Star Trek: Picard (CBS All-Access)

[TangledThorns]

Star Trek: Cabernet Sauvignon

[jenius]

27 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's what was leaked... that he was going to be in Section 31.

 

I'm more curious how he retired to a vineyard said to have burned down many a year ago? 

So many answers:

It's a holodeck

It's a different vineyard

It's the same vineyard... Cause a burnt down vineyard can be easily rebuilt and he even had the means to make it from all original materials

[Seto Kaiba]

7 minutes ago, jenius said:

It's a holodeck

New plot idea: Jean-Luc Picard is haunted by a thousand generations of French wine snob family members for drinking holographic wine.

 

7 minutes ago, jenius said:

It's a different vineyard

The bottles all say Chateau Picard... 

 

7 minutes ago, jenius said:

It's the same vineyard... Cause a burnt down vineyard can be easily rebuilt and he even had the means to make it from all original materials

As broken up as he seemed to be over the death of his brother and nephew, I can't quite see him rebuilding the family vineyard like that... especially given all the bad blood between him and his brother over his having left to go into Starfleet.

[Lexomatic]

Whether you enjoy Star Trek: Discovery (ST:DSC if you follow the established pattern of abbreviations, STD if you're feeling malicious) depends very much on what you're looking for in (a) a product with the "Star Trek" name, and (b) modern SFTV. Internet discussion implies that both correlate strongly with age and experience with prior iterations of the franchise.

Objections to the show fall into this hierarchy:

1. It's paywalled instead of airing on a free broadcast network.
2. The look doesn't resemble the era, as depicted in TOS.
3. The technological capabilities don't match TOS, and often exceed TNG.
4. Many of the Starfleet characters aren't laudable.
5. The structure is main character not ensemble, long-arc not episodic.
6. The writing and photography are often bad ("why did the characters do this?" and "I can't see what's happening").
7. The themes are neither aspirational (humanity can improve itself) nor inspirational ("I want to be an astronaut / I want to invent that gadget").

If you're a fan of Macross you've probably made peace with inconsistent "visual canon", and with a little practice you can discard "fanon" and "head canon" that restrict what you believe things "should be". Point (5) gets into Macross Delta territory.

Why the mess? CBS and the production crew haven't broken ranks, but reading between the lines, there has been a lot of instability -- repeated changes in the showrunners and their vision, people who don't "get" what's distinctive about Trek as opposed to adventure-SF, "change for the sake of change", clumsy attempts to reverse direction, and writers with limited SF and long-arc experience. TNG-DS9-VGR-ENT started to get "samey" because the same people had been running the franchise for 15 years, but by the same token, they were a well-oiled machine.

Conversely, The Orville on Fox is unapologetically a TNG homage: space exploration, first contact, cultural conflict,  allegorical morality plays, impossible decisions; in an episodic-with-callbacks structure. The characters are more overtly human and imperfect than the paragons of TNG. The main objections are "ew, you got Seth McFarlane humor in my Trek" (an element that has been gradually reduced from the start of the series) and "ew, you put Seth McFarlane in the literal captain's seat" (more an objection to his acting skills than to his everyman personality, which is directly addressed by an admiral in the first ep: "let's face it, you're nobody's first choice for a captain, but we've got 3000 ships to crew").

Edited May 23, 2019 by Lexomatic
New objection 1: Paywall.

[Chronocidal]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

As broken up as he seemed to be over the death of his brother and nephew, I can't quite see him rebuilding the family vineyard like that... especially given all the bad blood between him and his brother over his having left to go into Starfleet.

I thought it was just the house itself that burned?  Seems like a pretty big stretch that the entire vineyard, and all associated production facilities, would burn down before someone stopped the fire, especially when they've implied elsewhere that technology with the ability to manipulate the weather exists to some extent.

I was thinking there's already precedent set for him working the vineyard at least, even though "All Good Things" was made before Generations.  What I wonder about is how much of that possible future they might pick up and run with, in lieu of coming up with something original.   

Edit: Having watched the teaser that I didn't realize was posted on the previous page, I'm wondering if they are setting this up as an "I saw too much" situation, or something like that.  Don't know what "rescue armada" they may be referring to, but if we're back in the prime timeline, could very well be attempting to evacuate whoever was left near Romulus after that mess of plot occurred.  Maybe he felt he failed?  

I don't know.  My wanting to ignore the fact that Nemesis even exists aside, the disaster they used to split off the Kelvin timeline always felt poorly thought-out on multiple levels.

Edited May 23, 2019 by Chronocidal

[jenius]

57 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

New plot idea: Jean-Luc Picard is haunted by a thousand generations of French wine snob family members for drinking holographic wine.

 

The bottles all say Chateau Picard... 

 

As broken up as he seemed to be over the death of his brother and nephew, I can't quite see him rebuilding the family vineyard like that... especially given all the bad blood between him and his brother over his having left to go into Starfleet.

It's the phrase "I can't quite see him..." that ensures people will always have issues with sequels and prequels. 

[Seto Kaiba]

4 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

I thought it was just the house itself that burned?  Seems like a pretty big stretch that the entire vineyard, and all associated production facilities, would burn down before someone stopped the fire, especially when they've implied elsewhere that technology with the ability to manipulate the weather exists to some extent.

It was severe enough that Picard's brother and nephew both died in the fire, though it appears I may have been thinking of the relaunch novel-verse's version of events where the fire apparently destroyed the house and spread into at least part of the vineyard.  (It's implied that this is partly because the rest of the Picard family are rather old-fashioned and resisted incorporating advanced technology into the family home.)

 

4 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

I was thinking there's already precedent set for him working the vineyard at least, even though "All Good Things" was made before Generations.  What I wonder about is how much of that possible future they might pick up and run with, in lieu of coming up with something original.   

Given what Patrick Stewart and Kurtzman have said, it seems unlikely.

They've indicated Star Trek: Picard will be set 20 years after Star Trek: Nemesis (2399~2400) with Picard having left Starfleet some 15 years previously (~2384).  Kurtzman has stated the destruction of Romulus in 2387 that precipitated the godawful alternate universe reboot by Jar-Jar Abrams will play a role in the story.

 

2 minutes ago, jenius said:

It's the phrase "I can't quite see him..." that ensures people will always have issues with sequels and prequels. 

True... though it'd likely to be worse when the writers treat the pre-existing material with thinly veiled contempt as the creative team under Kurtzman have.

[Sildani]

The vines are all he has left of his family that’s living. His family’s old accomplishments, his service record, his past deeds are all done, to be celebrated, but stagnant. The vines, and their wine, are still there to be nurtured; to have something NEW done with them. Picard couldn’t turn his back on his family legacy any more. He’s the last of the Picards, but the Picard name can still be spoken of in the present tense, thanks to the vineyard. 

It could be that he’s being interviewed about his previous work and history, and that “in the present” he is indeed very much retired in his chateau. 

[Focslain]

9 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

They've indicated Star Trek: Picard will be set 20 years after Star Trek: Nemesis (2399~2400) with Picard having left Starfleet some 15 years previously (~2384).  Kurtzman has stated the destruction of Romulus in 2387 that precipitated the godawful alternate universe reboot by Jar-Jar Abrams will play a role in the story.

Given this and the section 31 bit, might Picard try to use 31 to stop the Romulus disaster from happening given it's impact to the galaxy at large? Would also give CBS a reason to write off the Kelvin timeline since it 'never happened'.

So ST:P is just one long con to help save billions.

[Chronocidal]

If this entire thing is meant to be a cosmic retcon to save Romulus, and it involves Picard using his reputation to pull rank with Section 31 to get it done, I think I can almost agree with the premise.

Problem is, you're talking about events 15+ years in the past.  How do you make a series out of a giant flashback sequence?

[jenius]

I just can't think of a single way this show will work but that has me curious.

[derex3592]

5 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

If this entire thing is meant to be a cosmic retcon to save Romulus, and it involves Picard using his reputation to pull rank with Section 31 to get it done, I think I can almost agree with the premise.

Problem is, you're talking about events 15+ years in the past.  How do you make a series out of a giant flashback sequence?

LOST did it for like 3 seasons, intermixed with modern events and that worked...

[Seto Kaiba]

58 minutes ago, Focslain said:

Given this and the section 31 bit, might Picard try to use 31 to stop the Romulus disaster from happening given it's impact to the galaxy at large? Would also give CBS a reason to write off the Kelvin timeline since it 'never happened'.

As amusing as I would find that, I doubt CBS and Kurtzman would write off the Kelvin timeline like that.  It's Kurtzman's baby, after all.

