star trek picard vs kirk

Kirk vs Picard: Who is the best Star Trek captain?

The debate surrounding Kirk vs Picard has been raging on since the late 80s, but can we finally settle the dilemma?

• Command style
• Personality

Kirk vs Picard. It’s probably one of the oldest pop-culture debates that is still going on, as well as being one of the nerdiest. Since the late 80s, when Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) hit, fans have been divided. Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, a suave and debonair diplomat, or William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, a rough-and-ready, old-school man of action — who was the best captain of the USS Enterprise?

Since then, you’ll find no shortage of fans debating one way or the other. Fans of Star Trek: The Original Series prize Kirk for his rough and tumble attitude, and the cheesy, over-the-top style of his acting that matches the show around him. On the other hand, fans of TNG prefer Picard for his sophistication, his commanding demeanor, and the classically trained actor that portrays him.

No matter which side of the fence you sit on, if you’re a Star Trek fan then the discussion has almost certainly come up at least once. To this day, there is no general consensus on exactly which version of the character worked the best. Both characters have different things that make them appealing, and it’s hard to argue objectively one way or the other. 

Hard, but not impossible. That’s exactly what we're going to do right here. We’ll pit each captain of the Enterprise against each other, looking at their command style and personality to see who comes out on top. 

If you want to catch up on the exploits of both captains before you make your mind up, check out our Star Trek streaming guide to see where you can watch both shows online. You can also check out our Star Trek movies in chronological order guide too.

Kirk vs Picard: Command style

When it comes to running his ship, Kirk was very much a man of two minds. He was certainly a capable tactician, with many of his exploits becoming required reading in the Starfleet Academy. He stuck to his own moral compass, even when that meant breaking important rules, or trampling over some civilizations’ cultural customs. He was also a man who was capable of extreme aggression and anger, to the detriment of his mission, if rarely to the crew or ship he commanded.

Kirk was also a man who very much relied on his close friends to balance out his personality. He was passionate, sometimes to a fault, so Spock had to bring him down to a logical level. Similarly, he was sometimes overly gung-ho, meaning McCoy (aka Bones) fulfilled the role of his conscious. The Enterprise wouldn't have functioned nearly as well if either of these two weren't there to help Jim through the tough times.

In terms of his command style, Picard was very different from Kirk. He was incredibly strict and efficient, rarely relying on his passions or emotions. He was quick to anger, but very rarely let it control his decision-making. Picard was also a trained diplomat, which did have an impact on the way he ran his ship, making him much more likely to seek a verbal solution, rather than one based on immediate action.

Having said that, it’s not like Picard was perfect. He had personal attachments with several crew members that did occasionally interfere with how he commanded his crew, in particular Beverly Crusher and her much-maligned son, Wesley. Picard’s preference for words over action has endangered the crew of the ship once or twice, though his solid decision-making often saved the day in the end.

Kirk vs Picard: Personality

Personality-wise, Kirk is usually sold to outsiders as a horny womanizer. While that image is not without merit, it’s also true that his womanizing is somewhat blown out of proportion. For the most part, his character in the original series is staunchly pro-woman, defending reproductive rights and a woman's right to say no to a potential romantic partner on numerous occasions. If you only take into account the original canon, his number of confirmed partners hit around 9 or 10. Looking back, Kirk might seem like a bit of a sleazy horndog, but at the time he was positively forward thinking as characters go.

Outside of the bedroom, Kirk is an everyman. He doesn’t see himself, or in fact his officers, as above the rest of the crew. That’s part of the reason why he’s so willing to jump right in and put himself in harm’s way. He also cares deeply for the lives of his crew, as displayed on several occasions. Not only has Kirk done his utmost to preserve the lives of others, even at the expense of his own, but he’s been shown to take an interest in the personal lives of his crew, like when he went out of his way to run an ill-fated wedding for two of his crew members.

It can't be denied that Kirk has a dark and aggressive side. However, in one particular episode he addresses this and builds close personal relationships that help him to balance out those parts of himself; Spock and McCoy aren’t just officers, and at various times you get a very clear impression that they’re some of his closest friends. Without them, he would actively be a worse captain, and he knows it. They’re not just integral to the running of his ship, but an important part of his life and effectively act as his conscious.

When it comes to personality, Picard is quite a bit different from Kirk. Both are men of principle, Picard is much more reserved and restrained than Kirk. You can see that Picard cares deeply for the lives of those under his command, but he doesn’t rely on his officers in the same way that Kirk does. Although Riker does occasionally have to push Picard towards action rather than diplomacy at times, Picard often has a more balanced approach to problems than Kirk does when he’s separated from his officers and crew.

Compared to Kirk, Picard feels a bit more detached from his crew, yet he knows how to delegate and often does. While Picard is not unwilling to put himself into a position of danger, he acts more like an officer than a soldier. That’s not to say he’s okay sending his crew to their deaths, far from it, but he does seem to understand that it’s sometimes inevitable and is prepared to bear that burden. Indeed, while Kirk very much wears his heart on his sleeve, Picard is considerably more introspective. He carries a lot of pain with him and is often seen in turmoil over his past decisions and traumas.

Winner: Picard

No matter what answer you arrive at when it comes to the Kirk vs Picard question, you’re going to upset people. The truth is that both of these captains are brilliant in their own right. If you divorce the characters from the quality of the shows, it basically comes down to how you feel a ship should be run. The reason that Picard squeaks out a victory here is mostly based on his numerous unfair advantages.

The Next Generation is set over 100 years after The Original Series. Not only has deep space exploration been going on for over a century, meaning they’re not wrestling with the unknown as often, but the Federation is no longer one step away from war with the Klingons. Kirk almost certainly had to be more action-oriented because he was often working with little to no information. As information allows for more diplomacy, that gives Picard a slight edge here.

No matter how you personally feel about the shows, the characters, or the actors, you have to agree that the series wouldn’t be where it is today if it weren’t for both of these captains. They’ll forever be part of the legacy of Star Trek, which ensures that this debate will still be going on by the time we actually hit the year 2265. Also, you know the best Star Trek captain is Benjamin Sisko anyway... If you want more Star Trek content, be sure to check out our Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best article to see which captain gave us the best movie in the franchise.

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Star Trek: 10 Reasons Kirk Is a Better Captain Than Picard (And 10 That Prove Picard Takes the Cake)

One Captain got to wear a Green Lantern ring, the other is loved by John McClane from Die Hard. Which Captain is superior: Kirk or Picard?

At first glance, Captain James Tiberius Kirk and Captain Jean-Luc Picard couldn't be more different. However, let's look at what both men have accomplished in their illustrious careers at Starfleet, shall we? Kirk was the Captain of two Enterprises (NCC-1701 and NCC-1701-A) and Picard was the Captain of two ships named Enterprise (NCC-1701-D and NCC-1701-E). Kirk was considered an enemy of the Federation ( Star Trek III: The Search For Spock ) and so was Picard (transformed into Locutus by the Borg and attacked Earth while in command of a Borg cube). Kirk has traveled back in time on numerous occasions and so has Picard. But deep down, you know that they're very different Captains. The galaxy is a big place, but it's not big enough for the both of them! Let's finally decide who is the superior Captain: the guy from Iowa or the guy from France?

Kirk is cool, but does he have an actual day named after him? You may like Picard, but has brought a species back from literal extinction? If John McClane from the Die Hard series were to choose his favorite Captain, why would he undoubtedly choose Picard over Kirk? If Ethan Hunt from the Mission: Impossible series were to decide on which Captain was the best, why would he, without pause, side with Kirk over Picard? Both Captains got to meet each other in a place called the Nexus, but which Captain got to live out someone else's entire life in the span of twenty minutes? After seeing ten reasons why Kirk is better than Picard (and ten reasons that show Picard is superior to Kirk), you can make your own decisions and then let us know in the comments below!

20 KIRK CHEATS AND GETS AWAY WITH IT

Leave it to James T. Kirk to find a way to beat a test that was designed to be a no-win scenario. The Kobayashi Maru simulation tests a Starfleet cadet's ability to handle a situation in which they are going to lose no matter what. Kirk's response? "I don't believe in no-win scenarios" and then cheats in order to win.

The 2009 Star Trek reboot showed Kirk rigging the simulation so that he could actually win the test. According to his verbal accounts of the events in Wrath of Khan , he got a commendation for original thinking. Kirk doesn't like to lose, and that stubbornness and determination is what makes him so great.

19 PICARD HAS TACTICAL MANEUVER NAMED AFTER HIM

In Star Trek: Insurrection , we saw Commander Riker beat attacking enemy vessels by having the Enterprise capture then spit out metreon gas using the Enterprise's Bussard ramscoop collectors. Once the gas was expelled, enemy fire ignited the gas, causing the attacking vessels to be caught in the explosion. Very good, Number One. That's cool, but it's no Picard Maneuver.

While in command of the U.S.S. Stargazer, Picard devised an attack strategy against an attacking Ferengi ship. By making a short warp jump, the Ferengi ship fired on the Stargazer's previous coordinates. The Stargazer dropped out of warp and fired on the ship, destroying it.

18 KIRK BROUGHT WHALES BACK FROM EXTINCTION

Did you like the 1993 movie Free Willy ? What about the 2016 animated film Finding Dory ? You have Kirk to thank for that. In the 23rd century, whales were extinct, and an unknown probe came to Earth wanting to know what happened. The probe wasn't happy there weren't whales, and started destroying everything in its path.

Kirk and crew traveled back in time (not in the Enterprise, but in a stolen Klingon vessel) to bring whales back to the future, to hopefully get the probe to chill. Thanks to the power of transparent aluminum, Kirk brought whales back. The probe left and Earth was saved.

17 PICARD IS GETTING A SECOND TELEVISION SERIES

The last time we saw Picard and crew (well, all of the crew) was in the 2002 film Star Trek: Nemesis . Data had been destroyed, Riker left with Troi to Captain his own ship and Picard drove around in a buggy firing at innocent aliens. What a great note to end on! No? There's more? Thank the Prophets!

In August 2018, Patrick Stewart announced that a new television series would launch featuring the return of Captain Picard! Looks like he's got more stories to tell! Let's see Kirk try and get his own series! Uh oh, too soon?

16 KIRK DID HARD TIME ON RURA PENTHE

In the two part episode "Chain of Command" Captain Picard was snatched by the Cardassians and tortured for information. Patrick Stewart wanted the scene to be realistic as possible, consulting with Amnesty International on the accuracy of his performance. Yes, Stewart was really naked in those initial scenes.

We're really happy for you, and imma let you finish, but Kirk had to survive one of the toughest prisons known in the galaxy: Rura Penthe. It was a penal colony where life expectancy was around a year. He was put there after being framed for murder of Chancellor Gorkon. Kirk survived and got to kiss a hot alien. Well played.

15 PICARD HAS A DAY NAMED AFTER HIM

We're not sure if every Captain has a day named after them, but Jean-Luc Picard certainly does. In the Next Generation episode "Disaster" the Enterprise unfortunately runs into a quantum filament and the ship is nearly destroyed. Forget all of that, because the big moment of the episode is when Captain Picard Day is celebrated.

Given the crudeness of some of the drawings, we think children were forced to make them while Worf menaced them with a mek'leth. If you want to celebrate Picard's awesomeness, you can do so every year on June 16th!

14 KIRK STOLE A CLOAKING DEVICE

Before Mission: Impossible was a movie franchise led by Tom Cruise, it was a television show that actually had Leonard Nimoy star on it for several seasons. Nimoy played The Great Paris, a magician who worked for the Impossible Missions Force. Do you know who would also be a good candidate for the team? James Kirk!

In the episode "The Enterprise Incident" Kirk has to do some Mission: Impossible -type actions to steal a Romulan cloaking device. He even is altered to look like a Romulan so he can sneak aboard a Romulan vessel and steal their tech. Captain Kirk: super spy! Take that, Garak!

13 PICARD SINGLE-HANDEDLY FENDED OFF INVADERS ON THE ENTERPRISE

Kirk has had some pretty awesome fights while Captain of the Enterprise. He's fought Khan, a giant lizard and has even fought his best friend in a death-match on Vulcan. But has Kirk ever single-handedly defended his ship? Picard has!

