Boldly going back to the future

Age of the Geek Column: Patrick Stewart thrilled Star Trek fans with a surprise announcement this weekend. For the first time since 2002 he'll be returning to his career-defining role as Star Trek's Jean-Luc Picard.
And this isn't just some cameo appearance in "Star Trek: Discovery," either. Determined to lure people into their CBS All-Access subscription service, Stewart will be starring in an entirely new Star Trek show centered around exploring the next stage of life for the (arguably) best captain in Starfleet.
This is exciting for a number of reasons. Outside of the obvious, not only will this new show mark the return of a beloved character (and presumably have no shortage of cameos from the rest of the TNG crew), it also pushes the Star Trek timeline forward for the first time in nearly twenty years. Ever since the conclusion of "Star Trek: Voyager" in 2001, it has felt like the franchise has been afraid to look forward. Both "Star Trek: Enterprise" and the recent "Star Trek: Discovery" have been prequel series, set before even the original show.
As weird as it sounds, the last chronological story in the Star Trek universe (discounting the last episode of Enterprise), was 2002's "Star Trek: Nemesis." Not exactly a high note for the characters to go out on.
While there have been a handful of licensed novels exploring the post-Enterprise careers of these characters, this will be the first on-screen story set after the year 2379. We've seen what the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th centuries look like in the Star Trek universe. It's about time we've gotten a look at the 25th.
But as unexpected as the announcement was, it shouldn't be entirely surprising. After all, we are living in a post-hero age where it has become popular to explore the lives of characters past their prime. It's a trend that happens semi-regularly in fiction and we're probably just getting started with it. After years and years of reboots, don't be surprised to see Hollywood transition into continuations as a way to re-ignite interest into old genres.
Westerns, for example, flooded Hollywood for years with tales of wild gunslingers rolling into town to shoot the bandits and charm the school teacher. Eventually though, those stories gave way to post-westerns, stories about the retired gunslinger trying to live a peaceful life until the world of violence he left behind ropes him back in.
We're seeing a lot of this trend these days. One of the biggest video games of this year has been the new "God of War," which has shown us a Kratos transformed from the rage-filled warrior cutting a bloody swath through Greek mythology into a melancholy single father trying to lay low in the frozen north.
Heck, this isn't even the first time Patrick Stewart has been involved in a project that explores the life of a popular character in the aftermath of their glory years. Last year's "Logan" gave us a look at the tragic end of both the wild Wolverine and wise Professor X, neither of whom got to spend their golden years happily reflecting on a job well done.
Of course, while these can generally be considered well done examples of how to explore a character's latter years, one also has to bring up the bantha in the corner with the Star Wars sequel trilogy, which has been far from great in their portrayal of legacy characters.
J.J. Abrams, in his fervent compulsion to recreate Episode IV, jettisoned any notion that Han Solo may have changed in the last 30 years. In A New Hope he's introduced as a gruff smuggler trying to stay ahead of his debts. Three decades later, after fighting a war, starting a family, and rebuilding a galactic civilization, he's re-introduced to audiences in The Force Awakens as a gruff smuggler trying to stay ahead of his debts.
Meanwhile, Rain Johnson swung to the other extreme in Episode VIII by telling us that Luke Skywalker, the new hope, tasked by fate to restore the Jedi, got real sad one day and decided to give up on the universe and run away to hide on an island while waiting to die.
These examples may be on opposite ends of the spectrum, but they're part of the same trend. Which is not to say I expect the same treatment for Jean-Luc Picard. It's unlikely that the new show will introduce Picard as a stuffy new captain proclaiming his love for order and dislike of children, nor do I expect him to be introduced as a beleaguered hermit hiding away on Tagus III drinking blue milk straight from an Iconian cow, but it's not out of the realm of possibility either. Both Star Trek and Star Wars have been plagued by behind-the-scenes dysfunction in recent years, resulting in plenty of hit-or-miss products.
Here's hoping that Captain Picard beats the odds.
Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and is confident that at least the series couldn't be as bad as "Star Trek: Nemesis."