Reflections on "Star Trek: First Contact"

[Gepard]

Yeah we get that he is supposed to be a genius... But this (warp drive) is something that should require a substantial work effort for many years by a large number of scientist with basically unlimited funding.

We got some of our biggest technological breakthroughs as the result of wars. Hell, the Manhattan Project was basically few geniuses locked away in labs with a lot of resources. Who's to say the Phoenix project wasn't derived from some similar war effort?

 

[Karnbeln]

I'd assume that, while Cochrane was the visionary who got the first drive to actually run, he wasn't the first warp physicist. There was probably tons of research and an entire field of science working on the theory. World War III put a wrench in development just as the scientists were getting close, stuck on some problem that kept coming up and just wouldn't go away.

Cochrane based his work on previous research, figured out where the older theories were going wrong, and then scrounged up all the technically minded people and resources he could find to create the first prototype warp drive. He may or may not have been involved in the previous science that took place before the war.

A warp theory textbook would have all sorts of names in it, with various laws and equations named after several great 21st century minds. Cochrane gets special treatment because he had a hand in every part that made it all come together: he was the physicist that found and corrected the hole in the theories, the primary engineer to design the final configuration of the engine, one of the mechanics that built the thing, the pilot who first flew it, and Earth's first representative to alien life in its aftermath.

 

[Kruge]

I'd assume that, while Cochrane was the visionary who got the first drive to actually run, he wasn't the first warp physicist. There was probably tons of research and an entire field of science working on the theory. World War III put a wrench in development just as the scientists were getting close, stuck on some problem that kept coming up and just wouldn't go away.

Cochrane based his work on previous research, figured out where the older theories were going wrong, and then scrounged up all the technically minded people and resources he could find to create the first prototype warp drive. He may or may not have been involved in the previous science that took place before the war.

A warp theory textbook would have all sorts of names in it, with various laws and equations named after several great 21st century minds. Cochrane gets special treatment because he had a hand in every part that made it all come together: he was the physicist that found and corrected the hole in the theories, the primary engineer to design the final configuration of the engine, one of the mechanics that built the thing, the pilot who first flew it, and Earth's first representative to alien life in its aftermath.

Forgive me, but while your post makes perfect sense, it was either in an episode or the novelization of the film where its noted Cochrane was looking for something else and discovered warp theory by accident...

 

[Karnbeln]

So he discovered the missing piece of the puzzle while pondering how to build a machine that would pore just the right amount of milk into his morning bowl of Lucky Charms. Whatever. Many important discoveries have been made while people were looking to do something different entirely. That's why funding pure research is important. But it doesn't mean that the fields people make their discoveries in were completely unresearched before the person makes their unexpected contribution. Maybe Zefram was working on a fluid dynamics problem when he realized the approach he was taking to some particularly nasty math could also be applied to time-warp physics, or realized a fundamental assumption of the theories was incorrect.

 

[Kruge]

Could be...the novelization does state that he was born in 2013, and I believe was working at MIT or something for quite a while, and if I remember correctly so was Lily, so I'd assume that means he was a student in the 2030s...I don't think that this was something that he stumbled upon right after the war, in fact in the novelization Lily remembers that their professor had cancelled their classes, and told them to go home and soon has the fit hit the shan and war looked imminent...

There was a good novel called Federation that came out 2 years before First Contact...it tells Cochrane's story, and it has him conducting tests with a warp "sled" before his first manned flight...interestingly enough, his funding is comming from a very eccentric man who turns out to be none other than Flint from TOS, and first contact with the Vulcans occurs much later after humanity has begun colonizing Alpha Centauri and sending back supplies to help Earth recover...

Seems the film takes a less convoluted approach, which is a good thing

 

[trevanian]

God bless you for enjoying the movie as much as you did. But I have to say that my recent rewatching of FC (and all the other films, too) made me decide that I actually like it the least of all the ten movies.

It was a logical idea to use the Borg as the villain for the second TNG film. However, I feel now that the neutering of the Borg, as has often been attributed to VGR, actually began here. The Queen is one important aspect of that - It just robs this alien race of what made it special, that frightening notion of a collective mind that cannot be reasoned with - but the introduction given to them in the film is just as anticinematic as you can get. That dream, well, that's a good shot, even if it doesn't really work as a convincing pullback shot for me. But it doesn't explain. I tried to pretend this time that I didn't know anything about the Borg, and from this dream sequence alone, I didn't get that the Borg were the collective that they are. They could've just as well been a race of individuals that happen to also be cyborgs. When the Borg became scary in FC, in the deflector dish scene, most of the film was already over, so this happened too late for my taste.

