MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Star Trek: First Contact" (1996)

Alright, so now that we're back on the horse...

Last time, we had a so-so adventure link the past and the present together sort of, but not really. Captain James T. Kirk got his last big hurrah until it was time for Captain on the Bridge and bridged he was. Oh, also Doctor Loomis from the terrifying Rob Zombie timeline was trying to get into a mystical Hallmark dimension using missiles, no doubt because he was trying to escape being pulled back into the Rob Zombie timeline.

It also occurred to me, since doing that review, how little Picard actually cared about the people who had died under his command as well as how absolutely crap the man is at using the resources allocated to him.

Consider, Guinan tells Picard that the Nexus can allow him to go anywhere, any time. So he doesn't use this to go back in time and do things like:

• save Tasha Yar from Armus in Skin of Evil, or go back to Yesterday's Enterprise and save her from the Enterprise-C so that Sela was never born.
• Go back and saved Jack Crusher from his imminent doom so that Beverly can still be with the man she loves and Wesley might actually grow up to be something other than Wil Wheaton.
• Save the lives of his brother and nephew, who were mentioned as having burned to death in the film itself.
• Go back in time and kill Dr. Soran as a baby.
• and so, so many other things from the series.

I mean, not even counting that he could have just wiped the entire movie from continuity as well, Picard is dumb. Guinan points him in Kirk's direction and he thinks that that's enough? Sure, James T. Kirk is a memetic badass the likes of which would not be seen again in the Known Universe until the time of Miles Teg leading the armies of the Bene Gesserit, but he's only human! And an old one at that. William Shatner had passed sixty by the time Generations got to theaters. I know it would have meant either a new actor or costly (and probably hilariously bad) CGI, but wouldn't he want to get Kirk in his prime? If the Nexus can go literally anywhere, any time, why doesn't Picard go and get a bunch of people to stop Soran's plan? It's not as if Picard in the movies gives a crap about the Prime Directive, so I can't imagine the Temporal Prime Directive is that much of a problem, either.

"Mr. Data... set a course to get past Insurrection and Nemesis."
"We are unable to pass Warp 10, Captain."
"Damn..."

All of this, though, is not what we're here to talk about. No, as I said before, the Next Generation films range from "ok" to "bad"... save one. This is that one. First Contact is definitely good, there are no two ways about it. It is flawed in more than a few ways, but it is most definitely good. With that bit of housekeeping with Generations done, let's get into First Contact. Drink deep, my friends... because, I promise you, it's only going downhill from here...

Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) has the Borg on the brain. After he was kidnapped and assimilated by them in the epic two-parter The Best of Both Worlds and was saved from having his entire identity erased forever to serve at the behest of the gestalt entity that was the Borg hivemind, Picard has understandably been haunted by that trauma. Credit where it's due, Next Generation never pulled any punches in dealing with that trauma during its run. When the crew ran into the Borg again, Picard was clearly conflicted more than a few times as to how to deal with them properly. In one episode, he's even immensely gleeful about an opportunity they may have to utterly destroy the Borg, but upon realizing that it will mean the death of a being's individuality, ultimately cannot go through with it.

...just so that Hugh can get brutally murdered by Alex Kurtzman later, but never mind. We're thinking of happy things! Happy things here!

But yes, the measured French with a British accent captain has Borg on the brain when he's alerted to an attack against the Federation by that very group. Onboard the brand new Enterprise-E, the crew is tasked with monitoring the Romulan Neutral Zone despite the fact that the Borg are on a direct course for Earth and the last time that that happened, the Federation only managed to win by the skin of its teeth... and the fact that the Enterprise crew basically hacked the Collective to achieve that end. And a lot of people still died horrifically at Wolf 359 in particular.

Nevertheless, this mandate lasts for all of about twenty seconds before the crew takes a page out of the James T. Kirk rulebook and decides to go save the Earth and ask for forgiveness rather than permission. Otherwise known as the Save the Whales Across Time ploy. After saving Mr. Worf (Michael Dorn) from the Defiant from DS9, Picard takes command of the Federation fleet after the Admiral who sent the crew on monitor duty gets killed off and uses his innate knowledge of the Borg to blow their Cube to Kingdom Come... and from it comes a sphere that people who would later see Voyager would be very familiar with indeed.

