Why First Contact is NOT a good trek movie (rant alert).

[lucas1701]

This might be controversial coming from a noob, and sorry if this offends fans (or apologists) of the film, but I have to say why I totally dispute the general consensus that First Contact is one of the best movies to date. Not only that, but I think it is even inferior to Star Treks 1 and 3.

• The plot is a desperate, contrived mess that makes no sense whatsoever. Think about it, the Borg are on their way to assimilate the Federation (again) using a single cube (again) and heading straight to Earth (again). Having failed to get past Starfleet, they decide to go back in time (huh?) and sabotage human’s first contact with the Vulcans thereby preventing the Federation from even forming (WHY??????????). It makes no sense for the Borg to do this- their goal is the assimilation of culture and technology, not to ‘stop it existing’. Epic fail.
• The movie fails to deliver its promise of space combat. Although the brief battle we see is spectacular, it is way too brief and way too early, with no build up and no sense of epic feel. And that’s your lot. Bitterly disappointing.
• It goes against established Trek rules. The Borg are a collective- not the private army of a posturing movie villain.
• It goes against its own rules. First of all the Borg kill or assimilate anyone on sight. Later on they go back to ignoring people. Which is it?
• Picard is an arsehole. I don’t care what the Borg did to him, his character would not behave like this under any circumstances. Kirk never turned on his own crew even after his own son was murdered.
• Zephram Cochrane- oh puh-lease! It strains credibility that even a dedicated, tireless genius like Albert Einstein could come up with warp technology, even with all of NASA at his disposal. Yet we are expected to believe that a lazy, disinterested drunk, living in a shanty-town could come up with FTL using a rocket and a box of scraps. With no anti-matter. Or Dilithium crystals. WTF.
• At the conclusion of the movie, having been stranded in the past, and without any means of returning back home, the Enterprise just- goes home! What?? Geordi just punches a few buttons and off they go.
• You could fly a borg cube throught the plot-holes in this film. If time travel is now a permanent feature of the Borg, why not simply try again? Only this time, don’t sabotage First contact, just kill Picard. Then they can go back and assimilate a fully-fledged Federation without being thwarted. Duh!

Sorry for the rant. I don’t hate the movie, just think it could have been so much better and die-hard Trekkers that revere the film are allowing themselves to be short-changed by lazy writing.
I’m going to duck now…

 

[Shazam!]

Yet it's still better than Trek XI. Weird.

 

[lucas1701]

Yet it's still better than Trek XI. Weird.

Your entitled to that opinion, but how do you figure?

 

[Shazam!]

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=103892

Whenever someone says anything negative about Trek XI, they must be wrong because of how successful it was. So if 'majority rules' then it follows that FC is better than Trek XI, as evidenced by the above thread.

 

[lucas1701]

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=103892

Whenever someone says anything negative about Trek XI, they must be wrong because of how successful it was. So if 'majority rules' then it follows that FC is better than Trek XI, as evidenced by the above thread.

Not at all, my assesment of a movie isn't based on consensus. In fact, I'm well aware that many of my criticisms of FC can be applied to ST:09. I just wondered why you feel FC was the better overall film.

 

[6079SmithW]

I liked Picard's change of character. It showed him to be a hypocrite after all the "humans are so evolved and peaceful" talking he did on TNG. I love it whenever the Federation is shown to be the opposite of what it claims to be.
Still, your analysis seems to be correct. I liked it though because I thought it was so cool as a child. Maybe it was that, being the second Star Trek movie I had seen in theaters, it was great compared to Generations, which I found to be kind of boring at the time. And it was great to see a continuation of BOBW, one of the best TNG episodes.

 

[SeerSGB]

I liked Picard's change of character. It showed him to be a hypocrite after all the "humans are so evolved and peaceful" talking he did on TNG. I love it whenever the Federation is shown to be the opposite of what it claims to be.

