Soldato
@steve5424 - yep. Also reused for the fifth film. Besides, if I'd said Motion Picture theme then no bugger on here would know what I was on about! 
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Star Trek: Picard
- Thread starter glenimp617
- Start date
On reflection, I'm disappointed in the death of Dahj. After introducing her as Data's "daughter" (and by extension Picard's responsibility), we get a display of what she is capable of, some kind of emotional attachment, then to have an emotional impact, they kill her off. Because they then don't want to deal with that in any meaningful way, they just bring her back again as a twin. It's obviously easier to make synthetics in batches, (like cup-cakes), but it's a cheap mechanism to give an unwarranted (and meaningless) emotional hit via the loss of a character (but not really). Dahj was basically just the mcguffin to kick off the story of "the search for Data's daughter".
I expect we'll find Sonya, she won't believe Picard, but we'll get little glimpses of her potential here and there (like River in Firefly). That way she won't be OP like Dahj, except when it's convenient to the plot.
I expect we'll find Sonya, she won't believe Picard, but we'll get little glimpses of her potential here and there (like River in Firefly). That way she won't be OP like Dahj, except when it's convenient to the plot.
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@steve5424 - yep. Also reused for the fifth film. Besides, if I'd said Motion Picture theme then no bugger on here would know what I was on about!
haha this is probably true. Although when I was younger TNG was my way into Trek and when I eventually saw the movies, I was confused at the use of the theme. I learned later why that was lol.
Soldato
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I thought they'd changed it at some point, I guess due to the limits of numbers. Didn't they manage warp 10 at some point?Right, I've got a couple of hours with naff all to do while I wait for a delivery. Thoughts on episode 1 "Remembrance". First spoiler tag is my running commentary, second tag is thoughts on the episode and series so far.
1) Space sure is purty
2) And here's the Enterprise-D. Hello old girl. Been a while!
3) Window zoom trope in full effect
4) Welp, this is a dream sequence then. Because Picard is in civvies, Data is in a post-First Contact uniform. Might be just me but I think Brent's makeup here looks better than in the trailers
5) He's also found that Data voice perfectly
6) Picard needling Data about tells while playing poker is giving me all the feels. I'm not gonna make it through the episode at this rate gang...
7) "Why are you stalling Captain?" "I don't want the game to end." Oh god
8) The dream is breaking down. We're now in Mars orbit, and everything is turning to ****
9) Even Starfleet legends get nightmares then. But puppies make everything better, so here's Number One to take care of his master
10) Some things will never go out of style. Rural French architecture and interiors for example
11) Neck-snapping contrast there, rural France to future Boston
12) Woah, talking of neck-snapping contrasts...quiet relationship scene goes south in an instant
13) Well, that's what you get for taking your time there lads. You killed her boyfriend, so now she's gonna wreck your ****
14) Even at the end of the 24th century you ain't coming back from a knife to the chest like that
15) Off you go to find Picard then, love. Because this is sci-fi - when three blokes burst in, kill your boyfriend and try to kidnap you, you don't go to the police. You go to a guy running a vineyard
16) Opening credits and theme then. I'd still prefer a Courage/Goldsmith type of score, but then this isn't that kind of Star Trek by all accounts. Cool shot of Picard though, and they sneak part of the TNG theme in right at the end
17) Back to rural France, and the gentleman farmer surveying his land. Speaking French to his doggo as well, nice touch
18) Picard has friends living with or near him. And either these two are exceptionally emotional Vulcans, or they're Romulans who survived the destruction of their homeworld. Guessing we'll find out shortly
19) "The dreams are lovely, it's the waking up that I'm beginning to resent." Where the hell was this kind of writing for the last two seasons of STD???