It heads to Earth, opening a wormhole and going through it. After scanning the Earth and discovering that the population is now all Borg, the Enterprise charges through after them to fix whatever it is that they've done to the timeline. Where do they emerge? Well, this was actually something that was thrown around quite a bit by the screenwriters: Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, who had been brought by Rick Berman to do all the hard work so he could focus on squeezing Jeri Ryan into the tightest catsuits he could find. According to their own statements, Berman wanted to do a time travel story, while Braga and Moore wanted to do a story about the Borg. So what are screenwriters to do?

Yeah, it's like that.

That didn't mean they were out of the woods yet, though. One draft was titled Star Trek: Renaissance and would have involved the Borg going back to 15th century Europe where they were going to attempt to prevent the rebirth of civilization in Europe. Things that we sadly never got to see from that included a castle completely overtaken by Borg technology, sword fights against the Borg, and Data (Brent Spiner) becoming an apprentice to Leonardo da Vinci.

This fell through for a number of reasons, Ronald Moore thought the idea was a little too campy and Patrick Stewart reportedly refused to wear tights. The final nail in the coffin was the fact that the idea overall would have been outrageously expensive. Given that the budget was ultimately only around $45 million, I can kind of understand that.

Another draft involved Q, but little is known about it apart from that or at least I haven't really been able to find too much of anything.

He said the franchise name, take a shot!

Eventually, the trio reached back deep into Star Trek lore and produced Star Trek: Resurrection, a film that involved humanity's first contact with an alien race - namely the Vulcans. For those not in the know, Trek canon denotes April 5, 2063 as the day that scientist Zefram Cochrane (played here by James Cromwell) broke the warp barrier and this caused a Vulcan survey team to come to Earth and thus making first contact, bringing humanity into the galactic community. Disease, poverty, war, they would all be gone within the next fifty years after that, and humanity would undertake a mission to seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no man has gone before.

This draft was much closer to the film we got, with the Borg attacking Cochrane's base in Montana and critically injuring him. Because of that, Picard would have to take his place on the historic flight while Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) would fight the Borg in space. This seemed to go well until Patrick Stewart was apparently very displeased with this and wanted Picard and Riker's stories switched around. The script had gone over well with the executives at Paramount, although one of them apparently thought the Borg suffered as a villain because they were "basically zombies". This would lead to the creation of... well, we'll get into that.

Needless to say, with the film as presented, the crew of the Enterprise-E arrives at Earth on April 4, 2063 and manage to destroy the Borg Sphere, though not before the Borg do some severe damage to Cochrane's Montana facility as well as the small town built up around it. However, Picard finds himself in a bit of trouble as he returns to the Enterprise (leaving Riker in charge of a team on the surface), learning that Engineering has been taken over... by the Borg. While Data is able to lock them out of the computer, the Borg begin assimilating the ship. With both teams cut off from one another, they must both work diligently. Riker and his team to help Cochrane complete his mission and make sure that First Contact happens and Picard and his crew saving humanity from the Borg.

There's a lot going on here in that quick summary of events. Let's start with the beginning. Zefram Cochrane is a character who has actually shown up in Star Trek before, in the Original Series episode Metamorphosis, where he was played by a different actor who James Cromwell looks nothing like. This makes sense when you realize the part was written for Tom Hanks (although Berman has said a few times that Hanks was never seriously considered), who does look like the original actor. That said, James Cromwell does very well. The Enterprise crew all have their idealized version of Cochrane that they were taught in their history, and the man himself turns out to be... nothing like that at all. He didn't build his warp ship to unite humanity in peace and harmony with no traffic accidents or anything like that, but for money and getting laid.

Joking aside, the man is grumpy and flawed and for the most part wants nothing to do with any of Riker's crew and their wacky hijinks. Shades of a better man are seen at times, eventually leading to him to agree to help history take its course.

"Y'know, I was Farmer Hogett once."
"Yes, and you'll be a Nazi in American Horror Story in a few years."
"What?"
"What?"

Along with Cochrane in the film is Lily Sloane (Alfre Woodward), Cochrane's friend and assistant who really just wants to get back home after she gets snatched up by the Enterprise crew (admittedly for medical treatment) and reacts very much like you'd expect a regular person would. Also, unlike the rest of the crew, Lily isn't afraid to call Picard out on his suicidal nonsense later on in the film, leading to one of the best scenes.

Which is where we can talk a bit about Picard. As I mentioned earlier, during The Best of Both Worlds, Picard had been assimilated by the Borg. His entire identity was suppressed as the Borg Collective was able to use his experience and knowledge against his comrades in arms. As you might understand, he was more than a little miffed about that when he finally got free from it. Six years later, he's still understandably rather upset by it, to the point of almost Crusader level of fanaticism in destroying the Borg even to the point of telling his beaten down and desperate men to fight hand to hand if they have to.

He is so angered, so blinded by revenge, that he is willing to sacrifice anything, even the people he has known for years to stop the Borg from advancing one more step. As he puts it, the line must be drawn here. This far, and no further. Also, Patrick Stewart turns "I" into a seventeen syllable word and I don't believe that gets nearly enough recognition.

In a manic fit of rage, Picard ends up destroying some model ships, including one of the Enterprise-D. Unlike a certain man who had once been a Prince with power over millions, Picard has actually read Moby Dick and is able to make the right choice to end the fight in a far, far better way than sacrificing everyone's lives.

The new hotness.

Also of note in this film is Data, who gets a bit of an arc. Ever since putting the emotion chip into his head in the last movie, Data has been slowly becoming more human. This gets (seemingly) exploited by a character that I have yet to get into, but will in a moment. As far as Data's part in things go, he doesn't have much, but Brent Spiner is a fantastic actor and the climax really comes down to the wire as we are given to think that he may very well betrayal Picard, the Federation, and the future of humanity to stop Cochrane's first flight.

This brings us to the elephant in the room... the Borg Queen (Alice Krieg). The Borg Queen is a pale-skinned individual that looks to be Hellraiser by way of the steampunk or cyberpunk genre, being the being that brings "order to chaos" within the Collective. Basically, like a beehive, the Borg drones are just that - drones - and she is the Queen that commands them all. She is also an excuse by Rick Berman to squeeze a woman into tight leather, which we all know he's a big fan of.

Now, brace yourself for this one, but the Borg Queen? She's actually a figure of much contention within the Trek fandom. I know, right? Fans of Star Trek being split about a creative decision within a series! It's just unthinkable! Nevertheless, it has happened. Personally, I don't really have an issue with it beyond the Borg Queen's whole high-tech BDSM aesthetic. Despite her being a retconned in character, she manages to bring out something in Picard that we haven't seen before, which is definitely interesting. The short few scenes that Patrick Stewart and Alice Krieg share actually make me wish we could see more of them. No such luck, alas, although with Picard Season 2, that might have actually ended up being a blessing in the end. As I said before, I don't really have an issue with her, but I can understand why a lot of people did.

Also, I would be remiss if I did not mention the Enterprise-E itself, given that it is the new ship for this movie and the two that follow it. It's a really great design, honestly. Immediately different from the Enterpise-D by being far sleeker and looking a bit more polished. Yes, D is far more iconic and instantly recognizable due to it being prominently featured in The Next Generation as the ship, but E is a bit of a change up from things and is a very good change.

... oh, there's another thing that Picard could have done with the Nexus, save the Enterprise-D!

There are honestly not a lot of issues I could mention with First Contact. A lot of the wonkiness of Generations has been stripped away and it seemed like the TNG crew were on course for an excellent franchise that, dare we dream, could have been on par with that of the original six had by the TOS crew. Alas, this was not meant to be. First Contact grossed almost $150 million at the box office, so a sequel was inevitable... but in retrospect we really, really wish it hadn't been.

No, next time, we will get into a film so terrible that it actually stalled the TNG crew for four years afterward. Get ready to toss the Prime Directive to the wind... because it's time for an Insurrection...

For now, I'll leave you with this awesome gif of Worf getting the most badass line of the film.

Oh, hell yeah! That's almost worth having to watch the next two movies for!

Star Trek: First Contact is brought to us by Paramount Pictures.