Well to be honest he showed that in TNG when he wanted to commit genocide against the Borg. Granted he backed out of the deal, but that was at the last minute and only after the crew started getting reservations and questioning his orders.

 

[6079SmithW]

I liked Picard's change of character. It showed him to be a hypocrite after all the "humans are so evolved and peaceful" talking he did on TNG. I love it whenever the Federation is shown to be the opposite of what it claims to be.

Well to be honest he showed that in TNG when he wanted to commit genocide against the Borg. Granted he backed out of the deal, but that was at the last minute and only after the crew started getting reservations and questioning his orders.

It has been so long since I have seen any TNG. Which episode was this?

 

[SeerSGB]

I liked Picard's change of character. It showed him to be a hypocrite after all the "humans are so evolved and peaceful" talking he did on TNG. I love it whenever the Federation is shown to be the opposite of what it claims to be.

Well to be honest he showed that in TNG when he wanted to commit genocide against the Borg. Granted he backed out of the deal, but that was at the last minute and only after the crew started getting reservations and questioning his orders.

It has been so long since I have seen any TNG. Which episode was this?

I Borg

He ordered Geordie to make a computer virus and load it into a Borg survivor then send it back to the Borg. The virus would have wiped out the Borg, but Picard backed off when the crew started having reservations and he actually stopped long enough to talk to the Borg and realized that it had developed individuality.

 

[The Wormhole]

While I wouldn't call First Contact one of the worse Trek movies, I do agree that it is an overrated movie.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot that I like, the music, the cool visuals. The battle, although too brief is cool looking. The movie introduced some cool looking Starfleet ships. I also like the way Zephram Cochrane is portrayed. An apathetic drunk who invents warp drive as a means of retiring to a tropical island where he can score non-stop with naked women. And this is they guy who becomes one of Trek's most revered figures. Definately goes against the established norm.

But still, the movie is at the end of the day, dull and disappointing. Oh hey, we got this really cool looking new Enterprise. Unfortunately, most of the time we see it in the movie, the iteriors are always dark because the ship is on red alert, and a good portion of the ship has been Borgified.

Action hero Picard was really hard to swallow, especially in this movie where he storms around the ship with a phaser rifle wearing a muscle shirt, swinging on tubes around the engine room. I was expecting him to scream "I'm JLP mother fuckers!" while shooting random Borg.

Data's "assimilation" was just weird. The Borg usually believe they are enahncing organic life by assimilating it and incorporating technology into it. Yet, now they have a fully technological being and they decide to graft organic components to him? Also, this contradicts the bit in TBOBW where Locutus says that artificial beings like Data would be "obsolete in the new order."

And finally, "you're all astronauts on some kind of star trek." Even Braga admits in the DVD interview that line makes him groan.

Overall, there are worse Trek movies out there, but there are better ones too. Much better.

 

[JarodRussell]

Action hero Picard?

I think that image is very overexaggerated, and the claim that it was out of character is false, too.

What does he do? He leads a security team to engineering. Data and Worf do the fighting, I doubt he even fires a shot in that scene. Then he leads the Borg into the holodeck and shoots them in anger. Then he leads Hawk and Worf to the deflector dish and fires two shots. And then all he does in the final fight is climbing up a rope to save himself from the gas.

And then we have many instances in TNG where he was involved in action, fist fights, shootouts. The die hard episode comes to mind immediately, and there are a few others. Before he got a new heart, he had no problem with getting into fights, and while he chose to use diplomacy over action, he kept his physical shape. He enjoys horse riding, mountain climbing and fencing, and plays Dixon Hill in a series of holodeck novels that may have as well gunfights and fist fights.

 

[urbandk]

I'm not a huge First Contact fan, but I think it's the best of the Next Generation movies. It has the feel of a television episode; it lacks cinematic scope compared especially to TMP... then again, most Star Trek films feel like TV episodes.

