starring Jean Reno as Jean Luc Picard...

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Would this have worked?

A Frenchman with a Lancashire accent has on occasion been an object for ridicule on this board...

But imagine it's 1987, and Paramount announce a French Captain for the Enterprise, played by a French actor. How would that have gone down, how strong a French accent would have been acceptable, if any. Would your opinion of the show have been different, would you need subtitles?

Would Star Trek have been a niche show?

Come to think of it, what was the reaction when it was announced that the Captain of the Enterprise would be played by a Brit?

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

While Jean Reno is obviously much more French than Patrick Stewart (since, well, he is, while Stewart is not), his birth name is don Juan Moreno y Herrera Jimenez, and both his parents were Spanish. If your idea is to cast a typically French actor, he's not the best one for the role.

 

[22 Stars]

I believe Bob Justman is the man who found Patrick Stewart performing in LA and said 'This should be our captain' and had to convince Roddenberry that the audience would accept a bald Englishman as the heroic lead (regardless of his character's heritage).

At the time, he was seen as the lead, but Frakes was seen at the show's potential sex symbol and then BAM cut to 1990-92 and Stewart is on the cover of TV guide as the sexiest man on TV! Amazing how charisma and characterization can overcome conventional wisdom.

 

[Newski]

I could picture him as a Captain on a different show, perhaps, or a guest appearance. But he's not Picard. He couldn't play the part the same way.

He would have to be written much differently, and the show would take too different of a shape.

 

[misskim86]

I think he would have worked, the problem is that people will now imagine Jean Reno acting like Patric Stewart which would have looked stupid but I'm sure he could have done his own 'Picard'

 

[Newski]

Which is why I'm not claiming he'd be bad. He just wouldn't be the same Picard.

And without Patrick Stewart, Picard would be a much different character. Actually, I think he'd end up playing a much darker character, yet a bit more cartoony at the same time.

 

[number6]

I thought the title of the thread read: Starring Janet Reno as Jean Luc Picard.

 

[Nerys Myk]

You owe me a carton of Mental Floss.

 

[Spider]

number6 said:
I thought the title of the thread read: Starring Janet Reno as Jean Luc Picard.

Myself also.

Who the heck is this Jean Reno anyway? And I don't even waht to think of Janet Reno as Captain. Good Lord, even the Borg would have laughed their ass off at that.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Jean Reno is a French actor. American audiences probably know him best from The Professional and the first Mission: Impossible.

 

[misskim86]

He also starred in the awful movie adaption of the Da-Vinci Code

 

[Scatta]

Add one more to the list of people who misread it as "Janet Reno." I skim these boards way too quickly sometimes.

I was going to say, "They already tried that. It's called Geneviève Bujold as Captain Janeway."

 

[Kegek]

He's okay, he'd be a far more convincing Frenchman. Sure, as posters pointed out above he's ethnically Spanish, but so what? He has a French accent and he looks French, that's French enough - and frankly more Frankish than Stewart ever was.

But Picard is so much more than the French Captain. He's a stolid moralist, a dignified diplomat, a keen and respected leader. All that matters to Picard as a character - rather than more superficial qualities like accent - were conveyed excellently by Patrick Stewart.

Of course, Janet Reno would have been better than either one. :thumbsup:

 

[Jack Bauer]

C'mon Janet Reno's more of a man that Patrick Stewart or Jean Reno could ever be!

 

[StarMan]

Nah.

Gerard Depardieu on the other hand...

 

[WillsBabe]

The Laughing Vulcan said:
A Frenchman with a Lancashire accent has on occasion been an object for ridicule on this board...

Yorkshire accent.

 

[Gkar]

misskim86 said:
He also starred in the awful movie adaption of the Da-Vinci Code

[image]http://www.tarot-numerologie.com/images/celebrites/jean_reno.jpg[/image]

Actually I tend to remember him more from his roles in Mission Impossible and Godzilla.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Kegek said:
He's okay, he'd be a far more convincing Frenchman. Sure, as posters pointed out above he's ethnically Spanish, but so what? He has a French accent and he looks French, that's French enough - and frankly more Frankish than Stewart ever was.

Isn't he "French enough" just because most people here would be hard pressed to name three French actors, and he just so happens to be one of them?

 

[Deleted 2]

To be honest, I think Patrick Stewart looks quite French. Wide cheekbones, dark bushy eyebrows, high forehead. As far as there can be said to be a 'French' look, he fits in.

 

[Kegek]

^
True, but he doesn't sound all that French, which I presume was the point.

The Mirrorball Man said:
Isn't he "French enough" just because most people here would be hard pressed to name three French actors, and he just so happens to be one of them?

No, he's French enough because he has an authentic French accent. True, maybe posters here can't think of any other French actors, but on the Francophonic scale Reno does pretty okay. Of course, this is the franchise that cast a Latino as a Sikh, so Star Trek is consistently weird when it comes to these issues...