Although Picard’s third and final season was touted explicitly as the last hurrah of not just Patrick Stewart’s iconic tenure as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, but the whole of the Next Generation cast, ever since it ended—hell, even before that—Stewart and his colleagues have repeatedly expressed a desire for a little more. And now, the venerable actor is switching up mediums.
After previously backing the idea of catching up with Jean-Luc occasionally as part of whatever could become Star Trek: Legacy, the Picard continuation/spinoff that showrunner Terry Matalas and crew have been screaming from the rooftops about throughout Picard’s third season hitting Paramount+, recently Stewart has pivoted to an alternate pitch: what if we got one more TNG movie, as a treat?
“I think we could do a movie, a Picard-based movie. Now not necessarily at all about Picard, but about all of [the TNG crew]. And to take many of those wonderful elements, particularly from season three of Picard and take out of that what I think could be an extraordinary movie,” Stewart recently told IndieWire for Picard’s Emmy’s FYC campaign. But this time, Stewart stressed a caveat that’s not really been said all that much in these recent spinoff murmurings: if he gets what he wants, it would seemingly well and truly be it.
“I keep telling people and mentioning it, and so far there’s been no eager response, but it might well happen,” Stewart continued. “And that would be I think a very appropriate way to say, ‘And goodbye folks.’”
Of course, Picard itself proved that nothing is always guaranteed to be the last goodbye—even if neither Legacy, nor this movie, nor any other kind of TNG return actually happens, Stewart and his cast members have made it clear they’re down for more if it does. But as Paramount re-consolidates its Star Trek slate, only time will tell if Stewart will get his wish any time soon. My thoughts go out to whichever poor person will be the one who then has to sort out the re-release of that “All the Captain Picard” box set with whatever new comes to pass though.
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