Random First Contact Thoughts

[STEPhon IT]

It's lazy writing, they needed the rest of the crew to do something and I thought it would've been interesting if the rest spent some time in the wild frontier of Montana; see them appreciating nature and a reason why the Borg can not tamper with this. But the writers (Berman, Moore, & Braga) couldn't expand what's interesting about Montana because they've never been to Montana.

 

[Vger23]

It's lazy writing, they needed the rest of the crew to do something and I thought it would've been interesting if the rest spent some time in the wild frontier of Montana; see them appreciating nature and a reason why the Borg can not tamper with this. But the writers (Berman, Moore, & Braga) couldn't expand what's interesting about Montana because they've never been to Montana.

Actually, Brannon Braga was born in Bozeman, Montana. It's why you occasionally see references sprinkled in.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Then he should've written a better angle for our heroes than having them interfering with the timeline, I've family in Montana and there's nothing in that film which represented that great State and beautiful scenery.

 

[Smellmet]

The production was top-notch; every penny was spent on the screen.

I actually thought a lot of the sets and lighting looked cheap in places, especially the Enterprise E. I much preferred the look of Generations which I think has aged far better.

 

[The Wormhole]

Rewriting what was known about Cochrane

I don't know about that. Aside from making him clearly older than the thirty years old Metamorphosis implies he should be at this point, I don't think there's anything irreconcilable about how the movie depicts Cochrane. Rumour has it, in the very early stages changing Cochrane to being a female was considered, which could have made things very interesting among fandom.

having the Vulcans the first aliens to meet us... on Earth shows a lack of imagination.

I get what they were going for. I think Braga even says in the DVD interview that he and Moore very much wanted the First Contact between humans and Vulcans to be the nativity of Star Trek. With that in mind, it makes sense to use the Vulcans, they being the very first alien we see in all Star Trek back in The Cage. Plus, having Vulcans be the first alien race humanity meets because of Cochrane's warp flight helps explain how Cochrane recognized Spock was a Vulcan in Metamorphosis.

 

[Kor]

... Rumour has it, in the very early stages changing Cochrane to being a female was considered, which could have made things very interesting among fandom. ...

The way I read it, the early idea of Cochrane being Picard's female love interest in ST:FC was due to a certain one of the writers being ignorant of TOS.

Kor

 

[STEPhon IT]

I actually thought a lot of the sets and lighting looked cheap in places, especially the Enterprise E. I much preferred the look of Generations which I think has aged far better.

I thought the sets and the lighting looked better than The Undiscovered Country, a decent film BTW, and I doubt any sets from those TNG films could compete with what JJ Abrams has done.

 

[STEPhon IT]

I don't know about that. Aside from making him clearly older than the thirty years old Metamorphosis implies he should be at this point, I don't think there's anything irreconcilable about how the movie depicts Cochrane. Rumour has it, in the very early stages changing Cochrane to being a female was considered, which could have made things very interesting among fandom.

I get what they were going for. I think Braga even says in the DVD interview that he and Moore very much wanted the First Contact between humans and Vulcans to be the nativity of Star Trek. With that in mind, it makes sense to use the Vulcans, they being the very first alien we see in all Star Trek back in The Cage. Plus, having Vulcans be the first alien race humanity meets because of Cochrane's warp flight helps explain how Cochrane recognized Spock was a Vulcan in Metamorphosis.

It only makes sense when Berman was brainstorming a so-called prequel series called Enterprise, I'm not sure if The Cage was officially canon by that point in time unlike The Menagerie which was geared as a flashback. TOS had all sorts of aliens during that run, the film fails to present any sort of wonder for me and I found it bland. All of those TNG films felt like the worst episodes with a larger budget and an extended length.

What I got from Metamorphosis was Cochrane was from Alpha Centuri, a star system close to our own, which gave me the impression Humans were already pioneering the stars by the early 1990's in the real Star Trek timeline (NOT PRIME). FC he's from Earth and a drunk and doesn't appear to be a genius like what done on Star Trek. No worries, Fans will always try to force fit things that just doesn't fit.

 

[Lance]

I actually thought a lot of the sets and lighting looked cheap in places, especially the Enterprise E. I much preferred the look of Generations which I think has aged far better.

The cinematography on GENS is better. Undoubtedly. Alonzo gets incredible things out of those eight year old sets built for TV.

Both FC and INS are lit and shot much more flatly.

