Star Trek's Patrick Stewart Sees Potential In A Picard Sequel Movie

When actor Patrick Stewart was first approached about appearing as the title character in "Star Trek: Picard," he said he wouldn't take part unless several stipulations were met. Stewart, you see, didn't want "Picard" to be a mere nostalgia-based rehash of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the series that went off the air back in 1994. If he were going to return to the media franchise he had participated in from 1987 to 2002, it would need to be an entirely new animal. Importantly, Stewart didn't want to wear a Starfleet uniform and merely be the commander of yet another starship. That was old hat. He wanted something new. He also didn't want the show to be a shameless "Next Generation" reunion, where he and his old co-stars would be wrangled together in a room to repeat all the things they had already done decades before. 

While "Picard" was rounding its second season, Stewart confirmed that the third season would be the last. It seemed he was tired of "Star Trek," and was willing to finally put it down. The actor is now 80, so a retirement from the franchise was appropriate. Many Trekkies were also willing to let "Picard" go, as the first two seasons of the series were notoriously bad. 

All of these comments seem churlish after the third season of "Picard" which was everything Stewart initially didn't want the show to be ... and yet it is handily the best season of the series. "Picard" eventually gathered the "Next Generation" cast on the bridge of the old Enterprise-D for a "back in the saddle moment" that many fans — and the cast — adored. Indeed, in a recent interview with IndieWire, Stewart admitted that season three whetted his appetite for more. Perhaps even for another "Trek" movie.

The first two seasons of "Picard" were all about, well, Jean-Luc Picard. He wasn't the captain of a starship — he was a retired admiral — and had gathered a new ensemble around him to aid in his non-Starfleet, off-the-books adventures. There were occasional cameos from Jonathan Frakes or Marina Sirtis, and Jeri Ryan reappeared as Seven of Nine, her character from "Star Trek: Voyager," but the show sought to take Trek away from a known set of characters. With the third season with the old ensemble back together, Stewart realized that Picard perhaps should not have been the focus and that the whole "Next Generation" cast should be accounted for. 

Indeed, if one were to make another feature film, perhaps he and his co-stars would be given their due once again. Stewart said: 

"I think we could do a movie, a 'Picard'-based movie. [...] Now not necessarily at all about Picard, but about all of us. 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. I keep telling people and mentioning it, and so far there's been no eager response, but it might well happen. And that would be I think a very appropriate way to say, 'And goodbye folks.'"

The third season of "Picard" ended with all the characters alive and well and playing poker over cocktails. It was a gentle way to say farewell. Stewart, it seems, would like one additional farewell.

This is in keeping with Jean-Luc Picard at the beginning of season three. In the season's first episode, Picard was packing up a lot of old belongings, planning to give them away to the "Star Trek" equivalent of Goodwill. He even said out loud "I am not interested in a legacy," longing instead for more adventure. Although Picard was about 110 years old, he was not ready to settle in and pass his name into posterity. Later, Riker learns that the Enterprise-D is not a ship held in high esteem by modern Starfleet officers and that his old ship has more or less been relegated to history books. Looking back, it seems, was a dead end. 

The events of the third season of "Picard" eventually contradicted these early tantalizing sentiments, leaning hard into the notion of legacy, and the passage of names from one generation to the next. "Picard" ends with Picard's son and Geordi's daughter on board a ship that has been renamed the Enterprise. 

But it seems that Stewart also isn't ready to pass his name on to a new generation. Like Picard, he's not yet interested in a legacy, wanting to play the part one more time. It seems that whatever showrunner Terry Matalas said or did, it made Stewart and the rest of the cast keenly interested in returning to the franchise. While a new "Star Trek" feature film may seem like a very distant possibility, the stars are, at the very least, interested.