I could go on and on about what rubbed me the wrong way about FC, so I'll do this briefly:

- Picard as a vengeful action hero. Doesn't work for me after his understanding of Hugh in Season 5. Doesn't work at all for his character as such.

- The Picard & Data show. The inability of the writers to come up with more than cameos for the cast of seven they had. GEN was better in that regard.

- A, B and C plots that never connect.

- Failure to achive the scope that the story idea called for. The starship battle was ordinary. Wolf 359 on DS9 was more exciting because it connected the VFX to a human component, evacuees, Jennifer Sisko's death, etc. Nothing like that was in here. Also, much of this film feels like a bottle show: Enterprise and an unconvincing human settlement on Earth.

- cheesy music. I hate the First Contact theme because it sounds to me like a nighttime soap theme song.

- Forced cameos to induce forced comedy. Especially the EMH. Everything about this scene says "deleted scene for DVD" to me.

- Casual time travel. Typical TNG nonchalance at the wonders of space: "Oh, another time vortex! Sure, we can recreate it to go back later..." Compare TVH and the drama they milked from the time travelling alone!

The list goes on. I used to like FC a lot. I was surprised myself by how little I enjoyed the movie now.

I like FC more than NEMESIS, but that's about as far as I can go, largely for the reasons you mention here, plus one more here.

building on the 'failure to achieve scope' aspect is that they don't even exploit or show what they've talked about ... ww3. A shuttle overflight of a nuked city would have been more impressive than anything they said in conveying the state Earth is in ... something necessary, since you need to have the ashes before you see the Phoenix rise from them.

 

[Falcor5]

First Contact was never the same for me after I realized that they never addressed how Cochrane, Riker, and Geordi get back down to Earth after their warp flight. What did they do with the ship?

I'm wondering if the Borg stole Lily's place in history; I'm assuming she was supposed to be the ship's co-pilot, no? And there were three seats, was there supposed to be a third crewman as well?

Its very possible that there was supposed to be a third crewman and he died during the Borg attack.

 

[Anticitizen]

God bless you for enjoying the movie as much as you did. But I have to say that my recent rewatching of FC (and all the other films, too) made me decide that I actually like it the least of all the ten movies.

It was a logical idea to use the Borg as the villain for the second TNG film. However, I feel now that the neutering of the Borg, as has often been attributed to VGR, actually began here. The Queen is one important aspect of that - It just robs this alien race of what made it special, that frightening notion of a collective mind that cannot be reasoned with - but the introduction given to them in the film is just as anticinematic as you can get. That dream, well, that's a good shot, even if it doesn't really work as a convincing pullback shot for me. But it doesn't explain. I tried to pretend this time that I didn't know anything about the Borg, and from this dream sequence alone, I didn't get that the Borg were the collective that they are. They could've just as well been a race of individuals that happen to also be cyborgs. When the Borg became scary in FC, in the deflector dish scene, most of the film was already over, so this happened too late for my taste.

I could go on and on about what rubbed me the wrong way about FC, so I'll do this briefly:

- Picard as a vengeful action hero. Doesn't work for me after his understanding of Hugh in Season 5. Doesn't work at all for his character as such.

- The Picard & Data show. The inability of the writers to come up with more than cameos for the cast of seven they had. GEN was better in that regard.

- A, B and C plots that never connect.

- Failure to achive the scope that the story idea called for. The starship battle was ordinary. Wolf 359 on DS9 was more exciting because it connected the VFX to a human component, evacuees, Jennifer Sisko's death, etc. Nothing like that was in here. Also, much of this film feels like a bottle show: Enterprise and an unconvincing human settlement on Earth.

- cheesy music. I hate the First Contact theme because it sounds to me like a nighttime soap theme song.

- Forced cameos to induce forced comedy. Especially the EMH. Everything about this scene says "deleted scene for DVD" to me.

- Casual time travel. Typical TNG nonchalance at the wonders of space: "Oh, another time vortex! Sure, we can recreate it to go back later..." Compare TVH and the drama they milked from the time travelling alone!

The list goes on. I used to like FC a lot. I was surprised myself by how little I enjoyed the movie now.

