Q jokes that he's a bit older than he thought. It's a perfect way to bring Q and Picard together again, decades after they last crossed paths in the finale of The Next Generation. The actors and characters who have grown older and lived lives beyond the events we saw on screen have returned to them as they are in the here and now.
Q's brief de-aging isn't the first time Trek has used the technology, and it was done in Picard's first season. It has been rare for the series as its renaissance in the streaming age has plunged into the depths of Star Trek's past and its future. In shows like Discovery and the upcoming Strange New Worlds, the franchise has worked well. Lower Decks provided ways for us to revisit characters in their heydays like Tom Paris or Commander Riker. Kate Mulgrew reprised her role as both a Voyager-era Captain Janeway and a contemporary Admiral Janeway in the show.
It is fascinating to see this multi-pronged approach in contrast to Star Wars. There are parallels between new faces stepping in to portray new chapters of classic figure's lives, like Alden Ehrenreich as the young Han Solo, or the post-Return of the Jedi Ahsoka Tano. We have seen familiar faces return, whether played by their cinematic counterparts or by soundalikes, allowing them to exist and live stories across multiple eras of the Star Wars timeline. Star Wars has used technology to bring back the youth of its legacy figures, but at a mixed degree of success. Digital replicas of Princess Leia and Grand Moff Tarkin, as well as the deployment of a likeness of Mark Hamill in The Book of Jedi, will bring a Return of the Jedi to life. Who needs to tell stories about a character that has grown old, when you can just place a young Mark Hamill's digital face over a stunt actor and relive an idealized past?
The oldluke we met in The Last Jedi, embittered by disillusion and years of self-imposed exile, offered a bold look at a hero who has grown from it. The fact that the reaction to such an idea was so controversial, however, that Star Wars has seemingly raced back to this CG-enhanced version of Luke's past self in its wake is perhaps more damning. Star Wars has become too reluctant to use figures like Q and Picard. In this age of revitalized franchises attempting to move and grow beyond their predecessors, how two of the biggest sci-fi hits have taken opposite stances on just how to best revisit their most famous figures has become fascinating to watch.
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