Ah, but Zephram Cochrane didn't even like to fly; he took trains. "You think I wanna see the stars? I don't even like to fly! I take trains!" -Zephram Cochrane I think Lily and Zephram were both engineers/physicists. Lily was probably just as qualified to pilot the thing as Cochrane, but let him/forced him to take the front seat because the invention was based on his ideas and technology.
I'm trying to imagine Riker doing the NOOOOOO!!! *ship smash* scene. Frakes is really good in scenes where he's angry. "Shut up! As in close your mouth and stop talking."
I'm not sure how far this idea actually got, but the novelization has a making of...section and they discuss how an early idea was to have them all travel back in time to the Renaissance. The notion of having the crew running around in Toga's tickled them I suppose. I think the reason they didn't go that route is because a period piece would be too expensive.
I always assumed that the Phoenix was a secret U.S. government project that Cochrane and Sloane were in charge of until something went horribly awry during WWIII. Heck, they have access to a former nuclear missile. In the aftermath of the war, they probably figured that they could finish it and sell it to the highest bidder. The narrative that the 24th century had is just too perfect. There's just probably a lot in the background that we still don't know about.
Of course. He's probably a gutless fighter jock who washed out of NASA before the war and spent the last five years curled up in the bottom of a tequila bottle until Lily came along and talked his drunk ass into helping her with the Phoenix's orbiter. And you wonder why he doesn't like to fly? What's kind of interesting is that Cochrane doesn't seem to DO anything when the Enterprise crew is running around repairing the ship. It's not just his "Aw, fuck it" attitude when the ship gets busted, it's the fact that he spends most of that time skulking around drinking and otherwise shows no interest in the ship whatsoever. This is NOT AT ALL a man who could have overcome the kind of adversity and uncertainty he would have inevitably encountered in the design, construction and testing of the Phoenix. I think Picard was absolutely right when he suggested the designer of the ship wouldn't abandon it, and had he known that Cochrane did EXACTLY that, he probably would have realized what was really going on. The inescapable fact is that even if it was Cochrane's scientific theories or equations that made warp drive possible -- which I highly doubt -- it's abundantly clear that the SHIP was Lily's baby. She even intimates this Picard when she tells him she spent several months pulling scraps together to build the cockpit; I can't imagine Zephram Cochrane doing much of anything during that time other than drooling on the floor blasting 60s tunes at full volume. Most telling of all: Picard tells Lily "Actually we're not unlike yourself and Doctor Cochrane." Lily Chuckles, but doesn't get a chance to respond to that comment. If they hadn't run into the Borg at that exact moment I am 100% sure she would have said something like "You mean half your crew are a bunch of drunken losers who don't know a warp coil from a windshield wiper?"
Another thing to throw into the mix is the fact that Cochrane, in the movie, owned a telescope (and a pretty nice one, at that!). That isn't something I'd associate with the tequila-swilling, disgruntled character whom is being described here. Of course, it's something he simply may have found along the way, as the Meade LX200 would basically be an antique in 2063. Even now, it's an older model...not that age would affect its performance. Then again, people being individuals...who knows?
There's no doubt Cochrane knows his astronomy at least as a hobby (he can find Leo even while totally wasted) so the telescope is definitely his. But then, being an amateur astronomer does not imply having the wherewithal to design and build a space ship capable of FTL travel. A further thing to remember is the fact that Lily gives a lot of clues that suggest she might be ex-military. Tellingly, she tells Picard "You're not the first man to get a thrill from murdering someone! I see it all the time!" So what the hell has Lily been doing lately that has involved seeing a lot of murders? When you consider that when Picard finds her she is shooting at him with a machinegun in a nuclear missile silo, she probably means that she saw it happen a lot during the war, which further explains how she got access to the missile silo in the first place (she was probably stationed there when the war ended).
While I don't share your theory that Cochrane didn't invent warp drive, I do, in retropect, think that he was a poorly-envisioned character (in FC, not "Metamorphosis;" Glenn Corbett's Cochrane couldn't have been more different). This guy is totally unbelievable as a scientist/inventor/doctor/etc. I think the writers of the film simply focused more on the "humorous" aspects of the character while completely ignoring the illogic that this old drunk womanizing coward created something as earth-shattering as warp drive. Someone earlier mentioned the idea that the person you most admire turning out to not be at all what you expected when you finally meet him. While there's absolutely nothing wrong with that premise, it still has to be bound by logic. If Cochrane was presented as a great scientific mind but also a complete asshole, then it would have worked better. Cromwell's version reminds me of the dudes hanging out at the local bar, who probably couldn't even figure out how to use a smartphone, much less invent a spacecraft FTL drive system.
My God yes this is the thing I hated most about the movie!!!! It starts off as a pretty decent sci-fi action flick....for about 5 mins. Then the rest of the movie is half spending time with Drunkie, and the other half is the Borg Queen trying to have sex with Data. "Drunkie" is never, for even one second, believable to me as a man genius enough to be the inventor of Warp Drive. He's barely passable as a typical low IQ redneck. Fucking Paramount's shoving of "comedy" in every Trek movie since ST IV is the culprit for this.
Dunno... Cochrane there reminds me a lot about a certain acquaintance of mine who definitely counts as an inventor and a rocket scientist. He's not that fallen on hard times, but I could see it happen in theory. Cochrane need not have invented anything for, what, the last ten years? His big project would have been on back burner for about that length of time if the onset of WWIII cut off his supply of titanium and whatnot. That's plenty of time for a man to change - enough that when pressed back to duty, he wouldn't even really know how to proceed. Another reason for him to run off to the forest for a quick flask or two of encouragement... Timo Saloniemi