Captains of the Star Trek Enterprise Smackdown: Picard vs. Kirk

One of the highlights of this weekend's Star Trek Convention was the unusual appearances of both Sir Patrick Stewart (who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation) and William Shatner (who played Captain James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek series), who took to the stage and played BFF's for their fans on Sunday, answering (and in some cases dodging) some of the nerdiest questions known to mankind. Highlights of this Q&A included Shatner threatening a 10 year-old child, and Stewart scolding a crowd member in the front row for eating potato chips too loudly.

The next part of this post has to be prefaced with an important caveat: according to sources very close to the Federation (the interstellar federal government system ... duh), no captains of the same fleet would ever, EVER, fight one another. In the world of Star Trek, according to sources, Captain Picard and Captain Kirk aren't competitors, and no such competition should be encouraged.

Joseph Schell

BFFs?

​That being said, seeing the two on stage together this weekend made the comparison almost impossible to ignore. It didn't help that Shatner kept asking Stewart to put a good word in for him with monarchy in the hopes of being knighted. So SF Weekly decided to conduct a poll of the people who one would assume might make the most informed decisions about all Star Trek-related matters -- trekkies who showed at the convention, of course -- and asked each of them three pressing questions. These are the final results.
Question #1: Who would make a better US president?

Captain Picard was the all-around winner here (Captain Kirk only got one of 20 votes, in fact). One fan said Captain Kirk would undoubtedly be impeached when he was caught sleeping with some employee, and another said Kirk would make a much better hot-headed senator.

Question #2: Who would win in a fight?

Captain Kirk won the votes here, even though some attributed their votes to Patrick Stewart's admission during the Q&A that he had stopped eating red meat. "Kirk is just a baddass," said one fan, explaining her vote.

Question #3: Who would be the better kisser?

This was definitely the wild card question of the three, but Captain Kirk won overall with 18 of the total votes. Captain Kirk, according to those who voted for him, had been around the block a bit and therefore knew what he was doing a bit more than Picard, who one fan said was "practically frigid." However, some fans agreed that Picard would be a more thoughtful kisser. One gave Picard a vote for best kisser based on his British accent. "Plus," added the fan, "I've never kissed a knight before."

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2010/01/star_trek_enterprise_captain_u.php