If any one Starfleet captain was going to refuse to break the Temporal Prime Directive, it'd be Picard.  Archer existed before the Temporal Prime Directive and spent a fair amount of time dicking around with time, Sisko had several time travel incidents, Janeway had so many she drove a poor Starfleet Temporal Integrity Commission captain to homicidal insanity, and Kirk is the entire reason the Department of Temporal Investigations exists at all (and is their worst repeat offender).

 

14 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

If this entire thing is meant to be a cosmic retcon to save Romulus, and it involves Picard using his reputation to pull rank with Section 31 to get it done, I think I can almost agree with the premise.

... I could almost get behind that.  My bet is that it's more cleaning up the interstellar aftermath of the fall of the Romulan Star Empire.  Picard supposedly led "the greatest rescue mission" and some part of that was what caused him to lose faith in Starfleet and resign.  My guess is he feels guilty Starfleet couldn't save Romulus itself, doubly so since his own clone essentially toppled the Romulan government just a handful of years earlier.  Losing the Romulan Star Empire probably meant a lot of trouble for the quadrant.  Five'll get you twenty the Klingons decided to annex a large portion of it, and the rest probably started warring with each other over who was the new true Romulus and against the subject races that they enslaved to form their empire in the first place.

 

14 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

Problem is, you're talking about events 15+ years in the past.  How do you make a series out of a giant flashback sequence?

You use the "present day" as a framing device... the present day cast are sitting around discussing past events, narrating their memoirs, or what have you.

Loads of shows, movies, etc. have started with a "how we got here" sort of framing device.  Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's episode "In the Pale Moonlight" is an episode long flashback sequence framed as Sisko laying out the events of his plot to get Romulus to join the Dominion War on the Federation side in his log.  Star Trek: Enterprise's much-maligned "These are the voyages..." series finale did something similar, with Riker indulging in a holodeck recreation of events hundreds of years in the past to help him make a difficult decision about the whole illegal Federation cloaking device schtick.  The entire Star Trek: Enterprise relaunch is kicked off with that same kind of framing device, Jake Sisko and Nog poring over recently declassified reports about Starfleet activities in the Federation's formative years, stopping to take potshots at the events of "These are the voyages..." as a terribly unrealistic cover for Trip going undercover to Romulus.

[JetJockey]

12 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, it doesn't really start ramping off the wreckage of Star Trek over seas full of burning sharks and garbage until Part II of the pilot.

 

That is, allegedly, the plan for Season 3.

Even though they successfully killed the evil AI that wants to seize an alien data library full of information on AIs so that it can become an AI (if you just said "wait, what?" you're in good company) in the show's "present day" and thus essentially removed the entire reason for wasting half a season trying to find ways to get rid of the data library (just removing the affected computer core elements and vaporizing them with a phaser never seems to occur to them) by sending it into the future, the USS Discovery still heads off to get itself stranded 1,000 years in the future to keep the data out of the hands of the AI they literally just killed in 2257 who no longer exists in that future anyway.

If the sh*t-awful Short Trek "Calypso" is any indication, Kurtzman is likely setting up the Federation to be the bad guys in the far future despite Star Trek: Enterprise establishing the 31st+ century Federation was still very much the Big Good and a utopian civilization.

Kurtzman's determined effort to turn Star Trek from a utopian series to a dystopian one with heavy overtones of militant nationalism are probably going to heavily color the work being done on Star Trek: Picard.

 

I don't recall if they've ever commented on it directly, but most fans suspect that Star Trek: Discovery's producers were hoping that making Michael Burnham into a never-before mentioned foster sister of Spock's was an attempt to give her instant appeal with the Trekkies.  It backfired horribly, due to her being a terrible person, so they tried to salvage it using Spock himself, Captain Pike, Number One, and the USS Enterprise in season two and it still didn't work because fans were incensed over Spock apparently being mentally ill, Pike constantly taking crap from Burnham despite her being under his command, and the Enterprise only showing up as a disabled ship needing a tow back home until the very end.

I watched episode 3 because I wanted to see the performance of the actress who plays Michael after the twist of episode 2. Then I watched some more clips of stuff including that Picard teaser trailer. I want to see a good Star Trek movie or TV show. I don't really care which. But it should feel like Star Trek. It seems like since Deep Space Nine, the people in charge have been trying to show a more problematic Star Trek Universe. I don't know why either. They have that Mirror Universe if they want to show a darker Earth. And apparently there is a good twist in Discovery with that Mirror Universe. But even that in the clips I watched it doesn't really come off like Star Trek. Maybe there are so many space shows that it's difficult for Star Trek? Or maybe Star Trek just isn't good enough anymore or the people writing it aren't coming up with good ideas. If you look at shows on Syfy like Killjoys and Dark Matter, both of which I still have to finish. I find those enjoyable and even worth owning more than any of the recent Star Trek shows since Deep Space Nine plus all the movies starting with Generations.

