Sir Patrick Stewart, the actor who played Jean-Luc Picard and Professor X, died Wednesday at his Los Angeles home at age 86. Per a Variety report, the family statement says he died "after a brief battle" with Alzheimer's and Lewy Body Dementia, and that his professional accomplishments were "modestly matched by his philanthropy and activism."
The quotes shipped before the condolences had time to land. Kevin Feige remembered being "in awe" on the set of the first X-Men. William Shatner offered three words, "Godspeed, Captain," which is about as efficient a tribute as it gets. Marvel's statement praised "extraordinary grace, intelligence, and humanity" and closed with a filmography that reads like a content calendar: "from X-Men to Logan to Avengers:" — the colon doing unpaid work.
The eulogy resume is the new obituary. "Modestly matched by his philanthropy and activism" is a line written for the cut, where the grief gets trimmed so the statement fits a feed. Nothing on the list is wrong on its own. Feige clearly loved the man, and Shatner clearly knows how to write three words. The problem is the speed. The Obituary Assembly Line shipped a full tribute cycle in the time it takes a funeral home to answer the phone.
And then the calendar does its work. Avengers: Doomsday opens December 18, and per Variety the movie is Stewart's final on-screen appearance. The tribute cycle and the release cycle are the same cycle, except one of them comes with a eulogy.
YOUR TURN: How long does a tribute take before it becomes content?
Comments (1)