Patrick Stewart Says ‘Maybe’ To Idea Of Returning To Star Trek

Speaking with Variety about the Oscar buzz around the X-Men franchise Wolverine movie Logan, the interviewer couldn’t help but ask about Stewart’s other big franchise role, Captain Picard. Initially reluctant to say “yes” to returning to the role of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard again, the Star Trek: The Next Generation star did talk about one possibility that would get him to put on the uniform one last time.

Oh, lord. I cannot think of another instance in which that might happen. My feeling is I hung up the space suit and left all that behind a long time ago. Maybe if someone came up with a brilliant idea, I’d do it. One thing that might interest me would be to bring all the existing casts of “Star Trek” from the last 50 years together for one big story.

Stewart would be interested in a Trek movie that brings all the casts together

A Team-up Movie?

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard TNG-era alums talk about a big team up movie being something of interest. TrekMovie spoke to Brannon Braga earlier this Fall and he expressed a somewhat similar idea, with Captain Picard leading a best of the 24th century team:

I know what I would do. I would take the specialty characters, like Seven of Nine, Data, the holographic Doctor, and others and create a brain trust of characters who are up against some kind of really bad situation where they need to the most brilliant that Starfleet has to offer. Maybe create another character or two and put them on a f—king ship so you get a little from each and put some cameos in there while you are at it. I always thought that would make a cool movie.

Braga would like to see a movie with a mix of characters from different shows

Keep up with all Star Trek movie news at TrekMovie.com.

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Make. It. So.

No Shatner please! He’s become a cranky coot in his old age. He’s so difficult to work with these days that they didn’t even put him in any of the 3 new movies, while Nimoy appeared in 2 of them!

Agreed

Agreed. And Shatner’s Kirk is dead so its a moot point outside of a dream sequence somewhere or some convoluted story line to bring him back. Picard could still be aboard the Enterprise E boldly going so that’s not an issue if they really wanted him back.

Or he had no place in the new movies? Nimoy was the only one. I would say no Takei, that guy bugs the crap out of me.

he’ll be praying to the sweet lord baby Jesus for a role in the next film now Tarantino’s directing

Who’s fictional?

Tarantino’s not directing squat. All they are doing is pitching an idea, there’s no guarantee it’ll be accepted…or that it won’t be a Trek version of Grindhouse….

I don’t know… I really liked the idea of a story involving characters from the three 24th century shows over a decade ago. Not as much now. If done now it has the feel of a 4 or 6 episode mini series sorta thing… Although most non network TV is a mini series now days admittedly. The big problems would be Data and the holographic doctor. Who shouldn’t age but the actors who play them do. They would need some sort of bogus reason why they got old, obviously. I would certainly be interested as I’m a fan but would it be deemed worth throwing money at by those who would be funding it? To be honest… It just doesn’t seem likely. And if I’m being brutally honest I’d rather see some sort of DS9 epilogue thing than a huge multi cast mashup.

Just bring back Stewarts Picard and I am very happy!

DS9 epilogue sounds good to me too…a story unfolding in a Post-War cleanup and Reconstruction setting, putting a fractured Alpha/Beta Quadrant back together again, rounding up some stray/rogue WarLords backed by Orion CrimeLords who are trying to sow mischief and keep the chaos going, which serves their criminal activity.

Braga has a decent idea, but as always, he leaves out the original series or doesn’t think about it. I would agree with Stewart, that there should be some sort of major storyline that involves as many surviving characters from the series’ as possible. And yes, that especially includes Shatner.

Nah. Let TNG be TNG. It’s time to move on.

Except that shatner blows as an actor. Hes a big cheeseball .Not in same league as stewart.

It would be hard at this point. Shatner’s Kirk is dead as is Leonard Nimoy’s Spock and James Scotty. Nicole had a stroke last year. The original cast it only leads check off and sulu’s characters able to guest star without jumping through a lot of Hoops to resurrect Kirk.

Because the TOS is so done.

He’s on the right track. It really only works, in my mind, with Shatner as well.

In this I could see Shatner finding some kind if place.

