What if First Contact had secondary Antagonists?

[Qonundrum]

I'd still say the bigger problems include issues like the Borg time traveling only after a not-too-terribly-catostraphic battle where they send just one cube, rather than adapting by sending a second cube, sphere, diamond, and/or purple horseshoe and be done with it, rather than before they encounter the fight in order to deliberately prevent the melodrama of first contact... never mind the fleet orders Picard to stay back because of PTSD and might act erratically... of course, when Picard breaks the rule after a dumb joke by Data (in a move that the next movie takes seriously), he goes there and promptly makes an erratic suggestion... and the commander of the fleet there along with all the other ships' commanders don't begin to question. Never mind the Defiant - the ship made specifically to fight Borg - is just about destroyed and Worf is hampered by a bunch of "newbs"... Let's see, that's all within the first 5 minutes or so, so how much worse does it get?

 

[Qonundrum]

How could FC really put in such a subplot? The characters could beam on out at any time. To its credit, despite its contrivances, it didn't go overboard in cramming in too many characters - or plot styles. Mad Max scenarios usually tend to be gritty, not light-hearted. Though ever since ST4, every movie put in too much comedy that hampered the overall tone...

well it makes it less boring and it gives the Enterprise's crew a whole new set of villains to deal with

Good point. It also makes the movie less predictable. We all know they'd defeat the Borg. An added variable could create the level of tension the movie largely lacked.

 

[Orphalesion]

all post apocalyptic settings are miles and miles of endless desert wasteland and black scorch marks where cities once stood.

But there's just no reason why Bozeman, Montana would be a scorched desert. The climate in Montana doesn't lend itself to desertification (and if anything a Nuclear Winter would just make it colder) and it appears to be far away from any large cities, so there's nothing that stands in the way of the forests there surviving.
Presumably the cities are (at least partially) burnt-out ruins, which is why many surviving city dwellers would leave them behind for places like Bozeman, which would also be difficult to find and so would stand a chance of escaping any roving militias and wannabe-dictators.

Interestingly enough, though, earlier in production Cochrane was supposed to be young and covered in burn scars from the war.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Only 600 million died, in a planet likely populated by about ~10 billion. Very unlikely any cities in Montana would be attacked (missile silos, OTOH...). What we see in First Contact must be the result of attacks on the electrical grid and a likely worldwide, post-war Depression. Cochrane's shanty-town is likely an ad-hoc solution from no governmental infrastructure on an unauthorized project.

It's possible that Cochrane and his colleagues are the equivalent of crazed desert-raiders in this more realistic (until the aliens show up) post-apocalyptic hellscape.

 

[1001001]

You couldn't combine this with your other thread asking what if Cochrane had to fight Mad Max style hooligans?

For that matter, shouldn't both threads be in the forum for the ten Prime Universe movies?

Correct on both counts.

Merging and moving to Movies.

@Acenos please pay more attention to how the board is separated, place threads in the right forum, and don't make multiple threads out of the same subject.

Thanks

 

[Dukhat]

The movie wasn’t about mutants scavenging around for gasoline to put into their souped-up hot rods. It was about the Borg trying to change history to prevent first contact with the Vulcans. To be upset that you didn’t see a Mad Max future means that you completely missed the point of the story.

 

[valkyrie013]

Probably more like Evolution, post man side where it's just no type of infestructur and people having to fend for themselves.

Might have the roving gangs but not mad Max style in hopped up corvettes

Don't know of any idea of ground battles that doesn't sound cliche ..

 

[Imaus]

you have any issues with making post-atomic horro Earth genuinely post apocalyptic? Complete with punk marauders riding around in hot rods and choppers? It makes it more exciting. ad also the mutants too!

The general gist is that America wasn't as badly hit as East Asia or so. Sure there might be Mad-Max 1 level of lawlessness, but there was enough stability to maintain a Warp-Rocket Lab. Cochrane was still basically answering to, on paper, a USian government, Montana wasn't a free Republic, and so on. And within 5 years the US and other governments are basically retrofitting their surviving ships with Warp Nacelles, or even making whole new ones.

That doesn't come cheap. That doesn't come from a world in full warlordism.

Secondary Antagonists might work as a Econ Agent trying to sabotage the system but even then, because of the Borg Threat, you stun them and that's it, keep 24 hour security forces at the silo.

It'll only work if you really remove the Borg. Like, say, Starfleet destroys the Cube, and some ODP destroys the sphere, but the E is still sucked in anyway. Then more human-local antagonists wouldn't be so...stifling? Packed in?

