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is star trek first contact best star trek movie
- Thread starter tmosler
- Start date
None of them. The Queen isn't a drone, just the same way your mind isn't a separate cell. The Queen is a disembodied consciousness that occasionally controls a physical body like a puppet. The mind of the queen is not confined to that body, it is spread throughout the Collective, just the same way that your mind is not confined to a single cell, but spread throughout your entire brain.
There are some plausible explanations.
Why didn't they go back in time in the Delta quadrant? Perhaps because the transwarp network didn't stretch as far back then, and they couldn't easily get to earth. Even though assimilating Earth wasn't the primary mission objective, it was a secondary one.
Why would the Borg be interested in assimilating Earth? Well, the Borg Queen, unlike the drones, is an emotional being. And she's had two big embarrasments. First of all, she had the Enterprise snatched away from her in Q Who. Secondly, the defeat in BoBW. The Queen would want revenge. Besides, once she received the message the drones in Regeneration sent, it would undoubtedly contain the whole story of how they were trying to assimilate the Earth. Since that message did indeed reach the Collective and the primary mission objective was completed, the Queen chose not to mess with a sequence which was guaranteed to produce the desired outcome.
Why did they try to stop first contact? Well, the way I see it, that was only a secondary goal, not the primary goal.
The primary goal of the Borg in First Contact was to send the Collective in the 21st century information about the future.
Look at what happened. The Borg Sphere tried to destroy the Phoenix, but that was quickly stopped. What did the Borg do then to stop first contact? Pretty much nothing. Instead, the Borg concentrated on fixing the deflector to be the whatever so they could contact the Borg of the 21st century.
But why would they want to do that? To get reinforcements? Why would they need that? After all, humanity's in ruins, they won't be able to mount much of a resistance. And each Human you assimilate would add to your numbers making your job so much more easier. No, the Borg didn't need reinforcements. But to send the 21st century Borg information about the 24th century, that would be very valuable. And THAT is the primary mission - and that is what we see them doing. The queen concentrates on this to the exclusion of all else, and it is only once this objective is out of reach - when the deflector is destroyed that she says, "There's been a change of plan." And only then does she try to stop the Phoenix again.
So stopping the phoenix is a secondary goal. Assimilating Earth is just a secondary goal. It's sending information about the future to the drones of the past that the Queen was most interested in. And we even see that the drones recovered in Regeneration went back to doing precisely this! They once again attempted to complete the primary mission from FC - to send information about the future to the drones of the past!
As for your fourth point, let's not forget that the Borg were concentrating mostly on assimilating the Enterprise, not fighting crewmembers. And they did assimilate some. But they were concentrating on their primary mission.
lol, you are proving my point! You yourself admit that I am right when you claim, "The problem with the Queen, was that the Borg were shown to not have a single leader. They were all of one mind."
That's exactly right, they are one mind - and that Mind is the Queen. The queen is no more a leader of the Borg than your mind is the leader of your brain cells.
I don't hear Air Force One in the score at all. Either way, AFO came a year later. So if anything that score sounded like First Contact. But I don't think it does.
First Contact is the best Trek movie because it puts the prophecy of Trek into the mouths of Picard, Geordi, Riker and Troi without feeling preachy while the post WWIII and Borg background created a good contrast to this self-reflexive "we will tell Cochrane what humankind should aspire to do, what Star Trek basically is" theme.
It is not easy to get such contrasts right, it can easily feel forced and inharmonious but in the case of FC it somehow worked.
It is not easy to get such contrasts right, it can easily feel forced and inharmonious but in the case of FC it somehow worked.
You know.. there's something to that now that it's mentioned.
Okay, the AFO-theme is a bit too similar to the FC-theme.
And, they are only half a year apart.
The music isn't the same, but the style, the ... I can't explain it. To me the both themes feel (I know, subjective) very similar.
To me the Borg were great villains because they were nameless, leader-less and couldnt be argued or reasoned with; introducing a queen lowered them to traditional enemy status. I enjoyed FC but the introduction of the queen bothered me, as well as all those angry-faced Borg.
I have to disagree. Both GEN and FC were equally sloppy; however, I think the theme in GEN was more poignant and fleshed-out than FC's. I may have pretty much the same theme as TUC, but it did a better job of portraying it and used some key visual queues to bring it home.
Neither film was directed well, but GEN had a few cinematically powerful shots that were absent from FC.
