What makes Warner's performance even more amazing was he was asked to do the role at the last minute and didn't have time to study the script. All of his line readings are being done via cue cards, most held over Patrick Stewart's shoulder. One of the reasons he agreed to this was the chance to work with an old stage friend in Stewart
David Warner was just so damn good at every role he had, serious and ludicrous alike. If I see his name on the credits, it's worth a watch or a listen.
David Warner was hired on such short notice that he didn't have a chance to memorize his lines. He read all of them off cue cards. Even knowing this, it's impossible to tell.
That is why this is one of my favorite torture episodes, up there with the one from Altered Carbon. Through all the pain, Picard cracks the Cardassian several times. Here, and when Picard points out how he has cracked his mask as torturer by telling him about being a scared six year old boy.
"Her belly may be full, but her spirit will be empty." Makes me cry every time. Every great civilization that surrenders its spirit to the foods of injustice...dies.
Agreed, anyone who babbles on about needing "love" & "justice" has never been without food & water for any length of time. Those morality comfort blankets they cling too soon melt away when they are dying of hunger, then they'd kill anyone for food.
@Fuzzy Duo Why do you think 'nourishment' and 'fulfillment' are mutually exclusive? And what makes you think criticising a people for sacrificing their culture is tantamount to encouraging them to let their people starve? We all die, but not all of us get to truly live.
Yet Picard calls religion "Dark ages of ignorance, superstition, and fear" in season three. However when Cardassians give that up because it gives them nothing but plague and hunger, their 'spirit' is empty. Bollocks if you ask me.
Picard is inconsistent with his ideas on Religion. He says that about superstitions and stuff, but then when he's in the Nexus his dream is having a happy Christmas with a family he never had. And then when Q acts like God he says "I can't believe the Afterlife is run by you, reality isn't the poorly designed" which implies he thinks there's an Almighty being.
@@TomNook. yep a Shakespearean actor, as in an actor who plied his trade with the royal Shakespeare company. Script is the correct way to say screenplay if you come from a civilised country.
Another one of my acting heroes dead. Usually played heavies but always gave them a level of sophistication, Alan Rickman in Die Hard before Alan Rickman in Die Hard. He played Bob Crachit in 1984's A Christmas Carol with more of a backbone than the character is usually given. Evil is now a little less fun. RIP David Warner
Despite only appearing in two episodes of TNG, David Warner's role of Gul Madred EASILY rivals Marc Alaimo's Gul Dukat for the title of "Best Cardassian in Star Trek".
It is Paterick Stewart and David Warner, so it pretty much has to be gold. The acting ability of these two makes the rest of the Star Trek cast look like untalented hacks. You could have these two guys reading the phone book at each other, and they would find a way to make it entertaining.
Yeah don't think so, Brent Spiner would say "hold my beer".... his ability to act and portray the mannerisms of an android with the small details involved over 7 seasons was something special in fact, very talented.
@@paul1979uk2000 since when does a fat pay check correlate to being better? Spiner could do it all, portray an android,do Shakespeare in the holodeck more than one occasion, comedic delivery, his range was varied whereas Stewart seemed stiff and struggled on emotional content (when he wasn't shouting 4 lights all the time).
@@hcAdonis It doesn't, not always but come on, I'm not blind, I can see Patrick is the better actor and one of the best Star Trek have had. What you are talking about with Brent isn't so much the actor but the role he played as an Android which pushed him to do many roles, Picard wasn't allowed to do that on TNG because his role didn't really allow that but again, I've seen him in all of Star Trek and out of Star Trek as well as plays, he is the better actor and even Brent would likely agree with that. That argument about the 4 lights doesn't wash, I mean he was tortured, what did you honestly expect from Picard there, in fact the delivery seemed about right for what Picard had been through there.
@@paul1979uk2000 Oh well if you can see it then that makes you right lol.... You make alot of assumptions pulled out of your ass about you’ve seen Patrik do this and that, Spiner is no slouch he has done theatre worked on Broadway and also a musician which adds another dynamic to his talents. I know you are a Stewart fanboy but Patrick looks like he only has one range Shakespearean trained, while Brent displayed different ranges throughout his 7 seasons in ST. Comedic,physical in the mannerisms of an android and drama . Brent could do what Stewart does while I do not think Stewart could do what Spiner did as Data, its as simple as that.