 

[Acenos]

The movie wasn’t about mutants scavenging around for gasoline to put into their souped-up hot rods. It was about the Borg trying to change history to prevent first contact with the Vulcans. To be upset that you didn’t see a Mad Max future means that you completely missed the point of the story.

i meant adding those in the movie not the movie being about them

 

[Acenos]

But there's just no reason why Bozeman, Montana would be a scorched desert. The climate in Montana doesn't lend itself to desertification (and if anything a Nuclear Winter would just make it colder) and it appears to be far away from any large cities, so there's nothing that stands in the way of the forests there surviving.
Presumably the cities are (at least partially) burnt-out ruins, which is why many surviving city dwellers would leave them behind for places like Bozeman, which would also be difficult to find and so would stand a chance of escaping any roving militias and wannabe-dictators.

Interestingly enough, though, earlier in production Cochrane was supposed to be young and covered in burn scars from the war.

the fallout would be the thing that turns montana into a wasteland

 

[Acenos]

Only 600 million died, in a planet likely populated by about ~10 billion. Very unlikely any cities in Montana would be attacked (missile silos, OTOH...). What we see in First Contact must be the result of attacks on the electrical grid and a likely worldwide, post-war Depression. Cochrane's shanty-town is likely an ad-hoc solution from no governmental infrastructure on an unauthorized project.

It's possible that Cochrane and his colleagues are the equivalent of crazed desert-raiders in this more realistic (until the aliens show up) post-apocalyptic hellscape.

point 1: It's not the nukes that fucks up montana, it's the fallout from them.

 

[Vger23]

Forget Mad Max bad guys.

We all know what would have made First Contact a better movie.

 

[publiusr]

The only problem I have with this movie is how Earth is portrayed.

What Earth should look like in 2063:

What Bozeman should really look like This is what defines Post-atomic horror:

There wouldn’t be anyone left in that case.

Even a nuclear war isn’t going to make the Earth look like that top image. Dust laden and cloudy, yes. The image here looks like the atmosphere was stripped away.

Australia has some dry conditions, so Mad Max took place there.

Fallout didn’t burn things down in Chernobyl. If anything, the surroundings grew back unchecked

 

[Orphalesion]

Probably more like Evolution, post man side where it's just no type of infestructur and people having to fend for themselves.

Might have the roving gangs but not mad Max style in hopped up corvettes

Don't know of any idea of ground battles that doesn't sound cliche ..

Yeah what I could imagine would be a unit of armed forces going rogue after the war and carving out their own territory to lord over, or something.But yeah...where in the movie would you put them and what purpose would they serve in the narrative?

the fallout would be the thing that turns montana into a wasteland

It would not. Nature is quite resilient in that regard, much more so than humanity. Ever seen photos of how Chernobyl looks today? It's green and thriving, with lots of animals.

Assuming Montana gets hit hard by fallout, all that would cause would be radiation sickness and high cancer rates (and they wouldn't be able to eat mushrooms and other organisms that would store high levels of radiation in their tissue), but nature would prevail.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

it won't matter if they'res more people than your phaser can stun/kill

That's what the wide beam setting is for. Wide beam, full stun, take down multiple attackers at once. Job done.

 

[Dukhat]

i meant adding those in the movie not the movie being about them

How does adding that to the movie help with the overall story of the Borg trying to prevent first contact?

 

[Maurice]

i meant adding those in the movie not the movie being about them

And, not aimed at you specifically, but this is why audiences are not screenwriters.

What does any of this suggested "secondary antagonist" stuff add to the central conflicts of the story? In a Mad Max or even Damnation Alley the barren landscape is itself a motivating factor for the characters in the drama. First Contact isn't concerned with that. it's mere backstory that there was a conflict. It has no bearing on the narrative, really.

 

[Farscape One]

When you think about it, FIRST CONTACT already had two villains... the Borg and the Borg Queen.

Adding another villain is just superfluous, and it would degenerate the film as a whole. Just look at BATMAN AND ROBIN. One of the biggest problems there was too many villains.

 

[jackoverfull]

No thanks, the movie is perfect at it is and besides it’s already long enough. Also, while such gangs and post-atomic fallout might be present in other areas of the planet (and might be interesting to explore the idea in a double episode or something) it wouldn’t make sense for Cochrane to be able to work there.

By the way, there are a lot of works where post-apocalyptic Earth is not a desert wasteland. Regarding books, I highly recommend Stewart’s Earth Abides and Brin’s The Postman (there is a quite ok movie of this, too).

And by by the way, Australia has already a lot of desert anyway, the fallout didn’t necessarily create i in Mad Max. In fact you get to see some green areas as well in the first and the third movie, while the second is set specifically only in the wastelands. The fourth movie ignores this, but there is little that makes sense in that movie anyway.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

The film would also need to devote time to this other faction, their motivations and means and whatnot for them to pose a credible threat, whilst the resolution of it would merely be Riker leaving the Phoenix and he and Troi phasering them whilst La Forge and Cochrane launch. It really doesn't add anything.