1.01: Star Trek: Picard - Remembrance

ctg

weaver of the unseen
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At the end of the 24th Century, and 14 years after his retirement from Starfleet, Jean-Luc Picard is living a quiet life on his vineyard, Chateau Picard. When he is sought out by a mysterious young woman, Dahj, in need of his help, he soon realizes she may have personal connections to his own past.
 
It's finally here, multiple times cancelled, and then renewed to all of our surprise by the CBS. This time you won't find it from the Netflix, instead CBS sold the product to Amazon. Therefore if you'll have access, I warmly recommend checking it out. Not that you really can keep your eyes out if you are a true Trekkie.

The Remembrance is a beautiful episode, an idyllic setting for our beloved Captain Picard... or should I say retaired StarFleet Admiral Picard, who to our surprise lead the StarFleet to rescue Romulus from a supernova destruction. But it wasn't that thing that made him to quit. It was the death of data and the uprise of the synthetic lifeforms. According to Picard they took over and set Mars on fire, before all synths were banned in the galaxy.

Think about it. They still have AI's, holograms, supercomputers, quantum storages, and all the other ultratechnology you can image for the galaxy spanning civilisation. But they do not have synthetic lifeforms, anywhere. At least not in the Federal Space that we know of, but when you look at the big picture, nothing has changed. It is still the same that it was, when Star Trek Discovery takes place and I am certain the black glad Romulans has something to do with the Section 13.

In fact, when you think about the thread the Discovery tried to prevent, it is still present. And with the current technology level, it should have no problem on finding enough of information about everything. But if we drop that and assume that the AI apocalypse never happens, then Dahjl presents a revolution in everything they knew.

What I don't like is that revelation about the sister being inside the derelict Borg cube. In theory they could have found a way to replicate, even update the outdated synthetic technology, and create the flesh-and-blood analogues. We know that similar kind of theories or rather hypothesis has talked about the soul transfer, or ghosts-in-the-machine, but so far nobody has been able to prove it. We don't exactly have a technology to do that, but in the ST Universe it should be possible. After all they brought Spock back from the death. They created a planet full of life. They even had the test bed and research for data, without ever being able to really replicate him.

Everything failed.

But according to Picard, and the revelation about the Other, they somehow managed to do the impossible. Where does it lead and how far into the dark side it leads? Would the Romulans be able to backengineer a Borg Cube? Or is a galactic rebellion faction that is on the case?
 
So, what I feared has indeed come to pass. "Picard" has now confirmed the moronic turn of events prior to the Kelvin timeline as official canon. (I know it's been over 10 years now, but I'm still bitter. My therapists tell me to let it go, but I just can't, okay?)

I find the Federation's stance on the exodus of Romulus a bit puzzling. The Federation also helped the Klingons after Praxis and the Cardassians recover and they are jointly responsible for billions more dead than the Romulans.
I'm dreading the "twist" where his Romulan friends on the vineyard turn out to be the baddies all along

Having said all that, I'm hopeful for the rest, as Picard feels and acts like himself. Patrick Stewart is a joy as always and the production values and attention to detail are impressive.
It "feels" like Star Trek.
 
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Much better than I had feared. From some of the rumors I had heard my expectations were low. Screw all that. It was pretty good. I'm not saying they still don't have time to mess the whole thing up but some of my optimism has returned. Let's hope this is more Mandalorian than Last Jedi or Fall of Skywalker.
 
For a moment I thought I would check it out on Amazon but it looks like I would need Cbs All Access to see it? which I'm not getting. Anyway it says content not available.
 
For a moment I thought I would check it out on Amazon but it looks like I would need Cbs All Access to see it? which I'm not getting. Anyway it says content not available.
I would give it a few days. Amazon's response time isn't exactly warp speed and their servers are probably overwhelmed right now.
 
I just watched it on Amazon in France.

Tying up lots of old themes very well (so far). Looking forward to the next episode.
 
Ok so that's the first trek in a long while that I've really really enjoyed!

And its not monster of the week format which is honestly so very refreshing and feels like it builds off the work that DS9 started all those years ago with a long story arc structure.

As for the Federations stance on the Romulans that makes sense to me. The Romulans were never all that nice to the Federation, indeed for the greater part of the time we see them the Federation and Romulans basically exist in a Cold War style situation. One where the Romulans kept trying to tip the scales into full on war. Heck the battle where Data lost his life was one such attempt at a strike into the heart of the Federation by a Romulan government.
Then suddenly this race who has sat on the brink of near war with the Federation for several (human) generations needs help. Clearly the fallout from that war had far reaching effects to the point where the Romulans lacked the facilities to evacuate their own people from their threatened worlds before the supernova. We might learn more of this - it might be that their culture and society finally hit a breaking point before the supernova which then sparked even more collapse. For them to need the Federation suggests strongly that they were in need of help in a big way.

Then when the Federation starts to help their rescue fleet gets destroyed along with a world only a stones throw from Earth. I can well see that sending the political end of the Federation into a fearful mode of withdrawing rather than striking out to continue the rescue effort. Especially if the greater body of those willing and able to help went up with the planet. Chances are rescue work of their own close to home as well as policing and curtailing the synthetic risk might well have caused them to shut down rescue efforts and redirect resources toward ventures closer to home. Whilst the Romulans had worlds about to die; they were sitting atop one burning so chances are there was still a lot of rescue work on Mars to be undertaken.