Edited May 24, 2019 by JetJockey

[Chronocidal]

19 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

You use the "present day" as a framing device... the present day cast are sitting around discussing past events, narrating their memoirs, or what have you.

I just noticed that my edit didn't save.. I was more curious about how you film a flashback series where everyone needs to be 15 years younger, especially the focal character.

I don't think there's any way this series is going to have the budget to digitally de-age Stewart for its entire run.

[Mazinger]

20 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Janeway had so many she drove a poor Starfleet Temporal Integrity Commission captain to homicidal insanity

I remember that, good times!

[Seto Kaiba]

25 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

I just noticed that my edit didn't save.. I was more curious about how you film a flashback series where everyone needs to be 15 years younger, especially the focal character.

I don't think there's any way this series is going to have the budget to digitally de-age Stewart for its entire run.

Patrick Stewart looks like he's barely aged since the TNG movies, a little makeup to hide the signs of aging should do the trick.

(Hell, he looks younger than his Ambassador Picard future self from "All Good Things".)

EDIT: Pretty much every Starfleet captain's actor ends up looking better than their far-future elderly self, 'cept maybe Kate Mulgrew (though honestly her current appearance would be a lot more realistic for the kind of stressful life Janeway had).

 

17 minutes ago, Mazinger said:

I remember that, good times!

Poor Captain Braxton... as bad as he snaps because of Janeway, I've always secretly suspected he was one of Chakotay's descendants.

Edited May 24, 2019 by Seto Kaiba

[Bolt]

Just saw the quick teaser for this, it isn’t hard to imagine , years later that the vineyard would have grown back or that there was even another lot near by. Wine is such a micro climate diverse thing..

And I imagine , as hard a time as he had with his brother,  that out of his memory, Picard would carry on the family tradition. It’s blatantly hinted he left Starfleet to be salt of the earth (and nothing else ?)..

Edited May 24, 2019 by Bolt

[sh9000]

[Seto Kaiba]

Eech... if the latest round of Star Trek leaks are true, then CBS and Star Trek are having a REALLY terrible year.

Reportedly, CBS is rushing the Star Trek: Picard series through production as a green screen extravaganza to keep costs down thanks to receiving a significantly smaller budget from the distribution deal with Amazon.  They've apparently got around four episodes of material shot so far, but may be headed back for even more reshoots after a disastrous test screening at which something like 80% of the audience disliked what they were shown.  It's also reportedly, as expected, being done in the same J.J. Abrams/Kelvin timeline-esque design aesthetics that were used in Star Trek: Discovery... because apparently they've decided to brazen it out and hope it'll catch on instead of admitting it was a mistake.  It'll be interesting to see if the series ever sees the light of day, since they may well end up running out of cash before they ever actually finish the season... Amazon is allegedly suffering buyer's remorse.

Star Trek: Discovery is still up sh*t creek without a paddle, as nobody seems willing to step forward and put up the enormous sum necessary to produce the third season of Star Trek: Discovery.

 

[sh9000]

[Chronocidal]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Eech... if the latest round of Star Trek leaks are true, then CBS and Star Trek are having a REALLY terrible year.

Reportedly, CBS is rushing the Star Trek: Picard series through production as a green screen extravaganza to keep costs down thanks to receiving a significantly smaller budget from the distribution deal with Amazon.  They've apparently got around four episodes of material shot so far, but may be headed back for even more reshoots after a disastrous test screening at which something like 80% of the audience disliked what they were shown.  It's also reportedly, as expected, being done in the same J.J. Abrams/Kelvin timeline-esque design aesthetics that were used in Star Trek: Discovery... because apparently they've decided to brazen it out and hope it'll catch on instead of admitting it was a mistake.  It'll be interesting to see if the series ever sees the light of day, since they may well end up running out of cash before they ever actually finish the season... Amazon is allegedly suffering buyer's remorse.

Star Trek: Discovery is still up sh*t creek without a paddle, as nobody seems willing to step forward and put up the enormous sum necessary to produce the third season of Star Trek: Discovery.

 

I don't care how rumoriffic that Doomcock video was, or if there's anything to back it up in the slightest.  That was the most hilariously entertaining rant I've heard in a really long time.