First Contact is not as good as STXI, but to compare the films is unfair. FC had a different budget, scope, and role. It was another installment in an existing series of films and a continuation of an existing story. STXI had to reinvent Star Trek for a new generation at a time when there is no Star Trek on TV and otherwise no future for Star Trek on TV or in cinema. STXI was far more ambitious.

FC still entertains me, but I don't think I'd care to watch it multiple times.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Ha, I kind of agree with this. I do think it's a decent film, just not a great one. The Borg plot fell a bit flat for me - the big battle was good, but after that they didn't feel like that big a threat. The Data stuff didn't interest me much either. Good stuff: the theme tune, James Cromwell and, for all the flaws of her character, Alice Krige (though, I actually liked her better in VOY Endgame).

 

[new_mercury]

I really enjoy this film everytime I watch it but that doesn't mean i'm blind to it's flaws. but to me whenever you start messing around with time-travel stories if yo uthink about things too much it gets a bit daft really. I did like the Picard reaction as I thought it was very human- it bugs me when characters don't have any flaws.
Picards detachment about assimilated crew members is not shown to be a good thing- just look at Lilly's reaction to it- and the scenes leading up to the moby dick quote etc are brilliant.

I do agree that the ending was done a bit too quickly though- suddenly they can get back to the future.

 

[The Wormhole]

Action hero Picard?

I think that image is very overexaggerated, and the claim that it was out of character is false, too.

Yes, I exaggerated, but I think it conveys a close to accurate image of the way he was in the movie. Yes, I get it, Picard has a very personal history with the Borg, he's hell-bent on revenge. But come on, Picard is not a guns-a-blazing unstoppable force like any other action hero, and his sudden transformation into one here is really out of character.

He leads a security team to engineering. Data and Worf do the fighting, I doubt he even fires a shot in that scene.

Well, one shot, anyway. The partially assimilated security officer begging for help, which Picard responds to by shooting him. Which again, is kind of out of character. Picard is not this kind of badass. Yes, I get it, assimilation is worse fate Picard can think of, and he believes he's helping the guy by killing him. But it still doesn't feel in character.

And then we have many instances in TNG where he was involved in action, fist fights, shootouts. The die hard episode comes to mind immediately, and there are a few others.

I have no problem with Picard being a capable fighter. Indeed, one would expect a person in his position to be able to hold his own in a fight. However, the show always depicted him as more of a thinker who used his intelligence to aid him in his fights. In the movie, he's basicall a brute mindlessly applying violence everywhere he goes.

Before he got a new heart, he had no problem with getting into fights,

The point of Tapestry was to show Picard in his younger more brash days when he was cocky and arrogant enough to believe he was invincible. That should have no bearing on this discussion.

while he chose to use diplomacy over action, he kept his physical shape.

As a Starfleet officer, he's probably required to stay in shape.

plays Dixon Hill in a series of holodeck novels that may have as well gunfights and fist fights.

Dixon Hill is probably slanted so that he can always win the fights, unless losing the fight advances the storyline.

 

[JarodRussell]

But come on, Picard is not a guns-a-blazing unstoppable force like any other action hero, and his sudden transformation into one here is really out of character.

That would be correct if the statement were true. But Picard is at no point of the movie an unstoppable guns-a-blazing force like any other action hero, and I already pointed out why.

Which is why I said you totally overexaggerate and there is no point in further discussing this.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

But come on, Picard is not a guns-a-blazing unstoppable force like any other action hero, and his sudden transformation into one here is really out of character.

You seem to be mixing up First Contact (when did Picard blaze his guns unstoppably against the Borg like an action hero?) with Nemesis, which he did storm Shinzon's ship with his guns-a-blazing unstoppably.

I also don't understand your disappointment with the "promised" space combat. When were you promised this exactly? You can't blame the movie for misplaced individual expectations.

