jurati mentions she was mentored by Bruce Maddox (the villain at the center of that episode.) In that episode, Picard argued in a court of law for Data's rights, and that argument became protecting the rights of a potential future race of sentient androids. 30 years later, and Picard has seen that hard-won court victory tossed out by the Federation and androids ("Synthetics") are now banned.

We know that Data remained friendly with Maddox in later years (he is writing a letter to him throughout the episode "Data's Day") and Jurati seems to suggest that Maddox had made great progress with his goal of recreating Data until something went disastrously wrong.

The ending of the episode also reveals the Borg ship. We know that the Borg were able to combine android technology with flesh and blood humanoids, we saw this spectacularly with the entrance of the Borg Queen in the movie "First Contact" and she proceeded to offer Data flesh-and-blood in that movie (he considered it for 4.5 milliseconds or something... "an eternity for an android".) The Borg were supposedly wiped-out by Janeway's virus attack in the Voyager finale, "Endgame". "Star Trek 2009" already showed us that ex-Borg technology has proliferated through the galaxy (that's why Nero's ship... a mining vessel... was so powerful it could wipe out Klingon and Federation fleets.)

So we have Maddox continued his work to build more Datas and Borg technology is now loose in the galaxy. Viola! Cylons. Well, flesh-and-blood androids at least two of whom do not know that they are androids.

I think this is a very interesting story.

[Oli]

Not a fan (yet).

The dialogue is quite bad at times, the acting mediocre, the action scenes lame, the special effects not great.

Also, two things made me scratch my head in this episode:

Dahj visits Picard, told him she killed 3 people, and he immediately welcomes her. Given she's a complete stranger to him at that point, that seems incredulous.

Picard gets catapulted through the air by the explosion, and wakes up on a couch in his home. Like wtf? Where's the ambulance, hospital, police, investigation?

To be fair, it's already better than Discovery, which was an abomination. The question is, why can't they make a good old Trek show, like Orville but more serious and with somewhat better writing/acting?

[Draggendrop]

As a geriatrek, I am very comfortable with this show. There have been several trailers to give a glimpse of where this season may go and it is enough of a hook for me. Personally, I don't require fancy scenes or impecible dialogue...just give me an old style adventure to enjoy.

[sanman]

[spoilers]
The storyline of this new series Star Trek Picard is based on 2 major events:

1) The events of the 2009 movie "Star Trek: Nemesis" feature the destruction of Romulus, the homeworld of the Romulan empire, due to its sun going supernova, which prompts an attempt at mass-relocation of a billion Romulan refugees into Federation territory. The android character of Lt Cmdr Data dies at the end of this movie, but seems happily resurrected.

2) The CBS-produced short "Children of Mars" features a terrorist attack carried out by rogue androids against Mars, which causes mass casualties including 3000 dead at the Utopia Planitia shipyards where the Enterprise-D, Defiant, and Voyager starships were constructed. Admiral Picard is shown to be the head of Starfleet at the time of this attack. A comicbook that was also released shows the head of the shipyard at the time the attack was Geordi LeForge, who was overseeing the construction of the Romulan relocation fleet.

This first episode provides some charming scenes of an older, more frail, retired Jean-Luc Picard. However it also at times seems to push its narrative rather abruptly and through rushed dialogue. Picard has a dream where he sees explosions erupting all over Mars after interacting with his dead friend Data. A girl arrives at Picard's home the next day, sobbing about how people were after her, and that she'd come looking for him because she'd seen him in a dream. Picard  then has another dream of his friend Data painting a picture of a girl, and Data tells Picard he must finish the painting. Picard wakes up to find that same painting hanging in front of him. He then goes to visit an old archive of memorabilia from the Enterprise, and finds another almost identical painting which was also painted by Data - but the girl in this painting looks exactly like the girl he met - and he's told the title of the painting is "daughter". immediately decides to abandon his retirement to help out the girl he's met.


The politics in the story is also unsubtle. Picard's interview on FNN (Federation News Network) looked very 20th-century.
The Romulan refugees storyline is being used as an analog to the issue of Mexican and other undocumented migrants in the United States. The retired Picard is shown having a pair of Romulan servants working for him on his vineyard estate in France.
The attack on Mars is being used as an analog to the 9-11 attacks and resultant political fallout in the United States. We're told that in response to the Mars attack, the Federation has banned all androids.

It's not as if Star Trek hasn't done politics before - but shows like the original series (TOS) and The Next Generation (TNG) were episodic in nature, and didn't singularly revolve around a single political theme or issue, instead giving us a variety of issues and viewpoints while jumping to new storylines from one episode to the next. By contrast, Star Trek Picard has a continuous story arc, which will lock it into a particular and persistent political message.

There is a 3rd storyline being pursued - "Star Trek Picard: The Search for Data".
Just as James Cameron's Star Trek II featured a showdown between Captain Kirk and his arch-nemesis Khan, likewise the 2009 movie Star Trek: Nemesis was made to depict a showdown between Captain Picard and a newly-minted nemesis.
Whereas the death of Spock in Star Trek II led to "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" with Kirk leading his band of renegade officers to resurrect his faithful friend, likewise the death of Data during the climax of Star Trek: Nemesis has been used to create a similar storyline for "Star Trek Picard" with the titular hero leading his own band of renegades (including 7of9) to resurrect his lost friend.
But while Data died in that climactic showdown in Nemesis, he happily seemed to get resurrected at the very end of that movie. Yet the new Picard series goes out of its way to un-resurrect him, so that we can then go on a quest to get him resurrected.

Anyway, I'll keep watching and keep fingers crossed.



