MovieChat Forums > Star Trek: Picard (2020) Discussion > How do you fans get over the fact that..

How do you fans get over the fact that..

posted a year ago by msegmx (435)
29 replies | jump to latest

.. the Picard of S3 is actually a robot now?

He was a robot in S2, true (I only watched the first 2 episodes in hope that Q would turn him back to human form).

They try to sell S3 as the ST we (old fans) were all waiting for. Yet, I can't (and won't) watch it mainly because the titular character, good old Picard is dead.

Seeing Riker, Worf, Beverly, and the rest of the crew interacting with a facsimile, a robot as if that's the person they had all those adventures with... it doesn't work for me.

Also, a TNG send-off show/movie *without* Data and Q?? They killed both of them off, too, for what reason exactly?

How do you guys get over these *little* facts?

[–] AmeriGirl26 (12472) 8 months ago

I don't acknowledge any of Kurtzman's shitty fanfics as "canon" when it comes to Star Trek.

[–] msegmx (435) 8 months ago

Amen to that.

Obviously, Kurtzman and co don't value the source material. They just use ST as a 'tool', which he admitted in an interview.

[–] AmeriGirl26 (12472) 8 months ago

I can barely tolerate what they've done to Star Trek Online. I usually skip playing the Shitscovery episodes, though they did a better job with elements of those in the story about the Mirror-Universe V-Ger that came out last year. I had a great time seeing the evil Tilly get whacked >:) and the evil Janeway and evil Leeta are fun, hehehe. It was really weird seeing my Mirror-Universe self and playing her in some parts of the story.

What makes me sad is, they've gotten rid of a lot of the older storylines they had when the game came out in 2010, and I miss some of them. We had one where Miral Paris was kidnapped by a crazy, evil, time-traveling Klingon "ambassador," and we had to chase him to the TOS era and got to meet his younger self, as well as the Klingons who needed Miral's DNA to fix the augment virus that made them look more human in that time period. (They finally came up with a plausible story behind why the Klingons looked different in Kirk's time).

They now have a planet you can visit that feels like the Star Trek equivalent of "Tattooine/Dune," but it's called Nimbus III and has Gorn as well as Orions and Romulans causing trouble there. They even have giant sandworms called Aehallh (ay-HALL-uh) that you can fight on foot.

There are several 5-episode story arcs that used to be available at certain levels, but if you make a new character now, you can only play them at level 60, which is so unfair :(

[–] UncleRuckis (2562) a month ago

Every person in the Trek universe is already a facsimile since transporters are people copying death machines! Even before the robot body, that was probably the 5000th version of Picard.

[–] msegmx (435) a month ago

IIRC, the Star Trek writers thought of the beaming process as a ‘matter stream’, primarily to avoid dealing with questions such as ‘what happens to the soul?’. In other words, in Star Trek, the transported person is not copied to the destination, but rather, transported via a matter stream.

But then, there is Thomas Riker (among other incidents). The transporter tech is inconsistent in how it works.

Turning Picard into a robot did not add anything to his character or story. It was a decision made by incompetent writers who just don’t care.

[–] UncleRuckis (2562) a month ago

Which I don't buy, as we've seen the transporter "malfunction" and make duplicates of people. Or like with Tuvix when it made a new regular sized freak instead of a 350 pound monstrosity. Where that extra mass get transported to? I think it's a big conspiracy to keep people from realizing that they are prestiging themselves every time they get beamed.

[–] msegmx (435) a month ago

Seems like different writers had different interpretations of how transporters work throughout the years.

There was this DS9 episode, where, as a result of a power outage, some crew members were trapped inside the transporter buffer and appeared as characters in a holodeck program. In other words, they were bits inside the memory of the transporter. That's also why they couldn't reboot the station computers to solve the problem the power outage created.

But then, there was the TNG episode where Barclay was seeing creatures inside the matter stream and could even grab them.

In-universe, a possible explanation would be that there are different transporter models; some of them kill off the original and create a copy, whereas other models use a matter stream.

In reality, I think the writers and creators of ST simply thought of the transporter as a "magical" device that simply sends the person or object to the destination without killing them off or creating a copy. After all, beaming was only introduced to keep production costs low; "beaming down to a planet" was way cheaper than creating special effects of a landing shuttlepod.

Either way, there was no good reason for turning Picard into a robot.

[–] Keelai (32145) a month ago

I had the impression that Picard's consciousness/soul was transferred to a synthetic body. That's similar to Spock's consciousness/soul transferred to a new body in Search for Spock and Harry Mudd's androids promising Uhura she could receive an android body so she would never grow old. I assumed they would've transferred her consciousness, also.

They could've created a clone body for Picard, but maybe that's considered unethical?