Please no. Braga’s idea of teaming up Data, The Holographic Doctor and Seven of Nine sounds like an absolutely terrible idea. This would kill Star Trek just because the audiences would be laughing in their seats

Where else would they be laughing?

In their mouths.

In the isles…snack stand. Bathrooms. Parking lot. The drive home, before landing on their collective keyboards to declare Geriatric Trek the worst movie ever.

On the floor or walking out or back in to see it again….🤣

It would be great

An animated TNG TV/Blu-Ray film would be good to tell a ‘lost’ story or maybe do a miniseries for CBS Access. A live action miniseries could be an interesting way to tell a proper ‘final’ adventure. Set it in the same time period as the ‘future’ section of All Good Things and show us how things turned out as a result of Picard’s future knowledge and the changes wrought by the TNG movies and the Hobus disaster. I’d love to see a mentally-competent Picard reflect on it being the same day Geordi went to find him in the vineyard in the future section of AGT. It could also set the scene for an eventual post-TNG era TV show.

One word: Talosians. They offer to have him live a retrospective and Picard agrees. Perfect bookend to TOS.

Hear hear to animated. Would love and anthology series featuring adventures of different crews. Seems like it’d be the only affordable and practical way to get all of the cast on board. They could record voice-overs from anywhere and probably wouldn’t demand the same level of compensation as a live action project.

Also, if it was an anthology series they would only need 3-4 actors per episode. (Enterprise E ep would need Stewart, Dorn, McFadden and Burton, but Frakes & Sirtis would be on a Titan ep, maybe with Tim Russ as Tuvok, that kind of thing.)

An animated direct to cable release isn’t a bad idea. You actually could voice that with just about every living Trek actor and not worry about the fact that some of these performers are in wheelchairs…

You could even do a reasonable TOS animated film. Get Chris Doohan to play Scotty and Karl Urban to play Bones alongside the surviving original cast. Spock would be more difficult because Zachary Quinto sounds so different. They’d probably need a really good voice actor who can create a close facsimile of Leonard Nimoy’s delivery.

The rest of the Treks are pretty easy. If Warner can recreate Batman ‘66, CBS or Paramount (I suspect they’ll re-merge in light of the Disney/20th Cenury Fox deal) could certainly do something fun with their franchise.

Nah. The TNG folks had their shot, and they agreed to do NEMESIS. Time to move on. Even Stewart is starting to become a parody of himself, much like Shatner has.

Yes, his somewhat over-mannered style of acting has become a bit of a cliché. James McAvoy was a breath of fresh air for the Prof X character. I’d rather they’d have waited longer to make Days of Future Past.

Sorry, but Stewart IS Xavier. There isn’t anyone else I can see in the role (as much as I like McAvoy as an actor)

BOOOOO to all of this LOL

So your angry that the TNG cast were in Nemesis?

i understand hating the film, but blaming the cast because they did their jobs doesn’t make sense at all.

Yeah it makes no sense lol. And the fact is that the TNG cast is still very popular since that film shows the franchise is bigger than one bad film. It that was the case, everyone would’ve forgotten about the TOS cast after Final Frontier.

This would be so amazing.

The problem is that there are so many cast members from the various shows who do you leave out? Who gets pissed off?

Besides, we’re not going to be seeing the Picard era any time soon unless the Kelvinverse is dumped and age isn’t exactly on Patrick’s side. He’s already pretty much as old as Nimoy was in Trek 09.

Nothing to see here me thinks.

I wouldn’t object; indeed ST09 might have worked better with Picard rather than the Nimoy Spock as the time traveller…

Kirk is needed for some reason or other to aid in some extra-galactic thingumy so Picard, Janeway, Data and Seven have to go back to the Nexus and bring him back…

I’m in as long as they let Kirk have a proper death scene this time. One at least as well done as his Dad’s…

I like your idea up to Kirk’s death. This time he saves the day, becomes the captain of Enterprise E and the card gets promoted the Starfleet command as an admiral.

Yes!!!

Lol. That Axanar trash was about as far away from real Trek as you can get! Trek is about the story, not how TOS like something is visually. Their script is out there and it absolutely stinks. Explosions and war and little substance.