A very common weapon used by humans on planet Earth prior to it's Third World War probably responsible for the destruction of millions of families in their primitive family law system... Parental Alienation.
I like to think he played it and won twice: once as the interrogator and once as the interrogated. As the interrogator, he convinced his prisoner to see five lights. As the interrogated, he convinced his interrogator to see six lights and to buy a new suit.
Garak strikes me as a far more practical and professional man than to waste his time like this. The interrogation was long over at this point; the "lights game" went on because Madred was obsessed with breaking Picard.
Nah. Garak just stared at one individual for four hours until he confessed. "His eyes.....his eyes!" was all Dr Parmak could say afterwards. He was sentenced to three years in a labour camp and returned to Cardassia upon his release. Ironically, him and Garak become pretty good friends in the book "A Stitch in Time" dealing with the immediate aftermath of the Dominion War for Cardassia. Parmak appears to hold no ill will towards Garak for the interrogation, and is himself a supporter of Cardassia transitioning to democracy post-war. Plus, you have to remember Garak was Obsidian Order while Madred was Military. The two are very different in their approaches.
The Laughing Rabbit I was never aware of the Kardashians and the moment I heard or read the name of that show the first thought was they were pronouncing Cardassians with a lisp. Now, a show about Cardassians would be far more interesting
"On tonight's program... Garak opens his new tailor shop on Cardassia Prime! A piece of traitorous human scum gets tortured for Gul Madred's birthday party! And we learn the correct way to dent your forehead!"
Fasuki1 It is, but by the famous moment, Picard was so worn down by the torment, he didn't have the energy to be snarky. He could barely stand. Also, this shows how weak and insecure Madred really is. He's so unsure of himself, that a captive he's torturing can get under his skin. Between he and Picard, he has all the cards except one: a strong moral underpinning. And because he lacks it, Picard makes mincemeat of him.
@@specialopsdave That is a 9-year old comment, and possibly was written back when @ did work and was quite possibly attached to the comment I was replying to. When RU-vid integrated with Google+'s system, it broke up comment threads.
@@specialopsdave No worries. I don't recall exactly when it was, but given that this comment isn't attached to anything _and_ uses the old reply syntax, I'm betting that it was made before then.
This was a moment where Picard got into not just the head but the heart of Gul Madred. Deep down, Gul Madred knew there was some truth to Picard's words. Gul Madred wanted better for his daughter but as we learn later in the episode (SPOILER), due to the miserable and traumatic childhood that Madred had, he wanted to spare his daughter starvation, violence, filthy living and desperation. ...but deep down, he wished he didn't sacrifice culture, morality and hope to do it. It's easy to see Gul Madred as just a sadist Nazi-Stalin hybrid. This showed another side. Imagine a Russian boy that was starving and suffering, but Stalin offers him and his family medicine, food, warmth, clean clothes, safety... IF he serves. And watching your culture fade away, military might and ruthlessness replace it... And see food, healthcare, reconstruction of towns, cities and agriculture rise up, spring up on your country to replenish it's needs and secure a future for your people and the ones you love! ...at the cost of inhumane acts and invasion of other people's. Gripping.
That is literally what Putin did. When the Soviet Union collapsed he watched as what was once the second most powerful country in the world be reduced to all those things. He brought order and prosperity to more people than during that dark period but it cost them their freedom and the freedom of Russia's neighbors. Now hundreds of thousands of Russians are dying because he is telling them to and because serving in the Russian army is one of the most profitable jobs a Russian with no skills or opportunities can do.
The Cardassians were once a peaceful people with a deep spiritual culture. Doesn't that sound familiar? Perhaps the reason why the Cardassians were so cruel to the Bajorans during the occupation because they saw themselves in them, but they were also envious because they had something the Cardassians homeworld lacked: The necessary natural resources to use for living. After all, the lack in natural resources was what became a kind of catalyst for the formation of the Cardassians military, which they would use to conquer other planets for the resources they had. That envy would become hate, and the hate would cause cruelty to bloom during the Occupation of Bajor. I'm sure other races experienced deplorable treatment, but is it safe to assume Bajor had been dealt something special or something like that?