20) Gonna pause for an extended moment here and note the parallels between Picard now and Kirk in "The Wrath of Khan". At the start of TWoK, Kirk was feeling his age and utterly bored because he wasn't commanding a ship. More specifically, he wasn't commanding a starship. And more specifically than that, he wasn't commanding the starship Enterprise. The emergency at Regula happens, things all turn to ****, he rises to the occasion and defeats Khan. Yes, he (for a while) loses Spock. But he finds himself again, and at the end of "The Voyage Home" he's back where he belongs - centre seat of the Enterprise. Picard here is also clearly feeling his age, and is just as melancholy about it as Kirk was at home on his birthday with McCoy. McCoy's advice to Kirk was "[G]et back your command...before you really do grow old". Words that Picard would do well to hear from someone. Right, on with the show
21) Romulans
22) Ugh, decaf tea
23) Nice to see that news broadcasting style doesn't change in the coming centuries
24) "Be the captain that they remember"...good Lord, it's not even subtext any more. This is a full-on love letter to fans of TNG in general and Jean-Luc Picard in particular. No wonder Patrick Stewart was finally excited by the idea of bringing him back
25) He did retire as an Admiral then
26) Interesting line of questioning from the news lady there. Guess we know which way the Federation News Network slants on Romulans
27) "The Romulans asked for our help. And I believed we had a profound obligation to give it". And then she blathers on about how the Romulans were the oldest enemy of the Federation. Trek as social commentary is alive and well
28) Aha, now we hit the actual backstory of the series. Synthetic lifeforms attacked Mars and the orbiting shipyards, killing a huge amount of people and preventing the mass rescue of the Romulans. And then those lifeforms were banned. So...B4 will have been dismantled. But what about the EMHs? Holodeck characters? Could be a hell of a ban to enforce...
29) The series has it's first Picard Speech. And it's a good 'unNews lady probably thought that her Pulitzer was in the bag until he utterly shredded her
30) On the plus side, the girl from earlier now knows where to find Picard
31) Ooh, futuristic irrigation equipment!
32) Sharing another quiet moment in retirement with his pupalup. But Number One has seen or heard something...and like any good guard dog, has gone to see if that something has brought treatsLooks like she's found Picard pretty quickly in the end. I guess transporters help in that regard
33) A crying girl who needs help, a mystery to be solved. Order of business? Fix the cut on her head, get her a cup of tea. Jean-Luc Picard, ladies and gentlemen. Boy have I missed him.
34) Honestly, this is weird. Kurtzman and Beyer must have been to writing classes. Or maybe Michael Chabon was the killer hire. But it's not just that the writing is better than in STD (and it really, really is so far) but it's then been handed to people who can actually act. Obviously, there's Patrick Stewart. But there hasn't been a weak link so far. Isa Briones as mystery girl Dahj is sat the other side of a table from Patrick Stewart and is holding her own. Jamie McShane and Orla Brady are great as the Romulan pair of Zhaban and Laris. Merrin Dungey put in a believable performance as an interviewer out to get a strong reaction from Picard and not knowing what to do with it when she got it
35) "I believe that you believe you were supposed to be here. And if you were dangerous then...Number One would let me know". Number One by this point is looking all kinds of relaxed, flat on the floor
36) Dreaming again. Data, in a TNG series uniform, painting
37) Looks like Picard has figured out part of the mystery then. And he's off to San Fran, and the Starfleet Archives. Bit more of the TNG theme in the soundtrack
38) Dialogue between Picard and Maya Eshet's hologram character here is brilliant
39) Stargazer! And artefacts from his days on the Enterprise
40) Hoo boy. So there's the original painting that Data did. And that is definitely Dahj's face
41) The painting is called "Daughter". But you already knew that Jean-Luc. Even if you weren't sure, you knew it
42) Dahj has made it as far as Paris then
43) See, that's what the phone manufacturers should be working towards. Not folding phones. Holographic phones
44) Oops. That rather gave the game away there lady
45) Didn't take her long to find Picard again. It's a small Earth in the future, especially when you're almost certainly engineered to be even more than Human
46) Oh, that's fun. So she's the one thinking up 'believable' reasons why she knows things, thinking that maybe she's schizophrenic or similar. And Picard is the one insisting that nope, this is you, you're special
47) "Dahj, he painted you. Exactly as you are, in the here and now. But he painted it 30 years ago." And he's told her what the painting is called. Looks like Dahj's week is going to take another sideways turn