 

[BriGuy]

This might be controversial coming from a noob, and sorry if this offends fans (or apologists) of the film, but I have to say why I totally dispute the general consensus that First Contact is one of the best movies to date. Not only that, but I think it is even inferior to Star Treks 1 and 3.

• The plot is a desperate, contrived mess that makes no sense whatsoever. Think about it, the Borg are on their way to assimilate the Federation (again) using a single cube (again) and heading straight to Earth (again). Having failed to get past Starfleet, they decide to go back in time (huh?) and sabotage human’s first contact with the Vulcans thereby preventing the Federation from even forming (WHY??????????). It makes no sense for the Borg to do this- their goal is the assimilation of culture and technology, not to ‘stop it existing’. Epic fail.

• I do not believe the Borg went back in time specifically to stop first contact. They went back in time to assimilate humanity when it would be unable to defend itself. And they were successful until the Enterprise followed them and destroyed the sphere.

  [*]The movie fails to deliver its promise of space combat. Although the brief battle we see is spectacular, it is way too brief and way too early, with no build up and no sense of epic feel. And that’s your lot. Bitterly disappointing.

• Who made a "promise" of space combat? When and where? Since when was Trek about space combat?

  [*]It goes against established Trek rules. The Borg are a collective- not the private army of a posturing movie villain.

• The Borg remain a collective. The queen fits and works. Sure, they wanted to have a "face" for the bad guy, and "individual," but she is "the one who is many." The answer is in the movie, she explains it to Data, who like you doesn't get it.

  [*]It goes against its own rules. First of all the Borg kill or assimilate anyone on sight. Later on they go back to ignoring people. Which is it?

• If something isn't a threat, the Borg ignore it. If it becomes a threat, they go after it. Simple.

  [*]Picard is an arsehole. I don’t care what the Borg did to him, his character would not behave like this under any circumstances. Kirk never turned on his own crew even after his own son was murdered.

• Just how did Picard "turn on his own crew"?

  [*]Zephram Cochrane- oh puh-lease! It strains credibility that even a dedicated, tireless genius like Albert Einstein could come up with warp technology, even with all of NASA at his disposal. Yet we are expected to believe that a lazy, disinterested drunk, living in a shanty-town could come up with FTL using a rocket and a box of scraps. With no anti-matter. Or Dilithium crystals. WTF.

• It's in the wake of the third World War. He's not disinterested... he's doing it for money. As for no antimatter, or dilithium, I can't see it working in Trek's universe without that, so how do you conclude the Phoenix didn't have them? And there may be a pradox here, in that he wasn't going to be able to do it without the help he got.

  [*]At the conclusion of the movie, having been stranded in the past, and without any means of returning back home, the Enterprise just- goes home! What?? Geordi just punches a few buttons and off they go.

• The re-created the same thing that sent them into the past. Or would you rather another half hour of them spouting technobabble to explain how they return?

  [*]You could fly a borg cube throught the plot-holes in this film. If time travel is now a permanent feature of the Borg, why not simply try again? Only this time, don’t sabotage First contact, just kill Picard. Then they can go back and assimilate a fully-fledged Federation without being thwarted. Duh!

• Duh, indeed.

Sorry for the rant. I don’t hate the movie, just think it could have been so much better and die-hard Trekkers that revere the film are allowing themselves to be short-changed by lazy writing.
I’m going to duck now…

Get down and stay down, I'd suggest.

 

[JarodRussell]

You could fly a borg cube throught the plot-holes in this film. If time travel is now a permanent feature of the Borg, why not simply try again? Only this time, don’t sabotage First contact, just kill Picard. Then they can go back and assimilate a fully-fledged Federation without being thwarted. Duh!

Duh, indeed.

Who said it was a permanent feature and not a prototype?

 

[tharpdevenport]

The original idea was just the Borg, but the studio got in the way and decided the movie needed a singular leading villain, which in the end doesn't mean squat since the shitty revaped, gun-ho Picard never actually had a chance to square off against her, but rather throw words about.