Also, after INS, GEN was probably the most "TNG" of the four films. (If such a concept exists.) I know most people like to use that a knock against it, but one problem I've always had with FC is the story is almost completely independent of the series. Omit the characters, and it just becomes a mediocre, generic sci-fi action flick. The only thing that ties it to the series is the Picard revenge angle, but that was woven into the story for its own sake. Neither the plot nor the theme are heavily dependent on it.
Plus, GEN had The Shat. He makes everything better.
I would agree, though, that FC's score was significantly more impressive.
Please explain what the incredulity of science fiction technology has to do with contrivance.
By conceding The Queen adds emotion, you're implying she exists at a higher level of consciousness than the drones. She is independent of the drones and thus an individual. This implies a defined hierarchy.
The Borg were originally a critique on American Imperialism. The creators borrowed from Durkheim's "collective consciousness" theory as a warning about the new technologies (fast food, computers, shopping malls, cars, etc.) America brought to the corners of the world. If societies that were not ready for them were forced to assimilate too quickly, the ripple effect would inevitably bring about complete human conformity because the technology and proletariat would simply be too dominant for any stragglers to challenge.
When the herd is absolute, it had no need for a shepherd. Free of its binds, it is allowed to roam completely out of control which is totally self-destructive.
Both Locutus and The Queen were those very shepherds and completely negate the whole concept.
Once again you completely miss the point. The only consciousness they have is the unifying force, created solely out of a Darwinian need (if you will), that binds them together. There are no "strings" the puppets just do. Their actions are solely dictated by what is needed to maintain the status quo and destroy anything that gets in their way. To say there's a force pulling this strings implies a higher level of self-awareness that simply did not exists in the original Borg.
This doesn't make any sense unless The Queen suddenly became Omnipotent.
If their primary goal was to warn themselves, they could have gone back in time at anytime and any place to any other time and any other place.
More importantly, if First Contact wasn't their primary goal, then why did they choose that exact date?
It was totally reactionary.
This is all total bunk.
First of all, the Borg had no idea a ship was going to follow them to the past.
Secondly, the whole plan was the Star Trek equivalent to The Great Escape. When an escapee realizes he's not going to make it he resorts to the next best thing: sabotage. Both scenarios, as I explained above, were completely reactionary.
Non the less, the plot you described (as was the plot in the film) creates a total Grandfather paradox. "Temporal Wakes" are just lazy cop-outs of epic proportions.
In essence, yes, it was really lazy writing.
To take it further, why pick that day of all days. I've already debunked your "they wanted to warn their past-selves" idea. And stopping First Contact is completely arbitrary and pointless.
Assimilation, as suggested, wasn't really the point either because there was really no technological or manpower benefit (especially at the cost of time travel) to go back to that day. The only thing that remains is to get humans out of the way. If that's the case, why not just go back 5 billion years and do it right?
In the end, it was just about getting the kids to go. They took a plot idea and silly villain idea and bent every rule and took every shortcut they could to make it work as best they could.
That is not good film making which is the primary scope of this thread.
Maybe if you'd go into more detail about "contravances" there are in FC...
What a witty retort. You sure proved me wrong, didn't you?
In just the same way that your entire mind has a higher consciousness than a single brain cell. Seriously, what's your problem with this?
So it's wrong if the idea behind it ever changes?
And once again you miss my point.
You admit they have a single consciousness. What is a single consciousness if not a single mind?
Care to explain this?
True. But, the message that the drones in "Regeneration" sent would have included the "We went to Earth" bit. So the Queen had to do the same thing to avoid a paradox.
More importantly, if First Contact wasn't their primary goal, then why did they choose that exact date?
In order to achieve their secondary objective...
What?
You're telling me that the Borg went back in time to stop first contact and then spent most of the movie fiddling with the telephone?
If they were primarily interested in stopping first contact, why did they do nothing to stop it until the deflector was destroyed? They were concentrating on the deflector rather than the Phoenix - that tells me that the deflector was more important!
Why is it required that they know?
And they would have known, actually. The drones found in Regeneration knew the Enterprise would follow the sphere back, since they had experienced it. So that information could very well have been included in the message that they sent.
So once the Sphere was destroyed, the Borg knew they weren't going to be able to stop first contact? How so? They have quite a few drones and a fully functioning transporter. Beam a dozen drones to the missile complex and start assimilating people. They can even assimilate the Phoenix. That would stop it. But they don't. Why?