What separates this from a modern TV show is a show today would have music in the background that tells you how to feel; this just has a low industrial hum in the background, which is ominous and positively frightening
This is actually my favourite episode of all of Star Trek TNG. Riker vs Jellico is pretty good too, but this battle of "keen intellects" is masterful. And there's so much rock solid world building for the Cardassians in this one scene, under 4 minutes, you'd think Ron D. Moore wrote it. *checks* Oh, he wrote part one. SO CLOSE. *EDIT* Oh shit, almost forgot. RIP David Warner. A true legend.
I should have studied acting. I have a problem with speaking extemporaneously with others. I can only be coherent for a few seconds; then my words turn to gibberish. Other times, when I know what I want to say, and the words don't want to come out, I start to convulse, with an anger that builds up in my soul, until I force the words out. Then the anger subsides. But I often read out scripture in my church. And afterwards the others always tell me how well I speak. I would so love to be able to speak like these two. One of my favourite movies is "The King's Speech."
3:42 How to make a futuristic Cardassian chair.........take one normal human designed and built crappy office like chair, and stick two golden leg prongs on the front. Give it the Cardassian look!!
It just occurred to me that Gul Madred's daughter very likely did face starvation after the Dominion War, and as a direct consequence of the military dominating Cardassia.
I always thought the Romulans represented the old Roman Republic with a backwards history. (Empire First Rebublic after.) Since their govt changed in TNG (Also referenced in Nemesis.) I see the Cardassians as the Chinese since they were once peaceful with an interesting culture but there was great poverty. (The pre-communist post WWII govt of china) Until the military (Mao Tse Tung) took control and made the planet powerful and invader Bajor (Tibet.) For their natural resources.
theknightswhosayfrak that actually makes a lot of sense a lot of horrors that the Cardassians inflicted on the the Bajorians in the camps is disturbingly similar to the sadistic cruelty of the genocide that the Chinese communist military The so-called People's Liberation Army committed when they "liberated" Tibet in 1950 and have been occupying their country ever since not only that but the Chinese sent a lot of those Tibetans to die horrifically in the Lao Gai forced labor camps which are disturbingly similar in description to Cardassian work camps mentioned in the Star Trek deep space nine episode called "duet"
It was "The Wounded" in Season 4 but it did not have Dukat in it, it was Gul Macet but he was played by Marc Alaimo the same guy that went on to play Dukat
Q knew what was going on here. He didn’t intervene. His interactions with Jean Luc, (in my opinion) gave Picard strength here. The cardassians are powerful- though no way near as powerful as the Borg (or Q ) Everything Jean Luc says is the ultimate in understanding true freedom vs dictatorship for all time .
Something I wonder - why the retcon on Cardassians from "TNG" to "DS9" - on "TNG" they were portrayed as openly arrogant and they never denied their crimes. On "DS9" they deny their crimes. Why. "TNG"'s portrayal of them is more honest to history - the Spaniards, whom their based on, never denied their crimes at all and were unapologetic.
It'll never not bother me that it was at this point that the cardasians we're either just leaving Bajor or still occupying it but this guy talks about cardasia being poor starving. I've always felt they changed the cardasians from TNG to ds9.
So Cardassia did not have replicators even by the early 24th century? Replicators effectively mean all people's basic material needs are more than met.
Well... the cardassians definitely represent the germans in Star Trek! Biggest proof for that (beside the bajoran occupation): German architecture in the early 20th was famous for showing the inner life of a building or a machine (for example elevators, etc.) - The olympic stadium in Berlin for example was planned this way until the nazis took over and ordered to cover the outside of the stadium with flagstones! And the same thing is said in DS9 about cardassian architecture...
I had that same little, tiny impression along the way as well, in regards to the Cardassians. Romulan's being Chinese... perhaps more like moody passionate bastards.
No I don't think even one Cardassian ever got near the Sol system. But if you want to look at the Star Trek Online future history, it seems to suggest that Cardassia returns to peace and freedom after the war, and allies itself with the Federation. So perhaps at that point they did visit Earth.
Actually it is almost shocking to see how much David Warner outclassed Sir Patrick Stewart in "Chain of Command" two-parter. Prior to watching these episodes I would never have said the difference in acting skills between the two distinguished British actors is so big.
