Should the Borg be the villain in Trek 3?

The most popular TNG film was First Contact. Plus, they haven't been overused on the big screen. They also represent crossover appeal because of their zombie-like nature.

Lindelof is not part of the Star Trek 3 writing team.

 

The Borg's crossover appeal also comes from the fact that they are such an overwhelming and unexpected enemy that no matter who meets them for the first time, it is going to be an extraordinary deadly adventure that's going to make some good cinema.

It is harder to mess up. Even ENT: Regeneration was exciting to watch. And having 21st century humans like Lily meet them in First Contact was, in my mind, even better than the Enterprise D meeting them in Q Who. I don't think they are going to pass on the chance to have Star Trek's first crew have their own first encounter with the Borg, which is going to be something. I don't think you can go wrong with it.

Voyager messed it up because we and the crew got to know them, plus they approached the matter in the wrong way and rushed through the suspense. Which is not to say I didn't love when Janeway met Seven in ENT: Relativity - that's another thing I find appealing when it comes to firsts, and another reason I want Voyager rebooted and done right (call me weird).

But the formidable, relentless enemy you just meet that defies any expectations is far from overused, it hasn't been used enough, not even on the small screen. To fuck it up now, you'd have to give them an utterly dismal treatment – which given the first two films ain't gonna happen. Which is another thing that Voyager missed doing – encounter worlds just facing the Borg and get assimilated, and be powerless to do anything – like VOY: Dreadnought without the happy ending.

If you think the Borg are a bad idea presently, just wait until future film makers decide to do the time travel stories Borg in WW2, Edith Keeler is Borg, Borg in the Wild West, Borg and the American Revolution, Borg and the Spanish Inquisition, Borg and the Romans, Borg on Apollo 13. I fully expect that those will happen before I die, and I also fully expect that some of them will end up being my guilty pleasures.

ETA: I do prefer an original story without an old enemy. But the Borg – which are very likely - will work splendidly.

 

I'm hardly one to romanticize Trek's past, but should the ST movie released during the 50th anniversary of Trek really be a shoot 'em up movie, with either the Borg or Klingons? Is that in keeping with the overall popular image and themes of Trek? Those that Trek sells and lets people believe? Optimism. Exploration. Mystery. Imagination. Good humor. It compromises those things on its 50th anniversary by presenting basically a war movie?

Further, STID ended on a high note. Why drag everything down in the next movie with the dark and featureless Borg, or a battle with the Klingons?

If it's the Borg, how do you top what Picard and his crew did in FC? The Borg are Picard's. Would we want Picard to meet Khan? Would it be as poignant as Khan and Kirk? Where's the poignancy in Kirk meeting the Borg? The beauty of FC is it was built up to by events in TNG. That part would be missing from Kirk v. Borg.

If some people thought shoe-horning Khan into STID was contrived, wait until they see the Borg with Kirk. And please don't anyone say that it could be done if they just take care to "do it the right way." By that logic, there is a way they could pull off Kirk and Spock meeting Moe, Larry, and Curly.

In my opinion, the best homage to Trek would be a nice little TOS style morality play, not too deep, not too serious, with an antagonist of the type they tended to meet in TOS. Not all evil. Not all good. Someone that challenges the crew in some way as much as endangers them. So, I'd say if it's going to be Klingons, then make it an "Errand of Mercy" style story. A conflict that addresses the war of ideas, not a real all out war.

 

I'd rather the Borg than the Klingons, to be honest. The Klingons were overexposed on the small and big screen over the last thirty years.

Though Kirk has to destroy them with a logical paradox. Any other way would just seem wrong.

 

I'd have no issue with a Picard vs. Khan story (I actually wrote one back in the mid-90's, where Picard battled Khan in an alternate-21st century. ). I'd have no issue with a Picard vs. Dominion story. Why would I have an issue with Kirk vs. the Borg?

If the story is solid (see: "Regeneration"), I have no issue with mixing Trek elements.

Plus, I think you can do one hell of an "evils of technology" vs. the "need for technology" story.

 

What made the story work for me in FC was the history Picard had with the Borg. The movie reminded everyone of it in the first thirty seconds. FC became Picard's "Obsession". Imagine FC without that subplot. Picard's personal conflict carried that story. Comparatively, TOS v. the Borg would be emotionally flat, in my opinion. It would be like Picard going after Khan in TWOK instead of Kirk.

Now, I'll be in the theater either way. And who knows? I do remember rolling my eyes and thinking, "my God," in 1985 when I heard the Trek movie coming out in 1986 was about saving the whales. That turned out OK.

 

The Borg are popular, and they are really interesting and effective enemy. You need a good story to explain why they're meeting the Enterprise crew so early in history, but I'm sure something can be worked out. I'd also think it wouldn't be that hard - and it would be important - to give Kirk and/or Spock and co. a personal investment in the story against the Borg. Let the Borg take out a space station or ship early on and kill some one or someones important to the leads. Heck, this is a bold thought, but what if the Borg assimilated the new Vulcan colony? That would make their threat very personal and releavent. Of course, some Vulcans could escape, but there's some interesting pathos and drama if Spock were the last full Vulcan.
I can't help but think that this could tie in somehow with the rumor of casting for a young Deanna Troi. Time travel thrown into the mix.

