Stewart wishes Picard could chill out

The 56-year-old Stewart, the Royal Shakespeare Company actor who has commanded the Enterprise for 15 years, since taking over from the ageing William 'Captain Kirk' Shatner, brought a seriousness to the series.

"After playing the role for so many years on TV and in feature films, it embarrases me a little to admit that I truly no longer know where I begin and he leaves off. A lot of me has gone into Picard, and there are some aspects of him that I've tried to absorb myself.

"For one thing, Picard's a great listener. Something we established all the way through the series was him saying: 'Tell me' or 'I want to hear' or 'What do you think?'

"It's not something I was too good at. I've actively tried to spend more time saying to people: 'Tell me about you.'"

Stewart, though, does believe Picard is a bit stiff-necked: "I always felt he could have been a little less stern, a little more relaxed in tone. I suppose being in charge of the Enterprise, boldly going, isn't completely free of stress so there's an excuse for him being so serious. Still ... I'd have loved him to have been even a bit more laid-back."

A lot is riding on this new feature film, for the various TV spin-offs, including the recently-launched Enterprise, which took the story back in time to several centuries before the setting for the original Star Trek and Next Generation series, as well as the subsequent Voyager and Deep Space Nine stories, have not been doing well.

After a run of some 35 years this is, perhaps, not surprising. The combined income from Star Trek has been something like $5b (€4.8b) ... but if Nemesis isn't a massive Box Office hit it could, horror or horrors, be the last voyage for Enterprise. Indeed, talk in Hollywood is that the entire Star Trek franchise is facing meltdown.

The good news is, according to my Hollywood friends, that Nemesis is an outstanding film ... even though it has a fairly straight-forward, almost old-fashioned, dirty deeds and revenge plot which maintains the tradition of viewing contemporary issues. While the original series was a fairly straight macho affair, The Next Generation was always more philosophical.

The story concerns the previously under-used Romulans and the culmination of a long-cherished Enterprise romance ... Commander William Riker and Counsellor Deanna Troi get to celebrate their engagement!

In many ways Nemesis follows the l982 Wrath of Khan, considered by many to be the best film in what is now the 10-long series. "Another similarity with the earlier film has to do with the camaraderie between the cast. Their familiar interaction with each other is very natural and genuine. You can tell that they really like each other, and that comes across well on screen, especially during the party at the beginning.

"Riker and Troi are not only marrying, but they are leaving to go to his first command, the USS Titan, and it is Picard's heartfelt speech that best showcases the friendship between the cast and crew. It's a great scene and one which fans of the shows and films will love."

Trekkers will, of course, know all about the hoodoo of the sequels. It has become an 'established myth' that the odd numbered films are generally bad, the even numbered ones good.

But it's a theory that doesn't hold up even if fans are adamant that it does: The Motion Picture - the original big-screen outing - was considered a failure while Khan was a massive critical and audience hit. The Search for Spock was a failure as was The Final Frontier. There's nothing like a Star Trek film to set fans arguing.

What may stand in the way of a total success - and Nemesis will be the final voyage for Picard - is that it has strong elements of 'moving on' in it ... so will it?

Nemesis does have all the well-known stars - Jonathan Frakes, Deanna Troi, Levar Burton, Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden ... and there is even an appearance for Kate Mulgrew, Captain Janeway from Voyager (who's now a Star Fleet Admiral).

So it's Warp Factor Four ... engage!