Early this morning — in the United States, that is — the premiere episode of Star Trek: Picard finally beamed down to CBS All Access, and now we finally have our first look at the series’ new main title sequence and theme as Jean-Luc Picard returns for the first time in two decades.
While composer Jeff Russo’s ethereal score plays, the camera follows a piece of a fractured blue sky pass through the Picard family vineyard in La Barre, France and then moving through the ground to find a digital rendering of a Borg cube.
As the shard continues its journey through the cube, we pass by a pair of crystalline geometric shapes, floating in the void among strands of what appears to be strands of genetic code, eventually forming the iris of a human eye.
After a brief transition into a technological sphere, the eye flashes into the form of planet Romulus, shattered in the wake of the Hobus Supernova (first seen in the 2009 Star Trek film).
Finally, those destroyed fragments of Romulus and the still-floating piece of French sky come together to form the face of Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), who stares deep into camera as the updated title card for Star Trek: Picard appears.
Of note, the new Picard title card is a slight change to the treatment we’ve seen used in CBS marketing over the last several months; while the Original Series-style typeface has been in place since mid-2019, the new design updates the Star Trek text to match the same styling as Star Trek: Discovery.
The Starfleet delta in Picard then expands into a starfield for the last moments of the credits, and as with Discovery’s echo of the classic Trek theme, we get a few bars of the Star Trek: The Next Generation theme song to close out Jeff Russo’s score.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hWux9BoC3U
We got a chance to talk to composer Jeff Russo about his scoring at the Los Angeles premiere event last week, where he explained how he settled on the new theme for Star Trek: Picard.
JEFF RUSSO: Here’s the thing. We were trying to tell this story that was a lot more intimate, and a lot more emotional because we’re telling one man’s story. One man’s journey. To do that, it didn’t need to be this big, like, frolicking… I wrote a version like that, you know?
We looked at it, and we were like, “Yeah, this is good, but this version of this is not quite right for the way we’re trying to tell the story.” And I was like, “I know what you mean.”
Like, that was my first instinct to write a “Star Trek theme.” So I went back and used the same melodies, but kind of re-did the whole thing to be a little more ‘in our world’ and what I came up with is what you’ve heard. And it definitely tells I think, our story, the way our story needs to be told.
Whether or not people are going to understand or get that, you know, who knows. But that is the story that Alex [Kurtzman] and Michael [Chabon] wanted very much to tell. It also has a ‘heartstring’ feeling to it, which is the other thing we really wanted to pull on, heartstrings.
What do you think about the new credits sequence for Star Trek: Picard — does it meet with your approval or are you disappointed? Sound off in the comments below!