"Is Picard a better character than Kirk ?" Topic

Well, Mr. Jason said yes and he based this on his link.

link

I'm not sure. Love Picard but Kirk IS the Captain of the Enterprise.

What do you think?

Amicalement
Armand

Is string better than rice? It's apples and elbows to compare Kirk and Picard.

Shows made in two different eras. Kirk as Captain as a Captain should be, show no signs of panic under the most stress while every one around them is losing their heads. There was an episode where Kirk did get to beat the tar out of Finnigin.

Picard's Star Trek was the touchy feely political correct garbage that I am so sick of today. And that is Picard's core problem.

Amen Sargon

No, Kirk is definately a better character, Picard is too PC.

Kirk is the man. And ego the size of a space ship. Just the kind of guy you need as a leader.

Having said this, the captains are on away teams way too often. I can't imagine this being SOP for future explorations in space.

I agree with the above.

Picard, and having a counselor on the bridge to advise on the PC thing to do in every situation is just silly. Of course, it does show how some people would like things to be.

Kirk was a captain's captain. A take no prisoners kind of guy.

It is an interesting parallel to how some in real life want our soldiers and leaders to be warriors, but also choir boys as well.

Doesn't really work in the real world, on TV, or in the movies, so I'm not sure why people keep trying to force a square peg in a round hole.

Can Picard give robots emotions by kissing them? (Kirk can)
Picard may arguably be a better person, but Kirk is freaking magical.

Yeah, Kirk saved the Federation how many times, plus got the girl (or alien girl) all the time. Picard would be interesting to talk to and a good diplomat. Kirk would be the guy you want by your side in a fight.

Thanks,

John

Kirk was the right guy for that wilder/rougher era… when Klingons wore less makeup and fancy dress.
Picard is the right guy for later times, where a lot of the aliens wear natural fibers and Kirk has already killed most of the really mean guys.

follow the link and find 100 reasons Picard is not

comedycorner.org/12.html

kirk… goes, kicks alien ass, then sleeps with their wives, regardless of colour or number of limbs..

..and "the kiss" in Plato's Stepchildren. Of course.

Picard, great actor, great voice, silly PC rubbish, obnoxiously sickly sweet co-characters (shootcrusherdiediedie!) and far, far,far too much holo-deck use.

and he was french, sorry, but Patrick Stewart as a Frenchman? That's like casting John Wayne as an Irishman… (!)

/Dee

A Frenchman who drunk tea….

The fact tha Picard is not on the Crusherdiediedie list is down to the acting ability of Stewart.

Kirk. Should be a poll.

For Me it will always be Kirk.
I tend to view the two series as similar to westerns with TOS as the beginning of the west and TNG as the closing of the west.

Has to be Kirk every time ''Hail Caesar '' !

KIRK: "You Klingon bastard, you killed my son".

or in a NextGen Future Parallel kind of scenario….

PICARD: "I say old chap, you would appear to have terminated my son. Perhaps we should have a cup of tea and discuss this".

I like them both for different reasons but Kirk's still the Captain for me.

I will always have a fondness for the uncluttered original series and its main characters, but the more subtle character of Picard is probably more interesting. He was always put forward as a character with a larger diplomatic role than starship captains in earlier times.I have read that the actor made a point of turning aggressive statements into more reflective questions.
TNG is a product of a post Cold War era… it is not so much of an "us and them" universe. There are difficult choices to make and lines that have to be carefully trodden--culminating in the moral ambiguity of the Maquis stuff in the later stories. Picard fits well into this period.
I agree it made no sense to give him a French background--I wonder if that pre-dated Patrick Stewart's casting? And there are too many "nicey-nicey" supporting characters.. and I've seen the officers of the Enterprise D described as a crew of chronic over-achievers. Why does everyone have to be the best pilot or doctor in Starfleet, and how do all the other ships cope without a half-telepathic counsellor? You start longing to see someone who is just a bit rubbish sometimes. All hail Lt Reg Barclay!
But that's more to do with the ethos of the whole show than whether Picard is any good.
Horses for courses.

That's like casting John Wayne as an Irishman

Yes… ridiculous… oh, hang on: imdb.com/title/tt0045061

Of course, he was actually was of Scots-Irish and Scottish descent on both sides of his family ;-)

I agree with most of the pro Kirk comments.
The original series was a universe with distinct dangers from other species. TNG has small plotters trying to disrupt the peace forged by the galactc UN.

Which is, in itself, just a reflection of 1960s and modern society?

I like em both. And the universe is big enough for both. Picard is no coward or slouch in a fight. The difference between him and Kirk, is that Kirk is more apt to get you killed with his recklessness. He will get the job done, but you will die. Then again Picard got his Enterprise "beached"…. on a planet :p

Important point on Picard's ancestry. He is not just French. He is an aristocrat. This may have to do with explaining his refinement and code of honor.

Different captains for different times. Picard's role is as a captain in a complex universe where diplomacy is needed – and, yes, he is painfully politically correct

Kirk is the go-get'em guy who needs to be there when you absolutely positively have to take that beach (maybe he has Marine blood)

In one of the Next Gen movies, Picard tells Worf that he thinks Worf is, "The Bravest man I have ever known."

Kirk would never tell another man that he thinks that man is braver than he thinks he himself is, even if he suspected it were true. That's not a flaw, that's not bravado. For Kirk, his success depends on his assesment of his own bravery, at every minute of evry day..

Kirk was very much a Teddy Roosevelt captain. I keep waiting for him to snarl out the line "You ever heard of the Big Stick?" when dealing with recalcitrant alien races.