 

And he's not even full Vulcan!

 

I could see a Borg story with Kirk and Company:

Spoiler: Borg Idea

Small Borg ship crashes. A colony goes dark with what at first sounds like a medical emergency. A spreading virus. Colony goes silent. Enterprise dispatched to investigate. They find a world of cybernetic horrors when they arrive. McCoy works frantically to reverse what has happened to the colonists. A pregnant Marcus is abducted and assimilated (the emotional hook). Enterprise has too abandon the colony when a massive cube shaped vessel is spotted. McCoy stays behind. Kirk, Spock, Scott and Science Officer 0718 beam over to investigate. Uhura left in command. Away Team finds same cybernetic horrors on cube ship as on colony world...

 

Ouch. That was a dumb mistake. I should know better.
Hey Bill J that is a good story outline.

 

Actually, a time travel story in which the Borg go back to the Roman Empire or American Civil War was considered in the early planning stages of First Contact. And another one set in the Renaissance was even developed in some detail before they ultimately decided to go with Cochrane's warp flight.

 

Your story idea is nice, but I'd like it to start off where STID left off, with the deep space mission, letting them go into uncharted territory. Rehashing Q Who's narrative about us not being prepared for the weird that expects us in deep space, but without the self-centred godlike creature that tries to lecture us. Perhaps also following Franklin's preference for not being a shoot 'em up movie.

So basically what you said, but instead of a Federaion colony, have an encounter with a different society.


If I'd adapt it to my personal taste, I'd go with something like the following, although it would probably work more as an episode than a film... But you could make it an initial Nibiru sequence, with a sad ending this time.

Spoiler: alternative idea based on yours

Enterprise has been in deep space for years now. They are moving through a region of space no man has ever gone to before. They run into a planet that's the source of a lot of unusual subspace chatter; sensors pick warp technology on the surface, but nobody responds to their hails. An away team beams down at night to discover what at first seems to be a early civilization overcome by a plague. But they soon realise it's fallen victim to a high-tech cybernetic horror, in an apparent anachronistic mix of technology and a primitive culture that hard to grasp and nobody in the away team understands.

Following Kirk's intuition and against Spock's protest, they go to the country where they pick no signs of technology. They are welcomed the hospitality of a local family. It gives them a warp welcome, even though there is a lot of whispering about Marcus' attire by the kids. They learn they are in a pre-warp society, and they are told that the everyone in the nearby town has fallen sick and are becoming insane. Nobody dares to go there, but their son has gone there and has not returned. Learning that McCoy is a doctor, they start begging him to go with them to the down.

Meanwhile, Kirk walks outside the house in a hurry, and a young girl from the family eavesdrops, hearing him talking to himself, and then telling Marcus that the Enterprise reported a ship had dropped out of warp...


Bonus fanwank idea 1: An ensign played by Whoopi Goldberg beams down without authorization and tells them to get the fuck out of there, together with the family they are with, and RUN as fast as they can.

Bonus fanwank idea 2: A self-respecting Borg would never assimilate a pre-warp society, duh. At the end it is revealed that's how First Contact played out in the alternative timeline. The Borg went into the past trying to assimilate a future Federation member before they were one, but to avoid discovery, they would assimilate a few settlements and hide in suspended animation for centuries, and without external prosthetics to raise the alarm once they awaken.

Bonus fanwank idea 3: A ten-kilometre ship with Enterprise on the hull appears out of nowhere, destroys the sphere, hails them and Giles Aston appears telling them to keep silent about what they had seen.

 

No, I don't want the Borg in the next movie. I do not want TNG nonsense polluting my TOS. Let someone reboot TNG and bring back the Borg there. Surely there are any number of TOS era stories that can be explored.

 

No. They should save that for nuTNG, as it's more their thing. It would be as off putting as having Kirk face off with the Jem'Hadar.

 

Now, if we really are getting a reboot TNG then I'd be more likely to say save the Borg for them.

 

If they have the right story, they should go for it. Why save the Borg for a tomorrow that may never come?

 

I fully agree, and to be perfectly honest the ending to that series was really the only humane way to deal with the Borg as a whole. The resources would nearly never exist to free and care for the whole collective if it were to fall.

IT is far far too early in the JJ verse to deal with the Borg, But there are plenty of other races out there that need some movie love.. Tzenkethi perhaps!

I would also love to see them bring out the planet killer and the Whale Probe in the same movie! Cxcept this time the JJfeds actually capture the Planet Killer and use it on the Whale Probe! Yeah I know, mean, but hell why not.

 

But sometimes two great tastes taste great together. You know, like chocolate and peanut butter!

 

Not no, but hell no.

Nothing from TNG. Not a scrap.