Q and all the popular characters and actors from all the shows, make it so!

Would love to see Picard again, but I don’t really know about that team up idea. And both Data and the doctor would look too old now (since their characters aren’t suppose to age and why Brent Spiner wanted to stop playing Data).

Anyway I doubt we will ever see him suit up again but please make it so if possible!

You can cast Loki aka Tom to play Data :)

Depending on the budget they could always use CGI to make them look as young as they did the last time they played the role

Yes this is a good point as they have done that to Stewart himself in an X-Men movie.

While the technology to make people look younger has gotten better over the years it’s still not quite out of the uncanny valley. It might be okay for a short scene but I’m not sure if I want to watch a whole movie of that.

they could also use cgi to de age or create actors who passed away also, so anything is possible

Star Trek XIV: the Wrath of Madame Tussaud

LOL

Star Trek past and future team up vs Borg of course, with Q get the Discovery in on that also

An aging Ambassador Picard gives a sendoff to the all-new crew of the Enterpise E (or F).

If you are going to create a brain trust or some sort of mastermind group, you can’t forget Wesley!

I like the idea. I thought Q could show up about the time Picard is thinking of retiring. Q would bring the gang back together much to their annoyance for one last adventure. Try and bring Kirk back as well as the other cast members from the different Star Trek series. Make it a miniseries and Make it so. I always like the ending of All Good Things where Q warns Picard that it never really ends. That seemed to be a promise that Q would show up again. I would love to see Q and Picard go at it again. They had great chemistry. I would be interested in seeing Q bring back Kirk for an important reason. I think they would work well together.

That’s all fan-wank though… and even as a fan, I probably wouldn’t want to actually see that, especially if it was made in place of something that had the potential to expand the franchise rather than regress and loop back in on itself.

However, if we’re going to involve Picard but still take things in a new direction, I wouldn’t mind seeing a Kelvin timeline version of a younger Picard on the Stargazer.

But is following Picard on the Stargazer really a new direction? Seems to me like it’s just continuing the prequel rut Trek has been stuck in for the past decade and a half.

Of course it isn’t. What I’m saying is, if we had to go back yet again or involve Picard, I’d rather explore that part of Trek history because there’s relatively little known about the time period between the Enterprise-A and D. Setting it in the Kelvin timeline gives even more opportunities (perhaps Jack Crusher survives for example).

Though if Stewart really wants his swan song, maybe an ailing Admiral Picard gets pulled into some plot with a totally new crew before he dies, set far enough ahead so it doesn’t look like TNG. But it’d have to be a great plot to overshadow the gimmicky casting of Patrick Stewart, otherwise it’d just be a vehicle to get him in that role again.

That would be crazy awesome, but its never going to happen.

Agreed. People also still seem to think that direct-to-DVD exists as a thing. Maybe some sort of Netflix movie would be theoretically possible, but I doubt CBS/Paramount would dilute the brand with what would essentially be a holiday special at this point.

Although, Logan was a good example of how to send off a character. Would we want to see that with Picard, though?

Braga’s Suicide Squad idea is, unless he were to recast everybody, about 15 years too late.

They could always do animation. I’m sure there are worries that that would “dilute the brand”, but I wouldn’t mind a direct-to-streaming animated movie filled with old characters. It will never happen though.

Star Trek is the future of our existence if I had a role to write for Star Trek oh boy I have such a great idea that include all existing cast members

I’d LOVE a ten episode 8th series of TNG with all the original cast. Kind of like X Files did. Just a one off.
Have Brent play B4 but Data’s memory has taken over and so now he’s essentially Data and has spent the last 15 years upgrading himself to be as good as he was before…I know it kinda diminishes his sacrifice in nemesis being the ultimate human act but – eh nobody liked Nemesis anyway. Plus Bryan Singer is in it. Plus you could have Admiral Picard in charge of Enterprise F from STO and make it canon . yadda yadda

Hmmm. Although with x-files we have good actors who are still convincing in the roles. Apart from Stewart, well…

But maybe it could be super-cool.