If you think about it, all human bodies are completely renewed every 7-10 years since our cells are constantly being replaced with new ones.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/cellular-microscopic/does-body-really-replace-seven-years.htm

Picard could practically live forever in a synthetic body. Trek science was always imaginative. It always seemed impossible until it wasn't anymore like flip phones aka communicators, computers, iPads, etc.

re: transporter. We're all energy just swirling around, anyway. Nothing solid really exists. The only reason we can hold a pen or sit in a chair is because the energy repels each other. If you can deconstruct atoms and reconstruct them elsewhere, then there's some interesting things that can take place. atoms = Play-doh.

[–] msegmx (435) a month ago

Personally, I was never a fan of Spock’s resurrection in ST:III, but at least he’s an alien.

Also, not all of our cells and organs renew 100% throughout life. Different articles provide different information on that topic.

But back to Picard; in my opinion, the writers of the first two seasons are incapable of writing good science-fiction stories. Turning Picard into a robot was just the result of that.

Picard’s robot body has a built-in lifespan; he’s going to die even as a robot. You must have missed that part.

See, you try so hard to explain the writers’ decision to turn him into a robot using generalizations and science. Suppose a scientist were to turn your pet or even a loved one into a robot, just like Picard’s. Would you still say “atoms = Play-doh”?

I don’t believe in a soul (or anything supernatural for that matter), yet I couldn’t simply say “ok, whatever, we’re all just energy anyway” and move on, even if it’s just a fictional character from a show I enjoyed watching while growing up. If you can, then kudos to you, I guess.

[–] Keelai (32145) a month ago

I HATED when Alien's Ripley was turned into a robot especially after the actress insisted her character should be killed off. She was just a copy.

Soul was my term. Instead, I'll use consciousness which exists. There already is precedent that it could be transferred with half-alien Spock and the Uhura android body temptation scene.

Star Trek always pushed science in unexpected and exciting directions so I'm intrigued by the concept of consciousness transfer to a new body. I had to refresh my memory since it's been a long time since I watched that scene. I found this:

"Altan developed an object known as a golem. His creation wasn't too dissimilar from the true definition of a golem, except he created it to transfer his consciousness into at the event of his own death, allowing him to essentially live forever... Altan, along with Dr. Agnes Jurati, decided to use the golem on Picard and transfer his consciousness into the synthetic body. The new body was a carbon copy of his physical one."
https://gamerant.com/star-trek-picard-synthetic-body-explained/

So it is the real Picard!

True it wasn't necessary to kill off Picard's physical body, but the idea of consciousness transfer is intriguing. I like that a scientist figured out a way to do it in the Trek future. That's something today's scientists want to do - immortality:

"Previous ideas on mind uploading rely on scanning postmortem brains for a digital reconstruction of the brain’s circuitry. However, Watanabe argues that in these cases, ‘you’ are unfortunately not the one that lives on. In contrast, he presents a process where our own consciousness seamlessly continues in a digital arena."
https://researchfeatures.com/rethinking-consciousness/

My energy comment was in response to your comment about transporters. That technology and replicators must have related technology. Matter can be transported and/or restructured into different objects including food. I could see how unusual transporter problems could occur.

[–] msegmx (435) a month ago

Again, Picard is not immortal in his new body:

https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/star-trek-picard-finale-death-golem-explained/

How long will Picard live?

... This android body is not immortal, and Jurati says that the new body will give Jean-Luc “about the same number of years that he would have expected.”

I enjoyed "Transcendence" with Johnny Depp, as well as the novel "Press Send" on the same topic that I read years ago, but this body switch didn’t contribute anything to Picard's character and was totally unnecessary. Even Patrick Stewart didn't know about Picard's fate up until late into the season.

[–] Keelai (32145) a month ago

" Picard is not immortal in his new body"

I know. That's only because the actor is old in real life. If the situation were real, it would make more sense for him to be given a younger body rather than a 96-year-old which is Picard's age. Same with Data who should not have aged, but the actor has no control over looking older.

Doesn't the body switch rid him of the Borg influence which still exists in his lifeless physical body and was inherited by his son? The Changelings wanted Picard's body and his son. It's explained in season 3.

"Transcendence"
I'll consider that a recommendation. Thanks.

Another movie was "Prelude to a Kiss" when a young woman and old man's consciousness are switched. The theme appears to be common.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about Picard.

[–] FootOfDavros (6889) a month ago

I raised this same question on another thread here.

That was after I'd watched season 1, given up on this after an episode and a half of season 2, and was trying to decide whether to watch season 3 (I'd read you could simply ignore season 2 all together).

Anyway, it turned out that season 3 was pretty awesome and definitely one, if not the best fan service / revivals we've had. Skim a little of the fat and this would be an equal to the best of the TNG films...

So the best way to "get over" anything would simply be to just watch season 3 and ignore the rest. Pretty much no need for seasons 1 or 2.

[–] msegmx (435) a month ago

I totally agree, no other ST show or season produced in recent years comes close.

[–] BKB (6450) a month ago

A Robot?? Surprised they haven't tried to resurrect Captain Kirk in robot form?? William Shatner at age 93 would shoot this down