It was interesting that Picard told the FNN reporter about Dunkirk - Patrick Stewart's own father was a military veteran who served in that conflict.

[/spoilers]

[Star One]

Seemed perfectly fine to me. The effects and fights seemed OK other than the silly superhero leaping bit. But otherwise I liked it, it’s interesting that the trailers really empathise the action scenes whereas if episode one is anything to go by it’s a much slower more character driven show.

What do you mean James Cameron’s Star Trek 2, to the best of my knowledge he’s never had anything to do with Trek.

[Oli]

The storyline of this new series Star Trek Picard is based on 2 major events:

1) The events of the 2009 movie "Star Trek: Nemesis" feature the destruction of Romulus, the homeworld of the Romulan empire, due to its sun going supernova, which prompts an attempt at mass-relocation of a billion Romulan refugees into Federation territory.

...

It was interesting that Picard told the FNN reporter about Dunkirk - Patrick Stewart's own father was a military veteran who served in that conflict.

- That would make no sense because the Romulan empire is vast and there would be plenty of space to relocate a billion Romulans to.
- Another wtf moment. Why would anyone expect this particular event from WW2 to be common knowledge in the 24th century? Because Hollywood made a movie about it in the early 21th century? 

[Redclaws]

He specifically refers to “books of history people would rather forget”, and is a historian/archaeologist.  I think the idea that these moments of history *are* forgotten by most in his time is half the point, rather than a WTF.

[Oli]

He specifically refers to “books of history people would rather forget”, and is a historian/archaeologist.  I think the idea that these moments of history *are* forgotten by most in his time is half the point, rather than a WTF.

I suppose that would be an argument if the historical analogy wasn't nonsense. Rescuing an enemy population from a natural disaster is not same as rescuing your own troops from an enemy onslaught. Moreover, this is an interview for the general public, why would Picard mention some obscure event that happened 450+ years ago? Nah, the writers are just unimaginative hacks, they want to tell their present-day story using the Trek-brand.

[Thorny]

The storyline of this new series Star Trek Picard is based on 2 major events:

You're confusing two movies.

Data dies at the end of 2002's "Star Trek: Nemesis".
The supernova that destroys Romulus is in 2009's "Star Trek" (the J.J. Abrams reboot movie.)

We previously saw the Federation News Service in 1994's "Star Trek: Generations", interviewing Kirk about the launch of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-B. The familiarity may simply be so that contemporary audiences would know what was going on, similar to the famous "salt shaker" incident in the original episode "The Man Trap" (they tried using a futuristic looking salt shaker, but no one watching the scene knew what it was supposed to be, so they just used an ordinary one.)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was by Nicholas Meyer, not James Cameron.

[Khadgars]

I was really hoping they would to pull heavily from TNG, which is something we could definitely use today.  Instead, they just had to go political.

Its really sad, growing up Picard was almost like a father figure to me hoping this show doesn't ruin that 

[Orbiter]

I was really hoping they would to pull heavily from TNG, which is something we could definitely use today.  Instead, they just had to go political.

Its really sad, growing up Picard was almost like a father figure to me hoping this show doesn't ruin that 

TNG was highly political.

[Thorny]

Its really sad, growing up Picard was almost like a father figure to me hoping this show doesn't ruin that 

Don't worry too much, I think. The opening sequence shows a bunch of shattered pieces falling from the sky and being put back together  as Jean-Luc Picard, so I think this show is going to be "How Picard Got His Groove Back".

[sanman]

- That would make no sense because the Romulan empire is vast and there would be plenty of space to relocate a billion Romulans to.

This plotline shares a similarity with the 1991 movie Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country, where the loss of the Klingon homeworld's ozone layer due to the destruction of its moon Praxis threatens their survival, which creates a window of opportunity for Captain Kirk to pursue peace with one of the Federation's most implacable enemies. Likewise, you'd think that such an event wouldn't be enough to threaten the survival of a vast interstellar empire, but Praxis is referred to as the energy production center for the Klingons, thus framing it as an analog to the 1985 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union. So life inspires art, and art inspires plagiarism and repetition.

- Another wtf moment. Why would anyone expect this particular event from WW2 to be common knowledge in the 24th century? Because Hollywood made a movie about it in the early 21th century? 

Movies & TV shows are products of the times they're made in, and the event likely holds special meaning to Patrick Stewart himself due to his own family history, so perhaps that's why it was mentioned.

[sanman]

The storyline of this new series Star Trek Picard is based on 2 major events:

You're confusing two movies.

Data dies at the end of 2002's "Star Trek: Nemesis".
The supernova that destroys Romulus is in 2009's "Star Trek" (the J.J. Abrams reboot movie.)

I thought it was Vulcan that was destroyed in the J J Abrams reboot. I remember it as Vulcan, because that's when Spock's parents die.
You're right - Nemesis was 2002 - but its storyplot was about the Romulans.

We previously saw the Federation News Service in 1994's "Star Trek: Generations", interviewing Kirk about the launch of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-B. The familiarity may simply be so that contemporary audiences would know what was going on, similar to the famous "salt shaker" incident in the original episode "The Man Trap" (they tried using a futuristic looking salt shaker, but no one watching the scene knew what it was supposed to be, so they just used an ordinary one.)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was by Nicholas Meyer, not James Cameron.

You're right, I stand corrected again. And all these years, I'd thought it was James Cameron. 

[Chris Bergin]

Got to say, I absolutely loved it. Yes, it's slow paced in parts, but I still loved it.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The dialogue is so sub-par on this show. It seems to be lifted straight from some 13year old's Star Trek fanfic post on $SOCIAL_WEBSITE.