Make it so!

P.S. Shatner must be involved

This could only make sense if you made a story post Nemesis which would be a return to the Prime Universe indeed.

It’s gonna be interesting to see if any kind of Tarantino-conceived storyline actually gets progressed for the next movie. He certainly seems to be a fan of Shatner going by past interviews, so if there’s a possible angle to include Stewart in any way, then it’s just conceivable that he’d want to come up with some Mcguffin which can include Shatner along the way too…*if* he can persuade J.J. and the writers to get onboard with that in any way, that is.

…or there’s the highly-likely scenario which involves Tarantino and J.J. completely missing the opportunity to include either of these surviving Trek stalwarts in any way whatsoever…even if they DO come up with a plot which includes ‘time travel’ or an ‘alternate universe’ for the Kelvin nucrew to encounter!

While I’d rather see them re-teamed for a better outing than ‘Generations’ offered them both, I’ll still be content to see Chris Hemsworth as nuKirk’s dad again, if that’s the route they kind of end up concentrating on. But all bets are off on Hemsworth’s involvement too at this stage, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

Just another movie would be awesome to me. Huge fan of the movies

Let TNG rest in peace on TV. It had its day & had 4 movies. The last 2 were a disaster financially & creatively. Bring TNG back to TV by all means but leave the movies alone.

That ship has long since sailed. IF we ever see Picard again, it’ll be in the form of a reboot.

Probably you’re right. But it should be on the table.

JJ films pissed away so much good will with fans and the general public, that the easiest way to break through the noise and have anyone care about a Trek film is to utilize Stewart and/or Shatner. Its really the only way.

Barring that, they need a sub-$100 million budget and a very solid character film that relies on word on mouth. Another big budget souless flash bang fest wont work.

Definitely do a movie with all the casts of the various treks. For god sake no more reboots or re-imaginings. They are awful. The reboots are just shoot em ups in space not exploring strange new worlds or have intellectual plots that make one think.

Sounds desperate. No need to flog a dead horse.

CBS should just greenlight Michael Dorn’s Captain Worf mini-series project…a post-Nemesis story that could easily bring in as many of the TNG, DS9 and Voyager cast members willing to participate. I mean, look at how extensive the Marvel/DC universes are across so many series… the Star Trek universe is vast enough to handle it, and the fandom would be so ecstatic.

I never understood why people are so opposed to team ups. Isn’t this what fans wanted to see for years? But then people say “No, let’s not do what the fans want to see and what would be really cool. Instead have another Nemesis!”

Fan-Service is so bad!!! Yadda-Yadda. Strange that without fan service Star Trek wouldn’t even be around anymore. Maybe it would be time to appreciate the fans a bit?

Picard can come back again, but not sitting on a Captain’s chair, nor an Admiral’s chair, but on a Philosopher’s chair, inside an elegant study. He could play the role of being the philosophical center or analyst of whatever series he winds up in.

My god, Braga’s idea sounds TERRIBLE.

If they do anything along these lines they’ll have to re-boot the “ageless” characters.

And we all know how “popular” re-booted characters are, with some folks around here

Agreed, Braga’s idea is pretty lame.

I’m a Star Trek fan. I watch all of them over and over. Seen all of em and still watching them.

Post-Voyager movie.
Starting off on Earth at Starfleet Academy where O’Brien is teaching, and 7of9, Janeway, and the Doc are around.
They receive an urgent request from DS9 that the wormhole is behaving erratic and the entire Bajoran system is in danger.
The Enterprise E is assigned by Janeway. They take on O’Brian and 7of9 as specialists.
Meanwhile on DS9 Kira is coordinating an evacuation of the station.
Quark, Jake, Bashir and Ezri are still around.
Once the Enterprise-E arrives Miles, B4 and 7 implement a solution to stabilize the wormhole which some invasion force is trying to tap into (like species 9472, the Think Tank or the Voth). Their can be an epic battle as some invaders make it through.

At the end of it Sisko comes out, completing his journey of facilitating the defense of the wormhole. Sisko could jump back in time and get Beta-Quadrant Sulu with Ensign Tuvok to research some critical piece of info on the Excelsior.