Ironically, INS actually had a much bigger budget than FC, yet looks even cheaper because most of the money was spent on location filming. Most of which was vast epic shots of hundreds of extras schleping across the countryside, beautiful long shots none of which ended up in the finished movie because it slowed the pace riiiiiight doooooowwnn. In the end it was wasted money. FIRST CONTACT does a lot more with a lot less money.

 

[Timo]

What I got from Metamorphosis was Cochrane was from Alpha Centuri, a star system close to our own, which gave me the impression Humans were already pioneering the stars by the early 1990's in the real Star Trek timeline (NOT PRIME).

Well, "real Star Trek" makes it clear this wasn't so - ships of the 1990s were said to be incapable of interstellar runs, so that Khan using one to make such a run was such a rude surprise. Heck, it would only be the son of John Christopher who'd get to pop Saturn for mankind.

But "stars before warp" has always been a possibility lurking in the background. And we still don't know whether that's true or false. All we know is that mankind had no acknowledged meetings with space aliens until warp - but what happens in interstellar space might stay in interstellar space, and sublight explorers on their way to Barnard's Star may well have met some Tellarites in 2024 and lived to (belatedly) tell the story.

FC he's from Earth and a drunk and doesn't appear to be a genius like what done on Star Trek.

Which is the fun part about FC - it defies expectations. No point in telling a story that has already been told. (Except Hollywood has never believed much in that!)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Smellmet]

The cinematography on GENS is better. Undoubtedly. Alonzo gets incredible things out of those eight year old sets built for TV.

Both FC and INS are lit and shot much more flatly.

Ironically, INS actually had a much bigger budget than FC, yet looks even cheaper because most of the money was spent on location filming. Most of which was vast epic shots of hundreds of extras schleping across the countryside, beautiful long shots none of which ended up in the finished movie because it slowed the pace riiiiiight doooooowwnn. In the end it was wasted money. FIRST CONTACT does a lot more with a lot less money.

Quite a feat for them to throw the biggest budget for a trek film for the time and end up with one of the smallest scale, cheapest looking productions in the franchise, with pretty poor FX to boot.

 

[inflatabledalek]

Fully agree with the rule of cool comments. First Contact is a fine example of what you can get away with if the director really cares. The plot is as illogical as the films either side of it, but Frakes leans in, grabs you by the throat, looks you in the eye and dares you to pick holes.

It's telling that on the commentary for Insurrection he clearly does not believe in the message that film is trying to deliver (I think he calls it "Typical Piller crap" at one point), there's nowhere near the same level of conviction and energy there.

Think FC is the best film for the E as well. The CGI isn't at the right level yet on INS (at least not on the budget they had) and it looks tired in NEM.

 

[The Wormhole]

It only makes sense when Berman was brainstorming a so-called prequel series called Enterprise, I'm not sure if The Cage was officially canon by that point in time unlike The Menagerie which was geared as a flashback.

The Cage was definitely as of 1996, but regardless, if you want to look at TOS starting with Where No Man Has Gone Before (the first produced with most of the regular cast) or The Man Trap (the first to air) then Spock and Vulcans are still the first aliens viewers are introduced to, making the Vulcans a logical choice for humanity's first contact.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

The more I think about it, the more dumb the Borg plot is. Okay. Are they trying to sneak attack Earth? Then why destroy Ivor Prime? Why alert Deep Space Five? Without destroying Ivor Prime, they could warp or take a transwarp conduit straight to 24th century Earth and assimilate it without the Federation welcoming committee.

Was the plan to just get Picard? Then why not warp around, scan Federation space and get Picard's coordinates, launch a retrieval mission and get him that way? We know in the movie that Picard can hear the Borg's thoughts, so why can't the Borg turn that around on him and find him that way?

Imagine how badass the movie could have been if the assimilate-the-Enterprise plot culminated in the attack on Sector 001 with the Federation fleet having to fight a Borgified Enterprise-E instead of a Borg cube.

 

[thribs]

According to the Engines of Destiny novel, them going back in time was the back-up plan, but it was only supposed to take them back a few days in time.

 

[Timo]

The Borg have always been the vastly superior enemy. And unlike folks like V'Ger or Whale Probe, they can't be dissuaded from doing anything they want done, not even distracted. If they fail to take Earth, it's by their choice, then. Except, apparently, in "Best of Both Worlds", which IMHO is the weaker piece here...