48) Can't help but feel that if SMG had been handed this kind of material she would have murdered it with that stupid wide-eyed panic look that seems to be her only way of getting emotion onto the screen
49) Right then Dahj. Jean-Luc Picard has asked you to trust in him. Time to rise to the occasion
50) Whoops, time to run. Patrick very believable here as an old, out-of-practice Picard
51) Dahj channeling ScarJo's Black Widow there
52) So, Romulans are involved. And looks like that's Dahj done. We barely knew ye
53) Picard explaining everything to Zhaban and Laris. And he isn't planning on letting this mystery drop. "I haven't been living. I've been waiting to die." Whoever the 'bad guy' in this series is, they just done goofed. Jean-Luc Picard is back, and he's out to get them
54) Off to Japan we go
55) Here's Alison Pill's character, Dr Agnes Jurati. And we get a little more backstory on the synthetic lifeforms
56) Hoorary for continuity! So Bruce Maddox was in an episode of TNG, "The Measure Of A Man". He wanted to shut down and disassemble Data to reverse-engineer more Soong-type androids. Originally he felt that Data was simply property of Starfleet and had to rights in law to refuse. He got better after the courtroom drama of that episode
57) "I really, really wish that you'd come here on my day off". And so the doctor explains what Maddox was up to
58) Twins then. That explains the necklace. Also explains how they get Isa Briones into more episodes
59) Back out to space, and whatever passes for Romulan territory in 2397
60) Harry Treadaway's Narek there looking a lot like Ethan Peck's Spock
61) And here's Dahj's sister Soji
62) Oh boy. Borg structure
63) And now a preview of the series to come. Dis gon' be good...
Well, that was more like it.
With Star Trek: Discovery, I was dismayed. Dismayed and angry. Trek had gone dark before, particularly with Deep Space Nine. But it always retained some optimism about the future. STD simply felt like a generic grimdark sci-fi series that someone had vaguely adapted to serve as Star Trek. With only a few exceptions, the acting was awful. With even fewer exceptions, the writing and dialogue were worse. Plot holes large enough to be seen from the Moon. Continuity both with the rest of Trek and with itself constantly violated. People who the story said were clever, doing dumb things for dumb reasons, and the story never telling us why. But it found an audience, and at a certain point you start thinking 'well, maybe it is just nostalgia, maybe this is Star Trek now'.
Then Star Trek: Picard was announced. And in spite of the bruising experience of STD a spark flickered in my brain saying "they'll get this one right". Lord knows I had precious little reason to think that, given how wretched STD had been. But if I had faith in nothing else I had faith in Patrick Stewart. And boy did he not disappoint.
The writing
The story and teleplay for this episode were by James Duff, with writing from Michael Chabon, Alex Kurtzman and Kirsten Beyer. Now, to say that I haven't been fond of Kurtzman and Beyer's work on STD would be understating things somewhat. So I can only conclude that either they've been to classes, or Chabon and Duff did good enough work that they couldn't hurt it.
I thought originally that with the episode being only a shade over 40 minutes long after the season preview is lopped off the end that it might end up feeling rushed. Not a bit of it. The story pacing was bang on - quiet, slower moments when it needed to be reflective, fast and noisy when things needed to be urgent. Contrast with the season 2 finale of STD, and the action grinding to a halt while two characters have an incredibly boring conversation that doesn't need to be had and at a time when speed was really of the essence.
I said in my commentary above that this is a Picard who has fallen into the same quicksand that Kirk did ahead of "The Wrath of Khan". Without starship command, life for him doesn't have a purpose. And, like Kirk, Picard decides after events giving him a nudge that 'bugger it, I am not done yet'. The episode started with Picard having retreated into a much smaller world. He had his vineyard, and his dog, and a couple of friends. And while this is a different Picard to when he was last seen, he's believably different. Then the news interview dredged up painful memories that he'd mostly turned his back on. Dahj rocks up needing his help. A mystery to be solved, one that involves his friend, a man who sacrificed his life for Picard. And we see that in other ways, he's exactly the same old Picard. Ready to investigate a puzzle, ready to dispense wisdom, ready to get righteous and stand up and say what needs to be said.
Continuity, visually and with TNG
I am a fiend for continuity in Trek. Mostly because, until recently, it had managed to show over 200 years of history without stumbling all that badly. And here was where things could have gone wrong. Because the STD approach had been...well, there's no way to put it kindly really is there?