Everyone gets together at Quarks….

Braga’s and Stewart’s notions of bringing back a load of surviving previous cast-members are highly unlikely to fly, I reckon.

Coming up with a scenario to re-introduce them ALL in a way for new audiences to understand would entail some convoluted plotline antics…and trying to fit the storyline and script to give each one a decent amount of screentime would just end up giving the writing team a major headache. I can’t see it happening, no matter how much some fans of certain characters would like that to happen.

While I’m sure Stewart would enjoy re-teaming with a bunch of his fellow TNG thespians for a nice extra paycheck…I’d like to think that IF Tarantino and J.J. ONLY asked him to be involved in this next big screen TREK instalment, that he’d graciously accept regardless. Especially for the fee he’d no doubt command. And if he likes their script of course!

And that goes for Shatner too, IF it turned out that he was another ‘returnee’ that they end up scripting for.

I personally doubt that either will be included in any way, but if there’s an ‘elderly Picard’ scenario for Stewart, then just get him to briefly look wistfully at a group shot of himself and his old shipmates in their prime at some point. That would be enough without a contorted storyline which perhaps dilutes what Q.T. has in mind.

By the way, I’m sure that Q.T. probably appreciates the excellent John de Lancia too, but I seriously doubt that he’s got a role for ‘Q’ in mind for his intended pitch.

…which begs the question – I wonder how many of us would be happy enough to include Stewart, Shatner, de Lancie, etc. in some brief ‘altered timeline/universe’- type of way for ‘fun cameos’ outwith their usual TREK personas? Me, I’d be okay with that, at this stage of the reboots, as long as it could be done in a way which could be incorporated into Q.T.’s main storyline without getting in the way of it’s main thrust.

Seems like a bad idea. But! Maybe a great one for miniseries on CBS All Access. Maybe there a probalem to solve that needs the assortment of characters can find the solution one episode at a time.

Start with simply assuming Kirk never died or is no longer dead for whatever reason (just forget about it!). I like the idea that he’s teaching somewhere, or advisor on a project of young cadets on an alien world (heh a missionary type project). Perhaps this place is totally weird and one of Kirk’s officers has nearly gone native. Picard has to visit and take Kirk and this cadet along to solve a galactic, psychedelic mystery.

Can we have Scott Bakula’s Archer be the Captain America of this Star Trek team-up?

From Mwemory Alpha:

Nemesis follow-up
An eleventh Star Trek movie was initially planned during production on the tenth film, Star Trek Nemesis. Nemesis co-writers John Logan and Brent Spiner intended to follow that film with a “crossover” sequel. After Nemesis failed financially, however, this plan was abandoned. [2] Patrick Stewart clarified that the film was intended to be the fifth and final TNG movie. He also commented, “It was a very exciting idea for a screenplay. It would have been a real farewell to Next Generation, but it would have involved other historic aspects of Star Trek as well.” [3] Spiner himself explained, ““One of the ideas that John Logan and I had about what the next film would have been was a Justice League of Star Trek. Something would bring all the great Star Trek villains together, from Khan to Shinzon, and Picard is the only person who could stop them and he actually has to go through time and pluck out the people he needs to help him. He goes back to the moment before Data blows up and takes him back to get Kirk and Spock, and go even further back and get Scott Bakula’s character, Archer. The problem with that more than anything is cost – how do you pay for that?” [4]

Star Trek: The Avengers
A similar film concept (reported in SFX magazine) was devised by Brannon Braga and likened by him to an Avengers story, because it took a “superhero teamup” approach. (SFX: The A-Z of Star Trek, p. 107; [5]) The story would have collected Starfleet’s greatest minds to defeat a terrible threat. (“In Conversation: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga”, ENT Season 1 Blu-ray special features; SFX: The A-Z of Star Trek, p. 107; [6])