In the Next Generation episode "Starship Mine" bad dudes are trying to steal trilithium resin from the Engine Room while the Enterprise is virtually empty. The only person around is Captain Picard, who does an impression of John McClane from Die Hard and, all by himself, takes everyone out. Yippie ki yay, mother Vorta!

12 KIRK QUESTIONED GOD

Picard is famous for being an accomplished diplomat. Although he has tremendous tactical knowledge, Picard is known for being a level-headed negotiator and mediator. However, when it comes to asking the big questions, does anyone have bigger nacelles than Captain Kirk?

In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , Kirk and crew forget about science fiction for a moment and delve into philosophy, meeting an entity that claims to be the Supreme Being. When the entity asks for Kirk's vessel, the Captain asks: "What does God need with a starship?" Only Kirk would ask a question of that caliber.

11 PICARD GOT TO LIVE A SECOND LIFE

In Star Trek Generations , an accident aboard the Enterprise-B places Kirk in the Nexus, a reality in which all of your dreams are granted. We get a small glimpse into the life Kirk could have led: a peaceful life in Idaho with a woman named Antonia. The illusion disappears when Kirk and Picard leave the Nexus.

Kirk got a small taste of an alternate life, but Picard led an entire lifetime of another man named Kamin in the episode "The Inner Light." Although Picard experienced decades of life as Kamin, only twenty minutes went by in real time. Picard got to experience having a wife, grandchildren and even learned to play the flute.

10 KIRK MADE PEACE WITH THE KLINGONS

Kirk spent most of his time in Starfleet fighting Klingons. His son, David, unfortunately met his demise at the hands of Klingons, only making Kirk more bitter towards them. Naturally, when a peace treaty needed to be brokered between the Federation and the Klingons, they sent Kirk. Whaaa?

Initially Kirk was a victim of his own prejudices, saying that the Klingons should be allowed to perish after the Klingon moon Praxis was destroyed. Kirk fought against those attempting to sabotage the Khitomer Conference. The Accords signed that day allowed for a century of peace between the Klingons and Federation.

9 PICARD HAS HIS OWN BRAND OF WINE

Exploring deep space can be quite dangerous, but also has its rewards. Kirk and crew found themselves at times with Romulan Ale, a blue liquid that packs quite an intoxicating punch. Worf found himself hung over from drinking the ale during Riker's wedding. But, who needs Romulan Ale when you have your own wine?

If you find yourself in La Barre, France, go to Chateau Picard, speak with the head vigneron and get yourself a bottle of 2249 red, like the one Captain Georgiou had in her Ready Room aboard the U.S.S. Shinzou. The best part? You can get Chateau Picard wine in real life!

8 KIRK KISSED HIMSELF

We can be blunt about this one: Captain Kirk has a reputation for being popular with the ladies. The Borg want to assimilate other races, the Klingons want to conquer, the Vidiians want to steal organs but Kirk just wants to go where no man has gone before. We're talking about exploring space... get your minds out of the gutter!

Picard has his share of romances (ask to borrow his Horga'hn) but Kirk has done something Picard has never done: kissed himself. While on Rura Penthe, Kirk met a shapeshifter named Martia. Played by the actress Iman, she kisses Kirk then later morphs herself into Kirk.

7 PICARD HAS AN OMNIPOTENT BEING AS AN ANTAGONIST

Some writers believe that a hero is only as good as the villain they have to fight. Could it be that Picard is such a great protagonist because his main antagonist is a super-powerful entity that can literally do anything that they want? The omnipotent Q would probably agree with us.

Q can snap his fingers and go anywhere, have anything appear and have any event happen. He can time travel, teleport and even has threatened judgment upon the entire human race, yet he's consistently lost to Captain Picard time and time again. Tres bien, mon Capitaine.

6 KIRK GOT TO WEAR A GREEN LANTERN RING

Believe it or not, both Captain Kirk and Captain Picard have met the X-Men! These interactions happened in the comics, and although we'd love for it to happen as a live action movie, we don't think even Disney can buy up enough properties to make that occur. Here's another crossover you may have missed: Star Trek and Green Lantern .

The crossover Star Trek/Green Lantern: Stranger Worlds featured the Star Trek crew from the Kelvinverse working with Hal Jordan and the other members of the Green Lantern Corps. Yes, Captain Kirk got a Green Lantern ring, but did he use the ring to make green Orion slave women?

5 PICARD'S NAME IS A WORD IN AN ALIEN CULTURE

Shaka when the walls fell. Tembra, his arms open. At first glance, those first two sentences may be gibberish, but they're actually phrases in Tamarian. Also referred to as the Children of Tama, they are a race of beings that communicate using metaphoric references in their speech. It's a fancy way of saying the Universal Translator won't work on them.

It took the sheer brains and determination for Picard to decode the Tamarian language. It's Picard's diplomacy and storytelling skills that connected him to his alien Captain counterpart. Because of that, Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel is a Tamarian phrase, referring to overcoming hardship and diversity.

4 KIRK TRAVELED THROUGH THE GREAT BARRIER

When faced with the Kobayashi Maru test, a no-win scenario in which Starfleet cadets learn how to deal with loss, Kirk won by cheating. Leave it to Kirk to find a way to beat a no-win scenario. So faced with another impossible task, Kirk said "hold my Romulan Ale" and did the impossible yet again.

Surrounding the galactic core of the Milky Way Galaxy is the Great Barrier, an incredibly powerful energy field around 15,000 light years in diameter. No ship or probe ever got through, until Kirk did with the Enterprise in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier .

3 PICARD PREVENTED MULTIPLE STARFLEET TAKEOVERS AND CONSPIRACIES

Picard is an archaeologist and explorer, but he also is a big fan of the Federation. There were two moments in which he had to defend the Federation not only from nefarious intruders, but also from internal corruption. In the episode "Conspiracy" Picard discovered scorpion-like creatures that were body-snatching high-ranking Starfleet officers.

In Star Trek: Insurrection , Picard learned of another kind of conspiracy in which members of the Federation Council planned to steal the secrets of immortality and eternal youth from a race known as the Ba'ku. Picard was the strong moral center that steered the Federation back on track.

2 KIRK TOOK PART IN THE ORGANIAN PEACE TREATY

When we think of Captain Kirk, we picture him on the Enterprise flying through space with phasers blazing. Imagine our shock that Kirk is on this list multiple times for being a peacekeeper and resolver of conflict! How come people throw shade and say he's hot-headed?

In the original series episode "Errand of Mercy" Kirk and crew must defend the Organians from a Klingon invasion. It turns out the Organians are super-powerful and force Kirk and his Klingon rival, Kor, to settle peacefully. Kirk agrees and helps broker the Organian Peace Treaty between Klingons and the Federation.

1 PICARD PREVENTED THE BORG TAKEOVER OF EARTH

The Borg are relentless. They are cybernetic beings that can't be reasoned with or negotiated with. Resistance to them is futile, and they assimilate those that stand in their path. Could the diplomatic skills of Captain Picard stop even the Borg? No, so Picard had to go beast mode on them.

In Star Trek: First Contact , Picard and the Enterprise had to travel back in time to stop the Borg from assimilating Earth. Not only does he defeat the Borg Queen, he also witnesses humans making the first successful attempt to travel faster than light as well as first contact with the Vulcans. All in a day's work for Picard.

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The moment when Picard became more important than Kirk in Star Trek history

Credit: CBS/Paramount

Who is the most popular Star Trek captain of all time? This age-old — and extremely fraught — Trekkie debate has arguably been settled. The impending release of Star Trek: Picard seems to prove that, overwhelmingly, fans love Captain Jean-Luc Picard more than any other Trek captain ever. Yes, hardcore Trekkies will tell you they celebrate all captains equally (even Scott Bakula), but the zeitgeist seems to tell a different story.

We love Picard a lot, and surely, we love him more than Captain James T. Kirk. This wasn't always the case, but we've been living in a Picard-first world for a long time now. Here's when it happened.

In 1994, Captain Kirk famously gave Captain Picard a speech about making sure his successor understood the importance of remaining a starship captain for as long as possible because, according to Kirk, if you're sitting in a big chair, making it so, you can still "make a difference." This scene happens in Star Trek Generations , a 1994 movie that is either the first feature film with the  TNG cast or the final movie to connect to the Original Series era, depending on how you look at it.

It's the moment to which this headline refers, but it was also largely a formality. By 1994, the debate between Picard and Kirk was pretty much over. Picard had already won it.

This is hard for some people to believe, but in the early '90s, characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation were much more popular than any Marvel superhero or Star Wars alien. If you looked at this from the perspective of action figures for sale at Target, and who was constantly on the cover of TV Guide , TNG was the coolest and most popular nerd thing around, which is why it makes sense that in 1992, a TV Guide reader's poll voted Patrick Stewart "The Sexiest Man on TV."

In 1993, a similar TV Guide reader's poll crowned Stewart with the most '90s compliment ever: "Most Bodacious Man on TV."

Gentlemen, come at me when you are THIS sexy. #SexiestManAlive #WelcomeToTheGunShow @BlakeShelton @RealHughJackman @VanCityReynolds @People https://t.co/xW5UywY4lp pic.twitter.com/vWrRxRGqJe — Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) November 17, 2017

Back in 2017, in a tongue-in-cheek Twitter exchange, Stewart reminded everyone of this fact by tweeting out one of his many TV Guide covers, which features him wearing a leather vest that we really hope he'll bring back for Star Trek: Picard . And though Stewart was kind of kidding around here, the reality is if you were paying attention to pop science fiction in the '90s, Captain Kirk was not your Captain. It was Picard all the way.

Gentle reader, I remember this really well. And that's because I was in 6th grade when "All Good Things...," the series finale of The Next Generation was on the air. I even reviewed this momentous occasion in my diary in 1993 . And, prior to that, I was 100 percent a 4th-grader wearing a Starfleet TNG jumpsuit to a Star Trek convention in Phoenix, Arizona in 1992. This is the year Patrick Stewart was on the cover of TV Guide in the leather vest, and yes, dear reader, my mom was with me at this Star Trek convention, and yes, like everyone else, she was in love with Captain Picard.

Now, at this exact convention, I have a strong memory of a kid standing up and asking Patrick Stewart if Picard would marry his mother. This kid was not me. I want to make that clear. But it could have been. I understand that people who fell in love with Star Trek in the '70s (hi, Michael Chabon !) will tell you that some of this same adoration existed for the original crew, and I'd agree with them. But, if you want to talk about who everyone loved from the original series, it wasn't Captain Kirk. Everyone loved Spock. For The Next Generation era, Picard somehow had the swaggering captain thing going for him, but, because he was a little bit stoic and detached, he also had the Spock thing going for him, too. He was the best of both worlds (those worlds being Earth and Vulcan).

So, the reason why Picard became more popular than Kirk in the '90s is because Picard — as expertly played by Stewart — had the cool-as-a-cucumber Spock-ish persona mashed up with a dash of Kirk's bravado, minus the chauvinism. Back in the day, pro-Kirk people liked to say Picard wasn't brave or he didn't kick enough ass. But, the truth is, Picard kicks ass in TNG all the time. He just doesn't throw as many punches as Kirk, and that's mostly because he doesn't need to. He's just that good.

Credit: CBS

Ever since the '90s, we've been living with the status quo of Picard being the people's captain. Yes, in 2009, when the J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot happened, it felt like we were going to revert to a world in which Kirk (played by Chris Pine ) was the most popular Star Trek captain. But it didn't last. For all their virtues , the reboot films haven't connected with the fandom the same way the various TV series have. And the proof is that after Star Trek: Discovery rebooted another classic captain, Christopher Pike , the next logical move was to bring back the Trek captain everyone really wanted to see.

The reason why Jean-Luc Picard is back is partially because Patrick Stewart wanted to play him, and because the writers and creators of contemporary Star Trek are very savvy. But the reason why we're all so pumped for Picard is because, really, he never stopped being our Captain. In the '90s, Patrick Stewart proved that a male space hero didn't need to be sexist or overtly violent to be awesome. And, for that reason alone, Picard remains sexy, relevant, and more popular than ever. It's not confusing that he's making it so again. It's just strange that it took this long.