Then again, compared to the "Mirror Universe" Kirk, ours is the nice, compassionate guy.

Sadly the captains went downhill from Kirk, with the exception of Sisko, who wasn't afraid to mix it up with Klingons, Cardassians, Wormhole aliens, etc.

Picard was too PC, Voyager had Martha Stewart and I kept hoping Jonathan Archer would Quantum Leap out of Enterprise and leave someone else to play the captain.

So yeah, Kirk over Picard.

Look down. Is your shirt red? Does that change your mind?

"Yes… ridiculous… oh, hang on: imdb.com/title/tt0045061"

Irony for the 'hard of hearing', by Geoff ;-0

/Dee

"Then again Picard got his Enterprise "beached"…. on a planet :p"

Only one?

Didnt he crash rather a lot of them?

I wonder what his insurance premium was like… "So, how many accidents have you had in the previous year that involved planetary objects?"

"It jumped out in front of me! Honest!"

Irony for the 'hard of hearing'

Just making sure I had researched it right ;-)

The Original Kirk is better than Picard.
Picard is better than the reboot Kirk.

Picard is like a caricature of a Brussels bureaucrat, always looking for nuance and complexity in situations where neither is present.

He couldn't change a light bulb without discovering some kind of phony moral dilemma.

You are assuming that the light bulb is not a new life form…

All leaders have their own style, but both Captains served in different times "politically" … What may have worked in WWII or Korea, may not necessarily have been appropriate during Vietnam or the Cold War … I think Archer was a good mix of the two … especially after he had a few not-so-friendly first contacts …

I found watching Shatner's "The Captains" documentary very illuminating on this issue, which they discuss. OTOH the program is quite boring.

Always thought the TV Kirk was a bit of a buffoon…….

I like 'em both.

While I agree with many of the comments about TNG being way too PC (it was a product of its time), Picard could get fired up on occasion, especially when it came to the Borg. He wasn't very PC in "First Contact," he just wanted to kill Borg.

Kirk with green women Picard had to send his #1 to handle that stuff .

I like to look at it like this:

U.S.A. = Federation
Soviet Union = Klingon Empire
China = Romulans

Kirk = George S. Patton – old Blood n'Guts in the future kicking Soviet behind.

After The Undiscovered Country – where the moon blows up causing a catastrophic problem for the Klingon Empire (Chernobyl), the Federation and Klingon Empire settle their armed issues.

Picard = a brilliant diplomat who is able to overcome most problems and without equal in the arena in any historical counterpart.

I prefer Picard, but then again, I like Patrick Stewart's acting abilities over those of Shatner's, T.J. Hooker anyone?

Jovian1

I like you analogy

Dag Hammerskojl might be close. If he had not been "taken care of". At least according to the Swedes who love him a lot.

Even Patrick Stewart hated Picard.

He has said he only took the role because Roddenberry told him the character was going to be 'the new Kirk'. When told the character was going to be French, he imagined someone in the mold of one of the Musketeers…not the pathetic gimp that was Picard.

And if you noticed that as time went by Picard became more 'actiony' instead of 'talky', well…..thats because Stewart threatened to walk off the show if they didn't make his character more 'heroic'.

When asked why he stayed on the show if he hated it, his answer….and I love him for it…was very simple. He basically said it was because he was an actor, this is what he did for a living, and they paid him large amounts of money to do it.

evilmike- Read the same thing. Actually had a chance to meet Patrick Stewart in London when he was doing a role in the West End (long convaluted story how that happened…). Very gracious and very much an 'actor's actor'.

As for the red shirt thing: Older brother of a good friend was just starting out in Hollywood and was picking up extras gigs when Star Trek was filming. Got on 3 different shows. Our conversations ran like this:

Me: "Ya got the gig?
Him: "Yep"
Me: "As a 'red shirt'?
Him: "Yep"
Me: "Got killed, huh?"
Hime: "Yep. But, hey, it's a paycheck"

And yet, when reading the book Red Shirts by John Scalzi, the Captain always had Tim Allen's voice and the Science Officer sounded like Alan Rickman to me.

"Better Character"
To drag yet another movie quote in here, "just because you are a character doesn't mean you have character." I suspect Picard was better written and directed. A lot of Kirk was Shatner being Alpha Dog on set and little else.

TNG purposely split Kirk up into Picard and Riker, then failed to develop Riker's half of the deal more than absolutely necessary and then replaced most of his action potential with Worf. That left Picard as the diplomat, Worf as the punching bag, and Riker as the tall impatient guy waiting to punch whoever had just punched Worf.

No

Picard had the better character but Kirk was the better character :-)

"Always thought the TV Kirk was a bit of a buffoon…….".

Exactly. Another reason we love him, and why he's merely a captain, instead of an admiral.

As he got promoted later, in the movies, he lost a bit of his edge.

To give him credit though, he did do nicely against Khan.

I was fond of both but they were different Captains for different eras.

Every episode of ST:C is on my Tivo, no episodes of ST:NG are, which says it all really.

Kirk was such a complete though, he needed Spock, Scotty & Bones to fill the void left by his character faults.

Martin, that is why the show worked so well and why they worked so well as friends. And why we liked them. They needed each other. We all can relate to that, just as my wife compensates for all my personality flaws, which are many. No one in TNG needed each other, hence less chemistry.

I like Kirk better BUT, Picard got to punch the Ferrengi in the nose…

Good thing neither of them ever ran into Paula Broadwell and/or Jill Kelley !