They've teased the story out to us well and the pace and tone feel very right for Picard. If anything the filmwork and style play directly into his strengths as an actor.




As a side note I like how Number One is a pit. A little bit of a modern element creeping in there from the UK certainly in that pits are a breed who have come under a lot of pressure (I think they might even be on the banned dangerous dogs list) mostly because of those who owned them using them for dog fights. That's a little hint of something that ST always had in it in being a bit progressive for its time and age on social aspects (remembering way back in Original we had women on the command deck and people of multiple ethic backgrounds. Something we'd not bat an eyelid at today, but was quite a big thing back then in comparison).



As for technological advance, lets not forget characters like DATA and the Doctor from Voyager (I believe I'm right that this is set after Voyagers return?) were exceptions to the normal in the extreme. Androids and artificial life is clearly still a mystery to the Federation. Data was purpose made, but the Doctor was more like an accident. A chance event that they've likely still not been able to faithfully replicate.
The life-creation device from the earlier film (I've forgotten its name) was also banned technology as well. Chances are it relied upon understandings that have been lost to the sciences of the Federation.

In general its rare that one person in any given age has the sole understanding required to unlock a scientific discovery. Often we think only of one person, when in reality there were several and the one history remembers is just the one who got there first or made the most noise about it. Yet every so often there's a genius years ahead of their time who lands upon a understanding and discovery that is almost unique to them. It's not that it could never be discovered again, but that it was just such a leap of understanding that its going to take a rare individual to find it all again. Lets not forget there are scientific discoveries that were made and then lost in history that took hundreds of years to resurface again. Plus there's still things form the past that we don't know of today (things like Greek Fire). The fact that the Federation also has these limits is no surprise. Though of course I think with th way Trek is made we've always accepted some degree of suspensions of "within world" disbelief as through episodes we've seen huge leaps of technology on display here and there throughout all the series.
 
I loved it. I did think they maybe rushed it a bit to get things underway, which made some of the exposition feel a teensy bit clunky, but apart from that, yeah, good stuff. The music really touched me at times, too - there were some lovely hints of old themes from both TNG and TOS. I can't believe they're making me wait a week for the next episode. In this day and age. Sheesh! :LOL:
 
Excellent opening episode - superb special effects and production values. Intriguing plot that seeks to balance excitement and pathos, while retaining mystery - very well done.

This is the Star Trek I've waited decades for.

Very atmospheric, too, and there's almost something of Bladerunner in the flavour.

My only complaint is that the opening music appears a little forgettable so far, but the animations are beautiful.

Can't wait to watch more!
 
Part Bourne Identity, part Logan, part Shakespeare, all Trek!

There was a lot to take in in this first episode but it was captivating from the first few moments. This is the sort of feeling lacking in the risible STD. I was expecting Stewart to be a little rusty portraying Picard but there was none of that. He fully inhabited the role with ease. The rest of the cast took their cues from him and it worked beautifully. All too often when an actor reprises a role after years away it feels like a hollow effort but didn't happen.

The loss of Romulus is disappointing but perhaps that is where the story is heading, to erase the dreadful Kelvin line. Fingers crossed. The rest of the story is developing nicely and is vastly more entertaining than that other programme. I was *ahem* engaged in the story from the very first moments. Granted I'm biased but I hope I would have had the strength to call the show out if it had been awful.

I have always preferred Star Trek to Star Wars and both have taken a beating in the last twenty years but now Star Trek is back! I'm so excited by this and cannot wait for the next episode. Roll on Thursdays.
 
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One thing I don't understand, when the phaserifle went critical and exploded, why it didn't damage the roof, the stairs and the railings?
 
Well, that was enjoyable!
I never liked ST Discovery and didn't watch it beyond season 1. I found it over the top on all accounts; visuals, plot, characters, especially the Klingons.
Thankfully, with ST Picard they got it right, in every aspect. Keep it coming!
 
I've seen the first ep now.

My thoughts (SPOILER ALERT):
I loved the opening shot with the camera closing in on the Enterprise D (which had some interesting design modifications) and going through the window into to the room.. the kind of shot you always wanted to see as a kid watching TNG but knew they couldn't really do effectively (well not without spending some heavy money lol, which is kind of ironic considering the 60s failed trek pilot sort of has a camera through bridge window shot)..

I enjoyed the whole episode but I feel like I can't quite give judgement yet. I need to know more about what's going on and need to see how things pan out story wise.

Also the zero mention of Lal and Lore seems a bit strange in a world where the daystrom institute desperately wanted to replicate Data. I mean what happened to their parts after they were disassembled? B4 was in a drawer so where's the Lal and Lore drawers haha?

First thought was.. did the writers forget them?.. but that seems unlikely consider they brought Hugh back which means they clearly remember Descent 1 & 2 which Lore was in. The whole Daughter 2.0 storyline suggests the Lal episode is something they know too. Plus Frakes directed that one and he's involved in Picard.
 

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