2013-01-29

Jean-Luc Rambo

Someone was talking about the characterization of Picard in the TNG films, saying that there was a certain Rambo syndrome about him.   I replied thusly:

"Funny, I was thinking just the other day of how badly Picard was nerfed in Generations, having very little command presence. His big moments were crying, saying "what?" when something unexpected happened, getting stuck under a rock and wiggling like an amoeba, getting a wounded nose, watching his failure to stop Soran the first go-round, et cetera . . . and he could barely talk anyone into or out of anything. His big win was to sabotage something before running away.

Indeed, most of the characters were nerfed in Generations . . . Worf can't target, Data went 'fraidy-cat, Geordi's knocked out and passes out then bathes and is used to destroy the ship, Crusher gets shoved and the only other time we really see her was when someone was calling her ugly, and of course Riker forgot how to order maximum firepower, or much of any at all. Troi steps up and drives the ship, but only into the ground.

First Contact at least rectified those issues, and I think pretty much everybody got a chance to shine better.

Insurrection tried to follow the action idea while also having a higher concept behind it, and I think while occasionally silly it generally succeeded even if Picard was a little more Rambo than standard. But it isn't completely out of character from the TNG days, given that he was so awesome in "Starship Mine" that even The Sisko (bald and goateed with Defiant in hand) would've retreated and Ripped Shirt Kirk would've run screaming like a small girl.

And then there's the last one. That's all I'm going to say about that."

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