Edited June 12, 2019 by Chronocidal

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, sh9000 said:

It's a bit much to ask us to wait until 16 June 2395 isn't it?

 

41 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

I don't care how rumoriffic that Doomcock video was, or if there's anything to back it up in the slightest.  That was the most hilariously entertaining rant I've heard in a really long time.

One thing to say for Alex Kurtzman's tenure at the head of the Star Trek franchise... he's made Doomcock much more entertaining than Star Trek itself, by ensuring that he's never short of stupid decisions and highly visible incompetence to rage and storm about.

[TehPW]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's a bit much to ask us to wait until 16 June 2395 isn't it?

 

One thing to say for Alex Kurtzman's tenure at the head of the Star Trek franchise... he's made Doomcock much more entertaining than Star Trek itself, by ensuring that he's never short of stupid decisions and highly visible incompetence to rage and storm about.

+1,000. I was happily eating lunch when I watched his rant about Kurtzman. Totally agreed... and dismayed. Star Trek really is dead...

[Seto Kaiba]

11 hours ago, TehPW said:

+1,000. I was happily eating lunch when I watched his rant about Kurtzman. Totally agreed... and dismayed. Star Trek really is dead...

Unfortunately, yeah... as long as Bad Robot Productions is calling the creative shots, Star Trek is doomed to fail over and over again.

Bad Robot is so enamored of the "action-ized", style-before-substance version of Star Trek they established with the 2009 Star Trek reboot movie that they're determined to make it the norm for Star Trek so they can keep cashing in even though Star Trek fans and licensees hate it.

[pengbuzz]

On 5/23/2019 at 3:27 PM, Chronocidal said:

Edit: Having watched the teaser that I didn't realize was posted on the previous page, I'm wondering if they are setting this up as an "I saw too much" situation, or something like that.  Don't know what "rescue armada" they may be referring to, but if we're back in the prime timeline, could very well be attempting to evacuate whoever was left near Romulus after that mess of plot occurred.  Maybe he felt he failed? 

Picard probably resigned when he saw the armada couldn't stop CBS from making Discovery.

[David Hingtgen]

Should have gone with the Star Trek: Excelsior series back when it had a decent chance of happening.  (hey, they got the whole ST6 cast back for VOY...)

[TehPW]

maybe? Happy Father's Day, regardless...

[sh9000]

 

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, TehPW said:

maybe? Happy Father's Day, regardless...

If true, this is fantastic news for Star Trek... one of the principal architects of the stupidly gritty, action-ized, "new Trek" is gone.

If CBS wants to double down on this by cancelling Star Trek: Discovery or go for a hat trick by also sinking Star Trek: Picard, I'll be prepared to call them very fine people.

[Mazinger]

Funny, seeing Jean-Luc so young reminds me more of Gurney Haleck.

[peter]

On 6/12/2019 at 3:14 PM, Chronocidal said:

I don't care how rumoriffic that Doomcock video was, or if there's anything to back it up in the slightest.  That was the most hilariously entertaining rant I've heard in a really long time.

LMFAO!

Star Trek Continuity?  Oh, here it is:

[slide]

Just now, peter said:

Star Trek Continuity?  Oh, here it is:

You know, I wish that weren't true...

but such is the state of things

[Seto Kaiba]

On 6/19/2019 at 12:37 PM, slide said:

You know, I wish that weren't true...

but such is the state of things

Well, that is what happens when you let Jar-Jar Abrams and his hangers-on run your franchise... but Hollywood never learns.

Now that Kurtzman and Bad Robot are apparently out of Star Trek, I wonder what'll happen to Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Discovery.  Netflix seems content to let Discovery languish in de facto cancellation without a budget, but CBS is in a weird spot with Star Trek: Picard thanks to audiences hating it in test screenings, a distributor who's suffering buyer's remorse, and a lot of cash sunk into ongoing production.  I'm wondering if they're going to plow ahead with the Kelvin-esque aesthetic or they'll try to rework it now that they're free of Bad Robot and Kurtzman.

[mechaninac]

STP has a -- very small -- chance of being salvaged if they go back to the drawing board and scrap any footage that even hints of Bad Reboot's and Klutzman's influence... make it so the test screening episode never happened; STD, on the other hand, is beyond redemption and needs to be relegated to a Q induced nightmare that causes Picard or Riker or Janeway to wake up in a cold sweat, or the aftereffects of some bad replicated fish... strike it from even an alternate canon.