Star Trek: Picard hits CBS All Access on January 23.

• Jean-Luc Picard
• Patrick Stewart
• Star Trek: Picard

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Star Trek: 10 Reasons Kirk Is Better Than Picard

The definitive conclusion.

John Kirk is a Teacher-Librarian and currently a History/English Teacher with the Toronto District School Board. But mostly, John teaches Geek. Comics, Sci-Fi (Notably Star Trek), Fantasy and Role-Playing and table-top games all make up part of John’s repertoire, There is a whole generation of nerds-in-embryo who rely on him to make sense of it all, to teach that with great power comes great responsibility, that the force will be with us always and that a towel IS the most useful thing to have in one’s possession. When John isn’t in the classroom, he can be found in his basement writing comic reviews for www.popmythology.com and features for Roddenberry Entertainment's www.1701news.com.

29 Years Later, Star Trek Just Gave Captain Kirk's Death A Grisly Twist

The grave of James T. Kirk isn’t where you think it is.

Everyone knows that James T. Kirk was buried under a bunch of rocks on Veridian III in Star Trek Generations, but what Picard Season 3 presupposes is ... maybe he wasn’t. One of the most shocking Easter eggs in the Picard episode “The Bounty,” reveals that Starfleet probably has some future plans for the body of James T. Kirk, and that members of Section 31 are almost certainly grave robbers.

Spoilers ahead.

When Riker, Worf, and Raffi raid Daystrom Station to try and figure out what the Changelings stole from this super-secret facility, we get a lot of back-to-back Easter eggs, including a new version of the Genesis Device, a hungry “Attack Tribble,” and finally, the holographic version of Professor Moriarty. But the most surprising Easter egg of all here is the revelation that Section 31 has the remains of Captain James T. Kirk, locked away in a vault.

Worf, Riker, and Raffi on Daystrom Station

Although we see a screen that depicts Kirk’s skeleton, showrunner Terry Matalas has confirmed that this is more than just Kirk’s bones. “Kirk’s remains aren’t skeletal. Just his remains or … more,” Matalas tells Inverse .

Quick Star Trek history lesson from the 1994 movie Generations : Kirk gets zapped by the Nexus in 2293 on the Enterprise-B. Then after Picard finds him in the Nexus, Kirk emerges in 2371 and helps Picard beats-up Dr. Soren. Then Kirk gets killed when the walkway he’s on rolls over a cliff and crushes him. Picard is with him when he dies, and then buries Kirk under a bunch of rocks.

But now, it seems Section 31, the clandestine spy group within Starfleet, decided to dig up Kirk’s body and take it to their top-secret lab. But why? “The Bounty” reveals that Jean-Luc Picard’s human body (before he became a Synth in Season 1) was also stored at Daystrom Station, meaning Section 31 clearly has a thing for the organic remains of Enterprise captains.

While the theft of Picard’s body is poised to be a huge puzzle piece in the ongoing arc of Season 3, it seems unlikely that the Easter egg about Kirk’s body will be explored further. At least not right now. In canon, the hypothetical motivations Section 31 might have had for stealing Kirk’s remains are numerous.

Kirk and an android duplicate of Kirk in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”

Kirk was duplicated more than once in The Original Series , sent traveling through time a lot, and even was split into two distinct bodies in “The Enemy Within.” So, when you think about it, donating Kirk’s body to (mad) science makes a lot of sense. Even if Section 31 were up to no good, it still stands to reason they’d want to study the weirdness of Kirk, even a full century after he was engulfed by the Nexus, and three decades after Jean-Luc buried him.

Could a future Star Trek spinoff bring back a zombified Kirk into the 25th century? Will an evil clone of Kirk exist in some future Star Trek spinoff show, and if so, who will play him? Paul Wesley ? Chris Pine? A digitally de-aged William Shatner ?

Picard Season 3 likely won’t answer any of these questions, but as of now, in the 25th century “present day” of Star Trek canon, Kirk’s body is in a special lab, and it was certainly brought there for a reason.

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 streams on Paramount+.

This article was originally published on March 24, 2023

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Jim says... Kirk’s enthusiasm made space look cool

As a space-obsessed kid in the ’60s, I followed every second of the Apollo program. But astronauts weren’t the most excitable folks.

You’re the first person to land on the moon and you still speak in clipped sentences. I know, that was their training, but it sounded as if the most exciting experience imaginable was just another day at the office. (Now we know that Armstrong and Aldrin where white-knuckling it, landing on fumes over the Sea of Tranquility – more’s the reason they should’ve been screaming and high-fiving like moonshiners who’ve eluded the cops).

Star Trek, which I watched faithfully from age eight in its original incarnation, communicated the thrill that had been largely airbrushed out of the real space race.

And the excitable, adrenaline-charged Captain Kirk – as exuberantly portrayed by the scenery-devouring William Shatner – was a surrogate for anybody whose own historic words on stepping onto the lunar surface would be, “Holy crap! I’m on the moon!”

James Tiberius Kirk was thrilled to be commanding the Enterprise, seeking out strange, new worlds. More than once, in the course of three seasons, he ended up teary-eyed about his ship. He loved the alien women (really loved them). He loved antagonizing Klingons. He loved lecturing alien cultures about what they were doing wrong (invariably after talking the supercomputer that was keeping them comfortable into killing itself).

He loved presiding over Spock and McCoy’s bickering. I think he secretly enjoyed giving Scotty an anxiety attack by ordering more power even when the chief engineer would claim the engines “dinna have it!”

Space was exciting, and no one communicated that better than Capt. Kirk.

Flash ahead 17 years, and my job took me to the Paramount set of the as-yet-unaired Star Trek: The Next Generation. Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner were hilarious guides. Michael Dorn made jokes about Klingons eating live chickens. I got to sit in the captain’s chair and play with the transporter controls.

Only Patrick Stewart didn’t seem like he was having a good time. (He would do a complete reversal over the years, happily embracing his role as geek icon).

And that was reflected on Star Trek: The Next Generation when it aired in 1987. Capt. Picard seemed in a permanent bad mood (if you downed a shot for each time he yelled, “Shut up, Wesley!” you’d be under the table).

The stiffness of that initial season gradually eased up, but the stick up Capt. Picard’s butt took a long time for the writers to surgically remove. Eventually, he would be allowed to smile, usually patronizingly. Still, a slow burn seemed to be his default mode. He was a natural, sober-sided target for the omnipotent prankster Q.

In a way, though, he was of a piece with a Federation that had largely moved beyond wonder and into dullness of familiarity. Until the Borg was added as an ultimate threat, the fate of the Federation was rarely in doubt on The Next Generation. Facilitating negotiations between squabbling planets, antics on the Holodeck and existential questions about whether a hologram or an android could be sentient – The Next Generation was about ideas.

And Picard was nothing if not an ideas man, a maker of executive decisions in a thoroughly mapped-out Alpha Quadrant. Damn, even the Klingons were allies on that show.

By contrast, the original Star Trek was usually about a first-time contact with something dangerous, with an impulsive, larger-than-life emissary leading the charge and scoping the females.

It was, indeed, an exciting time to be in space.

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Steve says... Picard gave us a thinking man’s leader

Swagger. Confidence. A way with the ladies. The conviction to sacrifice almost anything – including his beloved starship – to win the day.

I understand the appeal of Capt. James T. Kirk. He’s the bad boy that women are drawn to. But Picard? He’s the man they want to marry. The man they build a life with, eventually forgetting the ill-advised dalliances of their youth. And I’m OK with that.

Capt. Jean-Luc Picard – logical, intelligent, deeply moral – might not be the guy you’d want to hang out with for a night of drinking. And a middle-aged, balding, Shakespeare-loving captain with an English accent was a tough sell when Star Trek: The Next Generation went into production, with creator and executive producer Gene Roddenberry resisting the idea until the 11th hour.

But Picard could be the guy you’d meet at a party and end up having a mind-blowing conversation with, even if he wasn’t encouraging you to go talk to the green-skinned hottie in the corner. The guy you’d still be sharing stories with, instead of telling stories about.

Each was a man of his time. Kirk was exploring strange new worlds on the final frontier. By the time Picard straightened his tunic and sat in the captain’s chair, it was a century later. Starfleet had changed. The galaxy had changed. A Neanderthal like Kirk might never have been given command of a starship. But Picard? He was the captain the 24th century needed.

As for Kirk’s much-vaunted success with the ladies, both human and otherwise, I asked my Patrick Stewart-obsessed female friend what makes Picard so appealing. “Picard is a gentleman,” she said, followed by the statement that Jean-Luc has a bigger, shall we say, photon torpedo than Kirk. While I have no idea how or where she came by that information, I am prepared to take it as gospel.

I also asked none other than Capt. Kirk himself – Canadian national treasure William Shatner – what he might be able to say in Picard’s favour, during a recent chat in advance of both captains appearing at Fan Expo Canada in Toronto. I explained the nature of this feature, telling him I had drawn the Picard side of the debate. “I feel so badly for you,” Shatner responded.

Fine, but is there anything he could say in defence of Picard?

“He was a very nice, thoughtful individual,” said Shatner. I replied that that sounded like a backhanded compliment. “Well, I don't know why you would think that!” Shatner said, wholly unconvincingly.

I get it, Picard wasn’t the charismatic action hero that Kirk was. But he had his share of derring-do, made plenty of difficult decisions (including also sacrificing his ship) and he ultimately resisted the freakin’ Borg, the Star Trek universe’s most powerful villains. Had Kirk been assimilated, the Borg would’ve consumed every inhabited galaxy under Kirk’s hot-headed guidance.

Picard was, as Shatner points out, thoughtful. The original Star Trek series is an artifact of its era, but like any good sci-fi, it reflected the issues of time, dressing them up in alien makeup to make them more palatable. Star Trek: The Next Generation continued that legacy, but gave us a thinking man’s captain to go along with the issues it probed.

Long live Kirk, the man who will always be associated with Star Trek, the USS Enterprise and five year missions. But if you’re asking me to cast a vote in favour of Picard as the Federation’s best captain, I say, ‘Make it so.’

Follow @stevetilley

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Great Geek Debates: Kirk vs. Picard

If you’re a Star Trek fan, you’ve surely considered the differences between the captains in the various series, even if you don’t have a favorite. And, while Sisko, Janeway, and even Archer have their fans, the quintessential Star Trek debate has been, since TNG premiered nearly 22 years ago, who’s the better captain: Kirk or Picard?

I wrote earlier this month about ten ways , and then ten more ways , to provoke a geek argument, and lots of people mentioned the Kirk vs. Picard conflict in the comments. The only reason I chose not to list it is that you never can tell which way any given geek is going to swing on this topic, unless they happen to be wearing a t-shirt that reveals their preference.  You could say “Jim Kirk is nothing more than an arrogant, womanizing jerk,” and they might agree with you! Or you might say “Jean-Luc Picard is a Frenchman with a British accent—how ridiculous is that?!” and they might raise their fists and shout “Yeah!”

So, who’s really better? There have been countless articles and lists written on the subject, so I’m not sure how much new territory there is to cover here. What I will try to do, then, is distill the argument down to five key subject areas, then compare and contrast Kirk and Picard (I’m only considering the original, William Shatner, Kirk here, incidentally, because otherwise this gets way too complicated):

1. Leadership Style – Kirk is brash; Picard is contemplative. Kirk takes bold actions that frequently result in him getting captured; Picard takes sometimes bold, sometimes subtle actions that occasionally result in members of his command staff getting captured. Kirk listens to Spock’s advice, but nobody else’s; Picard listens to lots of people—though only occasionally his barber. While Picard could sometimes use some of Kirk’s boldness, it seems to me that his style is, if I were staffing a starship, more like what I would want than Kirk’s. Advantage: Picard.

2. Difficulty of Success – I mean this from a character point of view: Captain Kirk only had to deal with being compared with Dr. Robinson from Lost in Space and captains from old sci-fi movies; Captain Picard had to handle being compared with Kirk. On the other hand, Picard would never have existed if it hadn’t been for Kirk’s (eventual) success as a character. Advantage: Kirk.