Having the Borg Queen here covers it all: she's devious and goads the heroes into doing her bidding. Her whispering in Picard's ear, apparently with the intent (and certainly with the effect) of luring him into taking part in this adventure against his Starfleet orders, already seems suicidal. So all the rest of the Borg activity should logically seem suicidal, too. For whatever devious reason.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tomalak]

One simple but neat idea I came across somewhere on this forum is that Jonathan Archer and mostly the same crew had all the same adventures on a ship that was basically the exact same ship as Enterprise...it just had a different name. Whoever it was speculated that in the show's version of events Dr. Cochrane remembered it was a starship named Enterprise that helped save his project, and he wanted to honor that and encouraged the name; something like that.

I quite like this idea. I can even suggest what the ''original" ship was called - Dauntless.

When Voyager find the apparently legit Starfleet ship USS Dauntless with a curious registry number NX-01-A, no one bats an eyelid. Do they assume this quantum leap in Starship locomotive power is a reference to a previous human breakthrough ship?

But ultimately I don't think the Enterprise crew change history. I think they were always part of the events, helping a drunk to fly faster than light for a few seconds. It's a nice predestination paradox. Cochrane too takes Troi's pep talk to heart, and begins to play his part in forging the world she described, ultimately becoming the figure revered in those history books that Geordi read in Zefram Cochrane High School.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Well, "real Star Trek" makes it clear this wasn't so - ships of the 1990s were said to be incapable of interstellar runs, so that Khan using one to make such a run was such a rude surprise. Heck, it would only be the son of John Christopher who'd get to pop Saturn for mankind.

But "stars before warp" has always been a possibility lurking in the background. And we still don't know whether that's true or false. All we know is that mankind had no acknowledged meetings with space aliens until warp - but what happens in interstellar space might stay in interstellar space, and sublight explorers on their way to Barnard's Star may well have met some Tellarites in 2024 and lived to (belatedly) tell the story.



Which is the fun part about FC - it defies expectations. No point in telling a story that has already been told. (Except Hollywood has never believed much in that!)

Timo Saloniemi

I meant "Real Star Trek Timeline" not "Real Star Trek" I personally think anything the studios produces is real or authentic but I don't have to like it. Good point BTW, but what about Cochrane being from Alpha Centuri, doesn't that mean he was from that system?

 

[STEPhon IT]

The Borg have always been the vastly superior enemy. And unlike folks like V'Ger or Whale Probe, they can't be dissuaded from doing anything they want done, not even distracted. If they fail to take Earth, it's by their choice, then. Except, apparently, in "Best of Both Worlds", which IMHO is the weaker piece here...

Having the Borg Queen here covers it all: she's devious and goads the heroes into doing her bidding. Her whispering in Picard's ear, apparently with the intent (and certainly with the effect) of luring him into taking part in this adventure against his Starfleet orders, already seems suicidal. So all the rest of the Borg activity should logically seem suicidal, too. For whatever devious reason.

Timo Saloniemi

Which was it, did the Queen (Thank you, James Cameron) wanted Picard or Data? Why did the Queen ended up in that timeline and not further down the timeline... like the 1950's... that would've been cool with the scare of nuclear age and stuff?

 

[Timo]

I meant "Real Star Trek Timeline" not "Real Star Trek" I personally think anything the studios produces is real or authentic but I don't have to like it. Good point BTW, but what about Cochrane being from Alpha Centuri, doesn't that mean he was from that system?

If we get down to rationalizing (as the original material doesn't exactly establish anything solid here), we could say Cochrane was famous for being the first to reach Alpha Centauri, with the help of his nifty warp drive. Perhaps he even established the first settlement there, or moved there after others had domesticated the place. Much as with John Carter of Mars, not of Virginia: while Cochrane might have achieved stuff in his life at locations X and Y, he would be forever associated with the location from after the achievement, because that's when the public would first learn of him.

Which was it, did the Queen (Thank you, James Cameron) wanted Picard or Data? Why did the Queen ended up in that timeline and not further down the timeline... like the 1950's... that would've been cool with the scare of nuclear age and stuff?

The Queen contacted Picard. And then went the extra mile to contact Data. Might be she had plans. Or then she just took targets of opportunity. But if we believe in the suicide theory, of the Queen wanting to lose, then inviting Data to her lair would naturally follow.

Personally, I liked seeing an era on Earth that didn't come from our history, but was made up of whole cloth. But past dark ages might have been fun, too.

Timo Saloniemi