How is it a lazy cop out?
I;ve already explained that.
And I;ve already explained that.
Well durr, it is a business after all.
It's good business, and the film making is not as bad as you make it out to be.
First Contact started the Star Trek death spiral. And, as a result, eventually gave us the abomination of JJ's wreck.
It abandons everything about the Borg that made them unique, and fearsome, and turned them into comedy zombies with a ridiculous queen. And then, because the writers are lazy, they make it so if you kill the queen you automatically win! LAZY LAZY LAZY. The Borg were a collective not a hive. I'd even be tempted to call it sexist writing to try and sex up the Borg.
The Borg don't even bother to adapt to Starfleet's weapons. A battle that rages for hours and we still see the Federation blowing holes in the cube with phasers and photon torpedos. Dumb. Oh the Sphere taken out by one torpoedo! Come on. And a weak spot? Lazy.
It turns Picard into an action hero. The exact opposite of series Picard. In fact it just becomes the Data/Picard show. With cameos from the rest of the TNG cast.
Where are the DS9 people?
The time travel premise was ridiculous. So full of holes that have been discussed a million times so I won't even bother.
It's a mindless movie that isn't Star Trek. It doesn't even follow it's own canon. It basically was everything Voyager would eventually try to be.
It abandons everything about the Borg that made them unique, and fearsome, and turned them into comedy zombies with a ridiculous queen. And then, because the writers are lazy, they make it so if you kill the queen you automatically win! LAZY LAZY LAZY. The Borg were a collective not a hive. I'd even be tempted to call it sexist writing to try and sex up the Borg.
The Borg don't even bother to adapt to Starfleet's weapons. A battle that rages for hours and we still see the Federation blowing holes in the cube with phasers and photon torpedos. Dumb. Oh the Sphere taken out by one torpoedo! Come on. And a weak spot? Lazy.
It turns Picard into an action hero. The exact opposite of series Picard. In fact it just becomes the Data/Picard show. With cameos from the rest of the TNG cast.
Where are the DS9 people?
The time travel premise was ridiculous. So full of holes that have been discussed a million times so I won't even bother.
It's a mindless movie that isn't Star Trek. It doesn't even follow it's own canon. It basically was everything Voyager would eventually try to be.
Care to elaborate on the "holes" in the time travel premise?
Before the brainless nitpicking starts I like to mention two benchmarks, Well's Time Machine and TVH.
The former spent a few pages to explain how time should be considered as fourth dimension and how the time machine doesn't jump ahead in time but accelerates the "speed" with which we move through time. I guess you could nitpick this to death without understanding one iota of what the short time travel setup of the story is all about, to simply get the protagonist into the future.
Same with TVH. Some contrived nonsense about warping around the sun to emerge in the past and some trippy images but who cares, it is just a way to get from A to B.
Ironically FC beats these two works of fiction in terms of brevity. Just some technobabble about chronotons and tata, after 1-2 minutes we are where we have to be.
Before the brainless nitpicking starts I like to mention two benchmarks, Well's Time Machine and TVH.
The former spent a few pages to explain how time should be considered as fourth dimension and how the time machine doesn't jump ahead in time but accelerates the "speed" with which we move through time. I guess you could nitpick this to death without understanding one iota of what the short time travel setup of the story is all about, to simply get the protagonist into the future.
Same with TVH. Some contrived nonsense about warping around the sun to emerge in the past and some trippy images but who cares, it is just a way to get from A to B.
Ironically FC beats these two works of fiction in terms of brevity. Just some technobabble about chronotons and tata, after 1-2 minutes we are where we have to be.
The Borg concept had already been stretched out of its ideal shape during TNG, with the episode "Me and You and a Borg Named Hugh" ...uh, I mean, "I, Borg." From there to the Queen was a relatively small step.
It might be that the Queen was a remedy for a script that refused to take shape with an enemy consisting of totally undifferentiated Borg.
I can forgive Picard as an impassioned action hero (on the Holodeck too, not just in "reality") because he was once a mindless slave of the Borg. A big problem with the remaining two movies was that Picard-as-action-hero reappeared, and for inferior reasons.