4. Number of Lives Saved – I’m sure somebody, somewhere, has taken the time to calculate the rough number of lives each captain has saved, but if so I don’t know the figures they arrived at. Since they each saved whole worlds on a fairly regular basis, though, I’m going to go by the amount of time they’ve spent on screen: Kirk was in 79 TV episodes and six-plus movies; Picard was in 176 TV episodes (two of which were double-length) and four movies. Even if you count the Animated Series, Picard is way ahead here. Advantage: Picard.

Charlie Wood

Juliane Bergmann

Kathy Gilsinan

Julian Chokkattu

5. Story Quality – This may not seem like a fair comparison, because it’s a cinch that the number of talented writers wanting to work on TNG was much higher than the number who wanted to work on TOS. But it goes to watchability, and, while there are plenty of lousy TNG episodes, none are as unwatchably bad as  “The Way to Eden” or “Spock’s Brain.” And while TNG certainly had some pretty unsubtle messages in many of its episodes, none were as hit-you-over-the-head obvious as “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” or “A Taste of Armageddon.” Advantage: Picard.

So, yes, I’m going to have to go with Picard. I love Captain Kirk, don’t get me wrong, and I’m sure a less interesting character would never have engendered the kind of devotion Trekkies have had for over forty years. But there’s a reason why, when TNG was being created, they wrote the character of Riker to be a lot like Kirk and made him the First Officer instead of the Captain.

Now, I’m sure you have your opinions on the subject, so please respond to the poll below, and leave a comment if you feel the need to express yourself further. And please come back next week for the next Great Geek Debate!

Adrienne So

David Nield

Angela Watercutter

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Terry Matalas Explains The “Return” Of James T. Kirk On ‘Star Trek: Picard’

| April 1, 2023 | By: Anthony Pascale 217 comments so far

One of the items stored at Daystrom Station in the Star Trek: Picard episode “The Bounty” has fans buzzing and speculating. Now showrunner Terry Matalas explains why they included the body of James T. Kirk in the collection and what it could mean for the future.

Kirk’s body is ready for a “return”… but not on Picard

Last weekend, Terry Matalas beamed in remotely to a panel held at GalaxyCon hosted by the Inglorious Treksperts, which they released as their latest podcast episode . The discussion covered each of the individual films from the Star Trek franchise and when they were talking about Star Trek: Generations and the death of James T. Kirk, Matalas chimed in with how this inspired him to update Kirk’s story:

Look, it’s not how I would have sent Kirk off, clearly, because I just put his body in Daystrom.

After teaming up to help Jean-Luc Picard, James T. Kirk was killed by Soran in Generations . Kirk’s body was buried by Picard on Veridian III under a pile of rocks. That was the last known location of Kirk’s body—until “The Bounty.”

Picard at Kirk’s grave in Generations

Since seeing Kirk’s body in Daystrom Station, many fans thought it was foreshadowing his potential return later on in the season. When you look very closely at the display of Kirk’s body, there was a mention of something called “Project Phoenix,” which some interpreted as a clue. When pressed by Altman to explain why they added Kirk to the story, Matalas dashed any hopes of seeing Kirk on the show:

Look, Kirk is dead. We figured, “Is his body really just under a pile of rocks on that planet?” We’re not committed… we’re not saying he is resurrected.

Kirk’s body stored at Daystrom in “The Bounty”

Matalas did say he feels bringing Kirk’s body back to Daystrom could set up a story of Kirk’s return in a future Star Trek :

Is it a tip of the hat to The Return , which is a wonderful book I recommend to all of you? Maybe. We just leave it open that someday some brilliant writer could do something. That could be an animated thing. That could be anything. It’s just to keep, as my friend Spock is fond of saying, “There are always possibilities.” That was the idea behind that.

Matalas mentioned The Return , a 1996 Star Trek novel written by William Shatner with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. The story picks up after Generations when the Romulans and Borg retrieve Kirk’s body from Veridian III and resurrect him using Borg technology and the Guardian of Forever. They want to use Kirk as a weapon to take on Jean-Luc Picard, but Spock eventually breaks Kirk from his brainwashing and the character lives on and has a number of new adventures through a series of novels over the next decade, ending with 2006’s Captain’s Glory .

Cover for The Return

Shatner weighs in

All the buzz about the body showing up on Picard has caught the attention of the original Kirk himself. Today on Twitter, he posted about it, referencing “Project Phoenix” with the question “Where is Kirk?” He took how Kirk was buried under rocks on Veridian III only to be found behind a panel on Daystrom Station to create a Rock, Paper, Scissors joke, turning it into “Rock, Panel, Station.”

I guess we know where the disappearing @StarTrek Captain went! It's like the old game of Rock, Paper, Scissors but it's now Rock, Panel, Station! #ProjectPhoenix ?😳🤔 #WhereisKirk ? 🤷🏼😝👇🏻 I guess it's all an @AprilFools 😵‍💫 Have a wonderful weekend! pic.twitter.com/KMpN1nXRBz — William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) April 1, 2023

It looks like fans can stand down for now when it comes to expecting the return of James T. Kirk for this season of Picard . But Matalas and his team have set things up for a future Star Trek show or movie to find a way for Kirk’s return.

Keep up with news about the  Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com

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Pretty weird choice. I don’t have any feelings about it per se, but it’s definitely weird.

I recall Matalas saying before the series debuted, that part of his impetus for the story was to “correct” the mistakes of the TNG movies. Many have long felt that Kirk’s death was a huge mistake, so this does fix that in multiple ways.

Personally, I’m so relieved to hear they’re not bringing him back in this season, and I hope nobody ever does. Well, not anytime soon, that is.

I remember something along those lines being said.

I’ve seen on Reddit a couple threads where people theorize Kirk will show up in the finale aboard the E-D.

Yes, but it seems here he is debunking that.

“We just leave it open that someday some brilliant writer could do something.”

Brilliant writer… Wouldn’t surprise me that he’s talking about himself here…

Very well could be, but I believe him when he says he dropped it in there for future use by anyone.

That would be so out of left field for him to just show up. If they do, why not put him back aboard the Enterprise-A? It is apparently sitting there in the museum.

But the issue is clear, why bring Kirk back at all? He isn’t relevant anymore. And in a real world issue, Shatner is in his 90’s. Even with age changing CGI he wouldn’t be the same dude. His voice sounds different and he has an incredibly different body type.

Nothing was fixed or corrected. He still died on Veridian III. Matalas just moved his body to a storage locker for the “oohs and aahs”. I’m not relieved.

Relax, pal. Kirk’s appearance in the S31 stations means he wasn’t buried, and there’s potential for him to return. That’s all. I don’t like it either, but I get what he’s trying to do.

…it’s not the ‘ohhs & aahs” – it’s as Matalas has previously stated that it’s for the same reason that the ‘Enterprise D’ Saucer Section was recovered from the surface of Veridian III – to avoid contamination of the planet. By extension, it is a requirement of the Prime Directive that the Federation and therefore Starfleet do nothing to interfere with the natural development of alien civilisations by protecting unprepared civilisations / planetary systems from the introduction of advanced technology, knowledge (such as strange dead human bodies!) and ultimately foreign alien values before they are ready. In other words ‘make a mess on another planet; you clean it up’!

Sure, but did we really need it? I’m with Trell in that it’s really an unnecessary bit. It was there to make people go ooh and ahh, not actually inform the story or move the plot.

“Ah yeah…’ Ooh ,  ah ,’  that’s how it always starts . But then later, there’s running and screaming.”

Excellent reasoning!

I agree I think this was just a big clue for die hard fans that if Kirk is off Veridian III, the Enterprise is as well. We know from deleted scenes and images that the saucer is at the fleet museum, but in reality they have never confirmed this on screen. I think this is proof it is in Docking Bay 12.

I think this was just a big clue that the Enterprise D is in the Docking Bay 12. Clearly they grabbed the saucer from Veridian III so they wouldn’t mess with the development of the inhabitants of Veridian IV. So you would also need to pick up the dead extra terrestrial buried on a hill under rocks.

Since Picard’s corpse is a plot device for the story, perhaps the call-out to Kirk’s corpse is an attempt to make the former’s “not so implausible”?

Regardless, I’m not a fan of either, mind you. I personally find it ghoulish and disrespectful.

Ghoulish activity is normal for Section 31, however. So, that makes it easier for me to understand.

Oh, I agree. It is definitely ghoulish.

I was more confused than charmed by the whole Daystrom Star Trek Experience (coming soon to Orlando). Like the name suggests, Daystrom was supposed to focus on AI, right? But now it’s also storage for dead heroes and tribble monsters. Okey-doke.

Might need a little more oversight there, especially with what happens to captured shapeshifters.

Daystrom, in past series, had additional research than just AI.

It seemed for a while that characters kept referencing the Daystrom Institute weekly.

I see. I mostly remember it being used in reference to AI and robotics. It was still odd to see it being used as, presumably, a sort of Section 31 black site. And populated by no one for some reason.

Anyway, as for Kirk, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like something you casually drop in as a reference. That was too big a distraction for me. Ditto with Genesis; do the Changelings not know what that thing can do? Why not steal it?

What was even more irritating about that reveal was how they had Raffi look directly at the display of Kirk’s vault and not have her even make a curious expression about it. like “umm why is this here?”

He should have left it alone if he didn’t plan on using it in any way for the season.

New Jersey: Why is there a watermelon there?

Reno: I’ll tell you later.

Wow, had to read that twice to make sure I didn’t write that post!

I really wish I hadn’t read the tie-in novel before seeing BUCKAROO — the novel had a lot of depth and more humor and the film felt seriously truncated to me as a result. And I reread the book a couple years back before rewatching the movie, and had the exact same experience! No matter where you go … (tho for shapeshifters, it would be ‘no matter where you goo … ‘)

I was wondering who, if anyone, would pick up on it.

Matalas has explained that the NCC-1975 is there as a nod to the original design of the 1960’s Enterprise (Constitution Class) ship. First up; the original Enterprise was completely refitted to the version seen in ‘The Motion Picture’ which was later blown up – so it didn’t exist – thus couldn’t be put on display at the museum. Also, canonically, under Kurtzman era Trek that version of the Constitution Class Starship no longer exists due to the redesigned model in Strange New Worlds. Matalas & crew placed the ‘New Jersey’ in as a nod to the original design created by Roddenberry – without contradicting Kurtzman era canon. Nifty ehh?

Matalas has made clear that the section of Daystrom Station we are exposed to is the centrally located and completely isolated “Vault” – not populated by scientists or Starfleet personal – instead protected the AI system which is Data / Lore / Soong / Lal / B4. Matalas has also explained the rest of the massive station (with all the different lit up windows) are teaming with Federation and Starfleet personal – that is, it is an active research station. Agreed; he could have made it clearer in the episode.

Daystrom Station is not necessarily affiliated with the Daystrom Institute, of course.

For example, Carnegie Mellon University has nothing to do with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, other than a common benefactor back in the day.

Or the Institute might run the station, but as a separate division that is walled off from the academic institution, much as the way the University of California operated Los Alamos National Laboratory until 2006 (and resumed doing so as part of a joint venture in 2018).

Seems like this Daystrom station is Trek’s own version of Area 51. Yes, I do find it a bit odd, too. But overall the show is OK so I just chalk it up as cheap fan service they really didn’t need to do.

As references to dead characters go, I think Hugh’s body would’ve made more sense. He was a former drone, which would catch Daystrom’s interest, and he meant more to the TNG crew than Kirk. I mean Picard was the only one who worked with Kirk and he wasn’t on the station to see it.

Why just Hugh’s body? Thousands of ex-Borg drones were inside the captured / deactivated Borg Cube Ship and many were blown out into space from the Borg Cube. Hugh was one of thousands of available ex-Borgs. James T. Kirk’s body is significant AND there was only 1 Kirk!!!

There’s only one Hugh, too. Him finding his individuality was the entire point of the character.

And yes, Kirk is significant and that’s the problem. It’s such a huge revelation it distracts from the story.