I like FC more than NEMESIS, but that's about as far as I can go, largely for the reasons you mention here, plus one more here.

building on the 'failure to achieve scope' aspect is that they don't even exploit or show what they've talked about ... ww3. A shuttle overflight of a nuked city would have been more impressive than anything they said in conveying the state Earth is in ... something necessary, since you need to have the ashes before you see the Phoenix rise from them.

Yeah... some simple 'establishing shots' were missing. A little bit of that goes a long way... That was the only problem I had with the last Bond movie. It dives straight into the action, and takes the viewer all over the world, but they didn't spend any time SHOWING us that world.

 

[votd]

I enjoyed the review; FC is also one of my favourite Trek films.

With regards to Data's expressions and Brent's 'overacting', I think it's completely in character; Data is trying to be human, he has an emotion chip at this point and is probably feeling a bit pissed off at the end with the 'fewtil' bit; compare that to Spock who in TOS at least is trying to be less human and more vulcan and emotionless.

Who was the first person to say Resistance is Futile, was it the collective or Picard? The way Patrick Stewart says it would be how a Brit would say it; Fewtil sounds more American imo (being British myself).

 

[Peach Wookiee]

No love for the "Magic Carpet Ride" shuttle launch? I still remember the huge laugh that got in the theatre on opening night. Seeing the look shared by Riker and Geordi still cracks me up. FC may not have been the best Trek movie, but it was damned entertaining.

Count me as someone who loved that scene. ^^

 

[Praetor]

No love for the "Magic Carpet Ride" shuttle launch? I still remember the huge laugh that got in the theatre on opening night. Seeing the look shared by Riker and Geordi still cracks me up. FC may not have been the best Trek movie, but it was damned entertaining.

Count me as someone who loved that scene. ^^

Me too. That one still gives me chills. It doesn't hurt that I've always loved that song.

 

[ST-One]

I could never buy that Earth's first warp-capable ship was basically built in a guys garage during a dark age. Yeah right.

This could have been the construction site for the warp-project since long before the war.

 

[Amaris]

No love for the "Magic Carpet Ride" shuttle launch? I still remember the huge laugh that got in the theatre on opening night. Seeing the look shared by Riker and Geordi still cracks me up. FC may not have been the best Trek movie, but it was damned entertaining.

Count me as someone who loved that scene. ^^

No love for the "Magic Carpet Ride" shuttle launch? I still remember the huge laugh that got in the theatre on opening night. Seeing the look shared by Riker and Geordi still cracks me up. FC may not have been the best Trek movie, but it was damned entertaining.

Count me as someone who loved that scene. ^^

Me too. That one still gives me chills. It doesn't hurt that I've always loved that song.

Me three. Just beautiful the way they implemented it, too.

J.

 

[Praetor]

I could never buy that Earth's first warp-capable ship was basically built in a guys garage during a dark age. Yeah right.

This could have been the construction site for the warp-project since long before the war.

Yeah, it makes sense to hide something so sensitive in a bunker in the middle of nowhere where it might not be a likely target for the ECON or anyone else. I mean, they hid ICBMs there for a reason, too, apparently. Presumably WWIII wasn't an overnight thing. The construction of the launch vehicle may have been somewhat improvised, but how do we know the actual systems weren't complete (if uninstalled into a vehicle) before the war started?

 

[ST-One]

I could never buy that Earth's first warp-capable ship was basically built in a guys garage during a dark age. Yeah right.

This could have been the construction site for the warp-project since long before the war.

Yeah, it makes sense to hide something so sensitive in a bunker in the middle of nowhere where it might not be a likely target for the ECON or anyone else. I mean, they hid ICBMs there for a reason, too, apparently. Presumably WWIII wasn't an overnight thing. The construction of the launch vehicle may have been somewhat improvised, but how do we know the actual systems weren't complete (if uninstalled into a vehicle) before the war started?

Indeed.
There was a whole (dead) crew in the control room inside the launch facility. I'd guess that those were Cochrane's technicians, engineers and scientists.

 

[trevanian]

Well, you'd figure all silos would be the FIRST targets in a war, that is the case with every serious study of nuclear war I've read. So putting Cochrane's thing in there is pretty much yelling, 'bomb me' to any country with functional intelligence or overflight capability.

 

[trevanian]

God bless you for enjoying the movie as much as you did. But I have to say that my recent rewatching of FC (and all the other films, too) made me decide that I actually like it the least of all the ten movies.