So far it seems as though this series follows in the footsteps of the TNG movies with things like the LCARS graphics, the ship aesthetics, even the costuming - though they seem to have reverted to a similar uniform colour scheme to the TV series. And then the crowing moment for me, Picard goes to his storage room at the Starfleet archives. There's the model of the Stargazer, his first command. The model of the Enterprise-E's captains yacht. And the Captain Picard Day banner from "The Pegasus". The showrunners didn't feel the need to muck around with the look of any of it. Good for them. Let's see how they do for the rest of the series.
Acting
Of the cast that we've seen in the story so far I have no complaints. None. Isa Briones is great as Dahj, a scared young woman who doesn't understand what has happened to her but knows what she has to do. Jamie McShane and Orla Brady play Picard's Romulan friends Zhaban and Laris, and are very believable as an alien couple who clearly feel great affection for Picard, and that they owe a debt of gratitude to him for attempting to save their culture. I will say that Brady plays the most Irish Romulan seen on Trek yet, but we can simply say that she learned Federation Standard from an Irishman. Or the universal translator renders her native Romulan accent as Irish for some reason
And what of Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner, the only returning character actors we've seen so far? As I noted in my commentary, Brent Spiner still has the Data voice nailed. Yes, he's aged since the last film. He'd aged a lot from "Encounter At Farpoint" to "Nemesis" anyway. But we're also only seeing him in Picard's dreams, so it's easy to imagine that he might look a little 'off'. Close your eyes, and you simply see Data from TNG. And Patrick Stewart...as I've said above, this is a Picard that is both quite different in some ways and exactly the same man in others as in TNG. And Stewart plays him so ******* well. It's ridiculous how good he is.
Visual effects and sets
Something that all Trek has done, even STD, has been to keep Earth locations looking fairly consistent. San Francisco has all the hallmarks you'd expect. Paris and Boston look like believable 24th century versions of those places. And the Picard family vineyard in La Barre looks quite a lot like it did in TNG's "Family". Top marks.
Space, or at least what we've seen of it so far, looks stunning. The CGI Enterprise-D is pretty good, though doesn't quite match up to the 4ft model created for TNG season 3 onwards in my eyes. What can I say, I like model shots for Trek starships rather than CGI
Concluding remarks
If anything I might be a bit more angry about STD now. Because Star Trek: Picard looks like it's going to show that you can indeed still make a good Star Trek show in this day and age. If they can keep the writing standard up, and the rest of the ensemble cast turns out as good as the people we've seen so far (and I've got no reason to assume that they won't) then this series will be a winner.
Can't wait for next week!
Regarding y'alls warp speed conversation...
Warp factor cubed x speed of light was the scale in TOS (so Warp 1 is the speed of light, 2 is 8 times C, 3 is 27C, 4 is 64C, 5 is 125C and so on). In TNG they made it a little more complicated
Soldato
Warp 10 was redefined for the TNG era as infinite speed. Though Geordi does have a line in "Where No One Has Gone Before" about how "we're passing warp 10" when they get thrown waaaaaaaaay off to the far side of M33 (2.7 million light years from our galaxy) by The Traveler. Put that one down to early instalment weirdness.
Of course then Voyager had to go ahead and do its thing. So the crew of a ship stranded a long way from home build a shuttle that can do Warp 10 (remember, infinite speed). Member of the crew takes it out, does infinite speed, comes back. Starts to mutate (because Magic Happy Fun Time With DNA™), kidnaps the captain, takes her off to do infinite speed again. Voyager then finds them close by (what are the odds on that, d'you suppose?), they've both mutated into salamanders of a kind by this point and had babies. The doctor then uses Science™ to get them back to normal.
Voyager had a few good episodes, that one was not one of them
Caporegime
Very good. A week is a long time 
Warp 10 was redefined for the TNG era as infinite speed. Though Geordi does have a line in "Where No One Has Gone Before" about how "we're passing warp 10" when they get thrown waaaaaaaaay off to the far side of M33 (2.7 million light years from our galaxy) by The Traveler. Put that one down to early instalment weirdness.
Of course then Voyager had to go ahead and do its thing. So the crew of a ship stranded a long way from home build a shuttle that can do Warp 10 (remember, infinite speed). Member of the crew takes it out, does infinite speed, comes back. Starts to mutate (because Magic Happy Fun Time With DNA™), kidnaps the captain, takes her off to do infinite speed again. Voyager then finds them close by (what are the odds on that, d'you suppose?), they've both mutated into salamanders of a kind by this point and had babies. The doctor then uses Science™ to get them back to normal.