Agreed: there was only one Hugh – however there were, according to Picard Season 1, thousands of similarly recovered, now individuals, x-Borgs … ALL now individuals & recovered from the Collective. Ergo, Hugh in the view of Starfleet & Federation is NOT unique. And ‘yes’ Hugh is important to us as an audience – pity Akiva Goldsman & Chabon didn’t consider that when he was killed off!

I think the first drone on record to break the Borg spell, so to speak, would be significant, and his brain might be worthy of study.

Agreed. Putting the image of Kirk’s innards there did prove to be too big a distraction.

The producers have confirmed Daystrom is Starfleet’s Area 51.

I also wonder why that’s a problem for some fans like ML. It’s a perfectly logical facility to exist in the Trek universe.

Everything is a problem for fans like ML.

I mean, that’s true. Biggest troll on this site.

Really? I never said it was a problem.

Hence, you are proved wrong.

Care to respond with more falsehoods?

Ah. Then there you go. I haven’t read anything like that so it would seem in this instance their intent clearly translated to screen.

…as much as I love the Kirk character, I’m glad they’re not bringing him back on PIC. Admittedly, the Nerd in me would love it, but this should be about Picard and the TNG crew. Just that little scene in E6 was enough to give me chills, though. And it is nice to know he’s not still lying on that random planet under a pile of rocks. They brought him back home, and hopefully he had a proper grand state funeral, befitting his legendary status.

I remember The Return although I’ve never read it. But the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a two hour Star Trek TV movie event with a role fit for a 90+ year old actor. Not an action adventure movie but a more thoughtfully paced drama about Kirk as a man out of time. Who is he without Spock and without Bones? What value does he have as a cold warrior during a time of extended peace with the Klingons. And give him a better death — alone.

Very nicely said. Done well, with the right writers, that could be a great story. Those themes are actually touched on a bit in The Return.

What you described would be wonderful.

I’d rather see it be used to bring Pine into the 25th century Prime Timeline. No Shatner please. Considering he’s publicly trashed current shows, they may not even be interested in working with him.

I agree — that ship has sailed, and I don’t want to see it

Well, I’ll counter with my own preference: no Pine, please. Aside from some welcome hints at growth in BEYOND, his Kirk is just awful.

Totally agree, best Kirk in Trek history.

“Hints” is underselling it a bit.

He was fantastic in all three films. Pine is a highlight of the reboot.

Pine is great as Kirk. Remember, he only can use with the writers him. In other words, please don’t shoot the messenger

I respectfully disagree. I’m a big fan of Pine’s Kirk. I thought he was just wonderful.

While that sounds like an amazing concept… I feel like the odds of it being well done (especially if Secret Hideout is involved at all) are fairly slim.

Yup, same concern here.

Yes, you didn’t feel the need to slip in a shot at Secret Hideout the way he does in almost every single post he makes. Sometimes I wonder if Kurtzman is his ex-husband or something.

I know we hardcore fans can get rather caustic in conversation as to what we think Trek should be. I take no pleasure in trashing the powers-that-be. I had no faith whatsoever in SH as DSC was evolving, but I really like PRO, SNW and PIC (s3). So I think Kurtzman & Co. are doing better.

Same. I feel Discovery and first two seasons of Picard is mostly trash but also love PIC S3, PRO, LDS and SNW. Proof we’re not all out to hate Kurtzman. Just his bad shows. 😉

I don’t think any Trek is trash, outside of maybe TNG Season 1. I haven’t liked Discovery, but I can acknowledge it’s good in ways beyond the things I like.

That’s cool. We can agree to disagree. I still think Discovery is mostly trash.

You see, but here’s the thing, he inherited discovery from Fuller, And for the first two seasons of Picard Patrick Stewart had a lot of power given his contract, and so we got these way too introspective shows focused on his character.

So the part of the franchise you don’t like are the parts that Kurtzman was least responsible for. And what you like a lot, we’ll that’s all Kurtzman at the helm.

Um we’re ignoring each other. Just a friendly reminder. But take it easy. 👍

My apologies – I was not paying attention.

And that’s fair. But I don’t see a lot of quality from SH. Star Trek Discovery was gawdawful. LDX has failed at everything it tries. Prodigy had a good start but has become more mediocre and SNW spits all over the universe they are supposed to be in. Only this S3 of Picard has been consistently above average. There has been so much swill produced by SH that one decent season just isn’t enough to make me think they have learned any lessons or turned any corners. But we are stuck with them at the moment so the best we can hope for as they move forward is that we get really lucky and they stumble into more decent storytelling at the level of at least S3 or Picard.

I guess I’m just not as cynical as you but I feel these days they are doing more right than wrong. Prodigy is currently my favorite out of the new shows and yes loving Picard S3 as well even with some flaws, so we seem to agree on that. But unlike you I think LDS and SNW are great shows as well. I completely accept why you don’t like them of course but they are really fun shows for me and also really captures the spirit of Star Trek.

And although I can completely understand why you don’t like LDS (and you were generally very excited about it at least), I still think you’re letting the canon issues with SNW influence you a bit too much. But it’s your right to feel that way. But here is a question, if they told you SNW existed in a different timeline or universe, would you like the show more?

If the answer is no, then fair enough.

You are correct that a major issue with SNW is the canon violations. And even though many feel this might be a small I find the use of the Gorn to be a MAJOR issue. On par with your issue with the Kelpian yell. Next is completely altering the Chapel character to the point where I just have to think this is a completely different character whose name happens to be Chapel. And #1 was amazingly underused and when they did do something with her I felt it completely undermined her. Making her a disguised alien was just plain dumb because it felt like they thought that there couldn’t possible be a woman who acts like #1 did. So they made her alien.

It might be easier to take if they said ALL of the SH stuff was their own SH universe apart from the prime. But even if that was the case I would still find SNW to be fairly mediocre. That might be a function of the short seasons. I feel like if there were more episodes that chances for more than one good one would improve. I’ve seen a couple more STC episodes and even though one wasn’t all that great I still feel that overall those shows are much better than anything SH has done. So it can be done and for a lot less money, too.

It’s certainly fair to be skeptical of a creative team that hasn’t produced work you like, but some fans just hate everything, trash everything, take personal pot shots literally every chance they get, and yet continue to keep watching, seemingly just so they can continue to be mad and express their grievances.

He just said he liked PRO, SNW and PIC season 3. So he’s not trashing everything. In fact he seems to be a fan of most of it.

Danpaine is one of the most respected members here and well liked. It’s not his fault some people don’t want to hear his opinion because they disagree with it…or even comprehend it.

…Thanks, Tiger. This thread became quite adversarial. Unnecessary, imo.

Unfortunately there are people here who are thin skinned and don’t want to hear opposing opinions of ANY kind. Unfortunately for them they don’t run this site. ;)

Keep speaking your man and speak it often. Most of us love hearing your views and those other people just have to suck it per usual. ;)

Agreed 100% about Discovery. Judging by the lack of people caring the show even got cancelled and it’s still the lowest rated Trek show, I don’t think many will argue with it. ;)

Lol, yeah that dude just keep repeating this over and over and over. I wish I was in a bar with him where I could playfully shake his shoulders and say, “dude we get it now OK, we heard you the first 270 times, move on” lol

That’s actually the issue in a pitch I made to TNG several months before JFK came out called JTK, in which we find that Kirk was fake-assassinated on the eve of the 24th century and actually put on ice as an emergency save-the-day-device for the Federation, which then did such a good job covering their tracks that soon nobody was around who remembered he was tucked away … till Data solved all the coverups and conspiracies and found him and thawed him. The second part of the story was Kirk on the -D, seriously not connecting with the time and place, and it needed more work than the first half, to say the least.

Biggest prob for me is that I was utterly intimidated putting words in Kirk’s mouth, something that was never an issue with the TNG folk. I could write Picard/Guinan exchanges that absolutely read like the actors were saying the words, but Kirk … that was tough, which is why I only did it as a premise/treatment, not a story outline or spec script. (plus I knew they were still not doing TOS regular characters at that point, so it would have been extremely unlikely, but it would have been a great tie-in with JFK.)

I thought Marshak and Culbreath did a great job of making Kirk sound like Shatner/Kirk in their PHOENIX novels and especially in THE PROMETHEUS DESIGN. (had to sneak PHOENIX into this thread somehow.)

I’d love to see a two hour episode or mini-series that gives Kirk a better send-off. I don’t need them to ‘fix’ every botched death from Star Trek history, but the original star of Star Trek deserved better. Plus, he’s freaking 92 and still acting!? And arguably more well-known than ever.

So semi-red herring, semi-future plot base.

I’m cool with it

I would love to see Shatner return to the role one last time as Nimoy got to for Spock in the 09 film. Shatner is iconic in the role.

It seems a rather pointless and overboard fan service in that episode if nothing was to become of it. I mean, Kirk’s body being in Daystrom was a rather big deal and to add the medical scanner sound along with “Project Phoenix” to the display was a very large distraction that didn’t need to be there.

I realize that for some fans, Kirk is no big deal now and probably shrugged about it as no more important than the other curiosities stored in Daystrom, but for me it was much more than that and I would have preferred not to have seen it at all honestly. This choice was no better than leaving him under a pile of rocks on Veridian III.

Just an unnecessary distraction.

I view it as the same as showing Spocks torpedo tube on Gensis at the end of TWOK…at that time it wasn’t known that there would be a ST3, it was just a “possibility”.

I guess the placement of such future possibilities are important.

But that was the last shot in the movie, not just a throwaway in mid-story. This is the equivalent of the throwaway in LAST CRUSADE about the ark of the covenant, not like the end of RAIDERS where you see the warehouse. So it feels more like a gag than a moment (and I assume that is intentional, because they could have emphasized it differently or even cut the reveal so it happened at some other time.

It probably wouldn’t have bothered me as much if say, 1) I had any real attachment to Kirk as a character and 2) if the rest of the episode and series hadn’t already been littered with similar teases and easter eggs.

I guess if Matalas claims Kirk’s body is there then I guess it should be accepted that it is. But on screen there is still nothing to suggest his body was actually there. We never saw a body. Only some computer image. So any writer can still canonically do whatever they want with the body.

They should bring Kirk back to life as a woman. That would be awesome.

And call her Janice Lester.

Don’t give them any ideas, with Hollywood being what it is, they would probably do it.

What’s wrong with having a female Kirk?

Nice try, but I’m not going anywhere near that one.

Pretty sure on-screen canon doesn’t work that way. But if you want to play some game where “oh, everything on the Daystrom station was fake!” and concoct some nonsense to invalidate it, sure, technically that can be done. But at that point you can just do gymnastics to recon everything, and nothing matters.

He just enjoys making up little fantasies in his head, that way when he’s wrong he can be mad about it.

How do you figure? I never suggested even remotely that “everything on Daystrom station was fake”. Let alone the autopsy scans of Kirk. In fact there is no reason to suspect that medical data is fake in any way. I only said there was no evidence his body was actually there. In fact watching the scene I never once concluded his body was actually there. Showing some skeletal scans is not the same thing at all. If they really wanted to suggest his body was there they should have gone through some sort of morgue-like room with obvious holding drawers labeled as James T. Kirk. Have other names there as well to sell the concept.

Your assumption was quite the leap of logic.

Equally, the “Kirk” being preserved there could be the android Kirk from “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”

That is true too.

I actually forgot what became of that android… Anything that might preclude it still existing over a century later?

Matalas is the same guy who gave is the 💩 that is Picard S1 & S2. Frankly, S3 would have been crap too without the TNG crew. Is anyone surprised he teases Kirk and then leaves everyone with blue balls?

Michael Chabon was showrunner for Season 1. Akiva Goldsman was co-show runner for Season 2 with Terry Matalas.

Terry Matalas then left production of Season 2 to focus on Season 3 and Akiva Goldsman continued finishing out Season 2

If you’re going to rant, at least be correct.

He had nothing to do with S1 and minimal involvement in S2. Relax.

I love folks who talk shit confidently and it’s absolutely wrong. You have a bright future as an AI chatbot.

They didn’t even hire Matalas until season 2. And with season 2, he had zip to do with developing the story, that was all Goldsman. He wrote the first two episodes and just help produce the other episodes until he left in episode 5 to prep for season 3.

