![]() ![]() Comments by co-creator Alex Kurtzman, which indicate that the show’s larger arc will find the newly cynical Picard finding his way back to the optimism of the original Star Trek, at least indicate that the creative team has thought hard about the difficulty and the value of Star Trek’s overarching ethos, and what it might mean in 2020.Īnd maybe Picard will eventually pull that off. And if that future seems unattainable in our actual present, which all its political and environmental grim, it also infuses Star Trek with a newly urgent sense of aspirationalism and catharsis. If Star Wars has turned out to be, however unintentionally, a pessimistic parable for an era of perpetual war, Star Trek offers an openly optimistic vision of the future. The irony of it all is that 2020 feels like a perfect time for a new Star Trek cut from the classic mold. ![]() Now, a new Star Trek movie might be on the way from Fargo and Legion showrunner Noah Hawley-but it’s not even clear if his movie would be a sequel to Star Trek Beyond or a whole new reboot. Meanwhile, Quentin Tarantino openly teased the possibility of directing an R-rated Star Trek movie for more than a year before apparently abandoning the project. Clarkson was slated to become the first female director to helm a Star Trek movie, which would have seen Kirk travel back in time to meet his dad (played, as in 2009’s Star Trek, by Chris Hemsworth). The relatively weak box-office performance of Star Trek Beyond (and the untimely death of cast member Anton Yelchin) has left the future of that franchise in limbo, and no one can quite commit to where it should go next.Īt one point, S.J. There’s also the question of what to do with the rebooted movie series that launched in 2009, which hasn’t seen a new installment since 2016. Apart from an animated children’s series that may still be in development at Nickelodeon, Star Trek’s future on television may live entirely behind the paywall at CBS All Access-even as the diversity of those projects makes it clear that a Star Trek series can be pretty much anything.īut at least CBS All Access is giving Star Trek the chance to stretch out and try some new things. Meanwhile, an adult-oriented animated comedy called Star Trek: Lower Decks, by one of the creative minds behind Rick and Morty, is slated to premiere sometime this year. Sister show Star Trek: Discovery, which is set centuries before Picard, isn’t bad-but after two seasons, it’s still mostly playing to the Star Trek faithful who loved the franchise enough to pony up for CBS All Access. Let’s count off where things stand as Picard premieres. Why can’t Picard do the same?īut even if this new series works for you from the jump, it raises a bigger question: Is this what Star Trek is now? The past decade has seen the Star Trek franchise pass through the hands of a number of creatives, and their visions have rarely congealed-or turned Star Trek into the kind of mainstream, multi-platform franchise Hollywood is hungry to reverse-engineer. And Next Generation had been on TV for more than a year, and endured some very public creative rejiggering, before it managed to put its best foot forward. That Episode 3 ending does seem to herald a more classically Star Trek direction for the show, and trailers have teased the return of some familiar fan-favorite characters who don’t appear in the first three episodes at all. It’s possible that a course correction is already on the way. And while Next Generation’s episodic format also led to some of the most brilliant stories in the entire Star Trek franchise, it’s pretty archaic by modern standards. There are 178 Next Generation episodes many have aged poorly, many are inessential, and more than a few are awful. But while the entirety of Star Trek: The Next Generation is available on Netflix right now, I can’t think of a worse way to watch it. The boom in heavily serialized prestige television-and the way that the streaming era has encouraged binge-watching entire seasons at a time-has also trained viewers to treat every single episode of a series as equally important. Picard does its best to be accessible, but modern TV audiences are completists in a way that they weren’t when Next Generation originally aired, and by 2020 standards, Star Trek: The Next Generation is a hard show to get into. ![]() There are at least two audiences for Star Trek: Picard: The audience that already loves Star Trek: The Next Generation, which introduced Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard more than 30 years ago, is probably pre-sold on the idea of the captain boldly going across the final frontier one last time, and they’ll get at least some of what they want from it.īut I’m more interested in the other audience: Those who are intrigued by Picard but don’t know anything about Next Generation. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |