Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
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Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
starring PATRICK STEWART JONATHAN FRAKES BRENT SPINER
and JAMES CROMWELL as Cochrane ALFRE WOODARD ALICE KRIGE
co-starring LeVAR BURTON MICHAEL DORN GATES McFADDEN MARINA SIRTIS
NEAL McDONOUGH with ROBERT PICARDO * ETHAN PHILLIPS
and DWIGHT SCHULTZ as Barclay * Directed by JONATHAN FRAKES
The filmmakers followed a pattern established in at least one earlier Star Trek film, in that they selected the best villain from the TV series (a la Khan in the 2nd Trek film, The Wrath of Khan '82) to confront the heroic crew. So, this film functions mostly as a sequel to the TNG episodes The Best of Both Worlds parts one & two, from 1990, in which the cyborg-race the Borg nearly succeeded in assimilating Earth. The Borg also assimilated Captain Picard, temporarily, in those episodes, a process likened to a futuristic version of rape and slavery, so the most powerful elements of this story involve Picard revisiting this trauma. This results in some of his less-civilized behavior, raising questions of just how far mankind has really evolved in the past 300 years. On the one hand, Picard behaves atypically, causing some viewers to question the realism of this sudden character change. On the other hand, this more macho Picard behaves more like Captain Kirk, offering instant gratification to those viewers who wished Picard to behave more like the 23rd century captain.
The Borg are sort of upgraded for this film, but this mostly involves giving them a more gritty look, superficially emphasizing the horrific aspects of their threatening presence. Frankly, I preferred their appearance in the episodes, such as in the episode Q Who?, where their skin merely lacked any pigmentation, rather than this mottled effect here. They were unique back then, whereas now they seem derivative of other sci-fi franchises, such as the Terminator films or even the various zombie films.
Also damaging their unique qualities is the introduction of a Borg Queen (Krige), created to have meaningful one-on-one dialog with Data and Picard (predictably, this was an idea from the studio suits). The concept of a queen ruling a hive is nothing new in science fiction, unfortunately; what always impressed me about the Borg before this was the lack of any central control - that is what really made them unique. Also, there is the use of time traveling yet again; the writers include a hokey concept of the Enterprise-E moving in the slipstream of the time traveling Borg module, which allows the crew to witness the Earth changed to a Borg colony, yet also not be affected by the change of history. So, that's about all of the negatives for me.
Overall, the film is a blast. The first scene is a case study of how to begin a science fiction adventure - a mind-bending pull-out of enormous proportions which serves to transfix the audience in the very first minute! The danger is that this first minute would overwhelm the rest of the film, but the script and first-time film director Frakes manage to provide a relentless pace for the remainder of the show, an almost non-stop action thrill ride to reflect the unstoppable nature of the enemy. Early on, we are thrown into the middle of a spectacular space battle (showing the Star Wars influence a bit more than the earlier movie Star Trek battles). This battle may be my favorite of any of the various spaceship wars depicted on film, outdoing even the later Star Wars prequels. It's brief, but there's so much spectacular, fiery imagery packed into a couple of minutes, I revisit that battle often.
James Cromwell is a fine actor, but his loopy, shambling presence here as the savior of mankind is hard to take very seriously. The story almost suggests that the entire 23rd century panorama of a Federation came about by freak accident - Cochrane lucked out big time. I found the reinterpretation here of Cochrane bordering on cliché scripting - the 'loser-turnaround-to-redeem-himself' plot; this type of story always makes me wonder how a guy who is out-of-his-mind drunk half the time manages to out-think all the clear-headed scientists.
But, the bottom line is that it's an exciting, even thrilling storyline, with Patrick Stewart's best moments as the angry, yet in-charge, even ruthless Captain Picard. His scene with actress Alfre Woodard towards the end, when parallels are drawn again to Captain Ahab and the novel Moby Dick, is worth the price of admission by itself. Stewart, as Picard, releases years of pent-up rage and we believe it - it's similar to Shatner's scene in The Undiscovered Country, when Kirk admits his hostility towards Klingons. Of the regulars, Marina Sirtis as Troi, Michael Dorn as Worf and Brent Spiner as Data also get to shine in their scenes. There are also some entertaining cameos by characters from the other Star Trek series, such as from Voyager. BoG's Score: 8.5 out of 10
At the time this film was released,
- Spoiler:
- it was not spelled out as to who were the aliens who visited Earth in year 2063. When they finally arrive at the end here, they turn out to be Vulcans. This sequence serves as a kind of prequel to the whole Enterprise series. Again, this development paints a different picture than what I visualized when I was watching Star Trek TOS many years earlier. I always thought mankind advanced naturally, steadily gaining in technology until warp one (then two, etc.) was attained. According to this film, however, Vulcans played a big role in our technological development after warp one was achieved, acting as our more experienced uncles.
First Trivia: at one point, Picard uses the holodeck to distract and then kill two Borg drones; he uses the Dixon Hill program, first used way back in the first season of TNG, the episode The Big Goodbye; as in that episode, the safety protocols are taken off line, this time purposely by Picard, so that objects such as fired bullets become real & lethal. This film grossed more than its predecessor, Generations.
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