As someone who enjoyed The Return , I appreciate Matalas’ comments on why we saw Kirk’s remains in Daystrom Station. When Generations ended, it felt somehow wrong to me to leave Kirk’s remains on Veridian III. Given how shady we know Section 31 can be, it seems obvious they would go recover the remains of Starfleet’s most iconic captain.

Agreed. I read The Return too, back when it came out. Though not a fan of Trek lit per se, it did provide a nice cap to Generations, though not canon. I like the fact they went and retrieved his body as well.

That’s the one where a DEFIANT-class ship decloaks inside the open space of a Romulan warbird, between the nacelles and behind the head, then it does a spin while firing. So totally cool, just like the ramming scene in FEDERATION. Those folks really knew how to deliver space battle scenes that were both credible and totally exciting.

I’ll admit to being embarrassed that I know this, but it wasn’t firing. It did the rotation because weapons were offline.

So does it just tear the ship apart from within from the movement? Geez, now I gotta go find a copy.

I’d figure the Ferengi would go dig him up to sell off his ‘hair’ and such, sort of like the way they were going to similar things to John Wayne in THE SHOOTIST.

To John Wayne: “Is that your real hair?” John Wayne: “It’s not mine, but it’s real.”

I never read the book. But I, too, felt it was amazingly wrong to leave Kirk’s body on that planet. Not just as it was not a good way to honor James T. Kirk but leaving an alien body on a planet right next to one with a developing population kinda feels like the wrong move.

I never for one instant thought that Starfleet would leave Kirk’s body behind on that planet. They would have scoured that star system for every trace of Federation presence.

Agreed. I’m pretty sure there are a dozen amendments under the Prime Directive about not contaminating planets with dead aliens and so on.

They wanted a moment for the movie but it would’ve made much more sense to do it on Earth.

Veridian III was uninhabited (at that time), but Data did note that the Veridian system contained another planet home to a pre-industrial (or was it pre-warp, one of the two?) society.

Maybe the next animated series can be about a crew who warps around cleaning up Starfleet’s Prime Directive messes lol?

But it’s still contaminating a foreign planet. I just can’t imagine it would be OK to just leave people and hardware anywhere they want.

But it seems like if anyone would abide by this it would be Picard, so maybe it is OK?

And that means they would likely eventually travel to their neighboring planet and perhaps find 200 year old alien remains.

So, no. Can’t imagine that being allowed.

I love it! Can’t wait to bring him back! It makes sense for the Section 31 Series!

Gotta get those legacy characters. Fans want nothing else.

Kirk is dead. Even if Starfleet retrieved the corpse after a few days from a shallow grave on a hot,.dry planet, it was definitely a closed casket funeral. Shatner is 92. If something were greenlit today, it would take a year, year and a half before principal photography began.

JL Picard is a stud. On a hot, dry planet, he dug a dead Kirk out from under the wreckage of a collapsed bridge. He drug the 250+ pound body to the top of that rock, then hauled hundreds of pounds of rocks up there to cover him up. Respect.

While I agree with you, I expect they could pull the Nexus out of their large box of lame plot devices and somehow resurrect him — they rejuvenate his Daystrom body and get sort of his katra from the Nexus.

But I don’t want to see 92 year old shatner in the role — unless they spend a ton of money to convincingly de-age him and make him look more fit like we would expect the elder Kirk character in Trek to be.

The reason Generations remains firmly in place at the bottom of my Trek movie list is the Nexus. Just an absolutely horrible plot device.

Maybe it’s me, but I’ve yet to see de-aging that doesn’t look off. They’d just be animating Shatner at that point. It just won’t work.

It’s not on my bottom of the list of Trek movies but your issue is a credible one. The mistake is giving the characters control of time like they did. So many many problems. For one thing, when fighting Soran when it looked like they could lose, just let the Nexus envelop them again and go back and try again. Or Picard could go back to the E and just grab Soran in 10-Forward. Or better yet, go back further and keep his brother’s family from burning to death. There were just so many many other ways to more effectively fix this. And he could just bring Kirk back with him. Alive. Or perhaps Kirk could just go back to his time. They needed to come up with reasons why this was a one shot, succeed or die, kind of situation.

It’s not just the characters – Data discovers what it is, quickly, and that it blows through the galaxy every forty years or so, apparently unguarded. The Nexus is a known entity, and not top secret. In essence, it turns Generations into a sci-fi version of Groundhog Day. At some point you’d think that the Federations Temporal Police Department would figure out that a lot of their temporal violations would go away if they’d just blow the g-d thing up. Or, maybe not….

There is that too. It would seem plausible this phenomena would be known about for at least 80 years if not longer. And just talking to the survivors would reveal what they think it is. But I suppose they just let it be because it didn’t present a danger and supposedly every attempt to enter if using a ship has failed.

You hit the nail on the head. That’s what so many people have asked Ron Moore about the Nexus. He admitted that it’s an immense plot hole.

Moore has owned up to a number of mistakes he made in Generations. Including the kitchen scene with Kirk & Picard.

But ultimately I think a lot of fans were expecting Kirk to be in a lot more of the picture. That they would meet up and have an adventure together. Irritating each other at first and learning they each had their own ways of getting things done that worked. Instead Kirk was merely bookended.

It was definitely not one of RDM’s better efforts…..

Ronald Moore admitted, if I recall correctly, that the Nexus is a plothole you could drive a semi through.

GEN is just a really really weak story. Both Moore and Brannon Braga admit that they blew it, and a good chunk of the blame involves Rick Berman’s plot requirements. This is all out there in interviews. Moore and Braga had terrible requirements and were pressed for time but wrote their script. Berman wanted Nimoy to direct and gave him the script. Nimoy said, rightly, again according to Moore, that the script wasn’t good at all. Berman said pre-production was already in place and the script couldn’t be changed, so Nimoy, who was angry that he wasn’t brought in earlier to work with the writers on a film that would’ve involved Kirk, Spock, and maybe McCoy and the rest of the crew, walked away from the film and we got GEN as it is.

It’s a dissapointing film. The chemistry between Picard and Kirk is just great and Stewart and Shatner apparently had a really great time together and the Ent-D’s passing and Data’s emotion chip silliness is fun, but the Nexus is just such an immense plot hole, the theme of time passing is overwrought and the death of Kirk was pretty weak and badly done, as both Moore and Braga have admitted. It’s just a dissapointment. There was so much potential for a great film for the first TNG film and, thanks to Berman and/or Paramount, they completely dropped the ball.

It was my understanding that Kelly was keen on doing it but was just too ill. I did hear that Nimoy was asked about directing but he passed for some of the reasons you mentioned. Also he didn’t wish to appear as Spock because he didn’t think Spock had enough to do.

I don’t know about Kelly. It may have been illness but he also said something to the effect that if Nimoy wasn’t going to be in GEN, then he didn’t feel like he should be in it either. In any case, Spock and Bones were supposed to be in the GEN in the beginning but Nimoy rightly didn’t like the part, saying it didn’t need Spock, so not only did Berman lose Nimoy as a director but he lost the inclusion of Spock in GEN. The whole thing was incredibly botched by Berman and he stills tries to spin it as a good movie in interviews after messed it up right from its inception.

Well, they have the genesis device. Here you go. Somehow recreate the regeneration effect like they did with Spock’s body on ST III. Kirk’s dead body is rejuvenated as a baby, then a child, and then they extract him from the newly formed planet as an adult, played by Paul Wesley.

Of course, the rejuvenated body has no memories. There is no “katra.”

Or, you pop back into the Nexus, and suggest to Kirk that he might want to stay off that bridge over there. Oh, and here are the winning numbers for the Federation Super Lotto. Pick up a ticket for me, too. :-)

LOL! Y’know, I never thought about that, the effort Picard obviously put into burying Kirk.

Good for him! Picard’s awesome!

I like what the dude has done with this season of Picard, but he’s getting way too cute with the fan service. This is like the huge weakness of lower decks where they try to force fit in all of these canon connections just to be cute, and in most cases they come across awkward and not holistic to the story.

On this one, I feel like Alec Kurtzman should have stepped in and just said no

My thought is he doesn’t know the franchise well enough to know.

This why you never allow fan boys to make trek shows.

I might normally agree, except that, on balance, Matalas’ season of Picard has proved wildly popular among diehard fans and the wider audience.

Could be a number of reasons for this. Perhaps Kurtzman thinks fan service works. And there is reason for him to think that. Perhaps he doesn’t have the control of the show to allow him to step in like that? Maybe he decided on a “hands off” policy with S3 of Picard? I’m sure there are more…

A nice nod to William Shatner’s book The Return, but if he were to be used in other series then Discovery is the best bet since its final season will be next year and in the 32nd Century.

Perhaps some solution like Prodigy or Lower Decks. Yes, Voice over Original Actor, but animated Avatar. If it’s CGI or Hand drawn that’s time will tell

Ship’s Computer Voice? It’s already done…. *whistles* HCS Voice Packs

Remember it is April 1st. It is STUPID April fools’ joke.

Obviously, you didn’t read the article.

It doesn’t state that the character will return; it just addresses the Easter egg from a week-and-a-half old episode, and… if anything, nullifies any further speculation.

Is Kirk being revived to be the Chancellor of Starfleet Academy in the 32nd century?

If anything, he could be revived and become a cadet.

For a YA show, what possible rationale is there to reanimate a thousand year old corpse to run Starfleet Academy? No. Not happening.

If they’re going to revive him, I honestly wouldn’t mind it being a 14 year old version of Kirk. At least it would be something new that we haven’t seen. Write some story like where he’s cloned by a villain for some nefarious purpose, and once foiled, leaves us with a young Kirk who now just wants to live his life.

Kirk will be a talking head in a jar

……for the win! Kirk Headroom.

I would love that.

Starfleet removed the corpse just like the removed the saucer section: to prevent future cultural contamination when the species the next planet over comes a-callin’ in their pre-warp space program.

That’s a good point. Though, the man deserves a big state funeral, not being kept in the freezerino.

Kirk was already declared dead 80 years before. No one would care.

Look, kiddo, take a mental note here and remember that this edgelord stuff you do here with people isn’t going to work on me. Just move along and bother someone else from now on, okay? Thanks.

Did I hurt your feelings?

Very much agreed.

Could be, perhaps some clean up to prevent that from happen. But this do not explain his place inside Daystrom or Section 31 “toys”

The E-D would be a helluva monolith for pre-warp folk to discover.

At which point Kirk would have been interred with honors either at the Academy or in the town of his birth, not tucked away in a storage locker somewhere. Starfleet would have salvaged whatever was left of the E-D that was functional, and recycled the rest. What we saw in E6 was just fan service run amuck. It’s already not holding up well when the showrunner is having to walk s**t back.

Great Easter egg, terrible idea for a story.

It’s not even a good easter egg. Is Dr. McCoy tucked away in another storage locker on Daystrom because the Yonadian’s cursed him with long life?

“ a 1996 Star Trek novel written by William Shatner with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens ”

Here, I’ll fix that for you…

“a 1996 Star Trek novel written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, with William Shatner’s name on the cover”

Look, we all know these celebrity books, even the autobiographies, are never written by them. Sometimes the name of the real author is on the cover, sometimes there’s a subtle, or not-so-subtle, thank you in the introduction or afterword, and sometimes it isn’t mentioned at all. And this is true of talk-show hosts, of politicians, you name it. At best they talk into a recorder for a while and the job of the author is to put that into written words. Sometimes they don’t even do that.

Who among the Trek cast actually wrote their own books? I think every TOS lead except for Kelley wrote at least one autobiography or memoir. Among them…Nimoy probably wrote his two memoirs, and Chekov his TMP book. Beyond that…not much. Maybe Grace Lee Whitney’s was her own work, but I see she had a co-author as well. And Shatner’s written almost a *dozen* memoirs. :-)

And that’s no knock on them.

Koenig even wrote an episode of TAS. “The Infinite Vulcan”.

I think that was part of making up to him that he wasn’t in the cast.

What other cast members wrote? Nimoy and Shatner are all I can think of.

Is this real news? It is April Fool’s Day…

Obviously, you didn’t read the article either.