Braga recalled this concept in a discussion with Rick Berman on 12 December 2012. (“In Conversation: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga” ENT Season 1 Blu-ray special features) “We were gonna get Picard, Data, Odo, the holographic Doctor… all the Star Trek characters on one ship, like a think tank,” commented Braga. He went on to say, “It was like Star Trek: The Avengers.” (“In Conversation: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga”, ENT Season 1 Blu-ray special features; SFX: The A-Z of Star Trek, p. 107; [7]) Braga couldn’t recall at what stage they had discussed the film idea, and Berman couldn’t remember having spoken about it at all, but they both agreed that it was still “a good idea.” Berman also suggested, “You might as well throw Kirk in there as well.” (“In Conversation: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga”, ENT Season 1 Blu-ray special features)

My favourite version fo the idea is still this!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJHANrzMSlk

@ DANNY LAVERY – The thing I always admired about that particular ‘Bring Back Kirk’ video was the amount of effort that went into piecing it together.

But these days, I simply like to look on the GENERATIONS movie as being set in a very similar-looking ‘alternative universe’ from the actual ‘prime universe’ movies, and therefore merely a totally separate entity from the other TREK movies – and it just has very similar-looking ‘dopplegangers’ of the ‘prime universe’s TOS crew and NEXT GEN crew involved from the start. ;)

This way it’s NOT the actual ‘prime Kirk’ that is seen dying off a rusty bridge…and it’s not the actual ‘prime Picard’ that consigns him beneath a pile of dusty rocks either! :)

This could easily take place in the Prime Timeline dealing with the fallout of Romulus’s destruction.

They should make the Borg Invasion into a movie. All of the TNG era casts were in that!

Has Patrick Stewart been contacted in response to the Tarantino movie pitch?

Isn’t that already done in X- Men, Avengers, and Justice League?

I love the people saying they should forget using Picard and leave it in the past. Why? Good grief. He just appeared as Prof. X again in Logan and is an incredibly respected and gifted actor. But “too old” for Star Trek. lol

The correct answer is, Stewart, Shatner, Spiner…all of them, are perfectly fine if THE STORY IS GOOD.

…and there’s the rub, TUP. A good story. Elusive at times for our favorite franchise. Like you said, ‘Logan,’ featuring a very aged Prof. X, was simply amazing, imo. All it takes is some imagination in the writer’s room, and some faith on the part of the studio. Again, those two things often prove elusive when it comes to Trek.

Plus Patrick was just nominated for a critics choice award for his role in Logan.

If the spore drive can jump you to an alternate universe, who says it can’t jump you to different points in time… That opens the door to some pretty wild things like seeing an older Ambassador Picard perhaps.

@ PEB – To be honest, I’d rather see an impressive-looking update of THE GUARDIAN alien technology on an as-yet-unresearched planet to enable a scenario like that, rather than reference the DISCOVERY’s woeful ‘tardigrade’ antics – that show doesn’t even deserve to belong in the ‘Kelvin timeline’, never mind the ‘Prime’ one!

Oh calm down, the show is really good and doing a hell of a job. I’m not the biggest fan of the spore drive but considering the tardigrade hasn’t been used to power it any more makes the tech that more interesting at this point – to me at least. And it’s created a compelling story for Stamets that I’m very curious to see play out.

As long as they don’t create some stupid SJW nonsense like Discovery, I’d be interested in seeing it. After Discovery, ST died in my mind.

what exactly is SJW in Discovery that isn’t in any other ep of Trek?

@Nebula exactly!

Yeah, Discovery would have been so much better if they were on the USS Tinder.

Is he gonna return in a wheel chair with an oxygen tank? :\

None story

The Enterprise could go back in time,and beam Kirk up before he falls, Picard would know the exact moment. And he would not be missed in the 23 century, because.they consider him lost in space anyway.

Make it so, Mr. Stewart.Thanks

With multiple shows existing today that take place in the same universe like the Chicago Fire/PD/Med franchise…I wished the had done crossover episodes when TNG, DS9, and VOY were on at the same time. The CW recently did a great job with the Crisis on Earth X crossover.

What the CW did is fairly easy to do when all the shows are on the same network.

Sorry, Sir Patrick, that’s a lousy idea. Doubt anyone would be interested in Generations II: I’ll Depends On You….