If Star Trek is a representative of the sci-fi space genre, Sir Patrick Stewart is its face. Stewart’s role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard has established him as a revered figure among Trekkies worldwide, but there’s something about the character that bugs even the most stalwart of them.
In Star Trek: The Next Generations, Picard has been vehemently described as French. However, we see him speak English with a perfect British accent. Why is that?
Jean-Luc Picard might actually be speaking French
Jean-Luc Picard’s choice of language has always been a bit of a mystery to fans. Though many would assume the accent we hear on the show might be the result of his education and constant practice, or his parents moving to the UK from France in his early years, there’s one more theory that uses a Star Trek element to explain the issue.
Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s tech is way ahead of us, about 200 years into the future. The use of a universal translator has already been established in the series, which helps the crew communicate with all the alien species of the galaxy.
The British accent that we hear might actually be the translator speaking for Picard, who, in turn, hears everything in French. The translator also helps him indulge in reading Shakespeare’s works, who he is a big fan of.
Picard and Data were originally written as bitter enemies
The book The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross uncovers that the original vision for the 1998 movie Star Trek: Insurrection was significantly different. Screenwriter Michael Piller is quoted in the book, as reported by ScreenRant, revealing that in the initial draft, Picard and Data were envisioned as “brutal and bitter enemies.“
In the first draft, Picard and Data are brutal, bitter enemies. In the film there’s a wonderful moment where they battle in a dogfight while Picard sings Gilbert and Sullivan. That used to take seventy pages, and in that battle Picard was ultimately forced to kill Data.
Piller claimed that Patrick Stewart promptly dismissed the grim narrative. The star of the X-Men series steered the writers toward the Fountain of Youth storyline that emerged in the final version.
We can thank Patrick Stewart for his intuition that gave us one of the best friendship dynamics in the series.
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