Missed Opportunity in First Contact

[CaptainJon]

I'm a huge fan of First Contact. It's probably my favorite Trek movie. I was watching it not that long ago and I got to thinking about how they should've had the missile complex in Kansas. I say that for one reason:

When Picard is with Lily, he says "You're not in Montana anymore." I thought it would've been so much better and funnier if it had been "You're not in Kansas anymore." It would've been a funny tip-of-the-hat to The Wizard of Oz and could've become a classic line!

That's just my two cents, anyway.

 

[Jamee999]

That's what the line is though - a tip to TWoO - it would make NO SENSE to say you're not in Kansas any more. She never was in Kansas. So - you still get "You're not in [state] anymore" but it still makes sense.

 

[WalkinMan]

Well the OP suggests setting the silo in Kansas so it would make sense.

However, I think that 'Kansas' line would have taken the audience out of the movie for a joke. Not in Montana anymore was more subtle.

 

[A beaker full of death]

CaptainJon said:
It would've been a funny tip-of-the-hat to The Wizard of Oz

It WAS. What, do you think it was a coincidence??

 

[cultcross]

WalkinMan said:
Well the OP suggests setting the silo in Kansas so it would make sense.

However, I think that 'Kansas' line would have taken the audience out of the movie for a joke. Not in Montana anymore was more subtle.

agreed, it was better how it was - it's a subtle nod to tWoO without being too blatant about it and making too 20th century a joke.

 

[Eddie Roth]

Well, they did make a very blatant "reference" when they had Zephram Cochrane said the immortal line "So you're all astronauts, on some kind of star trek?"

It's a love-it-or-hate-it moment. I could've done without it. Good laugh, but it kinda breaks the "fourth wall."

 

[cultcross]

^ Yeh, could have done without that line myself. It just didn't seem natural - Q's line about 'your trek through the stars' seemed fine, but the words 'star trek' themselves don't fit naturally into speech without sounding forced, as they do here.

 

[Trekker4747]

It only sounds forced because you're used to hearing it in the context of talking about the TV series.

 

[Kolrad]

I'd argue that since practically the entire audience was guaranteed to be used to hearing "Star Trek" in that context, there was no way for that line not to sound forced-- and that's why it wasn't a good line to include in the movie.

 

[Timo]

At least it lacks something in the logical drive department...

Namely, what do "stars" have to do with the issue? Cochrane had already learned that these guys (even if not the gals) were from Earth, not from the stars. They had not traveled from star to star in order to mess up with Cochrane's life, they had traveled through time. Wouldn't Cochrane rather be saying "time trek"?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Messianni]

Well they may have explained at that point that they only came back to help him and save Earth, not that they regularly traveled through time. All they would have to say is that they are explorers of space, thus where he would derive that they are astronauts on a star trek.

 

[Timo]

Yeah, granted. It's just that they would be astronauts who do star treks during the office hours - but right now, they aren't on any star trek, they are orbiting good old Earth! If they actually were on a star trek, Cochrane wouldn't be talking to them!

So IMHO it's still a bit more forced than Q's claim that Picard was on a trek through the stars. After all, that's exactly what Q was concerned about at the time: that Picard trekked through the stars, and that perhaps he should not be allowed to.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SmoothieX]

I for one was glad it was set in Montana.

 

[The Borg Queen]

As someone who doesn't know any American geography, are Kansas and Montana anywhere near each other?

If they were right next to each other, then I'd probably have noticed that joke, if I knew.

 

[Manticore]

The Borg Queen said:
As someone who doesn't know any American geography, are Kansas and Montana anywhere near each other?

Not particularly, no.

 

[David cgc]

Eddie Roth said:
Well, they did make a very blatant "reference" when they had Zephram Cochrane said the immortal line "So you're all astronauts, on some kind of star trek?"

It's a love-it-or-hate-it moment. I could've done without it. Good laugh, but it kinda breaks the "fourth wall."

Personally, I think it would've been one of the funniest one-liners in movie history if Cochrane has said that they were "all astronauts, fighting in some kind of star wars."

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I liked the, "Don't you people ever pee?" line myself...

 

[Broccoli]

David cgc said:
Personally, I think it would've been one of the funniest one-liners in movie history if Cochrane has said that they were "all astronauts, fighting in some kind of star wars."

That would be funny!

 

[balls]

I think the missed opportunity in FC is that Lily spoke to Picard in the ready room by herself. I don't mind that she was the one that gave him a talking to, but I would have appreciated if Beverly had gone in and said something like, "Jean Luc, listen to Lily...you know she's right." What we got from Beverly was (I'm paraphrasing), "When the captain makes up his mind it's done." I always thougth that line made Beverly look weak and it weakened all we knew about her and Picard's relationship.

 

[StewMc]

I think the real missed opportunity in First Contact was not having Moby Dick as the villain of the film. It would have made all the references to the book of the same name all the more ironic. And if Meyer had had the sense to include the whale in TWOK instead of just having Khan paraphrase the book, then First Contact could also have become a full fledged sequel to that film!