It was a logical idea to use the Borg as the villain for the second TNG film. However, I feel now that the neutering of the Borg, as has often been attributed to VGR, actually began here. The Queen is one important aspect of that - It just robs this alien race of what made it special, that frightening notion of a collective mind that cannot be reasoned with - but the introduction given to them in the film is just as anticinematic as you can get. That dream, well, that's a good shot, even if it doesn't really work as a convincing pullback shot for me. But it doesn't explain. I tried to pretend this time that I didn't know anything about the Borg, and from this dream sequence alone, I didn't get that the Borg were the collective that they are. They could've just as well been a race of individuals that happen to also be cyborgs. When the Borg became scary in FC, in the deflector dish scene, most of the film was already over, so this happened too late for my taste.

I could go on and on about what rubbed me the wrong way about FC, so I'll do this briefly:

- Picard as a vengeful action hero. Doesn't work for me after his understanding of Hugh in Season 5. Doesn't work at all for his character as such.

- The Picard & Data show. The inability of the writers to come up with more than cameos for the cast of seven they had. GEN was better in that regard.

- A, B and C plots that never connect.

- Failure to achive the scope that the story idea called for. The starship battle was ordinary. Wolf 359 on DS9 was more exciting because it connected the VFX to a human component, evacuees, Jennifer Sisko's death, etc. Nothing like that was in here. Also, much of this film feels like a bottle show: Enterprise and an unconvincing human settlement on Earth.

- cheesy music. I hate the First Contact theme because it sounds to me like a nighttime soap theme song.

- Forced cameos to induce forced comedy. Especially the EMH. Everything about this scene says "deleted scene for DVD" to me.

- Casual time travel. Typical TNG nonchalance at the wonders of space: "Oh, another time vortex! Sure, we can recreate it to go back later..." Compare TVH and the drama they milked from the time travelling alone!

The list goes on. I used to like FC a lot. I was surprised myself by how little I enjoyed the movie now.

I like FC more than NEMESIS, but that's about as far as I can go, largely for the reasons you mention here, plus one more here.

building on the 'failure to achieve scope' aspect is that they don't even exploit or show what they've talked about ... ww3. A shuttle overflight of a nuked city would have been more impressive than anything they said in conveying the state Earth is in ... something necessary, since you need to have the ashes before you see the Phoenix rise from them.

Yeah... some simple 'establishing shots' were missing. A little bit of that goes a long way... That was the only problem I had with the last Bond movie. It dives straight into the action, and takes the viewer all over the world, but they didn't spend any time SHOWING us that world.

I understand your view with QOS, but I think they deliberately chose to throw that stuff away, figuring those globetrotting shots were a bit too traditional (when in fact they are as necessary as they are just traditional, so I'd call it an error as well.) I'm pretty sure that a lot of the cutting was supposed to put forth a first-person POV of being Bond, rather than just watching Bond, so with that in mind, you're not supposed to know the geography, just experience things as you see them, which is a fragmentary process. It sure didn't work for the audiences, but at least there was an intelligence (flawed or not) at work on QOS, which is something I can't say about any Bond since the Dalton era. Pity they wasted it on a Craig flick.

 

[Praetor]

Well, you'd figure all silos would be the FIRST targets in a war, that is the case with every serious study of nuclear war I've read. So putting Cochrane's thing in there is pretty much yelling, 'bomb me' to any country with functional intelligence or overflight capability.

Unless, of course, he was moved there after the initial nuclear bombardment when it was believed the enemy's ability to bomb further sites with any chance of success had been negated.

 

[trevanian]

Well, you'd figure all silos would be the FIRST targets in a war, that is the case with every serious study of nuclear war I've read. So putting Cochrane's thing in there is pretty much yelling, 'bomb me' to any country with functional intelligence or overflight capability.

Unless, of course, he was moved there after the initial nuclear bombardment when it was believed the enemy's ability to bomb further sites with any chance of success had been negated.

good point ... but that's already more thought than the screenwriters ever put into this scenario.

 

[ST-One]

Well, you'd figure all silos would be the FIRST targets in a war, that is the case with every serious study of nuclear war I've read. So putting Cochrane's thing in there is pretty much yelling, 'bomb me' to any country with functional intelligence or overflight capability.

Unless, of course, he was moved there after the initial nuclear bombardment when it was believed the enemy's ability to bomb further sites with any chance of success had been negated.

good point ... but that's already more thought than the screenwriters ever put into this scenario.

Perhaps, but what makes you so sure of that?