Again: It doesn’t state that the character will return; it just addresses the Easter egg from a week-and-a-half old episode, and… if anything, nullifies any further speculation.

I saw it as Matalas debunking the speculation Kirk’s return in the finale. He’s been good at doing this sort of thing. Not to be a party-pooper, but because he rightly recognizes that when fans get whipped into a frenzy over a fan theory that he knows isn’t true, it only creates false expectations, and potentially, massive disappointment.

Remember when Marvel fans got all hyped up that Mephisto was going to appear in WandaVision, and they were convinced it was going to be Al Pacino? Or when they thought that Evan Peters’ appearance meant they’d introduce other Fox X-Men characters? Marvel should have come out immediately and dispelled those theories, because all it ended up doing was disappointing people, and there was a huge section of the fandom that wound up angry that their own little fantasies weren’t true.

Yeah, exactly!

Berman blocked The Return from being made back in the mid 1990s according to Shatner himself the Star Trek producer aka Berman did not want it to be made… Would have been an expensive project as Shatner + Nimoy + FX budget alone would have been $30-40M before they hired anyone else!!

Even if that’s true, I don’t think Paramount would’ve approved it anyway. It sounds like they were ready to wash their hands of Shatner once Generations was made. And to be more frank, I think TFF put such a sour taste in everyone’s mouths, no one was going to give Shatner any creative clout with Star Trek after that; certainly not another movie.

It’s dated 1April….

And once again: Obviously, you didn’t read the article either.

No matter the date, the article doesn’t state that the character will return; it just addresses the Easter egg from a week-and-a-half old episode, and… if anything, it nullifies any further speculation.

Sheesh, you guys… 🙄

Gotta love Terry Matalas! Finally – some decent Star Trek (even if only Season 3 of an ending series; Picard) based on Roddenberry’s principle’s of human understanding, intelligence and wonder!! Sadly, now we face more drivel, pathetic drama, romantic trysts, rivalries and teen angst in Disco’s continuation of ‘Starfleet Academy” where good science-fiction goes to die! (I know this may trigger a couple of kids here who believe that Disco era Trek is the penultimate expression of Trek – which I have no doubt it actually is for them – just wish we lived in a Trek Universe that catered for both the puerile & the intelligent!)

Consider me triggered…

…to agree with you! 😉

Aww did somebody put too much salt in your soup? I can’t fathom why anyone is upset about “Academy.” It’s a show for teens.

Are you just mad because they also made something designed to appeal to a different group? Not everything has to be for you.

Not to get political here, but this is very much a right wing conservative mindset: when something caters to a minority group, for example, it’s inherently a bad idea, or even downright evil, because it’s for someone other than you, and that should not stand!

Relax. Let them make a show for teens, you’ll still get your old angry white man Trek on the Picard spin-off.

If there is any HOPE of doing some kind of resuscitation of Kirk, the body would have to have been recovered EXTREMELY quickly after the whole Veridian III fiasco. Otherwise, I’d have a very hard time buying it. I hope any future writer understands this.

Okay, let’s chalk this up as a half baked April Fool’s joke, and E6 going way too overboard on the fan service.

I used to think Kirk’s Return in the Return was ridiculous. Then i saw them kill off Picard and make him a robot. There is no holy writ on canon, these people do whatever they want.

Pine is the only one who could carry it but he’s younger than when Kirk died. The return was a great novel and I feel some part of that plot has something to do with this season 3.

Shouldn’t a regenerated Kirk be at peak age?

Exactly! Perfect for Paul Wesley!

I’d prefer Chris Pine to play Kirk Prime. I can’t believe i’m in agreement with Tarantino on that.

Bring Shatner back. I don’t care how old he is. They keep dragging Spiner back so why not ShatKirk.

Because Spiner is cool, humble, and fun to work with.

You have clearly not met Brent Spiner on an off day, lets just say he’s not very pleasant

Those are his off days. I’ve never seen anyone in the cast have anything bad to say about working with him. He doesn’t demand to be the center of attention, he doesn’t hog the spotlight in a show, and he doesn’t publicly trash the franchise.

He’s also a member of the TNG cast, so that’s why they brought him back. When they do a TOS reunion, maybe they’ll bring Shatner. Maybe. I’d be happy with an episode that’s just Takei and Koenig having tea together.

If they wanted a cool cameo to close out Picard, it’d be neat to see very elderly SF officers Sulu and Chekov.

So MAKE this TV movie.

Well if they are going to bring back Shatner’s Kirk they had better hurry up and come up with something. Shatner is 92 years old and although fantastic for his age he won’t be like that forever!

My thoughts exactly. Let’s hope it gets stuck in development for like…idk… four or five years.

I’m fortunate to have a friend who works on the production who confirmed a few days ago that it was just an Easter Egg (unless of course he was misdirecting me too, but I doubt it.). And of course, now that Malalas has confirmed the Easter Egg status that seems to be the case. But it’s more than an Easter Egg, of course, it’s a seed, waiting for some other production team to plant or not. I think it’s an interesting seed – and one that doesn’t need to go in the direction we all suppose, with Shatner coming back to play Kirk (as fun as that might be). This is Science Fiction. Which means that anything is possible. If the tech exists to bring back someone who has died – then who’s to say that the technology doesn’t exist to bring them back younger, rejuvenated, etc.? The nice thing about science fiction is that anything that makes a good story (and I’m not here to debate whether it would be a good story or not) is possible.

I agree. It’s definitely more than an Easter Egg. If Kirk’s body is there, with the name “Project Phoenix,” then that’s a seed for another story and, imo, it’s one that they should take advantage of in some way, especially since they’ve already recast Kirk for the second time with a new actor, Paul Wesley, in Strange New Worlds.

Definitely seems ripe to be picked up in the future. Perhaps one of those platforms Kurtzman was talking about. Either a character based mini series or movie. Just give Shatner a story credit even if is only loosely based on The Return and hopefully he would be happy to take a small role. Then explore some of the elements of Section 31 relating to Project Phoenix etc. Could even include Genesis 2. That one scene planted some seeds they could pursue if they choose.

And they’ve already got a perfect new actor to play the cloned Kirk, in Paul Wesley. Well-timed!

Not Wesley.

It’s not the looks. It’s the performance.

He lacks the charisma, intensity, energy that makes both Shatner and Pine seem to take up more space than reality.

I believe Ed Speleers could really deliver Kirk. Wesley just does not.

lol You’ve seen him in half an episode, kneejerker.

All I needed to see was the teaser on WNMHGB to know Shatner ‘had it.’ This guy doesn’t.

lol ok, bud. You do you. I for one am rational and open-minded and willing to give him a shot in the role.

I’ll give Wesley a shot too. It’s fair.

I only saw Wesley biefly on youtube from scenes from his appearance in that SNW episode. Based on that, I agree with you. Pine was just wonderful as Kirk. Wesley may look more like Shatner, but I thought his performance, again, from the very little I’ve seen, was pretty flat.

That said, I don’t think they’d get Pine to play Kirk in a series, especially with Wesley already cast and in SNW season 2. I hope he comes across better than the bit I saw.

Having read those above mentions series of books and Kirk & Picard together and so forth, They are well written and would make a nice series/movie. Coming from the generation that watched TOS in first run, I would love to see JTK come back. Its what I grew up with and hold dear to this day.

Maybe Jack will turn out to be a Reman/Kirk/Picard ala Shinzon combo clone implanted into Beverly (unseen on screen) sometime just after ST:Nemesis in some long game plan of revenge against the Federation by Romulans. Who knows? Maybe Romulan spies stole some Kirk DNA from Daystrom long ago to do it. Ha!

What a bunch of hogwash. If they wanted to bring back William Shatner they would’ve done it a long time ago. I think there’s some sort of vendetta against him. That man is the one and only Captain Kirk. Every other actor pales in comparison.

I hope they have rights to the Shat’s image and voice so they can cook him up in a computer like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in recent Star Wars iterations. Nimoy would be another one you’d hope they’d rights to. There’s a couple five-year missions (post-TMP, post-TFF) we never got to see. But I don’t see it recast.

There were any number of ways to bring him back, into his own time. Coming back into the future wouldn’t be the best for the character. A return years ago would have written itself — no way Spock would have accepted that demise. He would have chased that “nexus” “round perdition’s flame” or something like that.

I was hoping for Shatner. Whenever my hopes are seemingly dashed, I remember that they outright lied that Cumberbatch wasn’t Khan. (Although they fooled no one.)

I love the Abrams movie, but, yeah, that was a complete fail wrt Khan. He didn’t look Indian at all. Of course, if he did, it would have been even easier to guess that he was Khan.

Was hoping he was Gary Mitchell, but i knew he was Khan.

Understand why he did it, especially as someone who didn’t like Picard left him on some desolate planet, but I wish there was just a line saying Kirk was returned to Earth, given a state funeral where he was buried in his hometown of Iowa and left it at that.

Showing that Kirk’s remains were being stored in Daystrom Station for experimentation didn’t bother me as much as when they revealed it. Once they showed that easter egg, I spent the rest of the episode wondering why Kirk’s body was there.

It was like… “Oh Moriarty! But why is Kirk’s body there? Oh it’s Data in a synth body… But what is Project Phoenix and why do they have Kirk’s body? The changelings took Picard’s frozen corpse! But is Kirk alive? I thought I heard a medical scanner too.” The placement was such a distracting choice.

I don’t know how the season is ending, but I would have placed a big easter egg like that at the end of the last episode of the season like a Marvel style end credits scene. Maybe showing a couple of Section 31 agents taking inventory of the vault and end with the reveal of Kirk’s storage locker. I would have liked that better personally.

But yeah, I understand why he did it too.

I understand why he did it. What I don’t understand is why someone in editing didn’t realize that it was stupid, and cut it out.

“Is it a tip of the hat to  The Return , which is a wonderful book I recommend to all of you? Maybe. We just leave it open that someday some brilliant writer could do something. That could be an animated thing. That could be anything. It’s just to keep, as my friend Spock is fond of saying: “There are always possibilities.” That was the idea behind that.”

I can live with this. Like a lot of ST fans, including Generations writers Ronald Moore and Brannon Braga, Matsalas didn’t like Kirk’s end in the film either. Bringing back Kirk, probably played by a younger actor isn’t going to happen on Picard, nor should it. It’s obviously a big deal if it happens at all and it will take careful thought and a great idea for a story. If they don’t have that, which they didn’t have for Generations (Moore and Braga have admitted that), they shouldn’t do it.

They shouldn’t wait on this though. It would be great to get Shatner involved (possibly) and he is over 90. I’m sure he would do it, especially if it was a really good idea.

i would love an adult cartoon telling stories in time periods with character whose actors are too old to play them at the appropriate age….ie i’d love to see riker on the titan as a CGI animated show.

still holding out hope the face is shatner/kirk. but thinking its gul dukat

How can you be a Star Trek fan and not be a fan of Shatners Kirk? He is a golden character played by the best actor ever to appear on the show! There would be no Star Trek today without William Shatner.

The thought had occurred to me when I was watching The Bounty, was that the reason Kirk’s body was at Daystrom Station was because at one point scientists wanted to/were studying the effects of the Nexus on a human body for various reasons including suspension of aging.

“Kirk’s body was buried by Picard on Veridian III under a pile of rocks.”

I wasn’t really a TOS fan when I watched Generations, although I enjoyed the TOS films. When Kirk died I felt it was inevitable. As I have grown older and rewatch the shows and films, I agree it was not the correct choice to kill him in that fashion. However, Generations had so many third act problems I can’t really see any of it going well.

I do know that characters that are dead should stay dead, this isn’t a comic book franchise. Bringing Spock back in the manner they did was cool, and bringing Yar back the way they did was also really cool.

But when they killed Picard and downloaded him into the gollum, I thought it was a stretch, so bringing back an old, retired Captain thirty years after his death, and over a hundred years after his prime (remember he should have died in the beginning of the 24th Century not the end of it, thank you Nexus). It really makes no sense why they would resurrect him. It would be like resurrecting Dwight D Eisenhower.

