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First Contact was a reimagining of TNG

GalaxyX

GalaxyX

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Rear Admiral
I just realized, that, the same way that JJ Trek is a reimagining of TOS, the movie First Contact was a reimagining of TNG.

It was no longer the TNG we all knew and loved. The Enterprise D (arguably the primary environment and foundation setting of TNG) was destroyed the most moronic way, and replaced by this hideous insect looking thing.

Picard was only there by name (He was never an action hero, and he never had a horrible temper tantrum as shown in this movie. Also he was pretty much over the Borg incident)

Riker was just Jonathan Frakes, as well as Diana was just Marina Sirtis.

Zefram Cochrane was the most sad sorry ass scientist I've ever seen on screen. He looked (and acted) like one of those panhandlers I see on my daily drives around the city).

And the whole concept of a Borg Queen to humanize the Borg as an enemy was just lame, along with her lame attempts to seduce Data sexually.

It's only the best TNG movie because the other ones are literal turds.

So yes, I would say FC was not a continuation, but rather a reimagining of TNG the series using the same actors.
 
FC is a real good movie with a bunch of really glaring plot holes that fans overlook because it's a damn fun flick.
 
I dunno I love the fact that the borg cause Picard to go from mr preachy Im so evolved douche bag to a normal traumatised human still prone to vengance.

Its a nice shot that even though we can pretend to be all evolved, when it comes down to it we are still the same human beings with the same flaws.

As or Zefram Cochrane he had just survived world war III! To get that straight he has just survived more or less the collapse of socity as we know it! The worst event in Humnan history. Yeah something tell me most suvrviors wont be squeaky clean emotionly stable well established people......
 
Flaws and all I think FC was a great film that more than made up for the lackluster Generations. I suppose it was a slight reinvention of the look of TNG (i.e new Enterprise, new Borg look, upgraded uniforms and props etc) but nothing seemed inferior to what came before. Still love the design both interior and exterior of the Ent E to this day. My understanding was that Picard wasn't completely able to put the experience with the Borg behind him, his reaction in episodes like 'The Drumhead' and 'I, Borg' showed that he was still trying to come to terms with what happened.

The Borg Queen is my only issue with the film and AFAIK she was added because the studio wanted a singular villain in the piece.
 
Too bad they followed FC with that stupid Insurrection. Talk about dropping the ball! :mad:
 
I'm not sure where you're getting an "insect" vibe from the Enterprise E, but calling it hideous is a little over the top. It was a beautifully crafted miniature, and looked amazing in "First Contact" particularly. Whether the art direction is your cup of tea or not I suppose is going to vary from person to person, but let's not insult the talented folks who worked so hard on this stuff so we could have a fun couple of hours at the movies.

Even if it weren't the case that Picard was occasionally an action hero on the series, why would this matter at all?

The movie isn't trying to claim that this is a regular day in the life of pro action-hero Jean-Luc Picard, and in fact establishes quite the opposite. This is a great big huge event with extraordinary circumstances that the Captain finds himself in.

It would be like saying that "Die Hard" is a terrible movie because John Maclane's character is supposed to be just a regular guy but they've got him in this action-hero role! It's completely ignoring the point of that kind of action movie, that the premise is these crazy extraordinary circumstances and how the characters resolve them.

It's why First Contact feels like a movie and not an overly drawn out episode of the TV show.
 
I'm really OK with the theory that everybody died on Veridian III and everything after the 1st half of Generations is Picard's Nexus fantasy.
 
MickJo1701 said:
The Borg Queen is my only issue with the film and AFAIK she was added because the studio wanted a singular villain in the piece.
Click to expand...
It took away the only interesting thing about the Borg -- that they were a collective. In FC they become a hive, something done in a million b-movies before. I had zero interest in the Borg after that.
 
King Daniel Into Darkness said:
FC made changes to TNG in the same kind of way WoK made changes to TOS. The changes are far more noticable in this early script, which features the Enterprise as an armed-to-the-teeth battleship, Troi as communications officer and a bridge where all consoles face inward, toward the captain.

http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Trek-First-Contact.html
Click to expand...

So it sounds like in that draft Starfleet didn't blow off the Borg threat and probably responded to the Odyssey's destruction by building a more heavily armed ship class.
 
Hartzilla2007 said:
King Daniel Into Darkness said:
FC made changes to TNG in the same kind of way WoK made changes to TOS. The changes are far more noticable in this early script, which features the Enterprise as an armed-to-the-teeth battleship, Troi as communications officer and a bridge where all consoles face inward, toward the captain.

http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Trek-First-Contact.html
Click to expand...

So it sounds like in that draft Starfleet didn't blow off the Borg threat and probably responded to the Odyssey's destruction by building a more heavily armed ship class.
Click to expand...

But that would be sensible and starfleet does not do "sensibe".
 
SeerSGB said:
King Daniel Into Darkness said:
FC made changes to TNG in the same kind of way WoK made changes to TOS. The changes are far more noticable in this early script, which features the Enterprise as an armed-to-the-teeth battleship, Troi as communications officer and a bridge where all consoles face inward, toward the captain.

http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Trek-First-Contact.html
Click to expand...

The hell, that opening battle is 10 times better than the one we actually got.
Click to expand...


To shpiboard fighting is way better. Wolf with a bat leth and Armored security :drool:
 
Having recently watched FC for the first time in a while, I think that too much is made of Picard being "out of character" for the sake of the film.

First, Picard's experience with the Borg was supposed to be like a rape...he might have learned to deal with it, but he wouldn't have just gotten over it.

Second, the stakes were much higher and more personal in the film than they had been in either of the Borg's follow-up appearances on the show. They were returning to Earth, they were assimilating his own ship (a figurative extension of himself), and threatened to undo everything that he held dear (the "origin" of the Star Trek setting).

Third, it was a slow burn, he didn't just start acting crazy first thing that they appeared, he got more intense as the stakes got higher.

Fourth, it was a nice twist on TWOK that this film had the hero in the Ahab role.

Fifth, with everything that was at stake in this situation, he may have been angrily kicking himself on the inside for having chosen not to take proactive measures against the Borg back in "I, Borg".
 
The only nitpick I have with the film is we (the audience) have no real connection to the E. While it's a fine ship we're only just introduced to it, so we don't really get the feeling that it's a tragic thing that the Borg are slowly assimilating it.

Now if it had been the D, and it was slowly being taken over by the Borg I think it would have added a lot more drama.
 
I feel that FC was a bold new direction for TNG series like how TWOK was a bold new direction for TOS. However, the writers were able to build on TWOK and we got TSFS and TVH. The writers for TNG seemed to completely ignore why FC was successful in the first place and went an entirely new direction to give us the lame Insurrection. Bad call. :(
 
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