As to the illogic of Borg decision-making: How many successful movies have featured an absolutely logical, implacable, and totally invulnerable enemy? A short story or novel with such enemies can work, but perhaps a movie cannot. Case in point: The 1947 Jack Williamson novella "With Folded Hands" (concerning the arrival of the humanoids on Earth) is a beautifully written downer; could a movie end that way?
In any case, someone who is making a Star Trek movie has to have a scenario in which the captain (even if at great cost) wins; it's not like a TV series where occasionally you can have an ambiguous ending in which the captain isn't necessarily triumphant (i.e., "A Private Little War").
It might be that the Queen was a remedy for a script that refused to take shape with an enemy consisting of totally undifferentiated Borg.
I can forgive Picard as an impassioned action hero (on the Holodeck too, not just in "reality") because he was once a mindless slave of the Borg. A big problem with the remaining two movies was that Picard-as-action-hero reappeared, and for inferior reasons.
As to the illogic of Borg decision-making: How many successful movies have featured an absolutely logical, implacable, and totally invulnerable enemy? A short story or novel with such enemies can work, but perhaps a movie cannot. Case in point: The 1947 Jack Williamson novella "With Folded Hands" (concerning the arrival of the humanoids on Earth) is a beautifully written downer; could a movie end that way?
In any case, someone who is making a Star Trek movie has to have a scenario in which the captain (even if at great cost) wins; it's not like a TV series where occasionally you can have an ambiguous ending in which the captain isn't necessarily triumphant (i.e., "A Private Little War").
I wouldn't go so far to call it the best, but it is well casted and well acted. Character continuity from the series is pretty thin and the introduction of one-shot characters like Lilly who encompasses most of the dramatic scenes does rob our main cast for potential growth. Not to say Lilly's scenes weren't any good, but it is what it is. A character who we will never see again who only serves to cause growth in the main character.
But the biggest problem with First Contact is the introduction of the Borg Queen. For a race of beings that were once depicted as being made up of collective minds who didn't have a single leader I thought was unique and also horrifying. Giving them a leader who doesn't really act like a collective of minds since has to give commands to her drones just makes the Borg out to be her minions and not a collective. It also gives us something to familiarize and be comfortable with since if you kill her all the other drones will just die. Unfortunately the producers and writers of Voyager decided to latch onto the Borg Queen concept and take it to levels that ended leaving the Borg as one of the weakest villains ever to grace Star Trek.
For me, the best part of First Contact is Jerry/Joel Goldsmith's music. Their work on the film is just fantastic to listen to.
But the biggest problem with First Contact is the introduction of the Borg Queen. For a race of beings that were once depicted as being made up of collective minds who didn't have a single leader I thought was unique and also horrifying. Giving them a leader who doesn't really act like a collective of minds since has to give commands to her drones just makes the Borg out to be her minions and not a collective. It also gives us something to familiarize and be comfortable with since if you kill her all the other drones will just die. Unfortunately the producers and writers of Voyager decided to latch onto the Borg Queen concept and take it to levels that ended leaving the Borg as one of the weakest villains ever to grace Star Trek.
For me, the best part of First Contact is Jerry/Joel Goldsmith's music. Their work on the film is just fantastic to listen to.
The Borg queen has as much control as an ant or bee queen does. She is clearly just a representative who makes it easier in-universe-wise for people from individualistic cultures to interact with a collectivist one (Locutus as an "adapter" that eases the assimilation of humankind and the Borg queen as an "adapter" for Picard-Locutus). Plus there is the obvious real-world dramatic necessity for a Borg with whom Data and Picard can interact.
You got the same in the case of Daleks in Doctor Who, you need Davros or some leader Dalek or to make the dialogue more interesting.
You got the same in the case of Daleks in Doctor Who, you need Davros or some leader Dalek or to make the dialogue more interesting.
I must disagree. If we take the Borg Collective to be as I have suggested it, none of these problems exist.
The Collective isn't made up of "collective minds" in the plural. The Collective mind is one single mind that is spread throughout a collective of physically separate drones. That one mind is the queen. And killing her doesn't make all the other drones die. The body of the Queen is just a puppet. Killing the queen's body won't kill her anymore than killing a puppet would kill the puppeteer. The reason that all the Borg died in FC was that most of them were pushed into the acid gas stuff, and once all the drones were killed there were no drones to form the Collective mind. In other words, when the first drones were killed, the remaining drones overloaded from trying to have the mind of the Queen crammed into them.
I gotta agree there. The music was SUPERB.