First comment here. I thought season 1 of DSC was an abomination. S2 is the only one I rewatch, mostly because of Pike and his crew, but also because the second season show runners realized how absurd S1 was and tried to fix everything. Becoming a starship captain after committing mutiny–laughable.

I watch Lower Decks and sometimes laugh out loud by generally don’t enjoy it. I once told my spouse that the problem with the show would be revealed if a character like Boimler was ever done live action. All the yelling and screaming and running away would be absurd. Now, apparently, they are doing Boimler live on a SNW crossover. Wash my mouth out with soap.

Prodigy is a fun show for what it is. It has respect for the source material and timeline, something the original creators of DSC didn’t seem to care about.

Picard season one: loved it. Season 2: you could fly a starship through all the plotholes, but the end with Q and Picard was fab. It was just so painful and ridiculous getting there. Season three: excellent. Great writing and respect for timeline and source material.

Strange New Worlds: As good as it’s probably going to get in the Kurtzman era, which is very good. I kind of pretend all the Kurtzman stuff takes place in the Kelvin timeline, which obviously much of it couldn’t, but it’s the only way I can shut off my “WTF” switch and enjoy it. And I do enjoy SNW a lot.

Will wait and see on the Beverly Hills 90210 Starfleet Academy Show.

So the only things I rewatch from this entire mess are DSC S2, PIC S1 and S3, and SNW S1.

All that being said, things could be worse. A lot of people love DSC and LD, and I say good for them. There’s something for everybody. I just want a show respectful to the timeline and source material, with credible writing and characters. SNW is my favorite. LLAP.

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Published Nov 8, 2011

Kirk vs. Picard... Who Gets your Vote?

It’s Election Day, and with that in mind we thought we’d pit two of Star Trek ’s legendary captains – Kirk and Picard – in a battle of wits, wisdom, brawn, compassion and more… with no less than the presidency of the United States at stake. And we need your help. Answer the 12 questions below and post your thoughts on either StarTrek.com or the Star Trek Facebook page. OK, let the debates rage on.Forgetting the fact that James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard are fictional characters, who would you vote for if they both ran for President?If one were a Republican and one were a Democrat, who would belong to which party, and why?Who is the more compassionate man, Kirk or Picard?If the country were going to war, which captain would you want serving as Commander in Chief?Who’s the better diplomat?If Kirk and Picard were to hold a debate, who’d win – and why?Who’d be their respective running mates?Who’d be their respective campaign managers?If Kirk and Picard had to marry in order to become President, who’d make the ideal respective First Lady for each men?What would Kirk and Picard’s respective campaign slogans be?Kirk and Picard tie in the election and the winner must be determined by a mano-a-mano, knock-down/drag-out fight, no phasers allowed. Who triumphs?If Kirk and Picard ran on the same ticket, who’d be President and who’d be Vice President? And if they won, how do you think that administration would work out?

Bonus question: You refuse to vote for either Kirk or Picard. Who is your write-in candidate, and what would make him or her better than Kirk or Picard?

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FlickSphere

21 Things About Star Trek That Fans Hesitate to Acknowledge

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One Star Trek: The Original Series Episode Had The Cast Swimming In Their Sweat

Vasquez Rocks is located in the northern part of Los Angeles County about 25 minutes away from Downtown L.A. via the 14 freeway. It's close enough to the city to be easily accessed by car, but far away enough to look like a remote wilderness. The park's celebrated rock formations look eerie, ancient, and alien from certain angles, making it a popular place for film and TV productions going back to the 1930s.

Trekkies likely recognize Vasquez Rocks as an oft-reused filming location, serving as a variety of alien worlds for various "Star Trek" projects . The park was featured in the "Original Series" episodes "Shore Leave" (December 29, 1966), "Arena" (January 19, 1967), "The Alternative Factor" (March 30, 1967), and "Friday's Child" (December 1, 1967). Later, Vasquez Rocks would serve as Vulcan "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" and "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," released in 1983 and 1984 respectively.

Fans of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" would recognize Vasquez Rocks from the episode "Who Watches the Watchers?" (October 16, 1989), and the park would later be seen playing alien worlds in the "Star Trek: Voyager" episodes "Initiations" (September 4, 1995) and "Gravity" (February 3, 1999). It was in the "Enterprise" episode "Unexpected" (October 12, 2001). "Star Trek" characters wouldn't visit Vasquez Rocks on Earth — that is, the park wouldn't play itself — until the "Star Trek: Picard" episodes "Maps and Legends" and "The End is the Beginning," both from 2020. No natural monument is more closely tied to the franchise.

And what was shooting at Vasquez Rocks like? Horrible. In a 2013 interview with StarTrek.com , actor Michael Dante recalled playing the part of Maab in "Friday's Child," and he only remembered that Vasquez Rocks reached 117 degrees the day of filming.

Michael Dante vs. Vasquez Rocks

"Friday's Child" sees Captain Kirk (William Shatner) traveling to the planet Capella IV to negotiate a mining contract with the violent, but honorable, locals. Kirk has to convince the Capellans to give their ore to the Federation and not to a visiting Klingon (Tige Andrews) who would use it for nefarious purposes. During the negotiations, a civil war breaks out, with Maab (Dante) killing the Capellan leader and usurping the throne. Maab also wants to kill the pregnant queen Eleen (Julie Newmar) , forcing Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) to protect her. The episode features a lot of outdoor fighting, silly regal costumes, and over-the-top acting. Eleen eventually names her child after Kirk and McCoy.

Dante had to wear an outsize blonde wig to play Maab, as well as an uncomfortable-looking headpiece that covered his neck and ears (see above). The regal costumes looked to be made of disused theatre curtains and wool. As itchy as they appear, however, Dante said they were also filled with sweat:

"The weather [stands out]. It was 117 degrees at Vasquez Rocks, where we were filming. The outfits we had, they couldn't breathe. There weren't any openings in the clothing. They were all tight, with boots. I was 180 pounds at that time — and I'm still 180 pounds, which I'm very proud of — but I lost seven pounds in one day. I literally lost muscle. I looked at myself in the mirror when I got home and I said, 'I can't believe what happened.'"

Sweating too much doesn't actually reduce muscle mass, but one can indeed lose several pounds of water a day if they don't rehydrate in a hot climate. Keep the canteen full, kids.

As one can see in the above picture, Dante also had to wear giant furry boots, which are not ideal for desert hiking. What's more, the boots he wore weren't porous or vented, allowing them to catch every drop of Dante's sweat. "It was just so hot. The water was oozing out of us. Every time I'd take a step in my boots, there'd be a swooshing sound, and that was perspiration that went down to my boots," he recalled.

"Friday's Child" was written by longtime "Star Trek" luminary D.C. Fontana, who said that she wanted to write a character like Eleen who didn't want to have children. Such a conceit would have been novel on 1960s TV, and Fontana's script was kept largely intact for filming. Other writers added the Klingon character, but Eleen remained the same. Weirdly, there is a dark moment in "Friday's Child" when Dr. McCoy realizes that he needs to be more forceful and angry with Eleen in order to gain her respect. Her species values aggression, and McCoy was too gentle. To show his strength, he smacks Eleen across the face. It might be the only instance in "Star Trek" of a main character punching a pregnant woman. Perhaps ickily, it worked.

Regardless, Datne said he has rewatched his episode since the 1960s and feels that, dramatically, it holds up pretty well. He was told "Star Trek" was just a Western in space , and he played Maab accordingly. Dante retired from acting in the late 1980s and hosted a syndicated interview radio show from 1995 until 2007. He is still alive and well at 92. 

Screen Rant

Picard never appeared in star trek’s mirror universe but his doppelganger was just as evil.

TNG never visited the Mirror Universe, but Star Trek: Picard revealed that the Confederation of Earth's Jean-Luc was just as evil as any Terran.

• General Picard's reign of terror in the Confederate Earth was just as brutal as the Mirror Universe's Terran Empire.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation never visited the Mirror Universe due to a cooler, scientific approach by the producers.
• Fans had to wait until Star Trek: Picard to meet General Picard's evil alternate, as TNG rejected the idea.

Audiences never met the Mirror Universe version of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), but Star Trek: Picard revealed that he had an evil doppelgänger who was just as evil as anyone in the Terran Empire. In Picard season 2, the machinations of Q (John de Lancie) created an alternate timeline in which the United Federation of Planets becomes the Confederation of Earth. This brutal regime was the antithesis of Star Trek's Federation, drawing comparisons between the Confederation and the Terran Empire .

Both the Confederation and the Terran Empire placed humanity above all other species in the galaxy, leading to a bloody and brutal subjugation of other alien races. As Star Trek: TNG didn't visit the Mirror Universe , General Picard was the closest that fans got to seeing his evil counterpart. Just like the Mirror Universe version of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), the Confederation's General Picard was a cruel despot who had conquered countless worlds and killed scores of enemies .

Worf Ruled The Mirror Universe In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (No, Really)

General picard of confederation of earth was as evil as mirror universe.

Of the many reveals about Star Trek: Picard 's Confederation , the information about General Picard and his reign of terror was the most chilling. General Picard annihilated the Klingon home world Qo'noS, much like the Mirror Universe's Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) did in Star Trek: Discovery . Rather than command the USS Enterprise-D, Picard was in command of the CSS World Razer, a fearsome looking starship of which an oil painting was hung in the General's study . General Picard's study was also decorated with the skulls of some notable Star Trek figures, including:

• Borg Sentinel One of Two
• Grand Nagus Zek (Wallace Shawn)
• Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo)
• General Martok (J.G. Hertzler)
• Director Sarek (Mark Lenard)

Like his Prime Universe counterpart, General Picard also had a synthetic body, which he had acquired following a battle with Gul Dukat . The General's chateau was staffed by both Romulan and synthetic slaves, who maintained his home while he was on important business for the Confederation Corps. When Prime Picard arrives in the Confederation reality in Star Trek: Picard season 2, it's on the eve of Eradication Day, in which the General is scheduled to publicly execute the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching). The Borg Queen's skull would have joined the others in Picard's trophy room if Jean-Luc and the La Ceritos crew hadn't saved her.

Why Star Trek: The Next Generation Never Went To The Mirror Universe

The notion of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode set in the Mirror Universe existed from as early as 1987, when David Gerrold joked about a sequel to "Mirror, Mirror" in Starlog magazine which would have featured Edith Keeler (Joan Collins) and dangerous, carniverous Tribbles . Jerome Bixby, who wrote the original Mirror Universe episode of Star Trek: The Original Series pitched a sequel for TNG that would have featured older versions of the TOS characters . However, this idea was rejected by Paramount, who didn't want to feature them so heavily in TNG .

Of the many Mirror Universe episodes pitched to Star Trek: The Next Generation , hardly any of the failed pitches have become public knowledge.

A.J. Black's book Lost Federations: The Unofficial Unmade History of Star Trek suggests that the pulpy idea of a darkest timeline didn't sit well with " The Next Generation's cooler, scientific approach to Star Trek, particularly in the Piller era. " Black's assumption is largely correct, backed up by Michael Piller himself. Piller explained that he " wasn't interested " in revisiting the Mirror Universe during TNG , despite the multiple "Mirror, Mirror" sequels that were pitched to him . While Piller would eventually acquiesce and produce a "Mirror, Mirror" sequel on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , fans would have to wait until Star Trek: Picard to meet Jean-Luc's evil alternate.

All episodes of Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: The Next Generation are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Picard

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After starring in Star Trek: The Next Generation for seven seasons and various other Star Trek projects, Patrick Stewart is back as Jean-Luc Picard. Star Trek: Picard focuses on a retired Picard who is living on his family vineyard as he struggles to cope with the death of Data and the destruction of Romulus. But before too long, Picard is pulled back into the action. The series also brings back fan-favorite characters from the Star Trek franchise, such as Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), Worf (Michael Dorn), and William Riker (Jonathan Frakes).

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation is the third installment in the sci-fi franchise and follows the adventures of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew members of the USS Enterprise. Set around one hundred years after the original series, Picard and his crew travel through the galaxy in largely self-contained episodes exploring the crew dynamics and their own political discourse. The series also had several overarching plots that would develop over the course of the isolated episodes, with four films released in tandem with the series to further some of these story elements.