Voyager had a few good episodes, that one was not one of them
Not to mention they made the Borg out to be utterly incompetent in numerous episodes. They basically became comedy villains in that show after a while.
A new low for Star Trek
Picard is made by people not having a clue about Star Trek, for people not bothered about Star Trek and science.
Seriously
cloning 2 Mary Sues from Data's DNA? HE WAS A FRICKING ANDROID. FULL MECHANICAL HAD NO DNA!
solar panels on the Golden Bridge, on the 23rd CENTURY? We have better than Fusion power sources sending ships to deep space at thousands of time the speed of light, yet we try to save the planet from CO2 emissions?
Which ******* thought to use a head bag to kidnap someone, dragging them and not a transporter?
can rant more in the spoiler section.
This is not Star Trek.
Ooooh, cool edgy comment!!!
I thought it was great - looking forward to the next episode. So many references to TNG.
Soldato
I dunno. I can see your point, but I think the episode didn't exactly suffer for the emotional hit of Dahj's death. And Picard's reaction to her death, when he says he should have done more, ties in neatly with what his friends said about him being too hard on himself. He feels that Dahj is dead because he failed, and you can bet dollars to donuts that he'll move heaven, Earth and everything in-between to protect her sister.
I can't entirely dump on Voyager for screwing up the Borg, because as soon as they were introduced in TNG the writers started corrupting the original vision of them. They went from being utterly disinterested in people in their first appearance (only interested in technology) to space vampires (they want to convert you into becoming one of them) to then suddenly having a queen (so instead of being a group mind they're merely worker drones serving a single intelligence).
They were a threat in tng though, in Voyager the more they appeared the dumber they seemed to get. They just got watered down heavily through numerous encounters, instead of being used sparingly. In first contact they were very threatening as well despite (as usual) only one cube being sent.
Yes, they did it so early the audience doesn't get a chance to get invested in Dahj, which really doubles up on why even do it that way?
Here's a character you'll get attached to (not really, because she's new), oh she's killed, what an emotional hit (not really, because we hardly got a chance to know her), psyche! it's a meaningless death because we've got another one of those characters here, so no reason for you to care. I'm sure it's so that we can see OP Dahj and find out she's a synthetic, but then not have to deal with the consequences of such an OP character. It's a typical Kurtzman dick move.
It's just to kick Picard off the sofa for the sister, but he was off it for Dahj anyway. Plus I liked Dahj's hair better than her sister's.
Here's a character you'll get attached to (not really, because she's new), oh she's killed, what an emotional hit (not really, because we hardly got a chance to know her), psyche! it's a meaningless death because we've got another one of those characters here, so no reason for you to care. I'm sure it's so that we can see OP Dahj and find out she's a synthetic, but then not have to deal with the consequences of such an OP character. It's a typical Kurtzman dick move.
It's just to kick Picard off the sofa for the sister, but he was off it for Dahj anyway. Plus I liked Dahj's hair better than her sister's.
Soldato
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Seven of nine had a couple of high yield photon torpedos
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Still would as well
51? damn
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Soldato
Warp 10 was redefined for the TNG era as infinite speed. Though Geordi does have a line in "Where No One Has Gone Before" about how "we're passing warp 10" when they get thrown waaaaaaaaay off to the far side of M33 (2.7 million light years from our galaxy) by The Traveler. Put that one down to early instalment weirdness.
Of course then Voyager had to go ahead and do its thing. So the crew of a ship stranded a long way from home build a shuttle that can do Warp 10 (remember, infinite speed). Member of the crew takes it out, does infinite speed, comes back. Starts to mutate (because Magic Happy Fun Time With DNA™), kidnaps the captain, takes her off to do infinite speed again. Voyager then finds them close by (what are the odds on that, d'you suppose?), they've both mutated into salamanders of a kind by this point and had babies. The doctor then uses Science™ to get them back to normal.
Voyager had a few good episodes, that one was not one of them
Dont forget Crusher's ship doing warp 13 in All Good Things' anti-time future.
Caporegime
Lol. Made me chuckle. Nice one