Star Trek: Captain Picard's Most Important Movie Moments

With Patrick Stewart announcing that he would be returning to the role that made him an international superstar as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on a new Star Trek series, it's the perfect time to look back at one of the most important sci-fi characters to ever grace our screens. Earlier this week, we ran down the biggest, most crucial moments Picard experienced during his seven year television adventure. Now, we shift our focus to Stewart's other run as the iconic Starfleet officer.

The actor's most recent appearance as the Enterprise captain wasn't on the small screen, but in a quartet of films that brought the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation from television to movie theaters. From 1994 to 2002, Stewart led the Enterpise's crew on what was presumably their final voyages before the JJ Abrams-helmed reboot of the franchise in 2009.

Taking place after the conclusion of the show, 1994's Star Trek Generations was produced in conjunction with the final season of the television series after a film starring The Next Generation cast was commissioned by Paramount. The producers decided the inaugural film with the newer cast should feature a symbolic baton pass from Captain Kirk to Captain Picard to carry the franchise forward.

Star Trek Generations is an uneven film that would presage many of the issues that would plague future installments. Envisioned as a meditation on mortality, the emotional core of the film centered on three men and their differing views on death. Picard is rocked by a family tragedy leaving him as the last of his family alive while Kirk, the man who constantly cheated death, finds himself bored within the film's heavenly paradise of the Nexus. They are both pitted against Tolian Soran, whose inability to deal with the death of his family puts him on a plot to enter the Nexus at the cost of millions of lives.

The most cerebral of The Next Generation films, Generations never feels ambitious enough to come across as more than an extended episode of the series. The story plays it safe and Kirk's final fate is woefully anticlimactic especially for a character that ushered in such an iconic franchise while Picard coming to terms with death never feels like a complete character arc. Despite this, seeing the long-awaited team up is a treat and the differences between their leadership style on full display as Kirk, the man of action, goes hand-to-hand against Soran while Picard, the thinking man's captain, disarms the madman's weapons system.

1996's Star Trek: First Contact was a return to form, providing The Next Generation cast their best cinematic outing, resulting in one of the best films in the franchise. Directed by Jonathan Frakes, the filmmakers decided to up the scale and action with the Enterprise traveling to the past to stop the Borg Collective from changing history and taking over Earth. After their introduction on The Next Generation, the Borg had been used sparingly both due to budgetary constraints and to keep them a mysterious threat. With an increased production budget, the filmmakers planned to show the Borg in full; Jean-Luc Picard's greatest nightmare come to life.

First Contact is the most action-packed and scary as the classic film series ever got with the sequences of the Borg assimilating the crew playing out like a claustrophobic action-horror film. The Borg progress relatively unimpeded through the starship level by level consuming all in their path not unlike a zombie movie. And, carrying over from the television series, Stewart's Picard has grudge against the Borg which affects his judgment throughout the film. For his cybernetic enemy, there can be no quarter, no inch given to reclaim what they had taken from him six years previously and he will have his revenge at the expense of his crew.

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Picard is at his most flawed in First Contact and that makes Stewart's performance the most fascinating as the sci-fi icon, as the enlightened man of the future takes visible pleasure in killing Borg even attacking them with his bare hands. It is only when Lily (played by Luke Cage's Alfre Woodard), a woman from the 21st century, reminds him of the cost of his single-minded obsession that his sense of greater duty is restored. Picard's quest for vengeance nearly consumes him and its his loyalty to his friends that ultimately brings him back from the brink to see his larger mission through and save the day.

To follow the apocalyptic intensity of First Contact, returning director Frakes opted to go with a more ethical dilemma for the Enterprise in Star Trek: Insurrection. When the crew learns that the Federation plans to forcibly relocate a peaceful race from their homeworld to take advantage of the planet's rejuvenating properties, Picard leads the crew to go rogue against the Federation until news of the violation spreads allowing more principled heads to prevail.

Insurrection, like Generations, plays out like an extended episode of The Next Generation. Despite the moral quandary, the stakes never feel high nor do any of the characters appear in genuine peril. The high point of action in the film is the crew warding off drones teleporting refugees off-world. The 1998 film was an attempt to bring the franchise back to its philosophical roots without compromising the increased action introduced in First Contact but unfortunately fails on both counts.

For the final Next Generation film, 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis, Paramount decided to go full tilt on the action, cutting much of the film's quieter, character-driven moments. What resulted was the most adrenaline-fueled incarnation of Picard including running gunfights and joyriding in off-road rovers in an adventure that's tonally off from the rest of the films and out of character for the captain. In order to make the film's story more personal, Picard would face a younger, evil clone of himself played by future Venom star Tom Hardy.

Nemesis would be the first true box office failure for the franchise and convince Paramount to quietly retire the cast of The Next Generation in favor of eventually rebooting the entire franchise. As such, the film is the last official glimpse of Stewart's Picard, a captain that alternated on the big screen between wiry action hero and the Enterprise's moral compass as originally depicted on television. Many of the Star Trek films had gone through an identity crisis when transitioning to the big screen and The Next Generation adventures exemplify that better than its predecessors. But despite the varying levels of quality, Jean-Luc Picard remained the franchise's steady, stoic centerpiece. It will be interesting to see how time has changed the Starfleet officer when he returns to CBS All Access.